The London Daily News

The BBC yesterday announced plans to launch an online radio player, which will provide access to over 400 stations, including all BBC stations and a load of commercial stations too.

The new radio player will be a joint venture between the Beeb and commercial radio trade body RadioCentre, plus commercial radio firms Global Radio and the Guardian Media Group.

The new combined BBC and commercial radio player will presumably utilise BBC internet radio technologies, which are generally superior to their commercial rivals. The new service also replaces proposals to allow commercial broadcasters to use the iPlayer as a delivery system, proposals which did not get BBC Trust backing, and which would probably have failed anyway for all sorts of technical reasons.

The new project was announced by BBC radio man Tim Davie at the Manchester Media Festival this week.

He said:

"This is a really exciting development and a result of focused, collaborative thinking within the radio industry. The aim of this service is to grow listening across the industry and help preserve radio's unique position".

Global Radio added:

"Radioplayer has been developed with the listener in mind and is a big step forward for the radio industry as a whole, providing further cohesion between commercial radio and the BBC as we drive to digital".

It's hoped the new service can be launched in early 2010.

Story - CMU Network