The full programme for this year’s Radio Festival has been announced by the Radio Academy, and there’ll be reliable wifi at the event for the first time.
Uk Radioplayer say they will be showing off a new prototype hybrid radio set at the Festival too – which allows listeners to pick a station regardless of platform, with the set choosing the strongest signal from FM, DAB or Internet radio. Michael Hill, Managing Director of Radioplayer who will demonstrate the product, said: “The future of radio isn’t FM or DAB or Internet – it’s all of them, working together seamlessly. But that doesn’t mean radios have to be complicated. We built this prototype to show that they can be powerful AND simple.”
Michael will demonstrate the product in a session on Tuesday afternoon at the Radio Festival in Salford. Radioplayer say they are talking to manufacturers about getting the prototype into production.
Wifi access
BBC R&D, Nexus Globalnet, Arqiva and Absolute Radio’s One Golden Square Labs team have made it possible for free, unlimited high speed wi-fi to be available throughout the Radio Festival this year, including Monday’s Techcon and Wednesday’s Foot In The Door sessions. Clive Dickens, Chair of the Radio Festival, said: “This year’s Festival will be the most connected we’ve ever had. We have made sure that delegates have the best and fastest free wi-fi connection possible. We understand that the internet is an essential resource during the Festival, especially for receiving and posting the most up-to-date social information while sessions are taking place.”
Full programme
The Radio Academy has published details of all the sessions taking place at the Lowry Theatre in Salford next week. It begins with TechCon on Monday morning and concludes with Foot In The Door on Wednesday. The main Radio Festival events take place from Monday afternoon until Tuesday evening and include a Masterclass from Jeremy Vine, the 6 Music John Peel Lecture given by Billy Bragg, and the Hall of Fame Dinner which will see Danny Baker, Margherita Taylor, Helen Mayhew and Sandy Toksvig inducted as legends of the radio industry.
The main sessions at the Festival this year feature speakers from across the industry including Richard Park, Tim Davie, Stephen Miron, Ben Cooper, Steve Lamacq, John Myers, Frank Skinner and Pete Waterman. There’s also a chance to hear from companies including Twitter, Spotify and Universal Music and how their businesses fit with our industry.
In addition, the Radio Academy’s 30 Under 30 list of rising stars will be announced at this year’s festival on Tuesday morning.
A limited number of tickets are still available – see the Radio Academy website for more details. And if you can’t get to the festival, there’ll be full coverage on Radio Today Live with Arqiva – we’ll be posting videos, pictures and tweets at radiotoday.co.uk/live
Posted on Friday, November 9th, 2012 at 11:29 am by RadioToday UK