BBC's Blog, page 8

I'm Tom Kershaw, Senior Web Developer for BBC Playlister.

We recently launched a beta version of BBC Playlister (read more about that in Chris’s blog post) and I wanted to share with you a bit more about how we built the export process.

Discovering new music is one of the main features of BBC Playlister, however we also wanted to give you the option to listen to full length tracks through the music service of your choice. Whilst the BBC plays a rich and diverse range of music on a daily basis, making that music available to listen to online on the BBC website isn't currently possible due to rights issues. With this in mind we developed the export process allowing you to export your playlist either Spotify, YouTube & Deezer.

There are plenty of places where you can add tracks to your playlist - your favourite BBC Radio station homepage, the tracklist of your favourite DJ's show page or from the discover tab of BBC Playlister itself. Once you've added a few tracks, then you're ready to export and listen - all you need to do is is click on 'export your playlist' in BBC Playlister, agree to the terms and conditions and select the service of your choice to start listening.

The terms and conditions exist partly because we cannot guarantee external services will conform to the same editorial compliance standards as the BBC, and we require our users to acknowledge that they are aware of this and accept it before continuing.

Once you’ve created your playlist we use our partner APIs to match the track based on the track title and artist’s name. To ensure the best possible accuracy when matching tracks we make sure we get a valid track ID back from the string match against the partner API and then go on to build the playlist by the relevant means for that service.

We make use the OAuth process, meaning the user authorises us to write directly into partner accounts on YouTube or Deezer (more about Spotify later). The user signs into their chosen service and gives their one-time-approval to allow BBC Playlister to write playlists to their account (this approval can easily be revoked). There are three of advantages to this:

1. The playlist is permanently stored in the account

2. Playlists can be made private

3. This provides a good user experience across multiple devices - mobile, tablet & desktop

The main benefit of using OAuth is that we don't have to store any 3rd party authentication information, but still retain access to accounts through APIs.

Below is a diagram explaining the export process for YouTube and Deezer. This shows the user flow from when you sign up to when you export tracks. The process is:

Sign in and add tracksExport your playlistAgree to the terms and conditionsTracks are matched View your playlist on partner service

BBC Playlister export process to You Tube and Deezer

At the time of development Spotify didn’t use OAuth so we used the method they developed to open the playlist in the BBC Playlister Spotify application.

Currently we export to the desktop and mobile applications of YouTube & Deezer - however with Spotify we developed an application on their platform. The BBC Playlister Spotify application serves a number of goals:

Allowing you to discover new music through featured playlists across BBC Radio & TVBrowse BBC Playlists such as Zane Lowe on Radio 1 to Nile Rodgers on BBC FourManage your exported BBC Playlist through Spotify and listen to tracks

 

BBC Playlister’s Spotify application is built with conventional web technologies - HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Although the BBC Playlister team built the application from the ground up, Spotify were on hand to answer questions and point us in the right direction when required with some useful guidelines.

One of the first challenges when we started to develop the BBC Playlister Spotify App was to decide the structure and technologies to use. We chose Handlebars as the template engine, loading the templates dynamically via AJAX. The BBC Playlister Spotify App is composed of five templates (Home, Browse, Playlist, Your Tracks and Offline). All of them are loaded dynamically avoiding a long load time.

In relation to the JavaScript structure we had a separate module for each view and some additional modules to manage BBC Playlister API calls, use of Spotify components and helpers. We can recommend Spotify components, which enables rapid development of an app without having to worry about the details of design and implementation. On BBC Playlister we made extensive use of components such as ‘Image and Player’, ‘List’, ‘Tabs and Buttons’.

As a team we’re very proud of BBC Playlister and excited to be working with partners like Spotify, YouTube and Deezer. There’s lots of things on our roadmap and we’re looking forward to releasing some great new features in the near future.

Tom Kershaw is Senior Web Developer, BBC Playlister

It has been nearly 5 months since the BBC Weather app launched on Android and iOS devices. There’s been a fantastic response with over 3.7 million downloads.

We have received some excellent feedback from users, with the launch generating nearly 6000 feedback emails, and over 32000 store reviews… that’s an average of nearly 260 comments a day. By far the majority of these have been positive, with over 31000 4 and 5 star reviews on playstore.

We have been reviewing and responding to as many of these comments as possible. Thanks to your feedback in true Agile fashion we have been able to prioritise a number of improvements to make the apps even better.

The biggest change is we’ve introduced the ability to rotate your tablet device to view the app in landscape. This is especially challenging for the multitude of Android Devices, so we have focused on a scalable design which one of our UX designers will cover in a blog post soon.

Also today the app has been released to the iPad store as it was previously only available as an iPhone app. This update also includes some style adjustments for iOS7 so the app utilizes some familiar design layout and buttons.

