BBC's Blog, page 33

Hello, I am Andrew Scott, Head of Radio and Music and Audience Facing Services here at BBC Future Media. Today we announced the launch of BBC iPlayer Radio, previously known as the Radio and Music Product, and I'm delighted to tell you more about this new dedicated home for BBC radio across PC, mobile and tablet.

With iPlayer Radio, BBC radio is available whenever and wherever you want it, thanks to:

A new smartphone app, enabling you to wake up to your favourite BBC station and listen on the move

New radio station websites across PC, mobile and tablet, offering easy multi-platform access to the full breadth of BBC content

Improved catch-up and access to on-demand content, clips, videos and downloads

We have been working on this release for a while now, going through a number of iterations from our first release on bbc.co.uk/radio about a year ago and our beta this summer, bringing in more features each time. Our Executive Product Manager, Chris Kimber, has been posting updates throughout the process as the product has matured.

Let's take a look at some of the things that are new:

New smartphone app

We are really excited about the smartphone application. We've worked hard on the user experience, and believe that we've built an application which people will find fun and easy to use, and which we hope is just a great way of listening to the radio. The key features include:

A touchscreen dial that beautifully shows the breadth of our radio, allowing easy access to all 57 BBC radio stations and their live streams.
An alarm clock to let you wake up to your favourite BBC Radio station.

From programme pages you can enjoy catch-up content, video clips, access to our podcasts, and for music shows the details of the tracklist.

You can set programmes alerts to tell you when specific favourite shows are on.

You can favourite tracks and share them with friends via email and Twitter.

We designed and built native applications for both Android and iOS, intending to release them both at the same time. Today we've released the iOS version, Android will come soon. Learn more about the work we've been doing to support Android here. Until the Android app is released, Android users can continue to use iPlayer Radio on the mobile web. As part of this project we've also made live streams available for iOS devices for all stations. We are also keen to make the on-demand content available for the World Service, Nations and English Local radio stations and have a project in planning to do the necessary infrastructure work.

Radio station homepages


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The new BBC Radio 6 Music Homepage

We have launched new homepages for nearly all of our stations, which beautifully reflect the personality of the networks and make it easy for our users to listen live and on-demand. These sites have been exposed to the public as a beta for most of the summer. We've spent that time carefully measuring and working with our editorial partners under Mark Friend to analyse how our users engage with these sites.

We've also updated the mobile websites, usage of which has been increasing steadily: now mobile represents about 18% of our overall usage, with events like Radio 1 Hackney Weekend seeing over 30% of their traffic from mobile devices.

Now we have a platform which allows flexibility and personality for each network, but also encourages users to move between the different network sites. I look forward to building even more on this platform.

New BBC radio homepage

Our new product landing page at www.bbc.co.uk/radio is a deliberately bold move to radical simplicity. We carefully researched the way people use our sites and determined that most visitors to /radio are very task-focused - in other words, they know what they want to achieve and just want the simplest way of achieving that.

So we took these user needs and made them as simple as possible on this page.

Stations takes me through to the network homepage for each station where I can see what is on live and listen live with a single click.

Categories takes me through to the radio categories where I can browse for content.

Schedule lets me go through to the full schedule, or the detailed page for the current and next programmes.

Favourites lets me quickly find my favourite shows, a feature that we are looking to build out further over time to make this page more and more valuable for our users.

These features are so important that we have also made them available on every page of the product through our navigation bar. We are really excited to launch this simple entry point into the amazing richness of the BBC's radio content, and we are looking forward to making this ever more useful for our audiences.

This page is also our first foray into responsive design, where a single response works across all devices. This approach has been pioneered by other parts of the BBC (iPlayer, News) and brings benefits to the users, such as consistent experiences, as well as the development team, in terms of fewer lines of code to write, test and maintain. We plan to explore this further as we move forward, but are really pleased with this first step.

Summary

Altogether we are delighted to be delivering the first version of BBC iPlayer Radio, and look forward to your thoughts and comments so that we can continue to make the product better and better.

Andrew Scott is Head of Radio and Music & Audience Facing Services, BBC Future Media

The new desktop BBC iPlayer Radio sites will roll out over of the course of this afternoon, and we anticipate the iPhone app will be available to download for free from the App Store by Tuesday morning.

Antiques Roadshow Play Along
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Fiona Bruce

Demonstrate your knowledge of antiques by playing along with Antiques Roadshow. Our new valuation game is simple, fun and free to play. Consider each of the objects featured in the programme, select an option before our experts give their valuation and see how many you get right.

Play along with the BBC One programme by pressing red and using the colour buttons on your remote control to select a value.

Available on Sky/Freeview

Sun 7th October, 8:00pm-9:00pm


Strictly Come Dancing

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Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly

Press your red button to join former
Strictly champion and professional dancer Karen Hardy with celebrity friend Harry Judd as they commentate live on the couples' performances. Expect a mixture of insight and irreverence as they give you the heads up on who's hot and who's not on the dancefloor before the judges have their say.

Available on all platforms:

Sat 6th October, 6:30pm-7:45pm

Sat 13th October, 6:30pm-8:25pm


Teen Awards

One Direction, the biggest pop band in the world, return to the Radio 1 Teen Awards stage twelve months after screams for their cameo appearance almost took the roof off Wembley Arena. They're joined by Taylor Swift, Conor Maynard, Little Mix, Fun and Ne-Yo streams live from the main arena during the whole live show.

Available on all platform:

Sun 7th October, 2:00pm-5:00pm


Love to Learn

Press the Red Button to play the CBeebies Love to Learn Quiz where you can have fun with all the family learning about words and numbers with CBeebies presenters Alex and Cerrie.

The quiz features questions on a variety of CBeebies favourites including the Numberjacks, Abadas, Alphablocks, Numtums and The Lingo Show. Choc full of great clips, the quiz is just for fun but viewers can play again and again to improve their score.

