Building communities of new listeners

Email received from the developers of the Radeo internet player (above) in response to my post The day the music died:

Thanks Bob! A large part of our motivation to create Radeo comes from the belief that there a many important and significant audiences that are not being served by traditional radio. Terrestrial radio, due to costs and the requirement of geographic audience density, are economically driven to serve the mass market. But there are large audiences, geographically dispersed, that are looking for "more". Perhaps more focused on a style of music, perhaps more musically challenging pieces -- the personal motivations will vary.

We hope that Radeo can play a role in aiding the individual find and listen to radio that is meaningful to him/her. We also believe that a part of the historical success of conventional radio is that it gives shape and definition to "communities" of listeners -- that the radio listening experience, while an individual experience, is also an important link for listeners to a larger group that they identify with. Radio, in a very real sense, has always been a key component of social networks.

We hope that Radeo can help create and support new forms of communities or social networks around radio/audio content. Personally, we're not into the social networking in the style of MySpace with its millions of personal pages and probably 100's of millions of uninteresting stream-of-consciousness messages.

We value that which has historically always been of value -- quality content, matched to (and shaping) personal interests via thoughtful and informed "programmers". While Radeo will not get into the "programming" of specific content inside a stream, we are exploring ways that we might add more capabilities for "meta programming" that link/gather/repackage streams to help listeners find stations and listener communities that enhance their listening experience.

Best regards, Paul Cosway



Now click on the image above and listen to Bayern 4 and other fine classical stations while you read about those moments that are rare in radio.
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Internet radio - the perfect storm

Jørgen Falck has left a new comment on the post "The political dimension of the artist":

Thank you Pliable. Your Greek birthday-concert for Mikis Theodorakis sounded beautiful here on my iTunes player, and I look forward to your next broadcasts on Future Radio (header photo). Like you I'm interested in the classical music life in general and in the radio. And yes, I am looking for alternatives.

Unfortunately we are facing a grotesque situation here in Denmark because of incompetent government policy: The Danish BBC, DR, are building a great new media house for radio and TV, including a new concert hall for the National SO by the architect Jean Nouvel. However, the financial costs of this house are so overwhelming that the government has forced DR to sack a lot of their best employee's, and to make sharp cuts in the programs as well.

The results are all to clear: Repeat broadcasts and common repertoire in huge quantities, Mozart, Beethoven and Mozart again and again.

Therefore, instead of this misery me and other Danish music lovers are tuning in to the Internet's radio world. That's how I found your Overgrown Path and the Radeo site. And thats how I became a daily listener to the excellent Norwegian station Alltid (Always) Klassisk. If not a Danish, I must have a Scandinavian favourite, after all.

Thank you Jørgen, glad you enjoyed the Skalcottas and Theodorakis. Overgrown Path radio will broadcast every Sunday at 17.00h British Summer Time. As I have said before - this is the future of radio. And the perfect storm gathers strength.
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Classical internet radio - a user's guide

Email received in response to my post This is the future of radio ~ First, we appreciate very much your On an Overgrown Path coverage, including Antoine’s very kind words after using Radeo. We had noticed it, with the help of Google Alerts; and we’ve noticed a number of other blogs covering you since. And, we’re having some great classical activity on Radeo, some of which is apparent on Most Listened under Search!

I was surprised by the comment posted feeling that Radeo is primarily podcasts, and appreciated your response that we are first more than 10,000 radio stations around the world. Our first priority is programmed stations, the simulcasts of broadcast stations and Internet only stations. Shows and their Episodes from Stations is our second priority. And, Podcasts included as Shows and Episodes is our third priority. We have many great podcasts, but that is not primary and some use and exploration should easily confirm that.

Regarding the BBC iPlayer, our view is that this is focused on downloading video programming, and radio is an after thought—the multiple current BBC Players get incorporated eventually. It’s limited to the BBC; and there is no personalization—no presets, interests, or sharing. Our Radeo player is focused on streaming audio programming and video is secondary (although very present). Radeo offers the largest database of audio and video programming worldwide, and encourages easy personalization—presets, interests, share and news emails. Try “The BBC” under our Search tab for essentially all of BBC Radio and much of the rest of their audio and video offerings—easily from one page.

We would like to suggest several ways for you, Antoine, and your readers to share classical music recommendations:

1. First, anyone can Signup with only name, password and email address and begin storing their personal preferences—fast, free and easy. That’s PC and Mac: Windows and Mac OS X operating systems; Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari web browsers; and Windows Media, Real, and QuickTime players. And, with confirmation of their email address, they can Share email their recommendations including descriptions and links which will open Radeo and begin playing the recommendation.

