The app was developed by the team at Folder Media and makes it easy to listen to UK Radio from within Facebook, share your favourite stations and programmes with your friends via your wall, and see what other people in your area have been listening to.

There are now more than 250 stations in Radioplayer, many with a considerable presence on Facebook via fan pages and group pages, and they will be invited to promote and embrace the new Facebook Radioplayer app.
Michael Hill, Managing Director of Radioplayer commented: “Less than 6 months ago, we put ‘UK Radio in one place’ on your computer. Now we’re showing 30m UK Facebook users that radio is a perfect companion, while you’re chatting with friends”.

Andrew Harrison, Chairman of Radioplayer added: “These latest developments are part of a long-term strategy which will see Radioplayer form a vital component of the radio industry’s multiplatform future alongside DAB and FM.”

The app combines the data Radioplayer collects from radio stations, additional information from Media UK and mixes this with Facebook’s social graph to create a personalised radio app for all Facebook users.

The BBC and RadioCentre have been working together to create a single online radio player for all Ofcom-licensed radio stations. The idea is that stations players’ will share a similar look and feel, have common functionality and allow users to switch between stations through presets or a comprehensive search engine. If your a licensed station, there’s then only a small fee payable to RadioPlayer to to get on based on the size of your TSA.

Today at the Radio Festival in Manchester, the Managing Director of RadioPlayer demoed the new system to delegates – you can see it below. The aim is to provide a player that encourages online listening, makes it easier for listeners and creates a great online radio experience. The infrastructure for the system is now in place and some big radio stations have committed to ensuring when people press ‘Listen Live’ it will better reflect their brand and be a great listen.

The first key partners – Global Radio, BBC and GMG – working with the RadioPlayer team have created a way to collect data from radio stations – station, now playing and schedule information – as well as designing interesting web-style content for the player window.

At Folder, we think RadioPlayer’s going to be a game-changer and it’s going to be driven by the user. The online radio experience for most stations is quite poor, it’s confusing and everyone does something different. The current on-line listening share is surprisingly small – there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be higher.

However, what the big radio groups have been doing is sorting out their now playing data, making sure the schedule is up to date and integrating on-demand and listen-again. The stations that do well in RadioPlayer are the ones that look good and have good searchable data.

RadioPlayer’s potential for smaller stations is huge. Search and presets will allow smaller stations to be findable and returned to more often. However to do this small stations need the tools to punch above their weight and deliver on the promise.

Today, Folder Media and All in Media are announcing that we’re going to provide some free tools to update stations metadata. We’ll hook up your playout system, give you access to update your schedule through the web and provide a player window that’s attractive –and we’ll do it for free.

It will give any station that’s able to be part of RadioPlayer the ability to compete with the big boys. Once you get going and we start seeing how listeners are using it, we can then also help you to enhance the service and generate revenue for you station.

To register your interest, email radioplayer@foldermedia.co.uk and we’ll be in touch. And anyway, what have you got to lose – it’s a free offer!

FUN radio is a station for children under 10 and their families that broadcasts nationwide on digital television and www.funradiolive.com and on DAB Digital Radio in London. Over 60,000 adults and 130,000 children tune in to the station every month and it has a well trafficked website.

The station was acquired from principal shareholders GCap Media and Hit Entertainment. Both parties are however still interested in supporting the station with GCap’s content division, Creation, continuing to manage the day to day operation of the station’s programming. Hit Entertainment will continue to use FUN radio to promote its brands and activities.

Folder Media’s Creative Director Matt Deegan says “Fun Radio is a successful little radio station that is well loved by a growing audience. Its audience size, when ranked alongside childrens’ magazines shows it to be a great choice for advertisers wanting to reach young parents and their children. We’re very excited about it joining the Folder family.

Folder Media’s Managing Director Gregory Watson says “Fun Radio has the opportunity to be a truly multi-platform radio station with multiple touchpoints for listeners and advertisers. It is underpinned with a strong audience on DAB Digital Radio in London and will continue to be served by the growth in DAB penetration. Whilst the internet and digital television are great for reach, it is hours that provide the inventory for our partners and it is our DAB listeners that deliver those”

Traffic Radio is a network of six radio stations that are broadcast to over 30 English DAB Digital Radio multiplexes, streamed online at www.trafficradio.org.uk and through occasional FM and AM RSLs (restricted service licences).

From July 1st the consortium will be responsible for all aspects of the Traffic Radio service from collecting the travel information, getting travel presenters to record it, assembling each of the stations and then distributing it to the various platforms.