The quiz will be split into two parts: Part 1 will be available from Saturday 6th October until Tuesday 9th October and Part 2 will be available from Wednesday 10th October until Friday 12th October.

For more information on all the CBeebies characters please visit: CBeebies

Available on Sky/Freeview

Sky:

Wed 10th October, 6:00am-7:00pm

Thu 11th October, 6:00am-7:00pm

Fri 12th October, 6:00am-7:00pm

Freeview:

Wed 10th October, 6:00am-2:50pm

Thu 11th October, 6:00am-7:00pm

Fri 12th October, 7:45am-12:00pm & Fri 12th October, 1:00pm-7:00pm

Dragons' Den

(L-R) Duncan Bannatyne, Hilary Devey, Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones

It's a new series and a new raft of keen entrepreneurs are about to enter the Den and make a pitch for an investment that could make their business - and change their lives.

Here on the Red Button we get to peek behind the scenes and get the inside story on the investments made in the Den each week. What attracted the Dragons to the business? What did the other Dragons make of the deals? And why did the entrepreneurs take the deal they did in the Den?

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:

Sat 6th October, 9:40pm-4:00am

Sun 7th October, 9:55pm-4:00am

Mon 8th - Saturday 13th October, 7:00pm-4:00am

Freeview:

Sun 7th October, 9:55pm-10:50pm

Tue 9th October, 12:45am-1:15am

Thu 11th October, 7:10pm-1:45am

Secret Fortune - Play Along Quiz

The National Lottery: Secret Fortune - The ultra-tense quiz show with lots of twists returns to BBC One, hosted by Nick Knowles.

Studio contestants compete to win their Secret Fortune, anything from £100 to £100,000. Press the Red Button during the show to play along at home with the contestants. What would your Secret Fortune be?

Available on Sky/Freeview:

Sat 6th October, 8:30pm-9:20pm

CBBC Extra

Press red on the CBBC channel this week and join Ben and Dodge T. Dog as they introduce exclusive clips from a wealth of brand-new CBBC goodies including Hero Squad, Wolfblood and Hoopla! Dodge also tries his paws at documentary making in honour of new show VIP People which is coming soon to CBBC!

You can also read Chris and Dodge's blog, check out the answers to some of your questions, read your horoscopes and see if the jokes that made Chris and Dodge LOL will have the same effect on you.

Go on, press red... You know you want to!

CBBC Extra website

Available on Freesat/Sky/Virgin:

Sat 6th October, 7:00am-10:00am

Mon 8th October, 7:00am-10:00am & 3:00pm-6:30pm

Tue 9th October, 7:00am-10:00am & 3:00pm-6:30pm

Wed 10th October, 7:00am-10:00am & 3:00pm-6:30pm

Thu 11th October, 7:00am-10:00am & 3:00pm-6:30pm

Fri 12th October, 7:00am-10:00am

Freeview:

Wed 10th October, 3:00pm-6:50pm

CBBC: Big Fab Extra

If you press red on your telly remote from Saturday 13th October onwards you can join superstars Chris Yonko Johnson and Dodge T. Dog for Big Fab Extra. Watch clips from your favourite Big Fab Friday shows including The Revolting World Of Stanley Brown and 12 Again. You can even check out what happened when Chris went behind the scenes of Dick and Dom's Hoopla!

And that's not all, you'll still be able to read Chris and Dodge's blog, see their answers to your questions, and check out the jokes that made Chris and Dodge LOL on CBBC Extra!

Well what are you waiting for? Press red now!

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:

Sat 13th October, 7:00am-6:00pm

Freeview:

Sat 13th October, 8:15am-2:20pm

CBeebies Red Button

BBC Red Button welcomes younger viewers and grown-ups with a sense of adventure to the big, bright and fun world of CBeebies interactive!

Your children's favourite characters are at the heart of the interactive TV experience. Satellite and digital terrestrial viewers will have slightly different offerings
from one another. This has enabled the Red Button team to offer the best games tailored to each system.

CBeebies Red Button is available on the CBeebies channel, and via page 5900 on other channels.

CBeebies website

Available on Freeview and Sky only

BBC Sport Multiscreen**

Catch up on all the latest Sport via the BBC Sport multiscreen. Headlines are available around the clock with up to five additional streams available to cover the best that BBC Sport has to offer.

Please note that Red Button sport timings are subject to change at short notice.

For the latest information refer to the BBC Sport website.

Highlights


Formula 1 - Live coverage of the Korean Grand Prix and post race analysis and debate presented by Jake Humphrey.
American Football - with the New York Jets at the Houston Texans and San Diego Chargers at the Denver Broncos.

**Note all Red Button times are subject to change at short notice

In June of this year we released a beta version of the new Radio and Music product. Since then we have received thousands of emails from users via our Feedback page, and even more people have taken the time to fill in surveys to tell us what they like and dislike about the site.

It’s been fascinating seeing people’s reactions to the new station homepages over these 4 months, watching as a number of trends became apparent. This post is a current summary of that feedback and a brief look at what we’ve done as a result.

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The Radio 4 beta homepage

"Please cut out the pretty graphics and present the info at a glance."

The key thing users have told us they would like to see improved is navigation to core pages that they are used to accessing on the existing homepages. For example, some users found it hard to get to the station schedule, the programme A-Z list, categories or on-demand programmes they wanted to listen to.

For some Radio 4 users in particular, there was confusion when the initial view of Radio 4 was the “Highlights” section, as opposed to the “On Air Now” space, meaning they found it hard to find the “Listen Live” button. Others found it hard at first to find the podcasts they were looking for.

"I like the new look, but took me a minute or two to find the listen live button."

Interestingly, research found that the most frequent users of the existing Radio 4 site found the new pages least easy to use, whilst those who were less frequent users tended to be more positive about the new designs. This was not surprising, as generally the more familiar a user is with a website, the longer it takes to get used to changes to that site.

