Unit 9 AO4 Distribution Technology

Distribution Technology

This is about how technology has evolved so that we can have access to radio programmes.

Podcasts are things that an audience will subscribe to. Once they have subscribes, the device they are using searches on the internet for any episodes and automatically downloads them for you.

Radio is moving onto mobile. There are now mobile apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry phones where you can download what radio station you want to listen to. This allows listeners to have the radio wherever they are.

People can also get radio as well as BBC stations through their television. If you have Freeview, Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media then you will have access to radio stations through your TV. There will be no picture on your screen, but you will get the sound.

BBC iPlayer can work on a variety of different devices. You can watch it on your TV through a console (Wii, PS3 and Xbox). Most of Apple’s products can go onto iPlayer too. The iPhone, iPod and iPad have their own App for iPlayer, which is mainly to catch up on programmes. There is also another app which is dedicated to radio and allows you to listen to stations live from your phone. SMART TV’s also give you access to the BBC iPlayer.

Sky and Virgin Media have their own Anytime or Catch up applications as well as iPlayer. This gives their customers a wide range of programmes to catch up on. BBC iPlayer has programmes as well as radio stations.

Capital FM

I will be looking at the different ways that Capital FM makes their content available to everyone. I am looking at this commercial station because I have currently been looking at the BBC which is funded by the licence fee payers. I will be looking at this station to see how they make their content available to the public by funding themselves through advertising.

Capital makes their content available to a wide variety of technology. You can listen to the station via FM radio or digital radio. The station is also available on TV. With a Freeview box, you can listen to the station but on Sky and Freesat, Capital has their own channel that plays music videos. This channel is not connected to the radio station.

Everyone can also listen to the station via their phones. Some phones can listen to the radio from a signal that is in the headphones. Other phones like the iPhone, Android or BlackBerry have apps that are connected to the internet streaming the content from the station.

Then again, there is also the obvious alternative to listening to the radio. Capital FM has their own website where you can catch up on the latest programmes or listen live.

Streaming and Download Figures

The BBC has records of how many people stream radio programmes and download podcasts from their website. It is information that is based on the site usage and has information taken only from the UK. Most of this information is conducted through computer IP addresses which all have a regional code that shows that they are within the UK.

Site Usage

This information was recorded by gathering all the IP addresses that went on the iPlayer website that are situated within the UK. These figures are for all networks of BBC’s Radio and Music. The information gathered showed that:

§   In March 2012, 5,284,334 addresses were found to have been average unique weekly browsers’. This information is sometimes counted as two people if a PC and Phone is used because there is two different IP address.

§   In April 2012, 4,752,612 addresses were found to have been the ‘average unique weekly browsers’. This had gone down by 531,722 which means that the number of people using the site has decreased. One of the reasons why this has gone down could be because Easter is second most popular holiday period of the year. That might explain the decrease in listeners.

Radio 1

This station may not be the most popular station out of all BBC Radio, but seem to have the highest monthly live stream requests. These live stream requests are recorded from the amount of people that listen to the radio live online. This is also recorded by any other activity on Radio 1’s section of the website.

The reason why Radio 1 has the most listeners is mainly because of teenagers. They have plenty of access to the internet through computers and their other gadgets. The difference between radio 1 and Radio 2’s websites is immense. Radio one has a scrollable playlist of all the songs they have just played, complete with album art. Radio 2 however, only have 5 different tabs, a link to listen live online and a few links to related content. This shows that there is not much movement on the website and the listeners are not really interactive.

Download and Podcast Figures

Podcasts are short programmes that you subscribe to and receive new downloads for automatically every day or week. Whenever there is a new podcast from the subject or programme you subscribed to, you will automatically receive the new podcasts.

There is also information on the popularity of podcast downloads. From what I can see, Radio 4 has the most downloads. This is mainly because that they are popular for their speech programmes as well as the fact that they don’t play music. Their remit does not contain any music, mainly a mixed speech service.