Last week the Telegraph published a seemingly unconfirmed story about the BBC launching a music streaming service. There was talk of potential partnerships with Spotify and iTunes, and the vast BBC archive being made available online – potentially for free, due to the unique way the Beeb is funded.

This morning the BBC made an announcement that may have been the cause of these rumours. As is usually the case with rumours, they were a little wide of the mark.

The BBC has launched a new service called iPlayer Radio, which wraps all radio content previously featured on the regular iPlayer into a brand new iOS app and desktop interface. This means all radio content will be pulled from the existing iPlayer, effectively creating two iPlayers – one for TV and one for radio.

Users can choose to either listen live to any of the BBC’s radio stations, or catch-up on previously aired content. The iOS app has some cool features, including a fancy looking spin-dial interface, the ability to share tracks being played, and an alarm clock that will wake you up with your favourite show (although if you don’t leave the app open when you nod off the alarm won’t sound, which could cause a few late mornings).

An Android app is reportedly to follow; some issues with Flash mean development has been slower. This is the same sort of issue that prevents Nexus 7 users getting the iPlayer officially through Google Play (but there is a cheat). Windows Phone and BlackBerry apps are far from top of the development agenda, but users of those devices can still get access the new service through their mobile web browser according to general manager for programmes and on-demand Daniel Danker.

So it’s not the revolutionary ‘BBC enters on-demand streaming market and puts back-catalogue online’ announcement you might have expected.  However, it does confirm the Corporation sees a distinct difference between what is needed for on-demand TV streaming and catch-up, and what listeners want from their online radio.

There’s a hint this development has been driven by the increasing use of the iPlayer by mobile and tablets users. The press release noted the Beeb has seen monthly iPlayer requests for radio increase 56% and 300% on mobile and tablet respectively year-on-year.

This doesn’t mean that the proposed Playlister is off the cards. The rumour was any such service would launch later in 2012 or early 2013, so the new iPlayer Radio could be a prelude to something much, much bigger from the Beeb.   

@simonhill

The Telegraph ran an interesting, and seemingly unconfirmed, story this morning regarding a new music service from the BBC, called ‘Playlister’.

It’s billed as a ‘music equivalent’ of the iPlayer, making tracks and albums available to license fee payers for free, on-demand streaming. The BBC is supposedly in talks with existing streaming services Spotify, iTunes and Deezer as potential partners to power the service. This is an effort to “side-step the problem” of licensing content from record labels and artists.  

This seems strange, iTunes, Spotify and Deezer are all primarily direct to consumer. 7digital* would be a more logical partner, given the company has an API that allows partners to build digital music download and streaming services and already works with hundreds of partners, Samsung, HTC and Toshiba to name a few.

Going down the partner route is a wise approach for the BBC. It can take a long old time to negotiate licensing deals with individual majors, independent labels and collection societies – even with the clout of the BBC behind you. If the service is to launch in late 2012/early 2013, a partnership seems like the only option - unless negotiations are already near complete.

More interesting is what music catalogue Playlister could potentially offer. The Telegraph’s piece simply says access to “hundreds of thousands of music recordings”, but also notes the BBC has planned to offer a “vast archive of music recordings public in the past, but has always run into trouble clearing the rights.”  

So there’s two potential catalogues on the table; one of major label content that could be supplied by a partners and a second of the BBC’s own recordings. There must be a ton of live and ‘unplugged’ style BBC recordings just waiting to be unearthed, which would align to the BBC’s strategy with iPlayer. If this is the plan, what do they need Spotify at all?

As is usually the case with early-days stories, the plan is still being hammered out. The Telegraph notes details are still being “formulated” and  the BBC’s official comment is a polite ‘no comment thanks’, “The BBC is regularly in conversation with digital music providers about how we strengthen radio’s position as the number one place for discovering music in the UK”.

It all sounds very early on, but if Playlister goes ahead this could be a big boost for music streaming – giving it the same shot in the arm the iPlayer gave on-demand TV in 2007. Rock on BBC.

* disclosure: my company represents 7digital

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report has revealed there’s something of a mix future for online news journalism and paid content.

Three-quarters of Brits read news everyday – which is low

According to the survey findings, based on a poll of 6,000 people from the UK, US, Germany, France and Denmark (so when I say ‘rest of the world’ that’s sort of not at all true), around three quarters of us Brits access news every day. ‘Access news’ meaning either watching TV, listening to radio, reading it online or in good old fashioned inky finger newspapers.  

Not a bad stat, but compared to the Germans we’re lagging behind. 90% of our Deutschland friends are accessing news on a daily basis. We’re also lagging behind the Denmark, the US and France.

Source: Reuters, via BBC News Online

Celebs vs politicians

But maybe it’s about the quality of news read, rather than quantity? Actually, no.