"Got to say the beta website looks great. It is a massive improvement on the current website."

On the design front, many people liked the new layout, describing it as “modern”, whilst others felt that the overall impression was of being too dark.

"Generally, I like the difference and I particularly like the boldness and vitality added by the use of the large, simple photos and graphics."

Another key theme was that users frequently wanted to visit a programme page for relevant information, but not actually listen to the programme.

"By clicking, I just started listening to the latest episode, when what I wanted to do was to just discover more about it."

Tablet users, iPads mainly, have told us that they want to listen to live radio streams, and people who visit the sites on their smart phones have said they want to listen to stations including local radio.

We have read through all the emails and survey results, and have already introduced some changes in response. These include:

- Making the main navigation links more visible, and renaming one of these from “Programme Finder” to “Programmes” with a more clearly labelled programme A-Z underneath it.

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- Changing the way links to programme work so instead of immediately playing a programme when a user clicks on a link we take you through to the episode page for that programme.

- In the case of Radio 4, we have experimented with defaulting the site to both the Highlights and the On Air Now section, and measured the impact of both. The results (and our statistics) suggest that a significant number of users are looking for the Listen Live button, so we have improved the signposting to that end more clearly.

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Signpost to 'listen to what's on air now'

- For national stations such as Radio 2, 3 and 4 we have now enabled live listening on iPad, and have also now fixed the problem we had with playing back on-demand programmes on the same device. We are working hard to do the same for the Nations stations such as Radio Scotland, and English local radio stations, although we don’t yet have a date when this will be resolved.

We are grateful to all of you who have taken the time to share your thoughts. We continue to incorporate your feedback directly into the product, and look forward to your continued support and involvement on our journey to creating a great online radio experience.

Chris Kimber is Executive Product Manager for the Radio and Music product

I'm Tom Williams, Development Editor for red button and dual screen in BBC Vision.

Over the next few weeks, there will be some changes made to the BBC's red button service. I'd like to explain briefly what these changes are, why they are taking place and what they mean for viewers. I also want to share our exciting plans for how we are reinventing the red button for the future, bringing audiences with internet connected TV's the best BBC content, multiple video streams and interactive services by still pressing red.

What changes are being made and why?

On 15th October the video component of BBC Red Button on Sky, FreeSat and Virgin Media will be reduced from five to one stream, bringing it in line with our Freeview offer. We are doing this because these services rely entirely on linear broadcast technologies, which are not cost-effective for an interactive service like the red button. At the end of this post, I've summarised the background to the decision and provided links to relevant documents which expand on the reasoning behind reducing the number of video streams.

What does this mean for red button?

Firstly, this change in no way signals the demise of BBC Red Button. The BBC is committed to maintaining a vibrant and popular red button service. 20 million people a month press red on the BBC and our ambition is to develop the service and increase the size of our audience.

BBC Red Button will continue to support a wide range of television and radio output, from big events like Wimbledon and Glastonbury to more niche offerings such as triathlon or BBC Four's archive collections.

This autumn's schedule will be as rich as ever. We'll see the return of the Strictly Come Dancing live commentary and a new play-along game for Antiques Roadshow. BBC Sport output will include Formula One and extended coverage of UK Championship Snooker; there's more live music to look forward to from 1Xtra and Radio 2, and for children we've got a real treat from CBBC's Wolfblood.

Of course, the reduction in video streams will have an impact; we won't be able to offer the choice of coverage we have previously and big events will no longer be multi-screen on red button. This will be a disappointment for many viewers, particularly sports fans, but I'm pleased to say that content previously on red button will be available on BBC Online and we are developing new ways of bringing enhanced coverage of major events to your televisions in the future.

Reinventing the Red Button

Red button is central to our vision of the future of television. Even though video streams will be reduced on Sky, FreeSat and Virgin Media, we are reinventing red button for the future. In June this year, my colleague Daniel Danker outlined our plan to bring the best of BBC Red Button together with the best of BBC Online on your television - something we're calling Connected Red Button. This will take advantage of new web-based technologies that deliver richer, more visually-enticing programmes. New functions like 'live restart' will be introduced directly to your TV, meaning that next time you come in halfway through The Apprentice, you can simply skip back to the start of the programme. Or, if you don't like what's on, find your favourite programme in BBC iPlayer or catch up with the latest news and sport live and on-demand, all on your TV.

I believe Connected Red Button will be a real step forward for audiences and will lay the foundations for new creative opportunities; new ways of thinking about television and radio programmes.

The first version of the Connected Red Button launches later this year. Look out for more details soon.

I hope this short post gives you an understanding of the changes we're making to the BBC Red Button and gives you a sense of the exciting things to come. Our goal is to create the best possible TV experience for our viewers in a way that is cost effective and flexible, enabling us to update the service with new functionality in the future. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Background to the decision the reduce the number of video streams on red button

Changes to the BBC's Red Button services were first proposed in the BBC's Strategy Review (Putting Quality First) in March 2010, with a new BBC Online strategy, leading to a 25% reduction in spending by 2013/14. In January 2011, the BBC Trust approved this strategy. In November 2010, the BBC Trust Red Button Service Review highlighted the high cost of delivering content on multiple video streams. This review references plans by the BBC's Executive Board to reduce the service on satellite and cable after the Olympics to reduce costs.

The BBC's DQF proposals, published in October 2011, outlined plans to reduce the number of red button video streams from five to one after the Olympics. This was approved and published by the BBC Trust in May 2012.

The change to BBC Red Button requires a number of technical modifications that are happening over the next month. My colleague, Alix Pryde explains more about this on the About The BBC blog.

Tom Williams, is Development Editor for red button and dual screen, BBC Vision.

6 Music Live


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As part of 6 Music Celebrates... Live Music, we are hosting a week of very special live performances.

From Monday 1st to Friday 5th October 2012, the hallowed BBC Maida Vale studios in London will be home to radio shows from Lauren Laverne featuring live music and chat from some of the station's most-loved bands.

