Absolute Radio Stats by Adam Bowie

23Oct

ogs

Today, Absolute Radio is launching our new Stats page.

As it says on the page on itself, in our ongoing attempt to be as open as we possibly can, we’re starting to release some of our internet listening figures. These are taken from our audio streams, and is based on information derived directly from our streaming logs. This isn’t a particularly easy process as we broadcast in lots of different streaming formats and through lots of standalone devices such as our iAmp applications and standalone internet radio devices. In particular Ben Matthew in our Technology team has worked hard to provide accurate information, and if you really want to, you can read his detailed methodology over on the Stats page.

At the moment we’re releasing a single figure detailing our monthly listening across the Absolute Radio Network of stations including our main service, Absolute Radio, as well as Absolute Radio Classic Rock and Absolute Radio Xtreme (it’s too early yet to include Dabbl). But in time we’re hoping to release more data at a more granular level.

We also hope that other stations will also release data. We’ve worked closely with the BBC to try to produce our numbers in manner that’s consistant with those that the BBC has been releasing. This hasn’t been easy to achieve, and we hope to in time that across the radio industry we’ll all be able to release directly comparable figures between different stations and groups. To that end, we hope that some of our industry colleagues and competitors will also begin to release some of their data.

It should be noted that this certainly isn’t a replacement for RAJAR, the radio industry’s listening currency. While RAJAR includes a level of measurement of listening via different platforms, the methodology is completely different and it would be unfair to make direct comparisons between the two.

A couple of final notes: we’ve tried to remove any listening carried out by “robots” – tools that are used commonly by search engines and others that can skew site statistics – and it should be noted that these figures don’t include any “listen-again” or podcast listening data.

If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to ask below.

Absolute Radio Stats.

Adam

Categories: Media Technology 3

Posted by adam on October 23, 2009

Chris Evans Returns to One Golden Square

21Oct

chris_evans_04

An old friend popped by the Christian O’Connell breakfast show this morning. You may have heard of him. Chris Evans, formerly of this parish, dropped in to see the OC for a full hour to talk about his book (and check out how to do a breakfast show!).

Many things have changed at One Golden Square in the intervening years, but one thing remains the same – Martin the Security Guard. Therefore it was only right and proper that he conducted part of the interview. This is radio/video gold! Well done Martin!

ChrisEvans

…and it seems the love and nostalgia was reciprocated on Chris Evans’ Radio 2 blog.

Categories: Events People 1

Posted by adam on October 21, 2009

Playlist: 20th October

20Oct

The playlist is out now.

thebigpink

Echo & The Bunnymen – Think I Need It Too (26th October)
The Bunnymen – Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant – return on top form with this track from their new album ‘The Fountain’. The Bunnymen’s career has spanned 30 years and the band have a been a big influence on Coldplay and The Killers amongst others.

Newton Faulkner – Over and Out (30th November)
2nd single from the Top 5 album ‘Rebuilt By Humans’, which is the guitarist’s follow-up to his Brit-nominated debut ‘Handbuilt by Robots’. Newton broke his wrist and dislocated his hand at the start of 2009 and nearly all lost movement in his arm before a career-saving operation.

The Big Pink moves up to daytime

Categories: Music playlist 0

Posted by carrie on October 20, 2009

The Podcasting Revolution Rolls On by Paul Sylvester

20Oct

Podcasting has been around for a few years now, but in the last 12 months we have seen a massive leap in terms of understanding and in the quality/volume of content available from media owners and independent producers alike… podcasting was even recognised by the Sony Radio Awards 2009.

A year ago, we had a couple of podcasts which did very well in the smaller market, however Absolute Radio can now boast several other massive achievements which have helped us to cement our place as one of the UK’s pioneering podcast producers.

We’ve delivered more than 4 million podcasts to listeners in 12 months and we had our best week ever last week, delivering more than 170 thousand downloads. This comes hot on the heels of our first ever iTunes number 1 podcast with Dave Gorman… the good news is we can now look forward to a weekly Dave podcast.

Podcasts of our programmes have accounted for 72% of our total, but that’s just the start of the story.

We have begun to go back through the Golden Square archives to offer listeners the chance to enjoy again some of the classic interviews we’ve done over the years. We’re also adding material as the acts make return visits. Creating channels for acts like Coldplay and Stereophonics allows fans of specific music/comedy acts to download the free podcasts when they search for other content within the iTunes store. As you can imagine, this is great for raising awareness of Absolute Radio amongst non-listeners.

In the last year everyone’s worked hard on our video offering. As well as filming videos for our website and YouTube, we now also upload them to iTunes for people to enjoy there – another great platform for us. More than half a million videos have been watched via iTunes. Video interviews with Florence and the Machine and Ricky Gervais have proved immensely popular in recent weeks.

So, with 100 different podcasts streams, we had to look at improving the way people could access the podcasts. Over the last few weeks we’ve been working with iTunes to allow us to display our podcasts/apps in a more efficient and engaging way which actually mirrors the iTunes store as a whole.

It looks a bit like this:

Absolute iTunes

We’re one of only a few providers around the world to have this opportunity and the only one in the UK. When you click on ‘Absolute radio’ via the podcast homepage, you’ll be able to search and see podcasts within our own categories, link to our applications and even related websites. We’re delighted to be able to do this and it dramatically enhances the iTunes experience we can offer – after all, it’s the place we know that most podcast users choose to source their material from.

So, the world of podcasting continues to develop into a highly competitive marketplace and one where we have to innovate to be noticed and succeed. We also have to continue to look at the commercial opportunities podcasting offers. Our podcasts have been sponsored by COI, Audible and Thresher and this has helped them to reach new audiences, we are now moving forward to offer further opportunities for clients to benefit from this growing audience.

Categories: podcasts 0

Posted by carrie on October 20, 2009

Absolute Radio launches CompareMyRadio.com by Duncan Amey

16Oct

comparemyradio

Today, the One Golden Square Labs team is thrilled to share a brand new beta service with you : CompareMyRadio.com

CompareMyRadio.com tracks what UK radio stations are playing, how often songs get repeated and what their most played artists are. No matter what your musical tastes, it can tell you what station you should be listening to.

We think it works a treat (although we already have plans for improving the service and increase the number of radio stations covered) and insist that you give it a try at CompareMyRadio.com.

If you’ve got any feedback, want us to add your station or have some suggestions, please get in touch.

And for those of you in search of more information, here it is:

  • Key benefits to users of CompareMyRadio.com include being able to search for your chosen artists or bands from over twenty major radio station’s data collected from ‘now-playing information’. Once a user has found their station of choice, there is a link straight through to the station’s website to listen live.  If you are looking for a station that plays “non stop Lady GaGa” then it tells you where to go, if you are looking for a station that provides a variety of music, it also tells you where to go.
  • CompareMyRadio.com has been developed by One Golden Square Labs – the in-house working group develops applications for the web and new and emerging platforms including wi-fi radio, next generation DAB with integrated internet and social media with an open-source approach and will actively encourage involvement from the digital community
  • CompareMyRadio.com will initially be launched commercial-free, but as the product develops there will be opportunities for commercial partners on this and Dabbl.

Duncan

Categories: Compare My Radio labs 1

Posted by adam on October 16, 2009