2. Second, anyone can Share their Listener Name and Password with others to allow access by others. Others can be signed in and playing with the same Listener Name at the same time; the preferences are saved when the last person closes.

3. Third, we can fix your preferences as a Profile for your readers, so that anyone can open and play Radeo with your preferences; but only you can Login and change the preferences. And, any Signup from within the Profile, starts with those preferences (rather than our standard Demo preferences). Most easily, this can be a Radeo link from your Blog, which opens the Radeo player with your profile preferences.

As for some recommendations, Antoine seems to be doing well working through our offerings. WGBH Classical HD 2 Station and WGBH Classical Performance Show are very good, in addition to WGBH 89.7 FM Station. Hopkinson Smith lute—recently in Most Listened—is a particular favorite of mine. Radio Latvia Three Klassika is a favorite Station. And, Naxos Classical Music Spotlight Show has great offerings. And, our MyBBC Demo includes Playlist D with latest Episodes of a dozen BBC classical music shows. Also, the Vatican Stations offer some good listening. As you are listening, check under the Related tab for additional, related possibilities—which can be previewed and websites visited, while you continue listening. For links to these stations see below.

We are involved with music. Our recommendations are sincere. It’s worth going through our Standard and MyBBC demos; everything there is considered. Maintaining and expanding our database is a continual process. In addition to our ongoing checking and sourcing, listener tuning attempts with no connection are investigated; and recommendations are appreciated.

And, we also very much look forward to internet radio being available away beyond a computer. But, some computer is now with very many of us much of our day—and radio listening is greatest in the office, followed by commuting. Tabletop alternatives are improving. And, mobile players, including Wi-Fi access, are now appearing and improving. As internet access becomes more constantly available, streaming is generally more appealing than downloading. Try our Radeo companion version beta. The 12 x 4 presets from “desktop” preferences are easily available on a mobile phone with Windows Mobile which including Windows Media Player—with no additional setup: http://www.radeo.net/mobile/.

We look forward to communicating with you further.

Sincerely, Darryl Pomicter, Ressen Design

Links to the stations mentioned above:

WGBH Classical 89.7-HD2, Boston, Massachusetts
Click to Listen

WGBH Classical Performance, Hopkinson Smith plays lute music of Robert Ballard - WGBH Classical Performance
Hopkinson Smith has been described as "one of the world's real masters of the lute". We were honored to have him visit our studio at WGBH to play music of an early 17th century French master lutenist, Robert Ballard, as well as a couple of pieces by his English contemporary, John Dowland. Robert Ballard (Works primarily from the Premier livre de luth, Paris, 1611): Entrée de Luth; Courante [...]
Click to Listen

Radio Latvia Three Klasika, Latvia
Click to Listen

Naxos Classical Music Spotlight, Classical Music Spotlight Special Editon - Class of '38 - A Conversation with Composer Ellen Zwilich
Raymond Bisha chats with composer Ellen Zwilich about her most recent work.
Click to Listen

Ultima Thule Ambient Music, UT 559
A post-classical excursion with Vangelis, Philip Glass, John Tavener and Arvo Part.
Click to Listen

Download the Radeo internet player here. Internet radio is the future, which is why we should all be very concerned about this.
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The long tail of radio

Contributor Antoine Leboyer writes this piece in praise of the Radeo internet player which I featured here recently, and which can be downloaded here:

My last weeks have been hectic. Travels, airport delays, long days with evenings alone in anonymous hotel rooms away from my family. All more reasons to try Radeo. Here is a summary of my experience and basically why I am really starting to get hooked. There are several reasons for this:

• Live Performances: Artists are always better in live performances than in the studio. My primary appeal in trying Radeo was to have access to a large variety of concert broadcasts around the world. A couple of days ago, I was able to compare on the same evening two very different performances of Brahms First Piano Concerto, one from Paris with Ax and Chung followed by one from Munich by Barenboim and Jansons. Fascinating comparisons in terms of tempis, orchestral colors and balance.

• Quality: The sound is on most stations as acceptable as sound from my Ipod. I am using the same ear phones I use with my Ipod and the music stream has good sampling quality.