According to the BBC’s abridged reporting of the survey, us Brits are far more into celeb news (that is gossip, film and music) than political news. 21% of readers in the UK are hungry for celeb-centric stories, compared to 16% in the US, 14% in France and Germany and a miniscule 9% in Denmark (although to be far, I can’t name a Danish celeb).

The BBC attributes (blames) this on sites like Mail Online, Holy Moly and Female First.

In comparison, 37% of UK readers were interested in political news. This sounds good, until you compared it to the US’s 63%.         

Future is bright for online journalism and the social media savvy

The upside to this, from the future of journalism perspective, is UK users are more likely to find news online than anywhere else – 82% of those snap-shotted in the survey had read online news in the last week.

More good news for online comes in the social media usage and discovery stats. On average, 20% of readers are now likely to find a story through social media sites (Facebook and Twitter named specifically). For younger readers, those tweet posting / status updating whipper-snappers, this goes up to a whopping 43%. More exciting still, social media collectively surpasses search engines as a source – take that Google News.

Mixed results for paid content

Sadly, one of the lowest numbers in the entire report is the percentage of UK readers willing to pay for news online: just 4%. It’s not much better elsewhere, the highest figure came from Denmark and barely broke into double figures at 12%.

Its better news for those who’ve looked into a tablet app as well as a website – 21% of tablet owners have paid for news. As always this is always a slightly skewed statistic. Tablet owners tend to be at the upper end of the affluent scale, so have more dosh to splash on digital content. I’m not sure Mail Online readers will be queuing up to pay for a tablet app ticker of celebs posing at the Wimbledon final. Never say never though. 

So while there’s money to be made and online eyeballs to be grabbed, the ball is still in the media innovators’ corner to secure the future value of news journalism. The full report can be read for free online here.

@simonhill

Good news for those fans of Sherlock and Doctor Who (and any of those other hundreds of programmes the BBC makes but are less good for SEO purposes) who also happen to own a Windows Phone – the BBC iPlayer is a comin’ to your device.

According to a Nokia staffer, the “BBC iPlayer is expected to arrive on Windows Phone within the next few weeks”. Nokia has become a sort of poster child for Windows Phone, and getting the iPlayer working smoothly through a dedicated app would be a nice tick in the box.

However, same said source also reportedly stated a similar app for Sky’s Go service won’t be ready for a “good few months”, and there’s no comment on other UK catch-up services from ITV and channels 4 and 5. Nokia could be thinking getting the BBC iPlayer on board first should attract developers from the other big players to the Windows Phone Marketplace. Which seems like a responsible assumption - but there’s more than one type of ‘catch-up’ Nokia should be concerned about.   

@simonhill

It’s that time of year again. I mean, it is that time of year of course, but also time for Google’s annual roundup of who’s been searching for what over the last 12 months. The Zeitgeist gives a rough idea of what’s been going on in the wide world, and what people have been most interested in.

Amongst the fastest rises searches were the Royal Wedding, the iPhone 5 (still to be released) and musician Adele. Not surprising, as these have all been heavy hitting news items in 2011, and naturally we’re all hitting up Google for more information.

The ‘what is’ searches (that is, searches on Google that started with ‘What is…’ or ‘What are…’ proved to be a little more abstract. Coming in at number four was ‘What are piles?’ – a strange question, given that if you are Googling it you probably have one.

More interesting than the stats is how different media are reporting on the list. It’s a bit of a given the majority of reporters will have their interest sparked, given it’s quite a fun story, it’s the end of the year/silly season and it has Google’s clout behind it. But still, everyone has a different take. Here’s some examples;

• BBC News ran with a piece headlining the Royal Wedding, but interestingly decided to focus on the second highest ‘What is…’ question, examining exactly why people have been asking ‘What is scampi?’ When I say examining, they went so far as to interview David Jarrad, director of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, to get his opinion. Sadly, he didn’t have much more of a clue than the rest of us, telling the BBC “I’m quite surprised. It has been a traditional pub grub for many decades and it remains the UK’s most popular and valuable shellfish by a long way”. That’s right, still most popular shellfish. In your face shrimps.
• In a completely different tact, the Telegraph leads with a bit of a kicking for deputy PM Nick Clegg. Seems the searches for Clegg have declined even faster than those for, um, what’s his name – the one who won X Factor last year.
• The Mail led with the most searched celebrity, Kim Kardashian. Yeah.

Check the full Top 10s below, and Google’s own Zeitgeist website is also online with the new information.

And just for the record, scampi is “the tail of a Nephrops, also known as a Dublin Bay prawn or Norwegian lobster”, in case anyone was wondering.

