BBC Radio Blog Feed

Closing the BBC Radio Blog

2013-10-22T15:33:58+00:00

This is the last post on the BBC Radio blog as we’re closing the blog to new posts. You’ll still be able to access the archive but in future we’ll be publishing news about developments in BBC Radio elsewhere.

How to keep up to date with BBC Radio

You can get the latest news about developments in BBC Radio including iPlayer Radio on the About the BBC blog, the BBC Internet blog and from the BBC Media Centre.

Network Radio blogs

There's also the Radio 4 blog that has weekly updates from Radio 4's Feedback programme featuring the view and opinions of BBC Radio's listeners as well as regular posts from the network's presenters, producers and commissioners.

For news on developments, programmes and events such as the Proms at Radio 3 as well as the BBC orchestras visit the Radio 3 blog.

The 5 live blog covers the station's news and sports reporting. You can find a full list of all the BBC's blogs including presenters' blogs and the blogs for BBC Nations and Regions on the Blogs Homepage.

BBC Radio on Twitter and Facebook

You can also keep in touch with BBC Radio developments by following @BBCiPlayerRadio on twitter.

The BBC Radio networks are also on Twitter and Facebook.

Click for links to the twitter accounts for Radio 1, Radio 1Xtra, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, 5 live, 6 Music, Radio 4 Extra and the Asian Network. And here for links to their Facebook pages: Radio 1, Radio 1Xtra, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, 5 live, 6 Music and the Asian Network.

Many thanks for reading the Radio blog and your comments.

Launching the BBC iPlayer Radio mobile app on Android

2013-04-24T07:59:59+00:00

Key features of the BBC iPlayer Radio app

Today is an exciting day for me and my team as we are launching the BBC iPlayer Radio app for Android devices. It will bring all the same great features that are in the iOS version together with some further enhancements which utilise the specific navigational paradigms of the Android platform. Features include:

A touchscreen dial that beautifully shows the breadth of our radio, allowing easy access to all 57 BBC radio stations and their live streams.
An alarm clock to let you wake up to your favourite BBC Radio station.
Access to catch-up content, video and audio clips, podcasts, and for music shows, the details of the tracklist.
The ability to set programme alerts to tell you when specific favourite shows are on.
The option to favourite tracks and share them with friends via email and Twitter.

The app is available now in the Google Play store and via the Amazon app store. This app is also available on Android tablets (not just smartphones), including the very popular Amazon Kindle Fire HD. We are using the HLS audio format which is supported by Android version 3.0 and above. For a more detailed explanation of what devices will support the BBC iPlayer Radio app, see James Simcock’s post on the BBC Internet Blog.

We hope that android users will love the app as much as iOS users do. Since we launched BBC iPlayer Radio last October, the iOS app has been downloaded over 1.8 million times and we are seeing significant growth in usage on mobile and tablet. Let us know what you think of this release so that we can keep improving the service.

Voice Week on BBC Radio 2

2013-04-12T16:18:46+00:00

All next week, with the return of The Voice UK on BBC One, Radio 2 will be celebrating and exploring the most magical, incredible, beautiful instrument ever created: the human voice.

Hear the trailer for our week of special programmes celebrating the human voice.

For me, producing this series has been an extraordinary experience; forcing me for the first time to consider the joy and complexity of the sound we make when we open our mouths. In song and in speech, our voices tell the rest of the world how we think and feel. They educate, inform, attract, entertain and offend.

The Voice on Radio 2 will showcase the full sweep of issues relating to human speech and song. The Jeremy Vine Show will look at losing one's voice and selective mutism, as well as exploring freedom of speech and the origin of British accents.

At the end of the week, Jeremy will be inviting the UK’s best-loved and best-known voices to take part in an extraordinary broadcast. Imagine sharing a drink with The London Underground, Tony the Tiger, Postman Pat, Siri, Big brother, the National Lottery and Mr X Factor all in one studio at the same time. The Radio 2 Voice Party will be at 1pm on Friday 19 April.

I must say that, having spoken to a number of voice artists, I’ve been struck by their sense of frustration – sadness, even – that their field is shrouded in mystery. Their voices are instantly recognisable. By rights, they should be stopped on the street and asked for their autograph every five paces. And yet they are every bit as anonymous as you or me. Such is the nature of their business.

