Podcasting & Commercial Radio
Head of New media strategy at Virgin Radio
wearing a firefox t-shirt so obviously one of us!
four stations in the brand portfolio: Virgin Radio, Xtreme, Groove, Classic Rock.
Thinks that ‘amateur’ is the wrong word for podcasting.
One station, one platform => one station many platforms.
Right now 26 differnet platforms, all sorts of internet ones plus cable tv & fm & am etc
Nothing new in portable audio distribution – 1958 transistor radio – the difference is that we can now get things that we want, when we want them. Virgin first to create a daily podcast in March.
Chop out the music, partly because of rights, but also because the personailities are what people want to hear (sounds like a lame excuse to me – do people really want this stuff?) but it’s still full of timechecks. 85,000 downloads a month?! who?
Announcing today for October ‘best of the guests’ and unsigned bands on Xtreme…and possibly Vic Reeves – Big Night in on Wednesday – going to wait and see how that one might turn out..
limited advertising within each podcast eg Special Constables, Orange, Mastercard and Expedia. Trying to be intelligent and place carefully and relevantly (still bloody advertising though).
Shows Top Subscribed Podcasts with Pete & Geoff at No 1 before they’d actually released one.
itunes effect – before itunes 2278 over three weeks, but with iTunes 3644 in one week.
Threats: Nokia 8310, a portable music device. 77% use it to listen to FM radio. Nokia 6610 83% listening. Says this isn’t a threat to them (yeah right). Live TV and DAB stations.
41% of 6300 Virgin website users had a portable media player of which 32% had an iPod and 68% had other types.
Plays out with Pete & Geoff on Mummy, am I ugly? as example of how to raise revenue through linking in to your website (and a way of taking the piss out of your audience)
http://james.cridland.net
Q: I don’t think you get it. It’s about control. Don’t think about it simply as distribution – it’s about control of what you get, when you want it but we’re all struggling to understand what it means.
Q: Matt Gibbs, any plans for charging for podcasts or is it all ad sales. We never have charged for anything. Issues – eg can’t get round iPod DRM. We’ll be interested when we can do it.
Q: any research on when people are actually hearing them? No. Isn’t that the most important thing for advertisers though? Nearly everyone in the room listens both on computer and on a portable music player. Everyone assumes that people only listen in mobile scenario.
Q: You’re in a great position to make the point on rights to the music industry. We’re waiting for DRM.
Q: Podlisteners are expecting something else. I don’t agree. People want to hear stuff that they’re familiar with.
This is the last of three podcasts I’ve produced associated with The Policy Unplugged event at Channel 4 last week, The E Word. Fifty or so thinkers in education – without many of the usual Whitehall suspects gathered to talk about the state of education policy in the UK, to see where there was common ground and explore their differences. I was there as a host with special responsibility to help record the day and capture the essence of the conversations.
Perfect Path 