Those words, spoken on 30 September 1967 by Tony Blackburn, heralded a new sound to the airwaves. And today on the BBC iPlayer, I'm proud to also be able to welcome something new - this time, an "exciting new sound" for all our UK national radio stations on the internet, as we make a number of changes to our live and on-demand streaming infrastructure.

The BBC iPlayer now uses Flash-based streams for live radio as well as on-demand radio on all our UK national radio stations (that's stations like BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 7, or the BBC Asian Network). Flash Player is already installed in many corporate environments - and, since Flash is in use on many other websites (including the video for BBC iPlayer), chances are you'll already have it. For live radio, the BBC iPlayer requires Flash Player v9.0.115 or above - which has been freely available since December 2007. The current version is v10; and we're joining broadcasters like Absolute Radio in the UK and ClearChannel, CBS Radio and NPR in the US in using Flash as our default player format.

In the UK, we've taken this opportunity to greatly increase our audio quality: doubling the bitrates for most live streams, and using a significantly more efficient audio codec which increases the audio quality yet further. The results are excellent. For the technical, our UK streams are 128kbps AAC (192kbps for Radio 3, which has a wider dynamic level, and 96k for BBC Radio 5 Live, which is only available in mono). For bitrate watchers - AAC is much more efficient than MP3 at the same bitrate, and thus gives a significantly better sound. And yes, these bitrates are the same for both live and on-demand radio. Bitrates may change from time to time, but we'll let you know when they do.

Outside of the UK, we've also introduced Flash-based streaming: for both live and on-demand. We're hoping the convenience of our Flash-based streams are welcomed by our international audiences. For overseas listeners, we're using 48kbps HE-AAC v2 format stereo streams (known by some as aacPlus) for all our stations, excepting BBC Radio 5 Live which is a 32kbps HE-AAC v1 mono stream. Just as the UK, these bitrates are the same for both live and on-demand radio.

We've concentrated hard on getting the audio right, too - ensuring that we take a digital feed directly out of the transmission chain, rather than a previous rather roundabout route involving satellites. The processing of our audio quality is now tailored for listening at your desk or in your living room; and carefully optimised for online listening.

This is a really significant step - as the BBC's online radio services take a great leap in audio quality. It's been far too long coming; but now, you'll find the listening experience online is among the best we offer. I'm really proud of the audio quality we are making available today.

And there's more

I'm also happy to let you know today that we've made live streams for BBC Radio 1,2,3 and 4 available in Windows Media format for our overseas audience - a format hitherto unavailable. If you've an internet radio device, make sure you're using the ASX files we publish in the iPlayer help site: these changed location earlier this year.

I've posted a link to this posting in the BBC iPlayer radio messageboard, where I, and the rest of the community there, would be happy to answer any questions you may have - whether your question is about the BBC iPlayer or an internet radio device.

Happy listening.

PS: If you're a fan of BBC World Service, that comes fully to the BBC iPlayer in this new quality in the next couple of weeks; and nations and local radio streams will be upgraded by the end of the summer.

James Cridland is Executive Producer A/V Products, BBC FM&T Audio & Music and Mobile.

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra was an odd experience on the BBC iPlayer: while you could listen to the station live, you were unable to listen again...

Read more and comment at BBC Radio Labs blog

James Cridland is Executive Product Manager, Audio/Visual Products, BBC A&Mi

If you're deeply interested in the technology we use, here's a quick delve into rather more detail about Coyopa. This isn't for the faint-hearted, particularly if your tolerance for TLAs is low. (What's a TLA? A Three Letter Acronym. LOL. FTW!)

Read more and leave comments on the Radio Labs blog.

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology for BBC Audio & Music Interactive.

For our UK-national radio stations, if you become an BBC iPlayer Labs tester (and you're in the UK), you can try our new live streams.

They're much higher quality than we've offered in the BBC iPlayer before now; using the AACfamily of audio codecs, we're offering great audio quality without using all your bandwidth. And, just as importantly, the streams don't need any new software - just a recent version of Flash Player. No media players, no Totem or VLC, no plugins for Quicktime.

We're rolling this out in today's iPlayer update under the "iPlayer Labs" label to gain an understanding of how the streams perform in real life. Our embedded media player lets us know when you have buffering issues, for example; and we'll be using the information we gain from this to further tweak our streams before we make them the default in a few months.

During this time, we'll play with the bitrates, to see what effect that has, as well as the embedded media player's code to make it more resilient of choppy network conditions. So don't worry if the audio quality goes down or up, or if it fails altogether - this is a test, after all. The system producing these streams is not also fully resilient, so you'll spot some short periods of downtime (during which time you'll proabbly want to stop being a Labs tester). We'll try to make these breaks as few as possible.

