Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 11:40am
You many know Radioplayer (see RAIN coverage here) is the online aggregate of radio in Britain, 315 streaming audio channels and on-demand content. It's a not-for-profit cooperative co-owned by the BBC and (most of) the UK's commercial radio industry, launched one year ago this month.
Today Radioplayer boasts seven million monthly unique users. And it represents a victory in successfully transitioning traditional media to an online platform, compared to television in the UK, says Emma Barnett, The Telegraph's Digital Media Editor.
"Where British TV companies have failed... the radio industry has genuinely managed to build a successful aggregator through clever cooperation and by focusing on the product, rather than the potential new revenue streams," she wrote. "British TV content crucially still doesn’t have a single web player."
Each participating station is given equal prominence in the player, and each displays their own advertising and content. And there is total autonomy for each contributing station. Radioplayer managing director Michael Hill credits the platform's success to "its fairness, openness and its not-for-profit status."
Radioplayer also generates revenue (which goes back into developing and improving the player) by licensing its technology. Two such improvements are the coming mobile app and an app for Internet connected television systems (more here).
Read coverage from The Telegraph here.