Tag: Bauer Media group

Posted on

UK: BBC EXITS RADIOPLAYER

A message that appears on RadioPlayer when trying to tune in to one of the BBC stations
Source

Despite being one of the founding members of the British streaming platform, the British public broadcaster has removed its radio channels from RadioPlayer since January 2023. Listeners now only have to use ‘BBC Sounds‘, which is available as an app and can be accessed on the web in a special area of the British broadcaster’s official website. Retaining control of content with a proprietary app is a trend that is spreading especially among large broadcasters. In the UK, it was already put into practice by Global (owner of seven stations including Radio Capital, Heart Radio, Classic FM, and LBC), which created its own ‘Global Player‘ in 2017, while Bauer Media Group (owner of 150 radio brands in nine countries) has never directed listeners to the UK streaming platform.

The company is doing just fine! (but has few radio stations)

The home page of the Luxembourg version of RadioPlayer shows ten broadcasters. We tried browsing through the menus to see if there were any others but to no avail
Source

The founder and CEO of RadioPlayer downplays. On the contrary, he raises the bar: Michael Hill says that the company is booming (the nineteenth foreign office was opened in March, with the launch of the app in Luxembourg). The platform, which claims to contain the best of radio, hosts the most important networks and commercial radio stations. These, however, are only a fraction of the stations that exist in each country. Two examples: in Luxembourg, you can listen to only ten, half of which belong to the RTL Group. In Italy, there are over 1100 active radio stations, but with RadioPlayer, you can listen to 125 of them, which is just a bit more than 10% of the mentioned number. This also includes 107 radio stations that only broadcast on DAB.

Written by Fabrizio Carnevalini

Posted on

FINLAND: Community radio in crisis

The notice on the site of Pispalan Radio informing about the takeover of Radio Pooki on the frequencies of the station
The notice on the site of Pispalan Radio informing about the takeover of Radio Pooki on the frequencies of the station
Source

The exit from the scene of one of the last community stations in Finland is analyzed by Medamonitori, a site about Finnish media, which takes stock of the situation of community radios in the country. Pispalan Radio, which used to broadcast on 99.5 MHz near Tampere, has leased the frequency from July 2021 to Radio Pooki, a music channel of the Bauer Media Group (leader in Europe with more than 57 million weekly listeners in eight countries), which will use it until the end of the license period, expected in 2029.

The article includes a brief fact sheet on the last seven community radio stations still operating in Finland, one of which, as of 2020, continues online only
Source

According to Tero Toivonen, curator of the site, Pispalan Radio has lasted a long time on the airwaves, despite the difficulties in finding volunteers, thanks to the good coverage of the south and south-east area of Tampere (the country’s third-largest city with over 220,000 inhabitants). But the difficulty in finding those willing to “do radio” precipitated the crisis and Pasi Komsi, a co-founder of the radio station and editor-in-chief, resigned himself to closure. Toivonen, however, points out the contradiction that prompted an association radio station to lease the channel to a commercial station.

Translate »