One major insurance company has blocked the actor behind their famous Russian fluff ball from taking part, in fear of bursting their hugely successful marketing bubble. Here is a man with great talent and pride in his art, being refused any public recognition of his notable contribution to pop culture over the last five years. We can assume he is paid handsomely for his work, but imagine enjoying Adele, without ever being able to identify the woman behind the voice. On the 19^th of April, Radio 2 does its bit to right that wrong (for some of our favourite voices, at least).

Looking beyond the Jeremy Vine Show, The Voice Week on Radio 2 spans virtually every programme across the network.

The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Monday will feature the US phenomenon, 15-year-old Jake Foushee. Jake is huge news in America and now he's ready to wow Britain with the amazing voice that's already earning him appearances on US primetime shows and voiceover work in Hollywood:

This external content is available at its source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5s3wlX59-8

Clare Balding will be asking people what the voice of God sounds like to them. Elaine Paige will make a surprise mystery call to an unsuspecting fan to see if they recognise her voice. Vanessa Feltz will be searching for the country’s sexiest voice.

Chris Tarrant – in for Steve Wright – will be learning how to be a football commentator and then trying out his new skills at a Luton Town FC match on Thursday night. Simon Mayo is bringing back his celebrity Mystery Voice feature for Drivetime, while Ken Bruce and Lynne Bowles will read traffic reports in one another’s accents.

Without the human voice, there would be no radio. This week, Radio 2 finally acknowledges the brilliance of the most peculiar instrument known to man and celebrates those who showcase its range and beauty. It’s about time, too.

The Voice Week on BBC Radio 2. Listen to it. Please talk about it. Share it... on Twitter, on Facebook, by email and yes... by word of mouth!

Andy West is Producer, The Jeremy Vine Show, BBC Radio 2

Voice Week runs from Sunday 14 to Friday 19 April - listen to all the best bits in Radio 2's collection.
Don't miss The Voice UK on BBC One on Saturday nights from 6.45pm
Play along with The Voice UK's Predictor game.

The Lost Letters from America Found

2013-03-26T13:27:00+00:00

Roy Whittaker (on the left) and David Henderson

When Radio 4’s Broadcasting House launched an appeal for lost recordings of Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America, last October, no one could have imagined that it would lead to over 620 missing programmes being restored to the BBC’s archive.

Fortunately two listeners - Roy Whittaker, from Cornwall, and David Henderson, from Warwickshire, heard the programme and contacted Broadcasting House. They both loved listening to Alistair Cooke and recorded Letter from America every Friday night for years.

But unlike other people who got it touch, they had also labelled the tapes with dates, and stored them safely in boxes - one in his attic, the other in his cellar.

Mr Whittaker and Mr Henderson entrusted their collections to the BBC and as a result helped complete the Letter From America archive between the years 1974 to 2004. The BBC’s Information and Archive Team recently finished digitising over 600 of their recordings.

To celebrate, we invited them for a special lunch and a tour of Broadcasting House with presenter Paddy O’Connell to say thank you. Paddy sneakily managed to type a brief thank you note to them on Alistair Cooke’s typewriter, displayed on the first floor of New Broadcasting House.

Digitising the collections wasn’t straightforward - some were recorded on long obsolete 8-track tapes. Restoring the machine on which they’d been recorded by David Henderson, back in 1974, proved the only solution. The majority were on cassette tapes – but the levels varied considerable according to the brand of tape, so it was painstaking work.

And there’s plenty of more work to do – the audio needs restoring, descriptions need writing, but one day we hope to find a way to make them available to the public, along with the 920 Letter from America programmes currently available to listen or download.

And if you know anyone who recorded Letter from America before 1974, please get in touch.

Zillah Watson, Producer and Curator of the Letter from America Archive

Visit the Letter to America archive on the Radio 4 website
See Cooke’s original scripts for Letter from America
Gallery: Alistair Cooke - a career in pictures

By:Larm 2013

2013-02-25T15:22:57+00:00

Sculpture in the entrance to the Hotel Royal Christiana

What is By:Larm?

By:Larm is a 4 day music event held in Oslo annually. According to an online translation service, the name translates as ‘Urban Noise’.

What you will find there are lots of panels, seminars and training sessions through the day, and live performances from a diverse range of Nordic and Scandinavian artists performing at a selection of venues around the city by night.

By:Larm is abundant with networking opportunities for those working both in, and around music, including digital service providers, students, labels, artist managers etc and it’s also a fabulous showcase for musicians from the region.