BBC Weather on iPad and iPhone

Since the Android app scales for tablets, we have been able to release the app for the Android based Amazon Kindle devices. This release for Android includes some changes to the way we handle location, including the ability to disable the current location detection as requested by many users, and is available for iOS in the phone Location settings.

In time for the winter months, this update also links the apps to the Met Office National UK Weather warnings, as displayed on our website.

In order to scale the apps for tablets we have included new weather ambience backgrounds, which improve contrast and include night versions to better reflect the conditions at the time of day.

Finally, we have included the ability to share the forecast with friends via social networks all from within the app.

As ever, we will keep monitoring your feedback and response to these changes to further improve the BBC’s offer on mobiles and tablets.

James Metcalfe is a Senior Product Manager, BBC Weather

It has been nearly 5 months since the BBC Weather app launched on Android and iOS devices. There’s been a fantastic response with over 3.7 million downloads.

We have received some excellent feedback from users, with the launch generating nearly 6000 feedback emails, and over 32000 store reviews… that’s an average of nearly 260 comments a day. By far the majority of these have been positive, with over 31000 4 and 5 star reviews on playstore.

We have been reviewing and responding to as many of these comments as possible. Thanks to your feedback in true Agile fashion we have been able to prioritise a number of improvements to make the apps even better.

The biggest change is we’ve introduced the ability to rotate your tablet device to view the app in landscape. This is especially challenging for the multitude of Android Devices, so we have focused on a scalable design which one of our UX designers will cover in a blog post soon.

Also today the app has been released to the iPad store as it was previously only available as an iPhone app. This update also includes some style adjustments for iOS7 so the app utilizes some familiar design layout and buttons.

BBC Weather on iPad and iPhone

Since the Android app scales for tablets, we have been able to release the app for the Android based Amazon Kindle devices. This release for Android includes some changes to the way we handle location, including the ability to disable the current location detection as requested by many users, and is available for iOS in the phone Location settings.

In time for the winter months, this update also links the apps to the Met Office National UK Weather warnings, as displayed on our website.

In order to scale the apps for tablets we have included new weather ambience backgrounds, which improve contrast and include night versions to better reflect the conditions at the time of day.

Finally, we have included the ability to share the forecast with friends via social networks all from within the app.

As ever, we will keep monitoring your feedback and response to these changes to further improve the BBC’s offer on mobiles and tablets.

James Metcalfe is a Senior Product Manager, BBC Weather

The CBeebies Playtime app launched on 15th August 2013 and so far has reached over 1.3 million downloads across the Apple, Google Play and Windows Phone 8 app stores.

Back in August we promised there’d be more games coming into the app, and I’m delighted to announce that we’ve just launched the first addition with the Make a Picture game. Little ones can join CBeebies presenter, Cat, to stimulate their imaginations and have fun developing their artistic skills, using paints, pencils, felt tips, stickers and more. Simply download or update the app and you and your little ones can get creative without spilling one drop of paint. The game is available now on iOS, Android and will be coming soon to Kindle Fire and Windows Phone 8 users.

CBeebies Make A Picture Game

There’s time for an early Christmas treat too, with another game coming in December. Nina and the Neurons – Earth Explorers is a strategy game that lets children explore our Planet and the Solar System. Little ones are free to travel across the Moon, Mars, the Mountains and even the Antarctic by building their very own Space-Rover using different components to suit the terrain. Children must then use their fuel cleverly to explore as far as they can to collect rocks and fossils, picking up interesting facts about each place along the way.

Nina and the Nurons Earth Explorers game

Game trends

We hope these new games will prove to be as popular as others in the CBeebies Playtime app, which has now been played over 13.5 million times at an average of over nine and a half minutes each time. That’s around 128 million minutes of Playtime enjoyed by our CBeebies audience, giving us plenty of valuable feedback to help improve the app in future, alongside some interesting trends and insights.

• Tea time seems to be the most popular time of day for little ones to indulge in CBeebies Playtime with usage peaking between 6pm – 7pm.

• Users have joined the Octonauts as a Cadet on undersea adventures, rescuing sea creatures and learning interesting facts about them along the way over 5.9 million times.

• Helped Tree Fu Tom save the day over 6 million times in ‘Chuckleberry Chase’, by stopping those cheeky Mushas steeling all of the berries from the Harvest Festival.

• Have had fun making words with the Alphablocks over 6.1 million times in ‘Word Magic’

• Topping the CBeebies Playtime chart though is Mr Tumble and his friends with over 7.4 million plays of the Something Special Paint Pop game.

One possible reason behind Something Special’s status as the most popular game is that it’s designed to be suitable for as many children as possible, including those with special needs, allowing them to have fun and build confidence. For example, it has ‘Switch’ control compatibility and specific in-game settings which allow Grown Ups to customise the difficulty and controls to suit a range of capabilities.

