Media Week

Most new ideas seem to have some sort of online on interactive element nowadays to try and bring brands closer to their consumers. It's nice to see a real world, off-line example, pop up this morning.

Today the first of 60,000 bottles of free water were handed out to London commuters at ten tube and rail stations across London. All branded with Three's Mobile Broadband the campaign's co-ordinated by new water-based advertising start-up Sauce Connections.

According to Mintel consumers keep bottles with them for 50 minutes, the perfect amount of time to scan through a brands' bottle-based copy. Also Sauce say the water's from the UK, the bottles are 100% recycled, carbon off-set and they even donate money for well-building too. With all that I guess it would be rude to say no to one!

News on Brand Republic that Radio 4's brought back a media programme (after, er, resting The Message). It's called The Media Show and they're broadcasting it at the media industry-friendly time of, er, 1.30pm on a Wednesday. It's sandwiched neatly between the World at One and The Archers, but i'm sure with better storylines and less farms. Thankfully a podcast and listen-again will mean some of us can actually it hear it.

Steve Hewlett's presenting and i'm assuming it's media pundit Steve Hewland rather than puppet-master Steve Hewlett. Which is a shame as some furry media commentators might make all the stories a bit more interesting. Steve previously presented, er, The Message, the previous media show on Radio 4. Now i'm sure Steve's alright, but in this ever-changing, multi-media, 360 world is there no one else who could present a show about the media? Anywhere?

At the Radio Festival it was hard not to see the glee the GMG Johns felt about having signed Chris Tarrant to present a new Saturday morning show across its Real/Century and Smooth networks. I'm sure they're even more chuffed that it turns out that they won't have to pay CT themselves as apparently, according to the great man himself, he's being paid by Nissan, whilst GMG collect the other ad money. 

CT also says that he's going to have complete editorial control of the show (which means some poor GMG staffer will be hoping that he doesn't breach the formats of the two differently formatted networks he's broadcasting to), but what about Nissan - what do they get from the programme and the host?

It's going to be an interesting to see how this content/advertising model, apparently brought in from the states, fares in the UK when the show launches later this month. Is it the beginning of more talent signing exclusive deals with brands and looking for broadcast partners? Who's next?

Virgin Radio is about to be acquired by the Times of India and relaunched by the Absolue Radio team of Clive Dickens, Donnach O'Driscoll and Adrian Robinson.
They've got a tough task ahead of them as the Virgin Radio name is going and they're having to rebrand and relaunch, as well as coping with all the issues (staff, operational, relationships) that arise when you buy a business.

The team are doing something a little different, however, to most evil corporate takeovers - they're being open. All Virgin Radio staff (and anyone else who wants to take part) can read and contribute to a blog - OneGoldenSquare.com - that the team have setup to discuss and brainstorm what the new owners should be doing and how they should be doing it. Already you can read about Clive's first staff presentation, breakfast jock Christian O'Connell talking about music research or digital media head Andy Gumbridge talking about the relevance of streaming on the iPhone.  

In takeovers, whilst management often talk about staff being the most important asset, it's these kinds of initiatives that prove they really mean it. Or am I just being naive?

News today that Global Radio have decided to jump into Ofcom's new deregulated content rules by networking parts of its Heart and Galaxy network

Heart in London, East Mids and West Mids will share everything except Breakfast, Mid Morning, Drive and one four hour show on Saturday and Sunday. And over at Galaxy Yorks, North East, Birmingham and Manchester everything except Breakfast and Drive (and that one evening show on Saturday and Sunday) will be networked between them.

Now, what i'm not going to do is mourn the loss of localism in a woe is me, weren't the 80s better way. Times change. Also Heart and Galaxy are built around a specific music proposition and whilst there are local elements that isn't the focus. Indeed, Heart East Mids bestriding Leicester and Nottingham does not at the moment bring together two groups of people who care deeply about each other.