We're now also using AACfamily streams for the listen-again service. This went live today for everyone; though you'll currently see (and hear) no difference, you might spot that your internet bandwidth usage is significantly less, which should be good news for those on limited bandwidth connections.

I'd be really interested in your feedback in our live streams, as we continue testing them.

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology, BBC Audio & Music Interactive..

There's been a little revolution going on with BBC Radio output online. The UK national stations (like Radio 1, Radio 4, or Asian Network) now sound better than ever online - and there are more changes to come.

We've been working, along with the nice folks from software company twofour (above), on something we've called Coyopa. The name's from a Mayan God of thunderous noises, in case you wondered. It is the new system for encoding live and ondemand audio from the BBC's UK national radio stations.

Until now, the audio you've heard online from the BBC has been broadcast onto digital satellite, then received on a satellite dish in a nice building in Maidenhead, where it's been recorded and re-encoded for online use. As a result, we've had the occasional reliability problem (satellite dishes don't like snow; sometimes the satellite receivers break), and a nagging feeling that the audio hasn't necessarily sounded as good as it could have done because of the double-encoding process we've used.

Behind the scarily technical-looking people in the image above is one of the two identical versions of Coyopa. Both Coyopa units are now in London's Broadcasting House, so they get the cleanest signal possible - direct from the studios (which in the case of Radio 3, 4 and 7 are just a few floors higher up). One of the Coyopa units is now working; the other is in its final stage of being commissioned. (We've two so we can do software upgrades with no problem, and so we maintain a reliable service).

Read more and comment at BBC Radio Labs blog

I've been bravely promising a change of audio quality for the BBC's (UK national) radio online streams; and I'm very aware I owe you an update. It's a peculiar thing, writing a blog post that I know will be read by thousands of people who have part-funded the work I do. So, where we have problems, I want you to know about them - as well as our successes.

First, a recap. Project Coyopa, as you're aware from previous postings, is designed to give better audio quality for BBC radio.

Read more and comment at the BBC Radio Labs blog.

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology for BBC Audio & Music Interactive.

By and large, it's working very well - we've a ton of interesting statistics which we're poring over. We'll make some available on this blog at some point in the next few months.

We've successfully delivered a good improvement in audio quality for Listen Again content within the UK, as well as a much more sophisticated user interface, allowing you to view by category, by schedule, or by station.

Radio now comes with pictures (so that's what BBC Radio 5 live's Peter Allen looks like). If the doorbell rings or Windows decides to reboot again, you can start listening again from where you left off.

And the search functionality in iPlayer is really good. It's a tremendous step forward from the old BBC Radio Player.

But inevitably, some things haven't worked perfectly.

Currently, we're seeing two issues which I want to be open about, and wanted to let you know we're working on.

The audio for a small amount of programmes was occasionally unavailable - and the problem was worse if you were outside the UK, or using a wifi radio. We found the problem late last week, related to a few upload problems we've been having, and hope that we have now fixed this issue. Incidentally, almost all of these programmes would still have been missing had we been running the old Radio Player; our fancy new interface isn't to blame.

Secondly, we're getting a some reports of excessive "buffering", where the audio stops while your internet connection catches up.

For those of you in the UK, you'll spot a "modem users" link that we've added, which gives you a version of the feed which is lower bitrate (and thus should cope just fine), but I'd be very interested to hear from people for whom the audio is buffering - particularly if you can watch the TV content within iPlayer without being interrupted by buffering. Feel free to comment here with your, er, comments. Higher bitrate is something many are asking for; but excessive buffering isn't a side-effect anyone wants.

Whether it's the new BBC homepage, last.fm or Facebook, it's clear that there's a small number of people who find changes to the look and feel of familiar websites upsetting. When it doesn't work as perfectly as you'd expect, it's doubly irritating.

I could, accurately, defend iPlayer's radio section for being much more reliable than the old BBC Radio Player which it replaced, not to mention the additional functionality we have been able to introduce - but I know that if you can't get your favourite programme, that's all that really matters.

So instead, please simply accept my apologies if you're one of the few that has been affected, and know that we're working on it.

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology for BBC Audio & Music Interactive.

Launching a new product like Radio in BBC iPlayer is bound to raise a few unexpected glitches.

Listeners to Dead Ringers on Radio 4 a few years ago will remember the team's affectionate tribute to Radio 3: "quiet, isn't it?"

Recently, if you listen again to BBC Radio 3 on the iPlayer, you may have noticed occasional programmes which have been really very quiet indeed. Entirely silent, in fact.