Folder is responsible for all of the transmission and distribution elements of the service. This has necessitated us talking to all of the multiplex operators, arranging installation of the multiplexing gear, building a new website and arranging up a hosting and streaming provider. We’re also responsible for organising and managing the RSL programme and providing up-to-date transmission reports about all of the broadcast activity.

All of these different elements mean we’ve identified and worked with a cross-section of external suppliers, all of whom can bring their particular expertise to the project.

The first thing we tend to do is sit down with client and what the station is, who is likely to listen to it and how they’re planning to reach them. It’s a good test to see what sort of focus our client has and allows us to help them better.

The second thing we do is work through their finances. We’ve already modelled countless radio stations in Excel form and we can work through what their requirements are likely to be. This covers everything from office square-footage to presenter wages and allows us to put together a full business plan.

This helps us better identify what their funding requirement is likely to be and what sort of revenue they will likely need.

Funding is also directly related to the platforms that a new radio station can afford to broadcast on. As part of our work we talk about the different costs of carriage on DAB, Satellite or whatever. We also run through what affect the platform has on music licensing and other ancillary costs.

Developing this full business plan for our clients then allows them to go off to their own funders and have a better idea of how their station can then become a reality.

The next stage is the platform negotiation. We already have relationships with most of the platform vendors and can help clients understand what a good deal looks like and what’s expected of them form a contractual basis.

The next stages are then to physically build the radio station and get the systems set up to allow them to operate effectively.

This is one of a number of new local radio multiplex licences planned to develop DAB coverage for services in those parts of the country not already served. This licensing process will lead to a significant expansion in digital radio services throughout the UK.

MuxCo Wales Limited is proposing to provide three local digital sound programme services, in addition to BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru. MuxCo Wales Limited also proposes to provide “a wide selection of podcasts provided by a range of companies”.

Ofcom estimates that this licence could achieve coverage of an area with an adult (aged 15+) population of around 460,000.

10% of all UK radio listening is currently undertaken through DAB Digital Radio. Isn’t it about time your station was also broadcasting on DAB Digital Radio?

Folder Media has just turned a year old, which surprised us all as we still think of ourselves as a new company.

Looking back over the first year though, we’re very pleased with what we’ve accomplished in such a small period of time. I think as with most start-up’s you’re never exactly sure about the scope of what your new business will be. We always knew that MuxCo would form a big part of it, but we’re pleased how our activities have grown into the six areas that you can see on the right hand side.

We also think that those six things set us apart from many other ‘radio consultants’ in the UK with the key difference being that we don’t concentrate on traditional radio programming. There are lots of very good consultants who can help with morning shows or Selector, but we think for stations to be successful in today’s modern world it’s important that groups get the right digital strategy sorted out and build the correct listener marketing tools to ensure they can do well from ‘new’ revenue sources straight away.

We’ve been spending quite a bit of our time on DAB related projects at the moment and not only through our multiplex management responsibilities. We’ve had lots of enquiries from people wanting more information about going onto DAB multiplexes. It’s always easy to be distracted by some changes from the larger groups, but we’re seeing for new operators that DAB’s 10% radio share and growing penetration make it a viable business for new entrants. We think 2008 will be the year of new entrants for DAB.

Many of our client relationships start with a phone call. Whatever you project, give us a call, and we’ll happily talk through some options and how we can help you.

Earlier today Ofcom announced that it was awarding the DAB digital multiplex licence for North Yorkshire to MuxCo North Yorkshire Ltd, a joint venture between Folder Media’s MuxCo Ltd and The Local Radio Company plc (TLRC). The multiplex is the first TLRC has been involved with and will ensure that its radio stations Minster FM, Stray FM and Yorkshire Coast Radio will be available on DAB Digital Radio. The multiplex is set to launch by June 2009.

Folder Media is also announcing today that it has appointed Nicky Tate as Operations Manager. Nicky is leaving GCap Media, where she was the Multiplex Manager for their digital multiplex network – NOWdigital, to join Folder Media.

Gregory Watson, Folder Media’s Managing Director, commented “Nicky is the UK’s most experienced multiplex manager and we are delighted she is joining Folder Media to mastermind the launch of MuxCo’s multiplexes. She will also play a central role as Folder Media continues to deliver more services to our radio clients.”

Nicky Tate added “With three digital multiplexes already in the bag and a raft of new multiplex applications, Folder Media is really driving digital radio forward. “I’m looking forward to helping Folder Media’s clients reap the benefits from digital radio and new media opportunities”.