Tapeless and Wireless - R U HD?
| 20:02 UK time, Monday, 11 February 2008
The Â鶹Éç is by definition not afraid of what you might call social engineering. The organisation was founded on the idea that 'we know best' - in the nicest possible way, of course: Lord Reith's plan for the Â鶹Éç when he became the first Director General was to "educate, inform and entertain". In that order.
You can see why the organisation became known as Auntie...
In 1982, it launched the Â鶹Éç Micro, an affordable computer which "was the starting block for many of today's highly-paid programmers."
Now the public service remit is giving the Â鶹Éç charge of the future again, at least in Britain. I'm referring to the future of broadcasting, because two items of news today prove that, right or wrong, the Â鶹Éç is shaping the future of media because it's big enough to do so and because commercial concerns find it hard.
So, our Head of Future Media & Technology (whose enthusiastic department has helped relaunch this blog so you won't hear anything bad about him from me) has announced a move away from tape in television to recording on memory card - those thin little chips you put in your MP3 player and digital camera.
Auntie's buying power and creative power means that technology companies will get a boost from this decision, putting even more effort into researching and developing devices that will make the most of the digitization of media of all kinds. I think this means some exciting integration of different media disciplines and hope I can get my head round the possibilities.
The other important decision announced today was taken by a commercial company, the radio network GCap Media. Their new chief executive has decided that too few people are listening on digital radio, DAB here and HD radio in the US, for there to be any profit in it. And so two of GCap's digital only stations, The Jazz and PlanetRock, are to close. The Â鶹Éç, on the other hand, is doing well with digital radio and plans to continue supporting the new technology.
And how new is it, anyway? It's been around for something like a decade and while the receivers were rare and expensive three years ago they now sell in supermarkets for a few pounds. As a former presenter on the forerunner to The Jazz, JazzFM, which itself was closed because it was said to be 'uncommercial', I am sad that what is a very important music form is once again to be relegated to a few hours a week on the Â鶹Éç.
Or maybe Auntie will take that task on too? There may not be a lot of jazz fans but they're a passionate and well-heeled bunch so they will lobby hard for their own full time station.
Some of ou listening to World Update use HD radio - in Washington DC you have no choice at the moment. If you're in that situation, please use the comments box to let me know about your technical and listening experience.
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