Archive for March, 2005

Sony Launches DAB Walkman

Wednesday, March 30th, 2005

Sonys new pocket DAB radio The world’s smallest DAB radio with a nifty little feature that allows you to capture the on-screen text, useful for capturing the name of song you’ve just heard.

It’s also compatible with European DAB stations as well as trusty old FM.

I’d love one…

Sony’s Pocket Perfection

BBC Radio Alerts Widget

Wednesday, March 30th, 2005

BBC Radio Desktop ReminderWhilst wandering round the BBC’s radio pages I came across this nifty little widget.

It alerts you about up-and-coming radio shows on the BBC about twice a day. Problem is I can’t seem to figure out how to get it to alert me about the stuff I’m interested in not the stuff they seem to want to push my way.

BBC’s desktop alerter

David Byrne Launches an Internet Radio Station

Tuesday, March 29th, 2005

A friend who relocated to California from NY said she missed hearing all the odd variety of music that was played around the office here. “I miss hearing what you all are listening to,” she wrote. This ‘radio’ is my response.

David Byrne Radio

Radio 4 goes all futuristic

Tuesday, March 29th, 2005

I was listening to the Today programme this morning when I heard something disturbing – the newscaster kept referring to the year as twenty-ohh-six.

Not two-thousand and six as everybody else in country refers to it, no, Radio 4 are making it sound like we are living in some Buck Rodgers time travel future Jetson’s world.

Found on Flickr

Tuesday, March 29th, 2005

Red Pepsi FM RadioFound on Flickr a beautiful red FM radio:

Tom Robinson interviewes David Arnold on 6 Music

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2005

Tom Robinson has just finished interviewing David Arnold on 6 Music and what a great interview it was. A real gem. They talked about the work he’s done with Bjork and his various moive scores. Something I didn’t know was that David Arnold helped his cousin(!) the fantastic Damien Rice with his career.

Hopefully it’ll be available to download from tomorrow.

The Death of Radio?

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2005

Wired Magazine last month hailed the death of radio in States. Listener figures are at a 27 year low and the growing popularity of podcasting and other technologies means FM radio is on it’s last legs.
Wired Magazine Cover - The death of radio?

American radio stations have suffered from the huge corporate consolidation as a result of a legal policy change back in 1996. Syndication of radio programmes across networks means to the listener everything sounds the same. And as a result of the big-business radio owners wanting to make a quick buck the amount of advertising has increased hugely. That along with the computer generated play lists, according to Wired of sometimes of only 300 songs means people have turned off in their millions.

What does that mean for the rest of us?

There has been a real consolidation in the UK commercial sector, even more so with the Captial/GWR merger so things are moving the way of America.

But we have a saviour – Thank heaven above for the BBC. With a brief to offer programmes to audiences not served by the commercial sector means we have a diverse choice of stations. Supported by the licence fee the BBC will continue to keep radio alive in this country at least until end of the current BBC charter in 2014. After that who knows what we’ll be listening to.

Read more about at Technocrati.

BBC Radio on-demand

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2005

What would become possible if every episode of every program that the BBC broadcast had a unique ID and URL?

Interesting idea:

BBC Programme Information Pages: An Architecture for an On-Demand World

A real shame (please switch things back BBC 7)

Monday, March 21st, 2005

I’m sure I’m not alone in being a bit peeved with BBC Radio 7 for changing their evening schedules.
BBC Radio 7
I listen to Radio 4′s excellent comedy every evening at 6.30pm when I get back from work – after which I usually switch over to BBC 7 to hear a repeat of ‘I’m sorry I haven’t a clue’ or ‘Just a minute’. But to my utter dismay BBC 7 have started playing older comedy – which although funny is not nearly as good as more recent stuff.

So if anybody from BBC 7 is reading this – switch things back to the way they were!

Bigger on the inside

Monday, March 21st, 2005

Worth a listen:

Anthony Head presents this two-part documentary telling the story of the biggest battle yet for the nine-hundred year old Time Lord: the fight for Dr. Who to win the Saturday night television schedule

Bigger on the inside, tomorrow night (22/3/05) at 8.30pm on Radio 2

My little DAB

Monday, March 14th, 2005

I’ve been using the radio in my phone a lot over the past year or so and getting increasingly annoyed at the quality of FM.

So when I came across a really nice portable at Maplin’s recently I had to have it:
MY DAB portable
The radio is very similar to my Pure Evoke in terms of ease or use. It scans all the available stations automatically and orders them either alphabetically or by hopw much I listen to them. You can select stations by using the little joystick on the top left.

What really attracted me to the radio was that I could use rechargeable batteries and this is the best bit – recharge them by just plugging in the supplied power pack – genius and really useful.

Sound quality is good and I particularly like the supplied headphones – they are really comfortable to use.

All-in-all a great little radio.

Welcome to Always listening in

Sunday, March 13th, 2005

Radio is really big part of my life, I must listen to about 4 hours a day.

It wakes me up in the morning, chat’s to me at lunchtime, makes me laugh at teatime and helps me sleep at night. The purpose of this blog is for me to share my thoughts and opinions on UK radio that have previously been shouted at the brown box sat in my kitchen.