Category: Audio

  • The Oxygen of Publicity

    The Home Office has been having a hard time recently – and the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, especially so. Yesterday, they came out all guns a blazing, with a list of people “named and shamed” who are to be excluded from entering Britain. Obviously this is by no means a list of the only people…

  • TV Sponsorship

    A very strange story is in today’s Times. The presenter of ITV1’s Tonight programme, Jonathan Maitland, writes about product placement and sponsorship on TV. First of all, Maitland seems to confuse product placement and sponsorship. As he says, Andy Burnham seems to have ruled out product placement, although I’m not sure that any shift in…

  • The Peatbog Faeries

    The Peatbog Faeries are a band that I really came across when I was up in Skye last year. I’d seen posters for all over the place for a concert I wouldn’t be able to make, and was vaguely aware that I’d seen coverage of them in things like the Celtic Connections TV programmes that…

  • What I’ve Been Listening To This Week

    More or Less on Radio 4 One of my favourite Radio 4 shows has returned for a new series. Do yourself a favour and subscribe to the podcast. This week we had Marcus du Sautoy talking to Charles Clarke about Perfect Numbers and Mersenne Primes. You really want to listen now don’t you? Archive on…

  • Listening to the Radio via a Nokia N82

    The other day I talked about the frustration I suffered when I tried to listen to BBC Radio Five Live on my mobile streaming via 3G. I thought that it might be worth exploring that a little more. Most of the news about listening to the radio via your phone is about the iPhone. Of…

  • What I’ve Been Listening To (And Watching) This Week

    Spoon Jar Jar Spoon on Radio 4 A nice little documentary about Tommy Cooper that delved into the world of magic in London during the sixties and seventies, when there were magic shops all over the place, and clubs where magicians hung out. The late Ali Bongo was also interviewed for this. And if you’re…

  • Champions’ League on the Radio

    It’s been a big week in the biggest club football competition in the world, with Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal all featuring in the second leg of the quarter-final. Last night I was returning late from the cinema and realised I was without a radio to listen to the Chelsea v Liverpool fixture. Perhaps…

  • Russell Brand on iTunes

    It’s interesting to see that Russell Brand has a new CD/download out called The Russell Brand Radio Show – The Best Of What’s Legal. It’s available as a set of three CDs (plus bonus DVD!), or as a download from places like iTunes. At first glance the question you might ask is what on earth…

  • What I’ve Been Listening To This Week

    Feedback on Radio 4 Last week it was lots of complaints about the new Radio 4 website, and somehow I think those complaints will return. But this week it was more about when children’s radio is scheduled on BBC Radio 7. The reality is that children largely don’t listen at scheduled times, yet the BBC…

  • Sony Radio Awards Nominations 2009

    This evening the nominations were announced for the 2009 Sony Radio Academy Awards. This was held in the same nightclub in the West End that it’s always held in – although each year it curiously changes name. Anyway, it’s always an entertaining event with a partisan audience cheering on their favourites, and being deathly silent…

  • Radio Radio

    A couple of worthwhile pieces in today’s Media Guardian for those interested in the radio industry. Global’s Stephen Miron gives an interview. The subject of licence roll-over is brought up. Classic FM is the first of the three INR licences to be renewed, expiring in September 2011. Global would like an extension rather than the…

  • A One-stop Audio Shop – Cons (and Pros)

    In this week’s Broadcast magazine, Emily Bell suggests that it’d be a good idea for there to be a one-stop shop for audio. She’s referring, of course, to Tim Davie’s interview with Media Guardian on Monday suggesting that the BBC works with commercial radio to build a single “radioplayer.” “I’m talking about getting radio fit…

  • What I’ve Been Listening To This Week

    Third Reich & Roll is a cracking three part documentary from Radio 2. Stephen Fry narrates this story about how Nazi technology helped develop tape recording technology, and then the post-war development of multi-track technologies and stereo. Part 2 is available until Monday and details what kind of technologies various classic albums used, from the…