Parental usage

In addition to fun and exciting games for little ones, we’ve seen parents and carers making good use of features that offer extra information and safety.

The dedicated Grown-Ups section has been accessed nearly 1.1 million times since the app launched in August, providing parents and carers with tips on how they and their little ones can get the most out of the app, valuable bite size information about each game, the associated learning values, and useful links.

Safety is extremely important for CBeebies and any external links are protected by a passcode lock to ensure that little fingers don’t wander too far. The CBeebies Playtime app aims to provide a protected environment where children can play and learn, and Grown Ups can feel safe in the knowledge that any information is kept safe and the app is a secure offline environment, free from in-app purchases. Our in-app Privacy Policy notice has helped to provide this assurance and has been accessed by our Grown Ups audience over 360,000 times.

We believe a unique feature of the CBeebies Playtime app is to allow Parents to surprise their child with a special message on their birthday or reward them for good behaviour, either by recording their own personal message or choosing from a selection of messages from a CBeebies Presenter. We know our audience must have been extremely well behaved over the last few months as the Special Message functionality has been set over 355,000 times with the ‘Well Done’ message being the most popular.

I’d love to hear what you think and are always interested in your suggestions and ideas, so please do get in touch in the comments.

Lizzie Leadbeater is a Senior Content Producer, BBC Childrens

There's a huge variety of entertainment available on Red Button this week, from music legends and pop's brightest stars rocking out for a good cause to an EastEnders soap extra and live MotoGP and rugby union action from BBC Sport.

BBC Children in Need Rocks 2013 – Backstage and Encore

Gary Barlow and Pudsey

Go behind the scenes of Gary Barlow's two star-studded concerts with Children in Need Rocks Backstage, featuring a galaxy of music stars including Robbie Williams, Dizzee Rascal, Ellie Goulding, Kings of Leon and Barry Manilow. And Red Button viewers can also enjoy a round-up of the best performances, as well as exclusive bonus tracks, with Children in Need Rocks Encore.

CiN Rocks Backstage

Wed 13 Nov, 6.30am-10.30am and 7pm-10pm
Thu 14 Nov, 6.30am-8pm

CiN Rocks Encore

Thu 14 Nov, 9.55pm-Fri 15 Nov, 7pm

Radio 2 in Concert: Paul McCartney

You can still watch Paul McCartney's intimate concert recorded at Maida Vale studio last month for Radio 2 on the Red Button. The legendary ex-Beatle plays classic tracks and songs from his latest album New.

Sat 9 November, 6am-11.30am, 1pm-2pm, 4.30pm-5.30pm and 11.30pm-12.45am
Sun 10 Nov, 1pm-2pm and 2.30pm-3.40pm
Mon 11 Nov, 4am-1.45pm, 4pm-8pm and 11.30pm-12.45am
Tue 12 Nov, 4am-Wed 13 Nov, 6.30am
Wed 13 Nov, 10.30am-7pm and 10pm-Thu 14 Nov, 6.30am
Thu 14 Nov 8pm-9.55pm

EastEnders

Get an extra insight into Walford's latest love story as Bianca and new man on the Square Terry give two very different accounts of how they met. Did they really save each other's lives and is the new couple prepared for life in Walford together? This special Red Button episode stars Patsy Palmer as Bianca Butcher and Terry Alderton as Terry Spraggan.

Sun 10 Nov, 3.40pm-5.30pm

Countdown to the Rains

Join Kate Humble and Simon King from their oasis camp for highlights of Africa 2013: Countdown to the Rains. The duo will answer viewers' questions and talk to experts about the impact of the drought, discovering which animals thrive and which struggle to survive. Kate also learns about the camera techniques used to capture the amazing footage featured in the programme.

Sun 10 Nov, 8.55pm-Mon 11 Nov, 4am
Tue 12 Nov, 12.45am-Wed 13 Nov, 4am
Fri 15 Nov, 7pm-Sat 16 Nov, 2am

This week's sport highlights

The sporting highlights on Red Button this weekend include MotoGP practice, qualifying and race action from Valencia, a rugby union autumn international clash between Scotland and Japan and Saturday football results with Final Score on some connected TVs. 

 For a full list and times of sport coverage on Red Button see the BBC Sport website.

  Please note times are subject to change. 

 Keep up with all the latest news by following us on Twitter on @BBCRedButton and find out more about BBC Red Button at /redbutton

As part of a 10% time project, myself and my colleagues in BBC R&D have created 7 Twitter bots that will tweet bands and artists whenever their music is played on BBC Radio:

1. BBCR1MusicBot - now playing on Radio 1

2. BBC1XMusicBot - now playing on 1xtra

3. BBCR2MusicBot - now playing on Radio 2

4. BBC6MusicBot - now playing on 6Music

5. BBCR3MusicBot - now playing on Radio 3

6. BBCANMusicBot - now playing on Asian Network

7. BBCMcrMusicBot - now playing on BBC Radio Manchester

The BBC 6 Music Twitter bot

What is this?