You will be able to join in all the fun by watching the sessions live on the
6 Music homepage and see highlights on the BBC Red Button from 7pm each evening. Plus, you can discuss the exclusive sessions in our live conversation on the 6
Music homepage.

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:

Mon 1st October, 6:50pm-6:00am

Tue 2nd October, 6:00am-6:00am

Wed 3rd October, 6:00am-6:00am

Thu 4th October, 6:00am-9:30am, 12:50pm-3:00pm, 6:50pm-6:00am

Fri 5th October, 6:00am-9:30am, 12:50pm-3:00pm, 6:50pm-8:30pm, 10:29pm-4:00am

Freeview:

Mon 1st October, 6:50pm-12:35am

Tue 2nd October, 4:40am-6:00am, 6:00am-9:50pm

Wed 3rd October, 12:10am-6:00am, 6:00am-2:50pm, 6:50pm-7:20pm, 10:10pm-6:00am

Thu 4th October, 6:00am-2:50pm, 6:50pm-6:00am

Fri 5th October, 6:00am-11:50am, 12:50pm-2:50pm, 6:50pm-8:50pm, 10:10pm-4:00am

Strictly Come Dancing


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Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly

Press your red button to join former
Strictly champion and professional dancer Karen Hardy with celebrity friends as they commentate live on the couples' performances. Expect a mixture of insight

and irreverence as they give you the heads up on who's hot and who's not on the dancefloor before the judges have their say.

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:

Fri 5th October, 9:00pm-10:00pm

Sat 6th October, 6:30pm-7:45pm

Freeview:

Fri 5th October, 9:00pm-10:00pm

Sat 6th October, 6:30pm-7:45pm

Love to Learn

Press the Red Button to play the CBeebies Love to Learn Quiz where you can have fun with all the family learning about words and numbers with CBeebies presenters

Alex and Cerrie.

The quiz features questions on a variety of CBeebies favourites including the Numberjacks, Abadas, Alphablocks, Numtums and The Lingo Show. Choc full of great

clips, the quiz is just for fun but viewers can play again and again to improve their score.

The quiz will be split into two parts: Part 1 will be available from Saturday 6th October until Tuesday 9th October and Part 2 will be available from Wednesday

10th October until Friday 12th October.

For more information on all the CBeebies characters please visit: CBeebies

Available on Sky/Freeview

Sky:

Sat 6th October, 6:00am-6:00pm

Freeview:

Sat 6th October, 6:00am-2:20pm

Dragons' Den
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Duncan Bannatyne, Hilary Devey, Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden

and Peter Jones

It's a new series and a new raft of keen entrepreneurs are about to enter the Den and make a pitch for an investment that could make their business - and change

their lives.

Here on the Red Button we get to peek behind the scenes and get the inside story on the investments made in the Den each week. What attracted the Dragons to the

business? What did the other Dragons make of the deals? And why did the entrepreneurs take the deal they did in the Den?

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:

Sun 30th September, 9:55pm-4:00am

Mon 1st October, 7:00pm-4:00am

Tue 2nd October, 7:00pm-4:00am

Wed 3rd October, 7:00pm-4:00am

Thu 4th October, 7:00pm-4:00am

Fri 5th October, 9:30pm-4:00am

Sat 6th October, 9:40pm-4:00am

Freeview:

Mon 1st October, 12:10am-4:00am

Tue 2nd October, 12:45am-1:15am

Secret Fortune - Play Along Quiz

The National Lottery: Secret Fortune - The ultra-tense quiz show with lots of twists returns to BBC One, hosted by Nick Knowles.

Studio contestants compete to win their Secret
Fortune, anything from £100 to £100,000. Press the Red Button during the show to play along at home with the contestants. What would your Secret

Fortune be?

Available on Sky/Freeview:

Sat 29th September, 8:05pm-9:00pm

Sat 6th October, 8.25pm-9:20pm

CBBC Extra

Press red on the CBBC channel this week and join Ben and Dodge T. Dog as they introduce exclusive clips from a wealth of brand-new CBBC goodies including

Leonardo, Science Fiction Shorts and Wolfblood. Hacker's also on set of Who Let the Dogs Out? and Dodge meets the stars from all-new Operation Ouch.

You can also read Chris and Dodge's blog, check out the answers to some of your questions, read your horoscopes and see if the jokes that made Chris and Dodge LOL

will have the same effect on you.

Go on, press red... You know you want to!

CBBC Extra website

Available on all platforms

Available on Freesat/Sky/Virgin:


Sat 29th September, 7:00am-11:30am

Mon 1st October, 7:00am-10:00am, 3:00pm-6:30pm

Tue 2nd October, 7:00am-10:00am, 3:00pm-6:30pm

Wed 3rd October, 7:00am-10:00am, 3:00pm-6:30pm

Thu 4th October, 7:00am-10:00am, 3:00pm-6:30pm

Fri 5th October, 7:00am-10:00am, 3:00pm-6:30pm

Sat 6th October, 7:00am-10:00am

Freeview:

Sat 29th September, 7:00am-11:45am

Mon 1st October, 7:00am-10:00am, Mon 1st October, 3:00pm-6:40pm

Wed 3rd October, 3:00pm-6:40pm

Thu 4th October, 3:00pm-6:40pm

Fri 5th October, 3:00pm-6:40pm

CBeebies Red Button

BBC Red Button welcomes younger viewers and grown-ups with a sense of adventure to the big, bright and fun world of CBeebies interactive!

Your children's favourite characters are at the heart of the interactive TV experience. Satellite and digital terrestrial viewers will have slightly different

offeringsfrom one another. This has enabled the Red Button team to offer the best games tailored to each system.

CBeebies Red Button is available on the CBeebies channel, and via page 5900 on other channels.