This is due to something going wrong (he says, obviously) and we think it's a combination of software and hardware producing these issues on one of our encoders.

Our friends at Siemens hope they've isolated the problem and they're monitoring the issue carefully to ensure that you hear the BBC Proms in all their glory. This season has been especially good, so we wouldn't want you to miss a note.

Our plans to completely overhaul the system producing Listen Again is still going well behind the scenes, and I hope to report back to you later next month about how the rollout is going. Meanwhile, we're receiving a ton of nice feedback about the improved audio quality for our Listen Again service - so, if you've not tried it yet, please do go and enjoy some of the best that BBC Radio has to offer at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio.

Sir Henry Wood conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 1944 Proms

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology for Audio & Music Interactive.

Over at the BBC Radio Labs blog, I'm trying to keep everyone up to date with our plans to increase the quality of our online radio streams. You're seeing the first fruits of that work in the listen-again streams in the new iPlayer; but there's plenty more to come. For the latest on that, you're welcome to _take a read_.

NB: I do try to answer relevant questions in blog comments; so I've switched off comments here to keep all the comments in one place - feel free to comment away over in my team's blog.

Read and comment on James' post "The latest on our audio improvements" at BBC Radio Labs blog.

James Cridland is Head of FM&T for Audio & Music Interactive

The quick answer is "they're different per station, they're different whether live or on-demand, and they'll change at least another two times this year". If that satisfies you, you have no requirement to read on. If you want more information, however, I'm happy to help. Note that I'm only talking about national radio, and only for listeners in the UK.

Read more and comment at BBC Radio Labs blog.

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology for Audio & Music Interactive

Just to keep you abreast of the work we're doing: here's a picture of one half of the Coyopa system, currently in testing somewhere in the UK.

Read more and comment at the BBC Radio Labs blog.

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology, BBC Audio & Music Interactive

Firstly, there was a number of questions about the formats we plan to use (which we're not making public quite yet, since I don't want to announce something that we discover we can't do).

Andrew Livingstone asked about the new formats and players we're using.

For on-demand radio, national networks will add a new format from April (with other stations following later); for live, new formats start in July-ish. It's important to note that we don't plan to remove, for now, any currently available format. If something works now, it'll continue to work.

Continue reading and comment on the Radio Labs Blog.

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology for BBC Audio & Music Interactive.

The thinking behind our streaming has been informed by four factors:

• reach
• quality
• cost
• and reliability.

We need to make our programmes and stations reach as many people as we can within the UK, to ensure that everyone - Mac or Linux; Internet Explorer or Firefox - gets great value from the BBC. We need to ensure that the quality of the sound is what you'd expect from the BBC, but also to weigh that up against the cost of streaming at higher bitrates, and the reliability of consistent live streaming. Much of the listening to internet radio is done at work, where it's easier to smuggle in a pair of headphones for the desktop than it is to get a DAB Digital Radio past the receptionist, and where internet connections are frequently under heavy use.

Until now, the BBC has primarily used software from Real Networks as the way of broadcasting our content, both live and on-demand. We chose Real because it uses a multi-platform player and it works well at low bitrates and with choppy connections. While you'll now also find all our stations available in Windows Media Player should you choose, the default choice has been Real. And, apart from small subtle changes in bitrate, we've not changed the technology behind this for a while, as some people have pointed out!

But the world's changing.

When we launched the BBC Radio Player, now known as the iPlayer for Radio, in 2002, we added the chance to listen again to most of our programmes. This is something that, for now, is still mostly unique to the internet, and adds a wealth of additional listener choice: choice that, in January, meant a total of 24.9 million hours of radio listening online (live and on-demand). (We publish our site stats online, incidentally).

So in April, we're starting to make radical changes to how we stream in the UK, differentiating live and on-demand. For live, we'll start to use a more intelligent way of working out what software you have, to make listening live an even more painless experience. And later in the year, you'll see increases in quality for our live streams too.

And a result of the continued success of "listen again", we're changing that, too. Since the only place you can get this is on the internet, we've prioritised these to ensure that you get much higher quality. In many cases, these streams will "just work", regardless of what computer you use. And in parallel to this, we're doing quite a bit of work to further improve the sound quality later in the year.

Finally, radio will look different as well, as we move into a full integration with the BBC iPlayer. At last, the BBC's radio and television content, in one place: all easily searchable; radio comedy next to television comedy, just as you'd expect it - The News Quiz next to Have I Got News for You, or the chance to discover that if Thursdays are funny on BBC TWO with That Mitchell & Webb Look, then BBC Radio 4 was funny first with That Mitchell & Webb Sound.