The original idea came from a friend whose music occasionally gets played on Radio 1, 1xtra and 6Music. Almost always he missed this and either found out later from a friend or never found out at all. But he does use various bits of social media (including Twitter) to make contact with fans and promote his releases and live appearances.

Unofficial now playing Twitter feeds exist for some (though not all) BBC radio networks. The only thing this adds is greater coverage of radio networks and the inclusion of @mentions so now playing information appears in the mentions timeline of the artist (or artists) concerned.

The accounts we created are designed to notify artists and not designed to be followed unless you want to drown in now playing information. That said the unofficial Radio 1 now playing account has over 40,000 followers...

How to use this if you're an artist

To power online music services such as BBC iPlayer Radio, Playlister and /music the BBC uses metadata provided by MusicBrainz, a community maintained music encyclopedia. If you use Twitter and you're a music artist or an agent or a publicist or similar and would like now playing notifications you need to check that your Twitter account handle is in MusicBrainz. Go to MusicBrainz and search for yourself or your band using the artist search. And hopefully you'll see yourself in the search results. (If you don't see yourself in the results then you'll need to add yourself or your band to MusicBrainz. Tom Robinson wrote an excellent guide to getting started with MusicBrainz here.) Click on the search result and you'll see your details. At the bottom of the right hand column you should see a list of external links. If your Twitter account isn't there then you'll need to add it.

Luckily anyone can edit MusicBrainz but first you'll need to register here. Once you've done that and logged in you'll see an "editing" section in the right hand column of your artist page. Under there there's an option to "Relate to URL". Click that, select "has a microblog at" from the type drop-down, enter the URL of your Twitter account, press "Enter edit" and next time one of your tracks gets played out on BBC radio you should get a Twitter notification.

Whilst you're editing MusicBrainz...

...you can also add links to your homepage, Myspace page, Facebook page, SoundCloud page, blog, YouTube channel, music store, Discogs page, Wikipedia page etc. Links to all of these will automatically appear on your BBC /music page.

It's also worthwhile adding any track and release information and keeping that up to date. Because artist names can be ambiguous (there are 17 different artists called Aurora in MusicBrainz) we use track titles to disambiguate artist names and match them to MusicBrainz. So if the artist is called Aurora and the track title is Spectral Bass we can confidently say it's this Aurora.

Without the track title in MusicBrainz we can't reliably get a MusicBrainz artist ID and without that we can't get your Twitter handle. In general the more information you add to MusicBrainz and the more up to date that information is kept the better your representation on current and future BBC music services.

Behind the scenes

National music radio networks (and Radio Manchester) use a digital music playout system, where tracks are ripped to the equivalent of giant iPods and played out from a touch screen in the studio.

Every time a track starts to play the system sends a message to a message queue with now playing information (start time, duration, artist(s), track title, release title, label, catalogue number etc). Another piece of software picks up these messages, matches the artist(s) to MusicBrainz identifiers and puts the enhanced data onto another message queue. Which gets picked up by another piece of software which matches the network and timing information to programme information in PIPs (the system behind BBC iPlayer, BBC iPlayer Radio and /programmes). And another message queue takes that data and writes it to PIPs where it's used to power tracklists on programme pages and /music.

We've tapped into these queues of queues to get track information, artist MusicBrainz IDs and programme information. And then looked to MusicBrainz to check if the artist has a Twitter handle we can use to generate a mention.

Some caveats

1. Only the networks mentioned above currently use the music playout system. If other networks in the nations and regions switch to the same system then we'll add similar accounts for them.

2. Some pre-recorded programmes do not include now playing information.

3. TV does not use the playout system so any music played on TV as performance or background isn't included here.

4. In the past more specialist music was often not ripped to the playout system but played from CDs and vinyl in the studio. We had no record of now playing information for this music. Increasingly even where music is not played out of the playout system, (meta)data for the track and timing information is entered so we do get now playing information.

This project is an experiment from BBC R&D. I’d be very interested in your feedback on it, so please leave a comment below.

Michael Smethurst is a Development Producer in BBC R&D

As part of a 10% time project, myself and my colleagues in BBC R&D have created 7 Twitter bots that will tweet bands and artists whenever their music is played on BBC Radio:

1. BBCR1MusicBot - now playing on Radio 1

2. BBC1XMusicBot - now playing on 1xtra

3. BBCR2MusicBot - now playing on Radio 2

4. BBC6MusicBot - now playing on 6Music

5. BBCR3MusicBot - now playing on Radio 3

6. BBCANMusicBot - now playing on Asian Network

7. BBCMcrMusicBot - now playing on BBC Radio Manchester

The BBC 6 Music Twitter bot

What is this?