Panel Discussions

I was kindly invited to join a panel, moderated by Steve Mayall from Musically, titled Radio GaGa, with the intention of discussing “evolving radio models and examining how they will affect music marketing, payments, income, and opportunities for labels, artists, managers and other industry stakeholders”. I was joined by delegates from Nokia, Soundhound and Somethin’ Else, making for an interesting mix of angles on this subject.

The discussion began with each panellist challenged to describe what we thought ‘Radio’ meant these days which opened a can of worms (or maybe a more fitting analogy would be Pandora’s box?) as we talked about two quite different types of service using the name ‘Radio’ to describe themselves, the more traditional, live broadcast model, and streaming services like Spotify, Wimp, Deezer, Rdio, Last.fm and Nokia Mix Radio.

The lines between streaming services and radio are beginning to blur as artists and DJs can easily curate and publicise playlists now. These services are not just about a search box and a big back-catalogue anymore. Like traditional radio, they can host individual personalities and act as a guide to music discovery.

After my panel, I had the chance to explore others. By:Larm hosts a packed agenda of seminars and training sessions, so I could not attend all of them, but certain themes came up repeatedly in those that I did:

It can appear tough for artists to get themselves well represented on the many streaming, and digital download platforms around now, but it’s widely agreed that many such services are now proving to be successful businesses with a strong future. Online streaming, rather than purchasing music at all would appear to be a thoroughly mainstream activity now in Norway at least.
There’s still work to do for both labels and digital service providers in the highly competitive yet potentially lucrative mobile space, where simple payment models and overall convenience can drive revenues. There was a whole panel on what can be done with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) for example, explaining that it can offer much more than just the ‘bonk to pay’ (wireless payment from credit card or mobile phone) we’re starting to see more now in UK stores.
We should expect to see more D2C (Direct to Consumer) offerings in the near future as artists and labels leverage the power of the internet to promote themselves, and sell directly – cutting out the middlemen and maximising their earning potential. Yet in parallel, the streaming sites with huge catalogues grow and grow in reach and engagement. It’s an interesting time for the evolution of music sales.

By:Larm nights

As well as these industry discussions and presentations, the highlight of By:Larm for a lot of folks is the enormous choice of great Nordic and Scandinavian music on offer each evening. A great networking opportunity, whilst touring various venues around the city, sharing experiences with the people you’ve met in the conferences earlier.

There’s also some amazing music to be heard.

Elliphant gets the Rockefeller venue bouncing

I had expected to discover extremes of Black Metal and ethereal & melancholic Electronica, and although these two contrasting styles were undoubtedly popular, there were some sounds I was more surprised to hear, including intense Brostep from Autolaser, and block-rocking hip-hop from the likes of Equicez and Adam Kanyama.

I’ve created an A-Z playlist on Spotify (other streaming services are available!) of a lot of the artists performing over the 4 days of the event so you can hear what’s shaking the speakers of Oslo these days for yourself. Admittedly, I missed out a lot of the metal, but there’s loads of other playlists available from the event if you dig around.

By:Larm 2013 Playlist

You can read more about By:Larm including full seminar and artist listings on bylarm.no and many thanks and credit to Oystein, Lena and Mena for organising a great event.

Why BBC Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra are opening up to audiences this month for Access All Areas

2013-02-18T16:34:01+00:00

So far this month we've seen the editor of Newsbeat dance like a loon to the Harlem Shake, the controller of Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra being forced to choose which female DJ he'd like to kiss and Sara Cox wrestle her producer to the ground.

This isn't exactly what we envisaged when we proposed that February should be Access All Areas month on Radio 1.

The month had 2 clear objectives:

To be as open and transparent as possible for our young audience
To celebrate and continue the stations digital innovation

We know how much our listeners like to see behind the scenes and get exclusive backstage access, so we are aiming to open up what Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra do across the entire month. The relationship between us and our audience feels close than it ever has. They have access to the inner thoughts of our DJs via Twitter. They can often get to watch, as well as listen to, our regular output. So the challenge for the month is how to bring them even closer.

The centrepiece of our Access All Areas activity has rapidly become Radio 1's first ever intake of interns.

Chosen from close to 900 applicants, the four paid interns have the chance to spend 8 weeks as part of the Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra team. We were keen to recruit the best young creative minds we could find, regardless of their experience or education - so the application process was to submit 2 pieces of content that they had produced - in whatever medium. To find out more about Kae, Alice, Moses and Pete, check out their Tumblr. We've also set them up with bespoke Twitter accounts (have a look at @firstname_intern).