• Listening when no Radio is available: Hotel rooms have radio in bad sound from a TV set and very little to no choice. As we speak, my plane is YAD (Frequent travellers acronym for Yet Again Delayed …). As I write, I am listening to a Tanglewood Festival reply of Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony with the Boston Symphony under Haitink. It may not be an ideal soothing music but what a performance …

• Choice, Choice, Choice, … I was not aware before Radeo of the wide variety of radio stations available on the web. I could have tried here and there but Radeo’s search engine is so easy to use. Just look for Berlin stations or type in classical … I was not aware that there were so many offerings available. It will take me several months to explore the world.

• Favorites: Too early to tell but I have preset BBC Radio 3, Bayern
4, France Musique, Radio Classique (they should cover the Aix Festival …) and WGBH from Boston. Could readers tell what they have found ?

• Simplicity of use: The Radeo designers have made a smart interface. Search capabilities, the ability to preset some stations (think of your car radio system …), a very cool feature to “visit” the radio site and hence be able to the day program … This is smart product marketing and design here.

Have you read The Long Tail ? This is a book by Wired editor Chris Anderson which does a revealing analysis of Amazon’s success and unique positioning. Anderson found that Amazon made its revenue and profit not thanks to the books blockbusters à la Harry Potter but by selling a large amount of books read by a small number of people. Instead of being a mass-marketplace, Amazon is more a mass of tiny small markets. This is of course a big simplification of what is a fascinating book. Anderson explores after how other industries could exploit this concept. Radeo is doing it for the Radio world. Its system enables classical music lovers to easily find where to listen to Moscow broadcasts just as it could enable Korean Hard Rocks fans to discover and tune in to their favourite stations.

There is a need for Radeo. It works and it is of great value for us, classical music lovers.

Now read another contributor on These moments are rare in radio
Image credit Langaitis Zenotas' Old Radio Collection from Lithuania. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

This is the future of radio - and new music

The BBC's iPlayer may have finally been given the go-ahead by the BBC Trust, but it has yet to launch and in the interim commercial radio has stolen a march. Under the guidance of the RadioCentre's energetic chief executive, Andrew Harrison, the trade body has launched its own version - the RadioCentre Player. Although it is initially being positioned as an internal tool to get exposure for all of the UK's 300 or so commercial stations, it has the potential to go way beyond a bit of in-house marketing.

So what does the player offer? At its heart is an existing piece of software developed by a US company, Ressen Design, which adapted it for the RadioCentre. This is how commercial radio has got the player out so fast; in contrast the BBC's iPlayer is being developed in-house.

The RadioCentre Player features 12 preset stations, including the national services, Classic, Virgin and TalkSport; other big stations such as Heart and Capital, and a few smaller regionals from Channel 103 FM to Lincs FM. The selection of the preset list is not based on audience or any other consumer measure but on who sits around the RadioCentre board table, hence the bizarre mix.

Putting such political nonsense to one side, the player gives access to every single station in the UK, either in an alphabetical format or by group ownership basis. This means that you can listen live, in real time, for free, to any station in Britain. Whether you are a record plugger wanting to assess a music format (or, more importantly, find out whether a station really is playing your artist's song), or a media buyer checking out the target audience, this is a brilliant tool. It is quick - almost every station buffers and streams live in less than 10 seconds - and there are fewer clicks than going on to the BBC website to "listen again".

But it goes further than that. The player also gives access to thousands of internet-only and licensed radio stations from around the world: 10,227 stations, in fact, including 3,794 from the US.

Now that the RadioCentre Player is launched, the genie is out of the bottle, and it will inevitably become a consumer tool because listeners will want it.

That report comes from the Media Guardian, and follow this link to use the RadioCentre Player in the UK, for other readers download the version from the US site. Software applications like RadioCentre Player are disruptive technology, and they are going to revolutionise radio in the same way that blogs have revolutionised journalism.

To see the real power of the RadioCentre Player click on the Search button above the presets window, then click on the + symbol on the tree that appears to expand a branch, Worldwide Radio > Stations by Format/Genre/Style > Classical gives a choice of 170 stations. If the station doesn't stream through the player (some connections seem to be flaky) connect to the stream direct from the station website which appears in the centre window in the player.

There are now more than ten-thousand radio stations available on your PC, or stream them to your stereo using Squeezebox. You can search by genre, and any station anywhere in the world is now just a couple of mouse clicks away.

This is a fantastic opportunities for classical and contemporary music to reach new audiences, and this blog will be part of the revolution. The photo below shows me working in the studio yesterday on the radio version of On An Overgrown Path. Watch this blog, or should that be radio station?


Now read more about the future of radio
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