The original idea came from a friend whose music occasionally gets played on Radio 1, 1xtra and 6Music. Almost always he missed this and either found out later from a friend or never found out at all. But he does use various bits of social media (including Twitter) to make contact with fans and promote his releases and live appearances.

Unofficial now playing Twitter feeds exist for some (though not all) BBC radio networks. The only thing this adds is greater coverage of radio networks and the inclusion of @mentions so now playing information appears in the mentions timeline of the artist (or artists) concerned.

The accounts we created are designed to notify artists and not designed to be followed unless you want to drown in now playing information. That said the unofficial Radio 1 now playing account has over 40,000 followers...

How to use this if you're an artist

To power online music services such as BBC iPlayer Radio, Playlister and /music the BBC uses metadata provided by MusicBrainz, a community maintained music encyclopedia. If you use Twitter and you're a music artist or an agent or a publicist or similar and would like now playing notifications you need to check that your Twitter account handle is in MusicBrainz. Go to MusicBrainz and search for yourself or your band using the artist search. And hopefully you'll see yourself in the search results. (If you don't see yourself in the results then you'll need to add yourself or your band to MusicBrainz. Tom Robinson wrote an excellent guide to getting started with MusicBrainz here.) Click on the search result and you'll see your details. At the bottom of the right hand column you should see a list of external links. If your Twitter account isn't there then you'll need to add it.

Luckily anyone can edit MusicBrainz but first you'll need to register here. Once you've done that and logged in you'll see an "editing" section in the right hand column of your artist page. Under there there's an option to "Relate to URL". Click that, select "has a microblog at" from the type drop-down, enter the URL of your Twitter account, press "Enter edit" and next time one of your tracks gets played out on BBC radio you should get a Twitter notification.

Whilst you're editing MusicBrainz...

...you can also add links to your homepage, Myspace page, Facebook page, SoundCloud page, blog, YouTube channel, music store, Discogs page, Wikipedia page etc. Links to all of these will automatically appear on your BBC /music page.

It's also worthwhile adding any track and release information and keeping that up to date. Because artist names can be ambiguous (there are 17 different artists called Aurora in MusicBrainz) we use track titles to disambiguate artist names and match them to MusicBrainz. So if the artist is called Aurora and the track title is Spectral Bass we can confidently say it's this Aurora.

Without the track title in MusicBrainz we can't reliably get a MusicBrainz artist ID and without that we can't get your Twitter handle. In general the more information you add to MusicBrainz and the more up to date that information is kept the better your representation on current and future BBC music services.

Behind the scenes

National music radio networks (and Radio Manchester) use a digital music playout system, where tracks are ripped to the equivalent of giant iPods and played out from a touch screen in the studio.

Every time a track starts to play the system sends a message to a message queue with now playing information (start time, duration, artist(s), track title, release title, label, catalogue number etc). Another piece of software picks up these messages, matches the artist(s) to MusicBrainz identifiers and puts the enhanced data onto another message queue. Which gets picked up by another piece of software which matches the network and timing information to programme information in PIPs (the system behind BBC iPlayer, BBC iPlayer Radio and /programmes). And another message queue takes that data and writes it to PIPs where it's used to power tracklists on programme pages and /music.

We've tapped into these queues of queues to get track information, artist MusicBrainz IDs and programme information. And then looked to MusicBrainz to check if the artist has a Twitter handle we can use to generate a mention.

Some caveats

1. Only the networks mentioned above currently use the music playout system. If other networks in the nations and regions switch to the same system then we'll add similar accounts for them.

2. Some pre-recorded programmes do not include now playing information.

3. TV does not use the playout system so any music played on TV as performance or background isn't included here.

4. In the past more specialist music was often not ripped to the playout system but played from CDs and vinyl in the studio. We had no record of now playing information for this music. Increasingly even where music is not played out of the playout system, (meta)data for the track and timing information is entered so we do get now playing information.

This project is an experiment from BBC R&D. I’d be very interested in your feedback on it, so please leave a comment below.

Michael Smethurst is a Development Producer in BBC R&D

Very often, our view of what we do from within an organisation can be very different from the view of those outside. Some organisations, particularly mature ones, create a language and frame of reference for their activities which can, at best, be opaque to customers and users and, at worst, irrelevant. What seems obvious on the inside is often obscure from the outside. Overcoming this obstacle was, probably, the single biggest challenge in designing and producing the new BBC Academy website. The site launches officially today, which feels like a good time to share some of our development lessons.

The BBC Academy exists to manage the training and development of BBC staff and also to contribute to the development of skills and standards of the broadcast industry more generally. These are vital objectives for the BBC but less immediately obvious to those outside the corporation who are primarily interested in developing their careers in the UK media. In creating the new site, we needed to create a product which supports what these users want without lecturing them about it.