CBeebies website

Available on Freeview and Sky only

BBC Sport Multiscreen**

Catch up on all the latest Sport via the BBC Sport multiscreen. Headlines are available around the clock with up to five additional streams available to cover the

best that BBC Sport has to offer.

Please note that Red Button sport timings are subject to change at short notice.

For the latest information refer to the BBC Sport website.

Highlights

MotoGP. Live coverage of Moto2, Moto3 races from Aragon Spain.
Ryder Cup Golf. Listen to 5live commentary alongside live graphics and leaderboard.
American Football. Chicago Bears vs. Dallas Cowboys.

**Note all Red Button times are subject to change at short notice

I'm Roux Joubert, Head of the TV & Mobile Platforms team based in the BBC's new offices in MediaCityUK, Salford.

I am privileged to lead an amazing team responsible for building some cutting edge and award winning products, who brought you the BBC iPlayer on TV and mobile, as well as News, Sport and Red Button on emerging TV and mobile platforms.

Today the BBC iPlayer, News and Sport apps are available on an astonishing 650 connected TV devices, from internet-enabled or Smart TVs and set-top-boxes to media players and games consoles, delivering more than 45 million videos to 2 million users every month. Most recently, the BBC Sport app has been used by more than 200,000 users a day to watch the phenomenal London 2012 Olympic Games coverage on connected TVs alone, having only launched a few short weeks before.

While this is a remarkable achievement in itself, it certainly wasn't easy or straightforward, and I would like to share with you what challenges we have encountered, what we have learnt in the process of solving them and what we believe is important to consider for anyone looking at building applications for connected TVs.

The Challenge of Massive Fragmentation

From the moment BBC iPlayer first appeared on a TV for Virgin cable users back in 2008, it was clear that deploying the BBC apps on connected TVs wasn't going to be simple. It has actually been a tremendous challenge to build multiple applications, in different presentation technologies, with little or no standardisation, and across such a wide range of devices.

Some have TV tuners, some don't. Some work with remote controls, others with pointers or even voice and gesture controls. Some run HTML 3 and CSS 1, others HTML 5 and CSS 3, still others FlashLite 3.1 or Adobe AIR 3.0. Every device seems to have its own way of playing back video, and many devices have memory constraints we haven't seen on a PC or mobile phone for years, with some having to cope with as little as 1MB!

We're delighted when our audience doesn't even notice the hoops we've jumped through to deliver a graceful experience across so many devices, but the engineers among us know what a mammoth task this has been.

A big part of the challenge is perhaps surprisingly due to the emergence of browsers on connected TVs. Earlier versions of the BBC iPlayer were built in Adobe Flash or MHEG-IC (MHEG-5 is an ISO and ETSI ratified interactive TV standard used in the UK). But over the last two years, the vast majority of devices we have seen have shifted to using HTML and JavaScript (W3C standards), bringing browsers to the TV.

Now, while W3C standards include generally well understood technologies like HTML, JavaScript and CSS, building for a browser was initially the most difficult platform to engineer at scale. The problem is this: Flash and MHEG are either proprietary (the former) or a well-defined and mature industry standard (the latter), which should make it relatively simple to build an app once and deploy it to many devices. The HTML landscape, however, consists of a variety of standards rather than a single one, with many of those standards in varying stages of development. Two device manufacturers have yet to build their browsers and HTML support in quite the same way. For those familiar with building websites, imagine building a site that needs to support hundreds of different browsers, not the three or four we're used to on desktop sites today.

Scalable Architectures

The way to tackle this challenge is by approaching it from two sides: firstly by having a defined and accepted industry standard for browsers on TVs, and secondly by implementing a scalable architecture to simplify app development and deployment across the many different devices.

The first problem is that there is no widely adopted industry standard for browsers on connected TVs today. Most manufacturers do not follow any particular standard, although there are a few contenders for a new standard that are promising, such as the DBook 7 and HbbTV. The emerging DBook 7 specification - published by the Digital Television Group (DTG) - is aimed at the UK market and supports the BBC interactive technologies used in Red Button. HbbTV is backed primarily by European broadcasters and is starting to get some good traction in the industry. The BBC will continue to feed into these specifications and provide compliant applications to help make the case for greater alignment and adoption of standards.

But it can take a long time for a standard to be fully adopted. In the meantime, hundreds of new devices flood the market every year, and we want to make sure that BBC applications are available on as many of these as possible. The solution lies in decoupling the applications from the underlying device complexities.

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The TV Application Layer (TAL)

This is done by creating an abstraction layer between the applications (iPlayer, News and Sport), and the devices they are intended for (consoles, TVs, media players). This abstraction layer, which we call the TV Application Layer (or TAL), takes care of all differences between devices, such as remote control key-mapping, media player interfaces, performance, networking and storage.

This means application developers do not have to be aware of all the specifics and idiosyncrasies of each device, and can build to a common, well defined interface, safe in the knowledge that all the devices supported by that version of the TAL will be easily addressable. Likewise, when a manufacturer adds a new device to the list of BBC certified devices, all the BBC applications will become available without having to write new versions of each app.

This approach was validated again most recently when the BBC Sport application first made its appearance on a number of devices in time for the London 2012 Olympic Games, but using only a single application, integrated with the TAL. This proved that we had found an elegant solution to a very tough challenge, and one which we believe is the only way application development on connected TVs can be done at scale for the foreseeable future.

Better Standards and More Content

We hope to make our TV Application Layer available to content providers and manufacturers in the near future, and in the process help stimulate the market for connected TV applications at a time when its full potential is only beginning to be realised. In the meantime we are continuing to develop and use the TAL internally to improve the way we build apps and deploy them onto platforms, and working closely with manufacturers to improve our tools and processes.

But creating new abstraction layers to get around device fragmentation and lack of standards can only be a short term solution. To achieve real scale for TV-based applications, manufacturers need to adopt a common standard for TVs based on HTML, JavaScript and CSS, and content providers need to get familiar with the challenges of building apps on TVs and, to give the manufacturers more incentive to solve this problem. The BBC will continue to play a major role in helping to define the direction the industry is taking, as well as providing valuable insight into what makes for a good TV-based experience.