By being on air, on social media and embedded within our production teams the interns should bring an unmoderated account of what really goes on to the wider audience. We have also tasked them to produce their fantasy radio show - in consultation with the Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra listeners. With no constraints on the playlist, the format or the presenters, it will be fascinating to hear what they come up with. It’s from 7 till 9pm on Wednesday, 27 February.

The process hasn't been without its bumps. But if we are going to be brave, innovative and open then I think that is inevitable. We may have slightly irked some artists, but it was worth it to live tweet the entire Radio 1 playlist meeting.

No, we didn't manage to fly a blimp up the atrium of New Broadcasting House, but the month is only half done and there are many surprises still to come.

Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra are opening up to audiences throughout February as a part of Access All Areas. To find out more about Access All Areas visit the website.

The making of a new version of The Wind in the Willows with a full orchestra

2013-02-18T11:56:08+00:00

Ed's note: On Saturday afternoon this new version of The Wind in the Willows was broadcast on Radio 4. You can hear it on Radio iPlayer for the next five days. Here the project's production coordinator Selina Ream describes the process once they got into the BBC studios at Maida Vale a few days before Christmas.

Toad stared fixedly in the direction of the disappearing motor-car...

When I asked to work on the new adaptation of The Wind in the Willows just over a year ago, little did I know how different the production process would turn out, but also how moving and unforgettable our time would be recording it.

So how do the cast fit their lines to the live musical score (in front of a studio audience) with less than three days to get it right?

Day One: The orchestra are in Studio 1 and we are in Studio 3 with Colin Guthrie (studio manager) cueing an electronic version of the music on a laptop. Neil Brand (orchestrator and adapter) motions to the actors and gives notes: “When you feel the urge to go fast – don’t. When you feel the urge to slow down – don’t.” It’s an incredibly precise art and a little nerve-wracking.

Day Two: The BBC Symphony Orchestra only played the piece for the first time yesterday. We go in to see them run through – it is unutterably beautiful and surprisingly loud. The music has both an emotional and visceral effect on me having never sat in front of a full orchestra before nor having heard Neil’s beautiful music in all its glory.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC singers play music composed by Neil Brand

By the afternoon, the actors are placed in front of the orchestra complete with ‘Madonna’ microphones attached to their heads, but they simply can’t be heard over the music. Neil realises that this volume would be perfect for the Royal Albert Hall but is too loud for us.

When we return from tea-break (ushered in and out by the brass section playing carols) several members of the Orchestra have been released of their duties (they are happy, they get Christmas holidays early). We carry on and the storytelling finally comes alive. Relief.

Day Three: The BBCSO and actors run through with adjustments to various sections of the show from director David Hunter, Neil Brand and producer Ann McKay. It’s unusual having to think of sound for the invited audience and those tuning in at a later date simultaneously.

Stephen Mangan (Toad) is getting really poorly which is a worry, but he still soldiers on. Neil Brand becomes a conductor for the actors and cues them in at exactly the right moment. We are in safe hands.

Performance day: After several run-throughs everyone is ready for the two evening shows. As the audience queue up outside I place cough medicine under Stephen’s chair and retire to the cubicle to hear the mix.

Studio manager Neil Pemberton has different characters and orchestra sections assigned to most of the faders on the mixing desk. There are at least 40, which he glides up and down to get the correct sound picture.

A second studio manager (whilst reading the score) whispers across "Stay with Mole, Stay with Badger, fade the chimes". The actors all give an outstanding performance. Doctor Theatre has worked his magic and Stephen delivers his lines (and two songs which he literally learnt overnight) with full cough-free energy and wit.

A short break, and another performance which ups the game even more. The audience laugh, clap and look on in awe.

You can hear The Wind in the Willows on BBC iPlayer Radio for the next 5 days
View the gallery of pictures from the recording.
More on The Wind in The Willows on Wikipedia

BBC iPlayer Radio app now links through to Radioplayer

2013-02-14T16:41:22+00:00

Recent listening figures from RAJAR suggest around 20% of the UK has listened to radio via a mobile phone. This figure nearly doubles to 37.6% for 15-24 year olds. It's not surprising then that the mobile apps that the BBC and Radioplayer both launched in late 2012 have proved very successful.