The Academy website on tablet and mobile

There is an enormous demand for advice and guidance from the experienced and expert practitioners within and around the BBC. The Academy role, through the website, is to share that experience and expertise as widely as possible. We aim to use the site to tell the stories of BBC journalism, production and technology from the point of view of the practitioners. Whether they be covering the birth of a royal baby, creating weekly radio satire or supporting coverage of the Olympic torch relay. There is an interesting balance to be struck here. Users expect a single BBC view (that clarity of external perspective) and also a specialist knowledge and understanding. The ways of working language and process of different parts of the BBC are importantly different. Our site needs to be simply organised and navigable as one BBC Academy product yet allow those specialist and cultural notes to be clearly heard through the editorial teams. I think we have struck that balance quite well, following some spirited debate about where the point of balance lies.

Creating a single site from the four editorial functions has also required a new way of working on the publishing effort. Where previously the College of Production and College of Journalism (to be joined by the newly unveiled College of Technology) worked alongside each other but on separate sites, all are now using the same instance of the CMS (the BBC iSite platform) and the same publishing toolset (including the iBroadcast media management tools). The College of Technology section raised the additional challenge of migrating existing content from an intranet platform – the discontinued Alterian Immediacy system. As a result, significant savings have been made on running the site and on managing the product in one place. Throughout the project a great deal of time and effort has been spent across the editorial teams to share objectives, user priorities and ways of working as the new singular machine moved into gear. There is now a stronger and clearer understanding across the Academy teams with the opportunity to more easily share content and reflect each other’s expertise to users.

The fourth editorial strand has been created anew as part of the new product in the form of the Work in Broadcast section. Our social media activity, in this case mainly the @bbctrainees Twitter account, sends clear signals about what people want from the Academy. Much of the activity in this community focuses on finding work and progressing in a career – “getting in and getting on”. In response to this, we now offer stories and job profiles for the large population of those who will make up the future workforce of the BBC and in the industry. This is a critical gap in the media learning landscape, as yet unfilled by other organisations.

One area where the entire team has learned significant lessons is in creating a ‘mobile first’ product. Much has been written about this topic across the web space (not least by our own contributors) and we quickly discovered the difference between theory and practice. As with many, if not most, publishing operations, most of us work at a desktop with a keyboard, mouse and screen. We are most familiar with that experience and tend to have a mental image of our content and products from that point of view. We have had to learn to leave these behind in developing the new site. Mobile first meant all the design, navigation and content had to work as well on a handset as our desktops. The importance of imagery and photography quickly came to the fore. Impatient mobile users will swiftly swipe through pages, only pausing to alight on arresting and interesting images. The bar for photography is higher in this world and picture editing is a more important skill than it was (with all due apologies to veteran picture editors out there).

Data and user input was crucial to steering the sprints of what was an agile project. A mix of user feedback, user testing and site usage analytics was fundamental in shaping our objectives of the new product. The results of user testing helped us referee the discussion of what should and should not be a priority. Whatever our internal concerns, it was always clear which data counted the most and users had the upper hand.

Powerful old habits had to be broken as we reviewed designs and user interface options. The end result has been quite liberating, however and has renewed our focus on the content and the ultimate payoff the articles, video and audio that really house the value of the site. We also became quite used to debating the positioning of ‘the hamburger’ (the three lines on the tabs in the site's navigation).

As with most changes of technology, the build of the tools is really only one part of the real change. For us the lessons we have learned about the value of a single product with multiple, expert voices are the real value. Whilst we are really pleased with the resulting product and the project that delivered it, we are most pleased that our users see this as a simple and obvious development of the Academy service online. Essentially, we don’t want them to think as hard about it as we do.

User feedback has been essential to our development so far, so please do tell us what you think of our efforts either via the site itself or in the comments below.

Myles Runham is Head of Online, BBC Academy

I’m Ant Miller, Senior Research Manager in BBC R&D and on Thursday of last week we co-hosted, alongside the ESP KTN group, the first ever UAS in Broadcasting conference in the UK, at Sywell Aerodrome in Northamptonshire. Over 200 attendees joined the conference, including 20 exhibitors, and over multi stranded presentations (and copious coffee breaks) they explored the technology, craft, regulation and future of the use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems in making television.

The timing of the event was particularly pertinent, as only last week BBC News ran its first news story produced using the corporation’s own in house UAS capabilities, an event noted by the reporter Richard Westcott in a fascinating article. Alongside the development of internal capabilities, the BBC has for several years now been calling upon the wider community of independent operators of UAS to provide filming services for shows as diverse as Great British Bake Off and Top Gear.

UAS in Broadcast featured operators, manufacturers and distributors

Why Hold the Event?

