Social Radio Listening from the BBC

More news from the BBC this week, as it launches Radio Pop, a social networking website specifically for radio listeners.

Users can listen to their choice of stations through the Radio Pop player, create a personal record of their preferred programs, see what their friends are listening to and make recommendations to users within the network.

Favourite stations and shows can be tagged, or “popped,” thereby providing user data which is made visible to everyone within the network. This online behaviour is then displayed by graphs and lists showing listeners' favourite and recommended stations and shows.

The idea is to track user behaviour to allow the broadcaster to send targeted promotions to users as well as analyse their listening habits, which can currently only be done via radio industry measurement organisations like Rajar.

The service currently only supports live, rather than on demand listening. There is also no integration with the iPlayer – yet – but it is another example of a major player experimenting in the social networking arena.

http://www.radiopop.co.uk/

- Sam

BBC to Launch New Online Music Service

If approved, BBC Worldwide - the BBC’s commercial division - has announced that it will launch a new targeted online music service early next year, giving users access to the BBC's massive archive of live performances and session tracks, including music from the broadcaster's Glastonbury coverage, archive John Peel Sessions, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Radio 1's Live Lounge.
The ad-funded service will initially hold over 1300 tracks and videos to stream and download, but will be expanded to over 50,000 tracks and 3000 hours of video. It will also offer all new music content as soon as exclusive broadcasting rights for the non-commercial bit of the BBC end.
BBC Worldwide agreed a deal with EMI earlier this year to provide online access to the label's artists in the BBC archive, and now the organisation is in negotiations with Warner, Sony and Universal about similar arrangements. A spokesperson for BBC Worldwide said it was "exploring a range of opportunities around direct-to-consumer websites and the utilisation of the BBC music archive along with other web content."
Approval is first required for the service from the BBC Worldwide board, who will be wary of accusations from the commercial sector that the Corporation is unfairly operating in the digital content space by exploiting the licence-fee funded BBC archive. However, as the BBC archive service won't directly compete with the likes of iTunes - by only selling BBC recordings, and not official album recordings - it is expected to get the go ahead.