The BBC iPlayer Radio app on iOS (iPhone and iPod Touch) has been downloaded more than 1.4 million times since launch and, along with the Radioplayer app, it is being regularly used and driving up overall radio listening. The UK radio industry is all working hard to increase digital listening and mobile has a crucial role to play.

We're getting some great feedback on the design and functionality of the app and trying to make changes quickly to the issues you raise. Please keep your feedback coming to @BBCiPlayerRadio or via the app store.

One of the changes we've just made is to add a link from the BBC's iPlayer Radio app through to Radioplayer, helping audiences to more easily access hundreds of other stations from across UK Radio, including some community and student radio too. We hope this link helps BBC audiences to explore even more of the best of UK radio.

For more information on the iPlayer Radio mobile app, see James Simcock's recent post.

Is that Kraftwerk in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern? No, it's World Radio Day

2013-02-13T16:08:53+00:00

The control room BBC Daventry Empire Short Wave Station, 1938.

"13 February is World Radio Day — a day to celebrate radio as a medium; to improve international cooperation between broadcasters; and to encourage major networks and community radio alike to promote access to information and freedom of expression over the airwaves." from The UNESCO website

You can find out more about the second World Radio Day on the UNESCO website.
The picture is from the BBC archive and the original caption reads: "BBC Daventry Empire Short Wave Station: 1938. Picture shows - High power transmitter. The control room showing three of the six programme-control positions and telephone switchboard. Left, controlling the volume of the programme; right, checking the anode current of his amplifier."
BBCeng.info: Recollections of BBC engineering from 1922 to 1997
Journalism.co.uk: How to set up an online radio station

Radio 1's Live Lounge website and the Semantic Web

2013-02-12T14:53:23+00:00

Last week, we re-launched Radio 1's Live Lounge website. It contains an archive of 426 Live Lounge sessions dating back to 2007, showing who played when, where and what they played. Each entry has photographs, and some of the more recent ones have audio and video.

The new site looks great on mobile, and from now on all Live Lounge videos will play on your mobile too.

The Live Lounge is the biggest launch so far on our new events platform, which we lovingly call Eavis (in honour of the man who runs the best festival in the world, Glastonbury's Michael Eavis).

The platform has so far hosted, amongst other things, Hackney Weekend, Radio 1's Teen Awards, and 1Xtra Live. We've been developing the new platform throughout 2012, and it represents a big change to the way we manage our events coverage online. Putting the Live Lounge data into the system is a big milestone, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to explain why.

In the beginning there were webpages. People like me wrote them in HTML code – not exactly 1s and 0s, but not far off. They were utterly static – no better than pages of a book really, except that you could easily click from one page to another. It might surprise you to know that, as recently as last year, large chunks of the BBC radio websites were still made in exactly the same way. Pretty cumbersome to maintain, and very few opportunities to create useful and interesting journeys between pages. We're trying to phase them out in favour of a more semantic approach.

"The Semantic Web" is a concept where information isn't stored as text in pages, but as data in databases, where every single bit of data has meaning – hence "semantic". Instead of building hundreds of manual web pages, we build one web page as a template, and the content spaces are filled with data from the database when you access the page. The resulting web page might seem very similar to you the user, but the power of having all that data is huge.

Ben Howard in the Live Lounge

At a very basic level, we can start to present the relationship between the various bits of content. For example, on the page for Ben Howard's December 2012 Live Lounge, you can see a box suggesting Similar Acts who have performed at recent BBC events, as well as other Live Lounge appearances by Ben Howard over the last few years (there are two more). We have also connected the Live Lounge database with the BBC Music database, which is powered by the open source MusicBrainz system that gives every single artist in the history of music a unique ID number. That's how come you can see a set of useful Ben Howard’s web links on the side of the page.

In my mind, this is just the beginning. Many of the BBC's major products – such as iPlayer and the /programmes pages – are semantic systems, built in a similar way. It's pretty exciting to think of the possibilities of connecting the Events database to other parts of BBC online, and create interesting, meaningful journeys around BBC content, on all sorts of devices. Watch this space!

Doctor Who times two at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2013

2013-01-28T12:18:06+00:00

The two Doctors: Sylvester McCoy and David Tennant

The winners of this year’s BBC Audio Drama Awards were announced last night at a ceremony in the Radio Theatre at BBC Broadcasting House.

The awards celebrate audio drama, on air and online, and recognise the actors, writers, producers, sound designers, and others whose work makes it all possible.