For national advertisers it makes things much simpler. I'm sure there are a few sales execs when they book S&P across a load of radio stations dread the random selection of ROTs that return. One jock saying one agreed thing across everywhere is much easier.

However, local radio, even on these regional stations rely to a certain degree on local revenue. Especially when those poor local fellows are often charged at least three times as much as their national brethren!

Whilst clever technology will switch the right mix of spots for the right FM transmitter, commercial radio has seen and S&P and on-air plugs for web microsites become a key sales proposition. Removing more local programmes will mean its harder to 'get away' these local promos and will no doubt result in a more cluttered breakfast and drive. Something that could be bad news for local advertisers and the local sales team who've got to deliver it.

Interesting to hear that Last.fm has just announced that it's streaming full tracks, on-demand, for free.
It means that any last.fm visitor will be able to stream a track on its system (and it seems to have all the majors signed) up to three times. Money-wise they're profit-sharing the advertising money with the record companies.

At the same time they're also planning to introduce a subscription service, which I imagine will mean you'll be able to stream songs more than three times (perfect for you set up that recording to Audacity), get higher quality, no ads etc.

Whilst last.fm isn't the first person to do a deal like this, it does fit in nicely with the rest of their streaming radio business, and was probably fairly easy to activate as they have all the songs in their system. It seems they're positioning themselves quite nicely to be the one-stop shop for a 'music on-demand' experience. It also means that they're probably paying their music licensing costs for the first time!

There's more detail at paidcontent.org.

No, not Jack Bauer, he couldn't buy anything as he's in jail. H Bauer, the German media bods have bought Emap's radio and magazine arm as well as their shareholding in the Emap-C4 joint-venture Box TV (that runs all the music TV channels). The radio side was valued at £422m.

The deal's bad news for lots of people who hoped they'd be the winner. As well as a load of VC money with various people like Tim Schoonmaker and Phil Riley fronting it, Global Radio (the operators of Heart, Galaxy and LBC) are going to be a bit miffed about their loss. Global was created as an organisation that would drive consolidation and extract value from new scale. Instead they're now at risk of being sidelined and they're going to have to do a deal or they'll probably be flogged off to someone like GMG. New pants time at Bramley Road.

We're also going to have to find out what H Bauer's view is on things - from digital radio to localness, their involvement is a wild card for the radio industry. Or have they just acquired these assets to sell them on to someone else. We'll have to wait and see.

So, i'm sitting here at Deegan Towers listening to the newly launched <a href="http://www.heatradio.co.uk">Heat Radio</a>. Well, that should probably be re-launched as a non-stop music version's been on-air for about two years. The launch at 2pm today, is the culmination of a re-jig of EMAP's multiplex network, resulting in the appearance of 'Heat Radio' in more places around the UK and at a slightly more ear-palatable bitrate, if you're interested in that sort of thing. It also has, shock horror for an EMAP digital radio station, actual live presenters.

They're also integrating tightly with the <a href="http://www.heatworld.com">Heat World</a> website and connections with Heat Magazine editorial staff. It's actually surprisingly speech heavy with 1 minute entertainment news every fifteen minutes (well, at the moment anyway) alongside interview clips and general presenter chatter.

It's as you'd expect quite girly with the music pitched as a slightly more credible Heart.

They're also doing a good job of integrating this show's only commercial sponsor - Diet Coke (Heat has just five premium sponsors across the station) in a sailing close to the programming code kind of way. 

It will be interesting to see if it can keep the momentum. 

Smooth Radio have just announced that they're due to launch Smooth Radio North East at the beginning of January. In the article there's a quote from the new PD, Kevin Howard: "the latest listening figures for the brand across the country were very impressive and I’m sure that the new Smooth Radio in the north-east will replicate that success next year."

It will be interesting to see if the station does indeed manage a good launch. If it does it will buck the trend of pretty much every other station that's launched since 2005. Nearly all of which have significantly undershot their launch projections.

I think much of this is down to the amount of media noise is around. In ye olde days there was a certain excitement when a new station appeared. Today, in the mult-channel world no-one really cares. 

