Will mobile kill digital radio before it begins?

If video killed the radio star will mobile be the final stake in the heart of radio as tries to go digital?

 

Westminster eForum (a group set up to help inform government policy makers) do run some very interesting sessions although they do feel still a little slow in catching up on how fast the digital world is changing at times and are very reactive which is a shame. I have just come back from an interesting meeting at the House of Commons where the session was to discuss the impact of the digital switch over to Digital Radio and TV. They had some interesting digital radio technology on show like the Pure Senisia (very nice looking technology) which is a DAB radio that is very nice looking and tries to pull together other feeds like Twitter and Facebook into a single unit.

 

Pure Sensia Digital Radio

Simon Mayo (Radio DJ – BBC Radio 5 Live) did an interesting speech where he talked about his 18-year-old son and radio – qualifying that given it was his son it was probably not a representative sample to highlight how he used radio.

 

Simon Mayo

He said that he had asked his him about radio and what stations his friends listened to. After a pause his son said that his friends didn’t have radio. Part of me was quite shocked at that and another part of me not unsurprised. As a kid growing up I remember listening to the radio and recording the top 40 on Sunday nights and the nostalgic memory of how “cool” and exciting that was. It was a whole routine I had and one that I never really thought about how teenagers now engage with radio. At the same time the fact that none of his Son’s friends have radio also did not surprise me. When you have access to the internet with hundreds of online stations from around the world and new music tools like Spotify why do they need a radio? A radio will never have the most up to date bleeding edge bands on them, they come from underground networks or are trying to launch them selves on sites like MySpace. Teenagers of today can now choose exactly what they want to listen to and when, rather than some DJ making the choice and then talking over half of the track. It’s lost its edge. When cool is all about being the first, radio is just too slow. When it comes to slow even online via your desktop computer is now in question. Mobile phones are now used more by the younger age groups to access the internet than desktop computers. Mobile is always on, always connected, is personal and always with me. It’s likely that the next music frontier will be battled over mobile phones why does the next generation ever need a digital radio? Don’t get me wrong I think digital radio is very interesting and has place with some groups but it does feel a little too late to the digital party.

 

There is a danger that by the time it hits mainstream the new youth audiences will be gone leaving digital radio a dying technology before its time.

 

 

Filed under: Gadget, Opinion, Technology, DAB, Digital Radio, House of Commons, Mobile, Pure Sensia, Russell Marsh, Simon Mayo, Technology, Westminster eforum

Changing – Digital Britain

On Wednesday (14/01/09) I was at the Westminster eForum at a keynote seminar on a new report due out this year on Digital Britain. Lord Stephen Carter, Minister, Communications, Technology and Broadcasting was outlining what he felt were the key issues that Britain needed to respond to to stay ahead in a new digital future. He did not reveal a great deal about the substance of the report but did raise some interesting points and emphasised that it is very clear that digital is critical to the future of Britain in an ever developing global economy.

The Panel

He outlined that he was looking for legislation to make it a legal right for everyone to have access to at least 2MB broadband in every home in the UK by 2012. A bold vision but one which may bring the infrastructure to its knees if we continue to follow the trend towards greater use of video content on-line. A typical HD film downloaded over the Internet is like downloading 35,000 web pages. A country downloading this type of content will quickly eat up any bandwidth and this trend is increasing.

He raised points about finding an alternative to the BBC long term and opening it up to more to competition which was later picked up on by John Tate – Director of Policy and Strategy at the BBC who spoke about the possibility of opening up the iPlayer (which receives about 40 million programme requests a month) to other public service channels including iTV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. He went on to talk further about how this may work through the implementation of project canvas which is a joint venture between the BBC, iTV and BT to combine terrestrial and web based TV into the TV in the lounge.

Carolyn McCall – CEO of Guardian Media Groups said that there was severe difficulties for regional reporting because of convergence. She went on to say that the role and dominance of aggregators was damaging the quality of reporting and that the current model for providing local journalism was becoming uneconomic, reducing the incentive for commercial players to get involved.

This did feel a little like sour grapes to be frank. It felt like she was complaining about the fact that the media industry is fragmenting and consumers are now finding their news from other channels. This suggested that it is  impacting their sales of both advertising and the news papers and as a group they are not happy about it.

The whole media industry is changing and all journalists and content providers need to get used to this because it is not going to change. The BBC is a great example of an organisation who is recognising this and actually looking to find ways to engage with their consumers in a new way.

I would argue that if the on-line public really felt that the quality of the content they were being provided was genuinely better than what they can find through aggregators or other on-line channels then commercial publishers should have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately the reality is that often its not. What is very clear to me is that as more people are encourage to migrate on-line (which I think is fantastic) through the governments policies, there will continue to be a change in how society consumes information and entertainment content. There is too much other “good” content out there for the mediocre to have a voice and compete. Only exceptional organisations that can change quickly and provide a genuine differentiated offering are going to survive in the new world Lord Carter has painted – and rightly so.

It will be interesting to see what is in the rest of the report.

Filed under: Marketing, Opinion, BBC, Carolyn McCall, Digital Britain, John Tate, Lord Stephen Carter, Marketing, Project Canvas, Technology, Trends

How to Make a Cheap Multitouch Pad – MTmini

I am a strong believe that creativity is driven by technology. This is when creative minds get hold of new tech and ask themselves “What if”. This video is a great example of someone playing with technology and coming up with a very simpel and very cheap way of interfacing differently with a computer.

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Filed under: Marketing, Technology, How to, Technology

Look out, Microsoft Surface – the iTable might just trump you in every way

It is quite amazing how fast this industry moves. Microsoft comes out with an expensive but very cool surface computing system and before they have even made market headway a competitor is already there. A very clever bit of kit that allows you to turn pretty much any flat display into a touch screen.

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Filed under: Marketing, Opinion, Technology, Microsoft, Technology

How To Hack An Elevator

The times I have been in an elevator and it has stopped at every single floor on the way to an important meeting…. This is an interesting technology hack built in to many elevators it seems.

Makes you wonder how many other back-doors are built into some of the other hard ware out there.

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Filed under: Hacks, Hacks, How to, Technology