No, not the rather odd, somewhat convoluted, yet thoroughly enjoyable Christopher Nolan film, but rather the prestige that comes with outdoing our radio competitors.  Specifically I am referring to, unsurprisingly given it’s me, the field of technology within radio and, even more specifically, the area of “content delivery”.

Virgin Radio has prided itself in being one of the most, if not the most, platform agnostic radio stations in the UK.  OK, I apologise for the blatant use of a buzzword there but frankly it’s the best way to make the point that this radio station can be listened to on lots of different gizmos and in lots of different ways.  Feel free to tune in on your FM radio, AM radio, DAB radio, Freeview receiver, CableTV receiver, IPTV receiver, Satellite TV receiver, Satellite Radio receiver, Mobile Phone or PC.  With the last two you also have a load of other choices; you can have it as a Windows Media, MP3, OGG, AAC+ or Real format stream.  When the mobile phone companies trialled something called “Visual Radio” we were among the first of just a few to jump in - and ok, it came to nothing but we were there chomping at the bit to get on the bandwagon.

The question is, and the point of this post is, why?  Guess how many people currently enjoy listening via our AAC+ service?  I’ll tell you.  We peaked at around 32 listeners a few weeks ago.  OGG?  Maybe up to 120 when the USA is awake.  As for our radio via TV platforms - I don’t know as these things are difficult to measure but I doubt it’s in the thousands.  So why bother?  Presumably the reason our competitors don’t offer these broad range of options is cost.  Because let me tell you, it costs money to do all this.  Considerable amounts.  Servers, encoders, processors, license agreements, the list goes on.

You may be forgiven for thinking that we do all this because we in technology services like playing with new toys and saying to our fellow engineers at geeky nights out in Soho - “haha, we’re better than you”.  Don’t get me wrong, we do like playing with new toys and especially like boasting to our counterparts at Global, Bauer and the like but there’s more to it than that.  It’s a matter of prestige.

Now we all know radio makes money from selling ads.  Traditional thinking is that people pay more for ads on a radio station that has more listeners and so, ipso facto, everybody’s goal (at least outside sales) is to get more listeners.  This is, on the whole, true.  However over the last few years the industry we call “radio” has deviated more and more away from the traditional medium and become increasingly involved in what I will reluctantly refer to as “digital”.  Websites, fora, blogs, videos, user-generated content, and so on.  It is here where our fantastic digital media team continue to win over more and more people and get them involved in Virgin Rad… No, scratch that.  Involved in “this company” - whatever it’s name - but, more importantly, certainly not just radio but the whole brave new world of multi-media.  Don’t just skip over that last bit; I hyphenated it for a reason.  Media is changing, it has changed - it is now a multi-faceted monster and we are at war with it in a battle that needs to be fought on many fronts.  Damn those buzzwords just keep coming!

The question is how do we persuade advertisers that we, a traditional media player, are worth spending money with?  Why us and not MySpace, AOL, MSN, eBay or any of the other massive new media companies that spank our asses in the so-called “click-war”?  Two reasons.  One: we’re more cost-effective because we have a music-centric demographic thanks to the radio station and two… Prestige.  It looks good when we keep getting these “radio-firsts” and mentions in the press.  First commercial station to launch on Freesat, only one to broadcast on the internet on a truly open-source format, first for this, first for that…

Prestige, man.

I think I’ve made my point.  Let’s keep that spirit going with the new station.  Let us keep looking for those new and pioneering ways and embrace them with all the enthusiasm we did in the past.  Who’s with me?

Ben