Here in R&D our focus has been on seeking out the best in operations and technology, trialling and experimenting with them, and ensuring the widest possible distribution of the knowledge and understanding of this challenging new tech amongst our program making colleagues. This has included an experimental project with the University of Southampton to develop a long endurance camera platform (as featured on Blue Peter!) and a range of comms activity to educate and train and give guidance to our colleagues. As the industry and the range of capabilities has grown rapidly in the last few years it’s become clear to us that we needed to expand the reach of the communications, and bring together not only our own program makers and engineers, but the wider industry too. So following the events at Nesta earlier this year we decided to hold a forum, with the support of the Robotics and Autonomous Systems SIG of the ESP KTN, to bring together the industry.

The aims of the event were three fold:

1. Raise the Game: we wanted to increase the understanding of UAS amongst broadcasters and of broadcast amongst the UAS operators across the board, for the benefit of all.

2. Bring a Community Together and Create a Coherent Voice: with over 250 operators with CAA permits in the UK it’s a large community, but it needed a space to come together and hopefully form a coherent voice to address the industries point of view to regulators, legislators and the wider press.

3. Explore Avenues for UK R&D Investment: the RAS SIG in particular wanted to identify opportunities and direct R&D funding toward projects and initiatives that have the potential to make a real impact in the UK UAS marketplace, and the wider global sphere.

The Event Itself

Sywell provided a great space for the event. We had 200 attendees, and used Hangar 1 for the main exhibition space and for the auditorium for the plenary and one stream of presentations, and the smaller Hanger 2 for the second stream, which included panel discussions.

Our exhibitors included operators, distributors and manufacturers, and not just those of UAS. These days there are camera and accessory manufacturers interested in this specific market, and we saw representation from those areas too. What was particularly notable of the operators exhibiting was that although on first glance all had remarkably similar core technologies in terms of their flying platforms, each has developed a specific specialisation around the payloads, skills and operations that they can achieve. It’s a remarkably complex industry, with specialisation and niche expertise rather than outright competition being the order of the day.

An example of a UAS mounted Blackmagic Pocket Cinema camera at the Helicoptergirls stand

Our opening keynotes covered Legal and Regulatory matters, and two areas of technology research. Gerry Corbett and Mike Gadd of the CAA gave an excellent overview of the rational and practicalities of the current UK airspace and airworthiness regulations as they apply in the UK. At heart it’s a pretty simple and straightforward scheme, with lots of flexibility to incorporate the capabilities of responsible safe operators alongside other air uses and the public in a safe way. Mike and Gerry also joined the later panel on Regulation. It’s very reassuring to see a regulator so willing to engage with the industry in such an open way.

The keynotes from Pietro Amati of Advanced UAV Technology and Nick Tudor of D-Risq explored different aspects of the technologies underpinning UAS- both gave fascinating pointers to the potential for developments to open new operational opportunities.

Peter Tailor of Tailor Vinters closed the keynotes with his strategic overview of the legal landscape within which UAS must operate. Alongside the well-recognised aviation regulation field Peter outlined many other aspects of legal consideration that operators need to address, and even managed to slip in a reference to the Karma Sutra in his deck.

Nick Pinks of BBC R&D introduced some of the presentations

Sessions through the rest of the day had four main themes:

• Broadcast best practice drilled into the operational experiences of a range of operators, and BBC program makers, to draw out the key factors for a successful production.

• Advanced R&D looked at the latest work from universities and commercial researchers, including the GAMMA program in the North West of England, Southampton University and the fascinating new FotoKite technology

• Latest Tech for Broadcast gave an overview of some of the latest tools and technologies to appear on the market in the last few months, and also included a potted overview of the best BBC guidance on selecting the best camera to use for a production.

• Regulation Evolution was a panel session led by Jessica Bland of Nesta exploring the current state of regulation and training, and exploring how the current system could be improved or used better to give a safer industry with greater capabilities.

Thanks to the excellent staff in Sywell Tower we were able to use a small corner of the aerodrome for live flying displays during our lunch break. Under CAP658 flying display rules several manufacturers were able to demonstrate the capabilities of their systems.

We were lucky enough to have Guy Pelham of BBC News provide our closing keynote. Guy’s experience as a senior editor in news, and running the BBC’s aviation assets for several years gives him a unique strategic overview of this industry, and one which he has presented internationally. We’re very grateful for his closing presentation, which gave a great summary to what was a fascinating, exciting, and really rather enjoyable day.

BBC R&D is now winding down the current UAS activity and this conference marked a key stage in the transition from a research driven effort into ‘business as usual’. The safety, procurement, news, and television production areas all now have their key experts in this technology in place, and unless a specific new capability is required by the BBC that needs a dedicated R&D effort, there are no further R&D activities in this area planned.

