Website and Internet Broadcasting
Virgin Radio launched its first website on 7 March 1996. Designed by AKQA, it hosted a live RealAudio stream, making it the first European radio station to stream 24-hours a day on the internet. The station went onto redesign the website a further six times as Virgin Radio. Streaming audio formats and presentation developed over time: QuickTime streaming was added in July 1999, an interactive media player launched in October 1999, an Ogg Vorbis stream was launched in June 2003, and HE-AAC and Ogg FLAC streams were launched in December 2009.
In 2001, Virgin Radio joined the Measurecast and Arbitron internet broadcasting measurement services. Both measurement services have since closed. In 2009, Absolute Radio started publishing its internet listening and download statistics.
Virgin Radio was also among the first to explore the opportunities for delivering its services to mobile phones. It took part in a joint venture with Ericsson in 1999 to investigate the use of third-generation mobile phone technologies for radio, launched a WAP site in 2000 and took part in a trial in 2001 with Crown Castle and Manx Telecom to explore the use of 3G phones to add interactivity to digital radio broadcasts. In 2009, Absolute Radio launched an application for the Apple iPhone and tagging for the Apple iPod Nano. In 2010 applications were released for the Amazon Kindle, the Nokia Ovi Store, the BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 and Absolute Radio was selected as a launch partner for the Apple iAd mobile advertising network.
Read more about this topic: Absolute Radio
Famous quotes containing the word broadcasting:
“We spend all day broadcasting on the radio and TV telling people back home what’s happening here. And we learn what’s happening here by spending all day monitoring the radio and TV broadcasts from back home.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)