Fastest Raising Searches

• Royal wedding
• iPhone 5
• FIFA 12
• Groupon
• iPad 2
• Ryan Dunn
• Adele
• Minecraft
• Rebecca Black
• Ed Sheeran

Top ‘What is?’ Searches

• What is AV
• What is scampi
• What are truffles
• What are piles
• What is 4D
• What are cookies
• What is copyright
• What is Zumba
• What is iCloud
• What is probate

Headline pretty much says it all for this one. The BBC is updating its iPlayer mobile apps to allow users to view TV content on their iPad, iPhone or Android device over a 3G network.

Sounds likes like a very obvious thing to do, and maybe one you thought the Beeb already offered? Not so. In fact content playback on Android and iPad devices has, until now, been restricted to wireless connections only – the idea being to keep up the quality of viewing, keep data bills down and, probably most importantly, reduce the strain on the operators’ networks.

This is all in the past, according to a post on the BBC Internet Blog. David Madden, iPlayer mobile executive product manager, said “We have worked closely with the network operators… We have also done a lot of work to improve the playback experience on portable devices and have rolled out HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) video infrastructure for the apps, which uses adaptive bitrate technologies.”

Good things, those adaptive bitrate technologies. Imagine the strain on the cell network if everyone suddenly decided to stream the final of Strictly or Eastenders Christmas special - it boggles the mind.

Paid Content points out this is all part of the build up to the BBC’s coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games, which will have a serious mobile component.  All good in theory, but chances are you’re going to see a serious network slowdown next summer, especially during events where Team GB is tipped for gold.

Of course, that’s not very many. But watch out for rowing, sailing and pretty much any sport that thrives in wet weather. We’re all over those.

So, the BBC is making cut backs across online, reducing budget by a quarter and making 360 redundancies.

At the same time, the iPlayer apps for iOS are on the verge of being completed. Speculative rumour has it, the iPad and iPhone will be covered by the end of February.

The Guardian tells us the cost of developing its own iPhone news app is high, so high the clever accounting types have introduced a subscription to cover ongoing development. Developing a news app and adapting the iPlayer to mobile devices are two different things, but presumably the iPlayer app development is also costly. With 12 months and counting between announcement and release, it’s not much of a leap to think there’s been a few hiccups on the way. And hiccups cost money.

With the online budget getting chopped, is the Beeb investing in a mobile Internet future because outgoing Erik Huggers and his ilk see mobile media consumption surpassing online? Could be. The one downer to their plan: with a 12+ month development lead on an iPhone app, how long will it take to get iPlayer up on Android and other mobile OSs? I’d start working on it now boys.  

After yesterday’s extensive amount of social networking Christmas joys, there is yet more Christmas activities going on over at that there Facebook.

Some clever elvish tikes from Yomego have come up with a wee bit of code that analyses Facebook and Twitter posts containing the word ‘Christmas’ to give a real-time indication of what the (Christmas celebrating) world at large is asking for this yule-tide, errr….time.

“People want everything from iPads to a divorce,” Steve Richards, head of social media agency Yomego, told the BBC. Which I believe indicates a clear correlation between iPads and divorces…if you squint at it.

Aside from being a nifty use of passive social network crowdsourcing (I’ve decided to make that a thing), it’s lovely to see some of the highest ranking wishes are to simply spend time with other people. Some of these are family, others are more specific. For example, spending the belly-stuffing day with Angelina Jolie - naughty boys (and/or girls).

It’s nice to see a significant proportion of this random snap shot are putting people ahead of personal gain in these hard hit financial times in which we are entrenched. In an online world full of bullying, cyber attacks, phishing scams, ID fraud and teenage suicides, it’s reassuring to know there’s some happiness out there too.

Update: Link here, thanks to Chris

BBC political pundit Andrew Marr made some pretty bold statements while speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. Amongst other things, he declared:

“A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people.”

Strong stuff. He went on to back track slightly, saying there’s a lot of angry people in the world and some citizen journalism/blogging is “fantastic”, but also that “it is not going to replace journalism”.

It’s always fun when a mainstream journalist comments on blogging with sweeping statements. He’s right, there are a lot of angry people out there. Some of them blog. A great number of them blog about politics, which I suspect is where Andy draws much of his seemingly extremely limited experience from. But there are whole other sectors on which people choose to blog; tech, fashion, business, mothering, fathering, even bee keeping.

Some of these people are angry, some of them aren’t, but the main point to keep in mind is this. No one ever, ever said blogging would replace journalism. And if they did they didn’t mean it. Because it can’t. It was never designed to. It never will.

What it does do is give a voice to anyone and everyone who cares to partake. It doesn’t aim to replace journalism, it builds on it, using the media as a basis to inform discussion. The only difference is this discussion now happens online, as well as between friends, over the dinner table, in pubs, on the street or over a nice cup of tea (or the water cooler, if you’re American).

The sooner people get this straight in their minds, the less we’ll have angry BBC reporters calling everyone else angry, pimpled and inadequate. Won’t that be nice?

This ain’t rocket science, it’s just blogging.