Simply Building Apps

We started off a few years ago thinking it would be easy to build apps for connected TV. We quickly realised that it wasn't, but also that we had an opportunity to make it a lot simpler for ourselves and the rest of the world to do so, while also helping the industry understand what content providers want. I believe we are making great strides in achieving both. So, the next time you watch BBC programmes on a games console, smart TV, set-top-box or media player, whether it be through BBC iPlayer, News, Sport or future Red Button services, spare a thought for the work of the BBC's TV application teams.

We've faced these challenges and made it possible for you to enjoy the BBC's fantastic programmes on your sofa in the living room on whatever device you choose, and hopefully on even more devices in the future.

I hope to build on this topic as we deploy our products onto more platforms, but in the meantime I'd be very interested in your comments on how we have built the BBC's connected TV apps. Let me know what you think.

Roux Joubert is Head of TV Platforms and Mobile, Programmes and On Demand, BBC Future Media

 

Mumford and Sons

[image error]Mumford and Sons

Mumford and Sons present the first of Fearne Cotton's Live Lounge specials from the BBC's Studios in Maida Vale, as part of Radio 1's Massive Month of Live Music.

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:
Tue 25th September, 12:00pm-1:00pm

Freeview:
Tue 25th September, 12:00pm-12:45pm

Radio 2 In Concert - Blur

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Damon Albarn

Another chance to watch Blur perform an exclusive concert from the BBC's historic Maida Vale Studios in London.

The show will feature many of the band's greatest hits, as well as rare favourites and their latest tracks.

Hosted by Steve Lamacq, the Red Button show is a culmination of a day of live music and archive on Radio 2 and 6 Music, celebrating one of Britain's greatest bands.

Available on all platforms

Available on Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media

Wed 26th September, 6:00am-6:00am
Thu 27th September, 6:00am-4:00am

Freeview:

Wed 26th September, 6:00am-4:50pm, 11:10pm-6:00am

Thu 27th September, 6:00am-4:00am

Radio 1 Symphony

Press red to watch the xx and Richard Hawley make music with the BBC Philharmonic.

Mercury Prize winners, the xx, play orchestral arrangements of songs from their first two albums; and guitarist Hawley performs with an orchestra for the first time.

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:
Sat 22nd September, 6:00am-11:40am, 3:00pm-12:00am, 9:00pm-12:00am

Freeview:

Sat 22nd September, 6:00am-9:50am, 9:20pm-12:00am

Dragons' Den

(L-R) Duncan Bannatyne, Hilary Devey, Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones

It's a new series and a new raft of keen entrepreneurs are about to enter the Den and make a pitch for an investment that could make their business - and change their lives.

Here on the Red Button we get to peek behind the scenes and get the inside story on the investments made in the Den each week. What attracted the Dragons to the business? What did the other Dragons make of the deals? And why did the entrepreneurs take the deal they did in the Den?

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:
Sat 22nd September, 9:40pm-4:00am
Sun 23rd September, 9:55pm-4:00am
Mon 24th September, 7:00pm-4:00am
Tue 25th September, 10:30pm-4:00am
Wed 26th September, 10:30pm-4:00am
Thu 27th September, 7:00pm-4:00am
Fri 28th September, 9:30pm-4:00am

Freeview:

Sun 23rd September, 9:55pm-4:00am

Mon 24th September, 7:10pm-1:15am

One Man and his Dog

One Man and His Dog is back for more exciting action on the Red Button and this year the setting is the beautiful Gower peninsular in Wales.

The 'Young Handlers' round kicked off the two-day competition in style. Four Young Handlers, representing England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, nervously took to the field with their dogs - and you can see their four nail-biting rounds in full only on the Red Button.

Matt Baker and Michaela Strachan are the hosts, with expert commentary from Gus Dermody.

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin/Freeview:
Sat 22nd September, 6:20pm-8:25pm

 

Secret Fortune - Play Along Quiz

The National Lottery: Secret Fortune - The ultra-tense quiz show with lots of twists returns to BBC One,

hosted by Nick Knowles.

Studio contestants compete to win their Secret

Fortune, anything from £100 to £100,000. Press the Red Button during the show to
play along at home with the contestants. What would your Secret Fortune be?

Available on Sky/Freeview:

Sat 22nd September, 8:15pm-9:10pm

Sat 29th September, 8:15pm-9:10pm

CBBC Extra

Press red on the CBBC channel this week and join Chris and Dodge T. Dog as they introduce a wealth of behind-the-scenes goodies including Hacker on the set of Wolfblood and Yonko in the crazy world of Dick and Dom's Hoopla. We'll also be taking an exclusive peek at all-new Leonardo!

You can also read Chris and Dodge's blog, answers to some of your questions, read your horoscopes and see if the jokes that made Chris and Dodge LOL will have the same effect on you.

Go on, press red... You know you want to!

CBBC Extra website

Available on Freesat/Sky/Virgin:

Sat 22nd September, 7:00am-12:00pm

Mon 24th September, 7:00am-11:30am,3:00pm-6:30pm

Tue 25th September, 7:00am-10:00am,3:00pm-6:30pm

Wed 26th September, 7:00am-10:00am,3:00pm-6:00pm

Thu 27th September, 7:00am-10:00am,3:00pm-6:30pm

Fri 28th September, 7:00am-10:00am,3:00pm-6:30pm

Sat 29th September, 7:00am-11:30am

Freeview:
Sat 22nd September, 10:00am-10:45am
Mon 24th September, 7:00am-11:50am
Tue 25th September, 7:00am-10:00am, 3:00pm-6:30pm
Fri 28th September, 7:00am-10:00am
Sat 29th September, 7:00am-11:45am

CBeebies Red Button

BBC Red Button welcomes younger viewers and grown-ups with a sense of adventure to the big, bright and fun

world of CBeebies interactive!

