Channel 4 Radio has launched today. Channel 4 has not made a secret of wanting to get into radio, and with a new national DAB multiplex forthcoming, everyone expects Channel 4 to want to have some part of it. They’ve obviously got a lot of programmes that they can use for radio. That includes spin-offs and repurposing television audio (e.g. Big Brother) for radio.
At the moment, the site is not really a radio station. It should really be described as Channel 4 Podasts. There are Big Brother, Lost and C4 Racing Morning Line downloads available. I’ve not listened to any of the programmes apart from part of the Lost one, but the quality is fine, with the Lost programme being presented by Iain Lee. But that’s not surprising with radio production companies including Somethin Else being involved.
However, there are a few problems with the site. First of all, it took an absolute age for me to download the one programme I chose, and even then, I only got the first third of it. I couldn’t face trying to re-download it. Secondly, and more importantly, although these are effectively mp3 podcasts, it’s a bit fiddly using a podcasting client to download these programmes. You get a single RSS feed for all your C4 Radio programmes together. Why can’t I get separate ones for different programmes? Combined with the fact that I need to register, and there are a few hurdles.
Interestingly, when I look at my account settings, it records that I have Prepaid Credit of £0.00. This strongly suggests that at some point, C4 plans to sell some of their downloads. They want to be able to sell, say, the audio version of the Richard & Judy Book of the Month. That’s obviously a completely non-traditional way of selling radio (the brief excerpt I heard had no advertising or sponsor), but perhaps they’ve been enviously eyeing what Audible have done with Ricky Gervais. And it’s all the more surprising since C4 seem to be getting completely out of paid-for television with Film Four going free in a month’s time and relying purely on spot advertising. So they can’t charge a subscription for TV but they can for radio? Strange. Of course, building the facility in at the start is a smart move in terms of future-proofing the site, and the fact that the whole system is facilitated by AudioVille, a company who already run an audiobook service, might explain it.
And on a similar note, there’s a section explaining how I should download my licences and re-request my licence keys. Seems like paid-for content and DRM is definitely on the agenda, with WMA as their format of choice. That’ll work well with all those iPods then.
There is actually quite a lot of programming already up on the site, but it’s not incredibly easy to find. On the homepage you get three featured programmes and a spotlight programme. A button on the front page says I can ‘Subscribe’ to UK Lost, but once on the relevant page, I can only ‘Add to Library’. Can we have consistency throughout the site please? I don’t know whether I’ve subscribed now, or just got a sample programme to download.
Returning to the front page, I click on ‘View all stories’ (a hangover from other parts of the site, one suspects) and I get to see the same three programmes. Clicking from page to page doesn’t seem to do much. Well, it’s a new site, and they probably haven’t put much on it yet.
But they have! Click on the categories on the right and you can find plenty more content. It’s just a bit hidden. Not great UI, and it won’t help downloads.
[Incidentally, both reports I’ve now read about Channel 4 Radio, make mention of the fact that Ofcom doesn’t legislate internet radio, and that the reason C4 has gone this route is to avoid the red tape. A little bit of post-rationlisation there, especially when C4 is doing no more than many other media organisations are doing, in building a podcasting division.
Oh and memo to C4 – you don’t have to make all your programmes last half an hour. There’s an audio version of one of those “letters back and forth” things you see in print and on websites where two correspondents take opposing views in an argument and “debate” it. There’s an audio piece with Jon Holmes and Neil Ruddock taking opposing sides on the World Cup. Aside from the fact that Holmes is the wittier of the two, making it an unequal task, the thing just drags and drags. I did get to the end of the download, but had to stop listening after 10 minutes because my ears needed a rest. It doesn’t need to be 30 minutes, unless you’re planning on reusing the audio somewhere else later.]