David Tennant hosted the event with the participation of luminaries like Stephen Tompkinson, Maxine Peake, Stephen Mangan and Lenny Henry.

Find details of all the winners in the BBC press release.

You'll be able to hear some of the BBC winning audio dramas again, including On It, Do you Like Banana, Comrades? and The Grapes of Wrath on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 4 Extra and BBC Radio 3 from Wednesday 13 February.

BBC iPlayer Radio: Radio dramas to listen to now
The Orwell season on BBC Radio 4
Drama of the week podcast
Last year’s Audio Drama Awards
Telegraph: David Tennant at the Audio Drama Awards: 'radio drama makes me proud to be British'

A season of George Orwell on BBC Radio 4

2013-01-24T16:54:49+00:00

Orwell and a group of writers and critics (see below for details)

On Saturday 26 January, the animals of Manor Farm will overthrow Farmer Jones to the tune of ‘Beasts of England’ and The Real George Orwell season on BBC Radio 4 will have begun. I know that’s a spoiler but it happens fairly near the beginning so hopefully I’ll be forgiven! Following hot on the heels (hooves?) of Animal Farm is a new production of Homage to Catalonia on Sunday and the first of four biographical dramas about Orwell’s life on Monday.

Not only does the season include a Start the Week on Orwell’s political writing and the first ever radio dramatisation of Nineteen Eighty Four starring Christopher Eccleston as Winston but it also shines a light on the man behind the writing and attempts to explain the influences and experiences which led Orwell to write his final book.

As an Assistant Producer working on extra content for The Real George Orwell season, I’ve learnt a lot through this project. I didn’t know that Room 101 (where Big Brother’s torture takes place in Nineteen Eighty Four) was based on an office in Broadcasting House (only a few floors below where we’ve recorded the dramas). I didn’t know that Rachel Whiteread had made a plaster cast version of that very room (of which we have photos). I didn’t know that there is no recording of Orwell’s voice. I knew he had worked for the BBC and that he had his throat shot during the Spanish Civil War but didn’t realise that Joseph Millson, who plays Eric Blair, wouldn’t be able to listen to Orwell himself when researching the role. I didn’t know that there’s a letter objecting to Orwell’s voice in the BBC archive (along with his resignation letter and other amazing pieces of history!). I’ve interviewed Orwell’s biographer DJ Taylor who explained to me how Eric Blair chose his pen name and marvelled that this amazing body of work could have been written by ‘H Lewis Always’.

Apart from these discoveries, I’ve had the pleasure of becoming re-acquainted with Orwell’s writing (which I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t read since school). I’ve read Down and Out in Paris in London ahead of the Book at Bedtime and will never feel quite the same about eating in a Parisian restaurant again! I’ve remembered how great the characters in Animal Farm are, how difficult and confusing all the in-fighting in Catalonia must have been and how moving Winston and Julia’s relationship in Nineteen Eighty Four is.

The picture shows - Standing, L to R: Writer George Woodcock; novelist Mulk Raj Anand; George Orwell and the poet William Empson. Sitting: The critic Herbert Read and the poet Edmund Blunden.

See also Mark Lawson on Orwell and the BBC on the About the BBC blog

It’s (a new) show time for BBC Introducing: BBC Introducing Picks for 2013 free download

2013-01-08T14:58:13+00:00

Before I start writing about all the great stuff going on at BBC Introducing, it is probably best to heed the advice of this blog’s editor and explain what BBC Introducing is. To quote the Introducing website:

BBC Introducing brings together all the BBC’s supporters of undiscovered and unsigned music. If you’re making music, upload your best tracks and your music heard by the BBC.

We have a family of local and national BBC radio shows staffed by amazing producers and presenters who are hugely driven about discovering new music and playing it to their audience. It’s been a great past week for these shows.

At 8pm last Saturday 5 January, every local BBC station in England and the Channel Islands broadcast a BBC Introducing show at the same time. Over 30 shows hitting the airwaves at the same time was a great way to start the year and the sharing of love through the #BBCIntroducing hashtag was indicative of the passion that runs through everyone associated with BBC Introducing, from the presenters and producers to the listeners and music makers.

You can get a terrific taster of our local shows through our BBC Introducing Picks for 2013 free download*. Our local shows have selected the artists they expect to make waves in the coming year and you can now listen to all of them at your leisure.