We've a lot of systems that need changing, so this is no small job, and my team has been busy working on this project for a good few months already. But we hope that you'll like the changes that you'll start to see in April and beyond.

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology for BBC Audio & Music Interactive.

sub job_requirement {
my $target = shift;
$target = 'perl' unless defined $target;
return "understand $target.\n";
}
print job_requirement("this");

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology for BBC Audio & Music Interactive, and wrote his last line of Perl in 2000.

As it says on the bottom of this blog posting, I rejoice in the job title of "Head of Future Media & Technology, BBC Audio & Music Interactive" - a job title which results in a business card with some really quite tiny writing. If you're interested, I head up one of the "embedded" teams for Future Media & Technology - a set of people who work on our radio and music websites, mobile sites, DAB Digital Radio, our radio services on Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, and, yes, the BBC Radio Player. We produce stuff like the recent BBC Electric Proms, as well as the award-winning BBC Radio 1 website, and the website behind the ever-more-popular BBC podcasts.

The BBC has a number of these embedded FM&T teams. Each of our teams act as knowledge-centres for particular types of BBC output. My team's work is around radio stations that have over 29 million listeners a week, so it's us that people turn to whenever they have questions about how audio and future media are mixing these days. I've worked in radio for over 18 years (as a presenter, a commercial copywriter, a webmaster and digital director), so I'd hope that I understand a thing or two about radio - even though I doubt that Chris Moyles would be entirely delighted if I did the show before him these days, instead of at the station we both worked at in the 1990s.

I got an email recently, asking something like: "Is Web 2.0 a threat or an aid to traditional media, like radio? How might we see traditional media adapt to stay competitive in this new world?"

But what's "traditional media", I wonder? In the broadcast sense, it might mean a linear broadcast stream: turn on the radio, and you hear whatever's on the radio right now: no way to pause it, rewind it, control it in any way other than the "off" switch. And the same's true of television. Except it isn't.

Television, we're told, is becoming less and less reliant on the schedule. Viewers with digital video recorders (like Sky+ or Freeview Playback) frequently claim that "they never watch live TV any more" - their hard-drive recording specific programmes, allowing the viewer to instantly access them. This "disaggregation" is made possible by the electronic programme guide. The programme title - the main way viewers navigate through the schedules - has never been more important.

But radio, too, is seeing "disaggregation". DAB Digital Radio now also contains an electronic programme guide for many radio stations: it's not as advanced or as consistent as its TV cousin (and the user interface for EPGs on DAB sets is normally pretty poor) but it holds the key to reinventing part of the medium. Broadcasters, like the commercial multiplex-owner "MuxCo", plan to use the EPG to broadcast innovative new programming using overnight capacity.

Radio has also gained benefit from the internet. The BBC's listen-again service is continually growing (in terms of unique users) month after month; and particularly efficient at growing niche programming, with some listening figures for programmes comparable to those off-air. Podcasts, too, add considerable numbers to broadcaster listening figures: and some programmes (the BBC's In Our Time or Peter Day's World of Business, Virgin Radio's The Geoff Show) are disproportionately popular online - once more, niche programming reaching a wider audience.

So, it's an odd question to ask "how traditional media might adapt to stay competitive". The report-writers, and the journalists, love an "Internet kills the media" story; but the reality is that the "traditional" media is continually adapting its products to fit the Web2.0 world. Virgin Radio even went so far as to launch its own social networking site (before the big Facebook craze); the BBC's Radio Player launched in June 2002, far before the excitement of YouTube; and additional data and visuals on DAB have been trialled by the BBC and commercial radio alike.

And have we succeeded? In spite of the explosion of internet content, total radio listening has remained relatively steady. Mass media like radio and television has daily access to audiences that even the largest websites would dream about. MySpace, the home of tons of music and youth-orientated websites, is used for 25 minutes a week; yet BBC Radio 1 itself is listened-to, on average, over 10 hours a week - youth commercial station Galaxy reaching over 7 hours a week. If Web2.0 is all about "inter-human connections", then we do a pretty good job.

Yes, we've work to do. It's why I enjoy working in multiplatform support for radio, keeping radio relevant to today's audiences. And no, we're not complacent - partly the reason why we continue to reinvent what we do. But, I'd humbly suggest, "traditional media" is, in the UK at least, doing a good job of keeping up with the Web2.0s.

Do you think that radio, as a whole, is remaining relevant? What would you really like from radio in the future? I'd be interested in your comments.

James Cridland is Head of Future Media & Technology, BBC Audio&Music Interactive.

Some parts of this post originally appeared on his personal blog james.cridland.net.