Your children's favourite characters are at the heart of the interactive TV experience. Satellite and

digital terrestrial viewers will have slightly different offerings
from one another. This has enabled the Red Button team to offer the best games tailored to each system.

CBeebies Red Button is available on the CBeebies channel, and via page 5900 on other channels.

CBeebies website

Available on Freeview and Sky only

BBC Sport Multiscreen**

Catch up on all the latest Sport via the BBC Sport multiscreen. Headlines are available around the clock with up to five additional streams available to cover the best that BBC Sport has

to offer.

Please note that Red Button sport timings are subject to change at short notice.

For the latest information refer to the BBC Sport website.

Highlights

Live coverage of the Men's Road Race at the World Road Cycling Championships in Limburg, Netherlands.
American Football. Green Bay Packers vs. Seattle Seahawks.
MotoGP. Live coverage of Moto2, Moto3 races from Aragon Spain.

**Note all Red Button times are subject to change at short notice

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BBC Media Player showing subtitles and playback controls with BBC on-demand video content

Today the BBC's mobile technical teams have begun rolling out a new way of securely playing video and audio content on Android phones and tablets. It's called BBC Media Player and we are starting to use it with the mobile view of the BBC's iPlayer website. Next week we plan to release a new version of BBC iPlayer on Android which will use this player. Other applications and websites will follow.

We want people to have the best experience possible when they're watching BBC TV programmes or listening to BBC radio programmes. This means, amongst other things, making them available on as many devices as is practical.

I want to reassure you that Android is an important platform for us. And I know (not least from the comments on David Madden's recent post) that this platform is an important one for many of our users. We've supported iPlayer on Android since June 2010 .

The Android operating system is constantly evolving and has been upgraded several times in the last two years. Back then version 2.2 (FroYo) was the latest OS. Today the latest version is 4.1 (JellyBean) and in between we've had Gingerbread, Honeycomb, and Ice Cream Sandwich.

As many of you are aware, we chose Adobe Flash as the media format to stream to Android devices. Doing so provided us with a number of cross platform efficiencies as the same infrastructure can be used for delivery on PCs, Android phones, and set-top boxes.

Adobe's strategic decision to remove support for the Flash Player plug-in meant that we had to change the way that we play back this content.

We looked at a number of solutions, but there were a few key points we had to keep in mind:

1. We needed a solution that would work on the newer Android devices running the JellyBean operating system.

2. We also had to cater for the all the devices which are still on earlier OS versions. The diagram below shows that vast majority of Android users are on Gingerbread and FroYo.

3. We needed a solution which would work both for our websites and for our native Android applications.

4. We needed a solution which would meet the security obligations we had agreed with our rights holders.

5. We needed a solution which would not require a significant and costly change to our current infrastructure.

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Platform version information from developer.android.com for the 14 day period prior to 4 September 2012

We looked at a number of different solutions, for example, Http Live Streaming (HLS) which is used to stream BBC media to other platforms. Unfortunately, HLS isn't supported on Android OS versions prior to Honeycomb.

In the end, Flash was still the best choice of media format for us to use. And the only practical technology for us to play this format back on Android is Adobe Air.

We are keenly aware that mobile development is a fast-changing environment and that this approach may have to adapt in the future. We also wanted a generic simple application that would be as transparent as possible, both for users of our websites and users of our native applications like BBC iPlayer.

For these reasons, we decided to go with a separate application that we've called BBC Media player. This approach allows us to focus on solving all of our media playback challenges in one place and in one app. Any improvements that we make will benefit everything in the BBC that uses the Android platform.

We are making this change with our eyes open. No technology is perfect. We've seen some of the challenges that other Adobe Air based apps have had in the marketplace and so we have worked hard, both internally and with our technology partners to build the best application we can.

Adobe have been a long-standing collaborator with the BBC and have been excellent throughout this process, working closely with our teams to ensure continuity and a great experience throughout the London 2012 Olympic Games and then thereafter to support our requirements around this project.

We have put a lot of work into BBC Media Player and we think it will improve your experience of watching BBC TV and listening to BBC Radio on your Android phones and tablets.

We will continue to work on this application and on improving media playback and mobile experience on Android smartphones and tablets. The team and I would love to hear what you think about this approach and how well this new application works on your device.

Chris Yanda is Executive Product Manager, POD Mobile Management, BBC Future Media

The "Little Sun" participatory art experience

I am the lead producer for BBC R&D's Internet Research & Future Services team where we use technology and design to prototype the future of media and the internet. I help develop ideas, run projects and write and talk about what we do.

I regularly write for the BBC Research & Development blog. Nick asked me to round up some of what BBC R&D have been writing about on our blog over the summer.

Out of our North Lab came the concept of Perceptive Media - adapting stories to the audience by using information about that audience and their context. As Ian blogged in July:

"...it takes narrative back to something more aligned to a storyteller and an audience around a campfire ... to create something closer to a personal theatre experience in your living room".

They released their first instantiation of this, a short radio play called "Breaking Out" which you can listen to here.

For the Olympics we released an Augmented Reality application to compare your performance against Olympic athletes. Robert, Bruce and Paul wrote about the technology behind it. We worked with colleagues in Japanese broadcaster NHK to bring 7680x4320 resolution, 22.2 channel sound Super Hi-Vision (SHV) screenings of the Olympics to a number of public viewing sessions. And our splashometer for diving was used during NBC's coverage, even picking up fans such as Samuel L. Jackson no less.

Rosie wrote in depth about her work in simulating networks to optimise adaptive streaming, where media streaming clients switch between different bit-rate streams depending on the quality of connection. Along the way she explains why heating up your dinner might cause your programme to stutter.

We launched a programme recommender prototype using our experimental privacy-preserving client-side recommender engine and introduced our new project on linked open data, recommendations and data mining for TV.