The conference was only possible thanks to the efforts of a team drawn from across R&D, the wider BBC and the RAS SIG: Tony Richardson, Duncan Inch, Alia Sheikh, Kevin Claydon, Nick Pinks, Nick Roxburgh, Guy Pelham, Jonathan Renouf, Michael Drake, David Turnbull, Theo Webb, Robert Wilcox, Dan Rees, and Phil Williams, Francesca Trotta, Louisa Chanter and colleagues.

Ant Miller is a Senior Research Manager in BBC R&D

We’ve a dramatic week on Red Button with a powerful Casualty special, a new mystery man for Bianca on Albert Square and magical adventures from Wizards vs Aliens. We’ve also got Paul McCartney in concert along with highlights from the 1Xtra Live concerts, plus coverage of the One Man and His Dog sheep dog trials and comedy with The Wrong Mans. There’s also a packed schedule of sport with international rugby union and league, Formula 1, football, cycling and squash.

Casualty: Scars and Nightmares

Paramedic Iain remembers his time in Afghanistan

The latest Red Button special follows on from revelations in the BBC One show about a traumatic event experienced by paramedic Iain in Afghanistan.  He has now received a request to visit a fellow former soldier with whom he served and persuades Sam to accompany him.  They are surprised to discover that he is not in a veterans’ hospital, but a rehabilitation centre for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Sam and Iain are both forced to confront the realities of this destructive condition and in doing so, the bond between them deepens.

Available on all platforms  

Sat 2 Nov, 10-10.35pm

EastEnders

 


Bianca with her new man Terry

Thrust together by a twist of fate, Bianca and her new man, Terry, tell very different stories of how they both met by saving each other’s lives, and who fell for whom. We may never know the true version of events, but are the new couple prepared for life back in Walford together? The episode stars Patsy Palmer as Bianca Butcher and Terry Alderton as Terry Spraggan.

Available on all platforms

Fri 8 Nov, 8.25pm-Midnight

Radio 2 in Concert: Paul McCartney

 


Paul McCartney

Radio 2 in Concert presents an intimate recorded concert from Maida Vale performed by Paul McCartney on the Red Button. The legendary ex-Beatle will be playing classic tracks and songs from his latest album New.

Available on all platforms

Thu 7 Nov, 6.55pm-Midnight

Fri 8 Nov, Midnight-8.25pm

Wizards vs Aliens Extra

To celebrate the return of hit series Wizards vs Aliens, CBBC’s Chris and Dodge conjure up a magical behind-the-scenes special that is truly out of this world. Sit tight and enjoy the ride with Wizards vs Aliens Extra, only on the Red Button.

Available on all platforms

Sat 2 Nov, 7am-2.30pm

Sun 3 Nov, Noon-5.30pm

Countdown to the Rains

Join Kate Humble and wildlife cameraman Simon King from their camp by the oasis. Picking up on the highlights of Africa's Last Oasis: Countdown to the Rains, they will answer viewers' questions and talk to experts about the impact of the drought. The programme features many animals’ struggle for survival and learns which species are thriving.  Kate also learns about some of the complicated camera techniques used to capture the footage.

Available on all platforms

Sun 3 Nov, 8.55-10.25pm

Tue 5 Nov, 12.15-4am

One Man and His Dog

For the first time, Countryfile is home to the BBC's One Man and His Dog competition showcasing the time-honoured skills and traditions of sheep dog trialling. The very best sheep dogs and their handlers from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales will compete to become champions of 2013. Matt Baker takes to the commentary box to take us through all the trialling action. 

Available on all platforms

Sat 2 Nov, 1-7am

The Wrong Mans

Get exclusive extra content from new comedy thriller The Wrong Mans on Red Button. Each week, town planner Noel Ward will release a new dossier of evidence against his colleague Sam Pinkett. Press Red for the Noel Truth or catch up at www.bbc.co.uk/thewrongmans.

Available on all platforms

Sun 3 Nov, 10.25-11.30pm

1Xtra Live Highlights

Join 1Xtra Live’s four-day celebration of the best in live RnB and hip-hop with artists including Rudimental, Sean Paul, Sub-Focus and Robin Thicke.

Available on all platforms

Mon 4 Nov, 8pm-Midnight

Tue 5 Nov, Midnight-12.15am, 4-6am, 6pm-Midnight

Wed 6 Nov, Midnight-2pm, 3pm-Midnight

Thu 7 Nov, Midnight-7pm

This week’s sport highlights

There’s a packed sport schedule on Red Button this weekend with action from the Rugby League World Cup and the rugby union clash between England and Australia. We’ll also be at the World Championships in squash, cycling’s World Cup, the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix and there will be football updates. For a full list and times of sport coverage on Red Button see the BBC Sport website.

Please note times are subject to change. 

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