Add a Comment

Comment by Paul Wilson on May 31, 2012 at 17:02

BBC R&D on their work in support of BBC Archives and plans to 'Open Up The Archives' also notes "an increased appreciation of the value of archives as public resources." The first of a series of 5 minute videos on the project "looks at the challenges of archives"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2012/05/opening-u...

Comment by Paul Wilson on April 20, 2012 at 17:15

More than 97% of UK radio broadcasting is today lost forever at the moment of transmission. Only the output of the BBC's national network is currently being permanently archived for future generations of researchers. Sunil Khilnani's article refers to the neglected state of India's manuscript archives but makes equally valid points about the need to leave a balanced and democratic record of our life and times.

http://www.livemint.com/2012/04/20154016/What-we-leave-for-the-futu...

Comment by Luke McKernan on April 11, 2012 at 9:44

The UK Radio Archives Advisory Committee now has a website: http://ukradioarchives.com/

"A formal advisory committee, driven by the need for proper preservation and management of UK radio archives, has sprung out of a Bournemouth University (BU) event held at the British Library.

Representatives from the BBC, BU, Ofcom, the Library’s Sound and Vision department and other organisations made the collaborative decision after thrashing out the problems, obstacles and implications the lack of formal policy has on the academic community and wider public."

Comment by Luke McKernan on March 21, 2012 at 21:54

The brave new world is getting nearer. The BBC Research & Development blog has a post on automated semantic tagging of speech audio from the World Service archive. A lot of it is specialised stuff, but essentially they are taking raw speech transcription (using open source CMU Sphinx) and matching this to a dictionary of terms using DBpedia with an algorithm of their devising. Hey presto - an indexed speech archive. Theme-searchable rather than word-searchable, but we're on the verge of opening up radio archives (and other speech archives) on a massive scale.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2012/03/automatic...

Comment by Paul Wilson on March 21, 2012 at 14:14

Radio Today Editor Stuart Clarkson gives his view on why we should "stop whinging" about the homgenisation of local commercial radio, why listeners are no longer concerned about where their favourite station is based, and why Global are not interested in having a national license for their Heart and Capital brands.

http://radiotoday.co.uk/eradio/

"...my point is simple (and yes, I am generalising): In an age of the internet, smartphones and multi-channel TV, listeners are far less bothered about where their favourite radio station is based than they were in the 70s, 80s or even the 90s...

I've heard comments before along the lines of "Ofcom should just give Heart and Capital a national frequency and let local groups have the local frequencies back to do proper local radio." If that thought has entered your head then you need to sell your house and move into the real world - and fast. Global don't want a national licence for Heart or Capital..."

Comment by Luke McKernan on March 19, 2012 at 17:38

Roly Keating on Project Barcelona (he claims that no one can remember from where they got the name):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/03/project_barcelona_do...

"... At the moment, although partners such as iTunes offer a selection of the most popular BBC titles for purchase as downloads, we estimate that more than 90% of what the BBC commissions becomes unavailable for download once it’s removed from BBC iPlayer.

We’d like to change that, and get to a point where it’s the norm, not the exception, for shows to be available for digital purchase soon after transmission, with the most comprehensive range of BBC titles being offered via a bespoke online shop ..."

Comment by Luke McKernan on March 15, 2012 at 17:32

I've been wondering why they called it Barcelona. I think you may have the answer. After Kangaroo and Canvas, it's good to see the BBC embroiling itself under a Project banner once more.

Comment by Paul Wilson on March 15, 2012 at 17:03

BBC director general Mark Thompson has announced 'Project Barcelona' (presumably a Fawlty Towers reference), a plan to make iPlayer content permanently available for online purchase. The emphasis seems to be on current TV production but there's a promise of older archive content to follow, presumably including radio. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17368514

Comment by Paul Wilson on February 21, 2012 at 13:41

In December the British Library hosted a Radio Archive Summit which brought together people from the archives, radio industry and research/academic communities to discuss the state of radio archiving in the UK. We heard about some positive initiatives by the BBC and the University of Copenhagen's LARM project to open up their archives for online research access. But the event also highlighted the alarming gap between what's now being transmitted by the 600 plus UK radio stations and what the UK's radio archives are equipped to save. Without intervention it seems likely that 50 years from now researchers will have little apart from BBC (national) network radio recordings with which to reconstruct a picture of radio in the early 21st Century. So the event concluded with an agreement to form a committee to establish the UK's radio archiving needs and to represent the case for intervention. Pleased to report that the committee, dubbed UKRAAC (UK Radio Archives Advisory Committee), was formally established at a meeting on Friday and work has already started to assemble the data and evidence needed to carry this objective forward. Your views are also needed - do you agree that the UK's radio heritage needs to be saved for future generations and if so, why?

Comment by Barnaby Green on February 21, 2012 at 12:37

Glad to have joined this group. Did my first "Radio" show recently on local station - London Fields Radio
It is part of the MixCloud network that arguably is more Podcast than Radio Show as pre-recorded and broadcast when you listen to it as opposed to "live" via streaming, something that I would like to see more of. Anyway, my show here at Create in E8

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page