Radio Academy adds another rock music legend to Festival line-up

04Oct

Another exciting name has joined the already stellar line up taking part in this year’s Radio Academy Festival. Rock music god Pete Townshend will give his keynote speech in Salford later this month looking at the current state of music media and attendees will also get the chance to quiz The Who guitarist in a Q&A session to follow.

The inaugural lecture is named after the legendary broadcaster John Peel, who hit the airwaves in 1967 and broadcast until his death in 2004, and the idea is to chat about music and discuss music related media from the past, what’s happening now and what the future holds.  

Speaking about the event Townshend said he’s happy to be taking part and thrilled to be able to honour Peel’s name and legacy. John Peel’s son Tom Ravenscroft will introduce Townshend on stage and says “We have in the past few years had trains, housing estates and a restaurant named after dad and so I think he’d have been both bemused and delighted to see he now has a lecture and that Pete Townshend will be delivering the first of them.

The latest announcement from the Radio Academy sees Townshend added to the list of a huge variety of speakers which includes Elvis Duran, Duncan Bannatyne, Tessa Sanderson, Jamie Cullum and Absolute Radio’s Ronnie Wood. As part of the Festival the Rolling Stone guitarist will talk about his experience of going from rock start to radio star and how he juggles his broadcast commitments with life as an artist and being part of one of the biggest rock groups in history.

The Radio Academy Festival is taking place this year from 31st October to 2nd November. Find out more about it here

Categories: Absolute 80s Absolute Classic Rock Absolute Radio conferences Events Media Music 0

Posted by cat on October 4, 2011

Absolute Radio Dramatically Cuts Losses

03Oct

Absolute Radio today reported a dramatic reduction in losses for the group in 2010, reflecting significant progress, despite an exceptionally difficult and uncertain economic climate and a nervous advertising market.

Financial statements for 2010, filed today, show the group slashed its losses by more than 58%, to £5.973m as compared to £14.486m in the previous year.

The news follows a string of recent positive news from the team at One Golden Square. First came the announcement last week by Times of India CEO Ravi Dhariwal that it had completed its strategic review with a wholehearted endorsement of the business as it continues its ambitious digital growth plans.

We also announced we have achieved revenues up 32% year on year in Q3 2011, outperforming the national radio market by 17 percentage points.

The 2010 annual report provides further details of the investments in content made in 2010 including:

• The acquisition of exclusive live commentary rights for key Barclays Premiership matches on Saturday afternoons for three years commencing with the 2010/2011 season.

• The launch of new services Absolute Radio 90s, Absolute Radio 00s and Absolute Radio Extra, to complement the group’s existing services Absolute Radio, Absolute Classic Rock and Absolute 80s.

The report outlines that as a result of content & digital investment, by the end of 2010 Absolute Radio’s reach had increased 33% year on year to 2.223 million adults with hours increasing by 27% to 15.867 million. Further significant progress has been recorded with reach increasing a further 30% to 2.897 million adults and hours increasing a further 53% to 24.304 million (RAJAR Q2 2011)

Commenting on the results, Absolute Radio Chief Executive Donnach O’Driscoll noted: “2010 was a significant year in the history of One Golden Square and the business is currently reaping the rewards of the investment decisions we made last year. Capitalising on the momentum and driving significant growth in revenues has been the key priority for us in 2011, and we are achieving that and beating the market.”

The report also saw the board welcome the June 2010 Digital Economy Act, which provides the legislative framework for the planned switchover from analogue to digital broadcast.

Absolute Radio will do everything it can to accelerate the pace of digital switchover with the dual benefits of an improved listening experience for consumers and reduced distribution costs for the industry. The report confirms that, in April 2011, the financial terms offered by OFCOM for the renewal of Absolute Radio’s national AM licence were accepted by the group.

Categories: Absolute Radio Absolute Radio 00s Absolute Radio 90s absolute radio extra Brands Measurement mobile rajar Uncategorized What others are saying 0

Posted by adrianhieatt on October 3, 2011

Noel Gallagher swaps records for radio

03Oct

Noel Gallagher is planning to rest his song-writing career for one day…and try his hand at being a radio DJ.

The former Oasis star has agreed to co-host the Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show on Absolute Radio next week. 

He is currently preparing for the release of his debut solo album ‘Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’, but wants to take a day off and spend it with Christian and the breakfast show team.

Christian O’Connell said “Noel is a legend – plain and simple. He’s been in the business for 20 years and there’s nothing he doesn’t know about making records. That said, he knows bugger-all about being a DJ so I’m going to get the bleeper machine ready and throw him in at the deep end to see what he’s made of. Who knows, if it’s a success, I could be his new wing-man – I hear the last guy didn’t work out so well.”

Listen to Noel Gallagher co-present the Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show on Wednesday 12th October.

Categories: Absolute 80s Absolute Classic Rock Absolute Radio Absolute Radio 00s Absolute Radio 90s Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show Music 0

Posted by cat on October 3, 2011

Absolute Radio Reveals its Radioplayer Search Referrals Traffic

30Sep

In June, Absolute Radio revealed that listening through Radioplayer accounted for over half (53%) of the Absolute Radio   Network’s 7.2m hours of online UK streaming.

In August a ‘snap-shot’ showed Radioplayer with a massive 6.7 million unique browsers over the previous four weekly period.

Radioplayer has continued to innovate, becoming connected on Facebook which enabled users to access Absolute Radio and more than 250 other UK radio stations, straight from Facebook. The Radioplayer Facebook app allows you to search, listen to and share favourite stations and programmes with friends, via your wall.

Today we are releasing Absolute Radio’s Radioplayer referrals figures for August 2011 (source: Google Analytics). We can reveal that over 40% of Radioplayer search referrals to the Absolute Radio Network come from BBC Radio.

This is closely followed by 25% from Commercial Radio’s biggest group, Global Radio. Facebook also shows itself to be strong referrer, with over 8%, demonstrating its immediate success as a powerful discovery tool for UK radio. These figures support Radioplayer and Absolute Radio’s digital brand strategy; Enabling users to listen on the platforms where spend high quality time.

Absolute Radio is using its data to help better understand real-time ‘station switching’ for the first time in Radio history.

The full table of Radioplayer URL referrals to the Absolute Radio Player are here:

Read what others have been saying about this here.

Absolute Radio releases this monthly information to provide greater accountability for commercial partners. Monthly figures for the network are available from here

Absolute Radio is working hard across the industry to provide consistent figures for commercial clients. The statistics are gathered using data from streams in a variety of formats with actual listening data collected from multiple computers/browser sessions or internet radio devices. Data is also collected from cookies removed from PCs.

Categories: Measurement Media mobile Technology Uncategorized What others are saying 1

Posted by cat on September 30, 2011

Playlist: 30th September

30Sep

The playlist is out now.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Monarchy of Roses (14/11/11)
2nd single from the band’s album ‘I’m With You’

Nickelback – When We Stand Together (06/11/11)
From new album ‘Here and Now’ (21st November)

You Me At Six – Loverboy (26/09/11)
1st single from the influential young British band’s 3rd album ‘Sinners Never Sleep’ (Oct 3rd)

Categories: playlist 0

Posted by adam on September 30, 2011