The New PURE in-car Digital Radio by Paul Brown

11Nov

The new Highway 300Di from PURE was launched last night in London and we went along to see.

There were three things that really caught our eye and are no doubt going to make the Highway 300Di a winner:

- New antenna technology. The new ‘active antenna’ will massively improve digital reception in the car, providing the same reception as a large roof mounted whip aerial in a small neat and discreet window mounted model.

- Connectivity to existing devices. This allows full control of music stored on an iPod, iPhone or iPad. There’s also a function allowing pause and rewind of live digital radio.

- Dual Tuners. Having two tuners in the 300Di allows the digital radio to continually rescan for available stations while listening. This means that the most up to date list of available digital stations will be displayed.

The PURE Highway 300Di will be available exclusively at Halfords priced at £179.99, with customers receiving free installation, set up and demonstration for a limited period.

For more details, take a look on the PURE website

Categories: Brands dab 1

Posted by jonny on November 11, 2011

Digital Digest 11 Nov – Owen Smith

11Nov

A-whud-up blog world?  It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another Digital Digest – and what a special Digital Digest it’s going to be.  For today just happens to be 11/11/11… …a date which read forwards is exactly the same as it is read backwards.  A palindrome if you will.  So what mysticism can we expect from the day today?  Will the dead walk the earth?  Will the global economy cripple?  Will cats and dogs walk on their hind legs, arm in arm, whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears in their relevant cat and dog like languages?  No. None of that will happen.  It’s just six numbers that all just happen to be the same.  Big whoop, want to fight about it?  In fact let’s not lose track of what really is important today.  It’s not all about a set of symmetrical numbers.  Go out and buy yourself a poppy if you haven’t already.

Anyway, this week ONLINE!

Google+ has launched ‘Branded Pages’, which in a nutshell means that it’s not only people that can now join everyone’s 4th favourite social network, but businesses and corporations can to.  Users can now add brands to their circles, and receive up to the minute updates from these company’s PR teams.  It’s groundbreaking, it’s innovative, it’s something that Facebook has been doing for years.  Launch partners include Angry Birds, CNN, Fox News, Dallas Cowboys, Pepsi, Toyota, Macy’s, X Games, WWE, Train, FC Barcelona and Save the Children.  As you’d expect, we’ve also set up pages for our own network of stations. It’s probably worth giving The Muppets a mention too, because who doesn’t love Muppets? (Their page also looks fan-bloody-tastic), and I can actually appreciate that Fox News page, save for Bill O’ Reilly’s gurning, punchable mug staring at me, filling my head with fear and my heart with hate.  Damn you Reilly.

App of the week this week goes to Air Cassette.  Completely pointless yet utterly brilliant, Air Cassette turns your music library into a series of digital cassette tapes, just like the ones you used to record Radio 1 on to back in the day.  I say back in the day, I’m 25.  Back in the day for me was 1998.  The song was The Cardigans Favourite Game, and I distinctly remember getting fed up with Mark Goodier for talking over the tail end of the song.  Damn you Goodier.  Anyway, listening to your music library via Air Cassette will turn your screen into a cassette, with the song title and artist scrawled onto the label in digital ink – and get this, you can actually see the magnetic tape moving.  Genius.  It’s £1.49 in the App Store, and you can download it now.

That’s it for Digital Digest this week.  I leave you with what is potentially my favourite Epic Meal Time of this year (Chinese Food and Fast Food, it just makes so much sense), and a father watching his son speed into a table.  Kids, they do the funniest things.

Categories: Digital Digest 0

Posted by adam on November 11, 2011

October Engagement Metrics

11Nov

We release our monthly Engagement Metrics to provide greater accountability for commercial partners. Monthly figures for the network are available from our stats page here

We’re 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: Absolute Radio Measurement 0

Posted by jonny on November 11, 2011

The Student Radio Awards 2011 by Pete Donaldson

10Nov

Last night, in the uber-glam environs of the IndigO2, the 16th Student Radio Awards took place.  I was lucky enough to be able to attend this boozy celebration of DJs, producers, station managers and the like.  After an army of fresh-faced, excitable teens took their seats, DJs Annie Mac and Scott Mills (no, me neither) presided over the handing out of laser-cut glass shards in recognition of broadcasting brilliance.

This was my first taste of the SRAs – I had never had the wherewithal to get involved while at University, and listening to some of the demos (I judged the Best Entertainment category) I can honestly say I’m sort of glad I didn’t…these people work their fingers, minds and mouths to the bone (the latter two don’t even have bones – that’s how industrious these students are!)  Every nominee, every winner and indeed every single entrant should be terrifically proud of themselves for what they’ve achieved this year.  A special mention has to go to a programme that was nominated for ‘Best Specialist Music Show,’ a show that I’m yet to hear a single millisecond of, but a show with a name that had me enthralled: Carlos Slazenger’s Audio Obstacle Course.  Magical.

A personal highlight was going toe-to-toe with one of my own radio heroes on stage in a veritable DJ ‘Soundclash,’ which involved myself and Steve Lamacq taking turns in playing songs that would defeat the one that came before it.  Seeing him bringing the room to its knees with The Undertones’ Teenage Kicks followed by myself ruining any credibility I may once have had with Rebecca Black’s 2011 opus ‘Friday’ will stay with me for some years to come.  Oh, and the sight of Tim Westwood setting up a Macbook Pro playout system replete with wires and associated elevated stand, just to allow him to bust out four songs in total.

All in all, the whole event left me both enthused about the future of the industry and also fearful of my position at Absolute Radio in equal measure.  Student Radio – healthier than ever, and with a belly full of Sambuca.

Pete

Categories: Absolute Radio Careers People video 1

Posted by adrianhieatt on November 10, 2011

Playlist: 10th November

10Nov

The playlist is out now.

The Vaccines – Wetsuit (12/12/11)
New track from ‘What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?’ – one of the biggest selling debut albums of the year. After a busy summer of festivals, their Nov/Dec tour is nearly sold out.

Lenny Kravitz – Push (28/11/11)
New single from Lenny’s 9th studio album, the excellent ‘Black and White America’. See his stunning gig for Absolute Radio here.

Also Snow Patrol and Kasabian both move up to A-list, and Ben Howard moves up to Daytime.

Categories: Music playlist 0

Posted by carrie on November 10, 2011