Get the free BBC Introducing Picks for 2013 download
For the tracklist, head to the BBC Introducing blog.
You can listen back to your local show, or all of them if you are brave enough, on the website.
Check out the BBC Introducing blog and upload your music
*If you are viewing this on your mobile, please be aware that the file size is 101MB. Mobile network operators may charge for data used over their networks. If you are unsure how much 3G data costs or what your data allowance is then contact your mobile network operator.

Robbie Williams: Ask Robbie Live!

2012-12-13T13:45:32+00:00

Robbie Williams at the BBC Radio Theatre.

(Ed's Update: You can catch up with Radio 2's Robbie day on the Radio 2 website. There's a brilliant blog with lots of your tweets questions, comments and photos from yesterday as well as the Robbie Williams gallery. You can listen to the live concert until 19 December - PM)

The Events team are ready for the live Q&A

Robbie Williams is all over Radio 2 today with an online Q&A from 5.45pm and a live performance for Radio 2 in Concert from 8pm presented by Jo Whiley. Watch it all on the Radio 2 website.

Tweet your questions for Robbie to @BBCRadio2 using the hashtag #R2Robbie. More info on the Ask Robbie Live page.

If you do miss Robbie today you have until 19 December to listen to the concert on the Radio 2 website.

One million downloads of the BBC iPlayer Radio app

2012-12-13T10:28:19+00:00

After launching on 8 October, we've seen an amazing response to the iPlayer Radio app, reaching one million downloads in just two months. This coincides with this week’s update to the app which we’ve optimised for iPhone 5 devices, in response to audience feedback.

A million voices

With a million users, two months of anonymous stats data, hundreds of app store ratings and reviews, lots of feedback via twitter, via our blogs and via email, we're able to see some trends that, for me at least, are quite interesting, and are already helping to inform the roadmap for new features and improvements. I've broken out a few of those trends here.

What’s your flavour?

iPhones make up the vast majority of downloads, although there are number of iPod Touch and iPad users downloading too.

If you are an iPad user, you need to specifically choose ‘iPhone apps’ from the app store, as we do not currently have a version of the app built specifically for iPad.

What's the story, morning glory?

By far the most popular activity from the app so far, is 'waking up with Grimmy'. Whether it's by setting an alarm, or tuning in from home or en-route to work/school/wherever, from 7am each morning, there's a heavy bias to live listening to The Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw.

Interesting fact: 25% of active users listen live to Radio 1 in the app.

Radio 4’s Today Programme and Radio 2’s Chris Evans Breakfast Show are head-to-head for the position of second most popular morning programme.

Long train running

By the early evening, and especially during peak commuting hours (5.30-7.30pm) we see a much more diverse range of programmes being consumed via the app. Radio 1 live listening still dominates, but Radio 4, Radio 5 live and Radio 2 are also very popular. We see an increasing number of users digging deeper into the app, browsing most popular or most recent on-demand programmes or video clips for instance, or using the search function to find specific programmes. Comedy shows do particularly well at this time too. A little escapism as people escape from work perhaps?

Interesting fact: The most popular search in the app is for Comedy.
Interesting fact: The most popular on demand programme to date is Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue.

Night time is the right time (for on-demand)

When we hit 9-10pm we see another uplift in on-demand listening - Radio 1 dance music specialist shows like Annie Mac and Pete Tong really come into their own during these hours.

Interesting fact: The most browsed music category is Dance & Electronica.

Pillow Talk

Late in the evening, Radio 4 becomes more popular than Radio 1 in the iPlayer Radio app. We see even more on-demand programmes being consumed. The calming and intimate tones of speech radio stations dominate as people take their phones to bed with them, and overdriven guitars and filthy dubstep basslines are put to bed till the following day. Programmes such as Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime are popular and Radio 5 live also starts to outperform Radio 1 for late-night listening.

This is also the time that most alarms are set, and the sleep function (accessed from 'Night Mode' if you have audio playing) gets used most.

As I said in my introduction, these trends are really useful in helping develop new features and improvements in the app, both for iPhones and the work that is already underway bringing the iPlayer Radio app to Android phones in 2013.

As ever, your feedback on the app is appreciated. If you would like to send detailed feedback you can do so via radiofeedback@bbc.co.uk. It helps if you can provide specific information about how you are using this application such as handset type (e.g. iPhone 4/ iPhone 3GS/iPod Touch), connection type (e.g. WiFi/3G) and network operator.

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded and enjoyed thus far.

NB: All data is sourced from comScore | Digital Analytix