Our work on RadioDNS went live on the BBC's national radio networks giving you complementary images alongside radio programmes when listening on hybrid broadcast & internet radios. And we have been simulating Radiophonic Workshop equipment natively in the browser using the emerging set of standards from the W3C Audio Working Group. Soon, you too will be able to loop, oscillate, wobbulate and modulate from your browser.



Michael wrote a follow up to the Internet blog's series of SEO posts on what R&D have been doing with schema.org and a possible future of search and knowledge on the web.

For something completely different, a crack R&D team joined forces with Studio Olafur Eliasson to create a participatory art experience at the Tate Modern. Ant finished up his series of videos explaining some of the BBC's work in opening up the BBC's archives including work on generating new kinds of programme metadata using machines and people.

We created a new section on our website to showcase the latest prototypes and code on the web from R&D - BBC R&D Labs. Speaking of the website, we're working on refreshing the design, structure and content of it and you could really help us out by answering a few questions.

Finally, some events - the IBC exhibition in Amsterdam has just finished, where we presented many papers and showed our Stagebox, RadioDNS, World Service archive prototypes and more to the many thousands of visitors. And don't forget the upcoming Connected Studio events around CBBC and user experience happening over the coming months - you might get to help shape the future of the BBC online.

Tristan Ferne is lead producer, Internet Research & Future Services, BBC R&D

The BBC iD sign in box on the CBBC site

Mobiles, tablets and connected TVs are here. They form an ecosystem of web connected devices that provide the potential for amazing experiences. The ability to share an experience across devices brings great possibilities, but also responsibilities.

As part of its brief the CBBC Connected studio CBBC event has included a call for ideas on how to make the 'ultimate immersive experience', one that works across multiple devices.

What is the users' journey to get access to the connected content? How compelling and fun is the product? To achieve the goal some problems will need to be overcome. Here are 10 of them:

1. Low user registration rate

The number of users that sign in to BBC websites is relatively low. This is likely to be due to many reasons, but the snack-able nature of much of the content is a primary one. Online is much more of a TV experience than a cinema one. Users can quickly assess whether a page contains what they want, and navigate away if it doesn't. Any registration for access to content is a dry affair. It entails entering personal details, creating a username that fits into a specified format, coming up with a memorable and acceptable password, and sometimes waiting for a validation email. All of this can form a sizeable barrier, denying interaction with the core content for a period of time.

2. Can't use existing universal logins

The web has numerous solutions for universal login. More and more websites are allowing Facebook or Twitter IDs be used as unique identifiers. In BBC Children's this isn't an option. CBBC is the BBC destination for 6 to 12 year olds. Currently Facebook requires individuals to be 13 before they can create an account and although Twitter

doesn't have an explicit age restriction it tends to have a more adult audience. Neither can be thought of as suitable means of user identification for CBBC.

3. Less than half of children have an active email account

A further complication arises when emails are taken into account. The proportion of children in the CBBC age range who have active email addresses is small - at around 38%. Most ID systems require an email address as a communication point for 'lost passwords', confirmations and other correspondence.

4. Average time spent on interactive experiences is low

The peak average time spent on any interactive experience on CBBC is 10 minutes. The casual engagement with the content doesn't leave a great deal of space for 'signing in'. The reason to sign in needs to be really compelling, compelling enough to warrant the user initially spending a couple of minutes registering for an account. How does a connected proposal offer a companion experience that can reach, or even push through, the 10 minute barrier?

5. Variety of input methods

Experiences on touch devices differ greatly from those on desktop and even more so on Connected/Smart TVs. The chief differential is the input method. With desktop the mouse or keyboard is an abstracted input. The method separates the user from the actions. On mobiles or tablets, touch is a direct manipulation - there is very little physical feedback to this 'pictures under glass' interaction, but it is more cognitively direct. Connected TVs, at present, are mainly using a remote control. This is cumbersome and imprecise but works. The great challenge for any 4 screen experience is to enable each of these inputs in a way that feels intuitive and correct.

6. The technical capabilities of devices

Desktops, including laptops, are powerful beasts now. Many have graphics cards that can process calculations at speeds comparable with super-computers from 20 years ago. This isn't so with tablets and mobiles, although great things can be achieved on these devices, desktops are a large distance in front. Connected TVs tend to have a very small amount of processing power available - major compromises would have to be made if the proposed 'connected experience' were to be visually rich.

7. Child safety

BBC Children's exists in a walled garden. A huge amount of effort is applied to ensuring that content on the digital channels, as well as on the websites, is complied as suitable for the audience; that the content is safe and moderated where necessary; and that children are free from any unwarranted attention. These efforts are repaid by the trust that is put in the BBC to do the right thing. New propositions will more and more involve social experiences and personal connections - further challenges.

8. Creating a brand experience that is compelling and appropriate

Great content has come from taking a brilliant idea and applying a target brand to it, conversely great content has also come from using a strong brand to generate ideas. There are no hard and fast rules about best route to a fantastic product. The main strapline should be 'respect the brand'. Any experience needs to be appropriate to the values of the brand. Attention needs to be paid to how a brand exists on TV. How the brand exists in an interactive proposition shouldn't be different, it needs to be an appropriate representation.

9. Building content for devices in a fragmented marketplace

A key objective for the BBC is making sure that any product built will reach as many users as possible. The current state of the mobile market is highly fragmented with different capabilities on different devices. Products need to be targeted at the devices that our target audience actually use.

10. Accessibility

Making connected experiences that are inclusive is a very strong objective for the BBC. Catering for users with impairments, as well as those without, simply means avoiding unnecessary barriers that could restrict access to the content. A recently published site Game Accessibility Guidelines provides detailed but easily digested information on how to approach accessibility in the game space - the ideas are equally applicable to any interactive experience.

You can find the CBBC Connected Studio Full Brief (pdf) on the Connected Studio website.

Jon Howard is the Development Manager for Games in BBC Children's Future Media.