There's been a great deal of discussion recently about EMAP demerging its business or selling off chunks to anyone with a large enough cheque.

The nature of EMAP's business is going to make that difficult for whoever's going to cast an eye over the main consumer brands. 

EMAP has led the way in producing cross-platform entities, all of which reinforce each other. Would Smash Hits Radio do (apparently) so well, if there wasn't a TV station that supported it? What happens to the support Heat magazine is giving the relaunched Heat Radio if they go their separate ways?

In an ideal world the buyer would scoop up all the branded bits together, for Kerrang this would include the magazine, website, events, TV and radio - but are the potential buyers - GCap, GMG and Global have all been mooted - really geared up to run all of those different businesses? And if they stretch their core competencies will the brands they've paid handsomely for start to lose their value.

There is also a fly in the ointment with regards the TV channels. EMAP has of course just flogged off half of the TV operation (The Hits, Smash Hits, Kerrang, The Box, Kiss, Magic, Q) to Channel 4. EMAP's had enough trouble keeping each of the platforms 'on brand' and that's when they own them all, it's going to be hugely difficult when these are all owned by separate companies.

Interesting to read about the new line-up for 'Gold' - the combination of Capital Gold and Classic Gold. Is it just me, or is it odd that a station called 'Gold' as a silver logo?

The BBC today made its seventeenth apology to the public today, this time over the beta launch of iPlayer.

A spokesman said “we are sorry that we misled licence fee payers into thinking it was a useful service that actually worked”.

The player, which has been in development for twenty-seven years, beta launched on Friday, to a collective sigh from UK users (and Americans using proxy servers).

The service uses a revolutionary “throw a six to start” installation mechanism that is only ever one more username and password away from being able to actually download the BBC Three DanceX extra show.

“We believed that adding in extra barriers like limiting which browser you can use, throwing in random ActiveX controls and making you close down and re-open the application and your browser, multiple times, would actually increase the excitement about using the iPlayer” added one of the 796 people working on the project.

Radio 1’s Newsbeat Editor, Rod Mackenzie blogs about the backlash to the BBC’s announcement that they’re introducing a 60 to 90sec bulletin at 8pm. I think it’s an interesting move by the Corporation, especially as it’s very much an additional piece of output for the network for an audience they don’t currently reach with news.

It’s also a piece of 'content' that suits the on-demand world. A short bulletin of this type strongly suits web-based viewing and video podcasting. It will build a nice '‘brand' on linear television, something that will become a bit more front of mind when viewers are on the web.

Also, from a channel-flow angle it will make the BBC stick out from the other commercial networks. It will act as a bridge for Eastenders and other 7.30pm fodder to the shows at 8pm. Its point of difference and its regularity might, in fact, help the BBC keep audiences watching for longer periods of time, especially at junctions whilst other commercial channels are airing ads.

Will we see some junction juggling by the commercial channels, once again? 

Interesting to see that GCap have reduced the distribution of some of their brands today by taking five off radio stations off the digital television platforms.

Perhaps unsurprisingly Core and Life - the stations that the firm declared they were 'ceasing investment' in earlier this year have disappeared as has Classic Gold (the station they're in the process of merging with Capital Gold) and Capital Disney (which was shut down last month).

What is a little surprising though is that agency favourite Chill has been removed from the TV platforms. It will be interesting to see how it affects RAJAR for the station, which has seen its audience nearly double in the past 12 months. The listeners are not happy on their MySpace page, that's for sure.

For any media owner, balancing the spending on platforms is difficult, especially when your product is still in a growth phase and platform attribution is to hard to get a handle on. The danger, however, is removing the places where your audience wants to receive you. Users are getting used to being able to consume the media they want on any platform they want. If barriers are suddenly erected to stop users getting to this content, they’ll probably just look elsewhere, but will they remember come back?

Surely, in the digital world media operators should be removing barriers to content not creating new ones?