5pm update: Virgin Radio has 1.7 million listeners on its nationwide AM signal - but Virgin chief executive Fru Hazlitt wants to switch it off. Her Channel 4 equivalent, Andy Duncan, wants a slice of the digital radio pie. They explained why at a Radio Academy conference in London today.
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Radio at the edge of what? At the edge of heaven? At the edge of a bloody great precipice? Or at the edge of Piccadilly, which is where we are literally for today's Radio Academy conference in central London.
I think I'm about to find out, in the company of Channel 4's Andy Duncan, Virgin Radio's Fru Hazlitt, the BBC's Ashley Highfield, Radio Academy director Trevor Dann and many many more. First up, Mr Duncan, who is going to tell us why radio needs Channel 4. Big Brother FM? Just imagine.
10.30am update
The message from Andy Duncan is clear. Adapt or die. Make the most of new technology. And be aware that it's not just radio companies that are interested in making radio. Lots of media groups are too. Including Channel 4.
"How many people in the UK have digital radio sets?" asks Andy. Not many people answer, although I will put that down to shyness rather than general ignorance. It's 3.5 million, of course. But how many of them stayed up all night to listen to England's lame Ashes showing against Australia on Five Live Sports Extra?
If radio doesn't reinvent itself, says Andy, it will become a slowly but surely diminishing part of the landscape. There are also major revenue issues. Innovation is absolutely essential. Embrace change, or the threats will outweigh the opportunities.
But why is Andy talking about radio? Because he wants to be the next national digital radio player. C4, he says, will be a really good thing for radio. Andy knows how to get those commercial radio types on side - he indulges in a bit of BBC bashing. It needs more competition, he says, pointing out that its 55% audience share is just too big. Cue lots of nodding.
Don't think about radio as radio. Think about it as part of a much bigger converged media landscape. Radio can go of two ways - a bright new future, or down that bloody great big precipice I mentioned earlier.
Not winning the bid, says Andy, would be a "huge body blow" to its radio ambitions. The good news is that everyone seems to think C4 will win the multiplex. "I'm glad you're so optimistic on our behalf," says the C4 man.
11am update
It's discussion time. Is broadcast radio finished? Crikey. Rod McKenzie of Radio 1's Newsbeat fame says podcasts and on-demand audio has its place, but white van man still likes his radio delivered to him in the old-fashioned linear style. Rod also appears to have taken the laces out of his Converse trainers. How do they stay on? Maybe it's a youth thing.
Blogger Tom Coates says we are incredibly naïve if we don't think radio, like all other media, has a diminishing role in the brave new digital world. But radio has been incredibly resilient he says. Its ambient quality survives remarkably well in a world where we are doing different things in an on demand world. Not only that, as we spend more and more time using other media - the web! - TV is becoming more ambient like radio. You can check out Tom's blog at www.plasticbag.org. It's not very ambient.
Next up the issue of user generated content. Citizen journalists (not a phrase you hear as much these days) and the like. It can be very useful, says Radio 1's McKenzie. But what about when it goes wrong? Check out the eye witness statements broadcast on Radio Five Live in which it was claimed Jean Charles de Menezes, which claimed he was a Pakistani wearing a bomb belt with "wires sticking out". Wrong, but for how long?
You have to build caveats in to your language, says McKenzie. "You are making an honest attempt to tell the story which might prove wrong tomorrow. That's what breaking news is. We are not always right so why should the people who consume our content always right? There is a balance between breaking news services and bulletins that review a day's news and verify, check and double check. It's common sense. We need to get our language right but we shouldn't agonise about this."
Schedules are dead. Finished, says Nigel Powell of the techy website the Red Ferret Journal. "How many people have got Sky Plus?" he asks. A few dozen hands go up out of a couple of hundred. He says the world's biggest digital radio producer in five years will be Nokia. It is already the biggest camera producer.
He really sticks his neck out now by saying the iPod hasn't got much future either. We are going to store everything on our home hard drive or the net. There are too many radio stations, too many TV channels to choose from, and what we want to do to be able to do is put our own channel together. The key will be the search engines that enable us to do that. Someone walks out. I wonder if he's a scheduler?
Blogger Tom doesn't do much for the stereotype of bloggers by revealing he is a big Battlestar Gallactica fan. "I think it's the best thing on television," he says. "I am a bit nerdy." For the sake of balance, I should point out I watched Bill Oddie's How To Watch Wildlife last night. On Sky Plus. Is that any less nerdy? Or just sad?
The Red Ferret's Nigel is at it again. Now he's predicting the end of podcasting. "It's going to fade away and just be part of this whole big media highway. People are cherrypicking what they like. The challenge for us is to make it easier for people to access stuff and not make it nerdy." As Starbuck said in Battlestar Galactica, "On your feet, nuggets!"
11.45am update
So what can radio broadcasters offer their listeners apart from music, ads and top quality (and sometimes not so top quality) links by their DJs?
Thanks to BT Movio, radio broadcasters can now send visual content to people who are listening to their station on their mobile phone. About a band, about an advertiser, about anything you like, in fact. It's broadcast digital radio on your mobile phone!
But will the prospect of radio with interactive ads bring in more listeners? I'm not sure. London's Capital, for instance, spends all its time telling people it never broadcasts more than two ads in a row. So how keen is it going to be to shout about interactive ads?
A chap from LBC isn't convinced about visuals either. Revolutionary as it sounds, people tune into radio for an audio experience. People don't have time to stare at small screens and look at stuff.
Virgin Radio's James Cridland agrees. But not entirely. He says people won't stare at a screen for long periods of time, but they will glance at it. Glanceability, see? He's got another new word - 'dabverts' - that's text ads beamed across digital radio. I'm not sure it's going to catch on.
What does Ben Chapman, executive producer of interactive TV at BBC Audio & Music Interactive, AKA Mr Red Button, think?. He says everyone looks lovely, especially the ladies. What a charmer!
Ben's got some buzzwords that deserve a wider audience. Listening to the radio can be a "one foot experience" - on your mobile - a "three feet experience" - on your PC - and a "10 feet experience" - via your TV! He forgets to add, a "30 feet experience" - when your neighbour has their wireless on too loud.
Not surprisingly, Ben thinks interactive is the future, and has a variety of clips that BBC listeners (and viewers) can access via their red button. Pink Floyd, Razorlight, and Zane Low (I think) in that irritating three quarter length combat trousers and flip-flop combo he insists on wearing.
I should probably confess now that I have never considered listening to radio via the red button. I have used it to listen to the expert commentary on Strictly Come Dancing, though. My problem is I don't like listening to the radio with the TV on because I find myself watching a largely blank screen. It turns out I am not alone. Old people feel this way too, says Ben. Young people don't though. Thanks a lot. 12.45am update Next up, the issue of rights negotiations and new technology. Should radio stations sue people who nick their content and stick it online? Or should broadcasters, who have rights issues of their own (they want to include music on their podcasts but can't) leave well alone and hope music types do the same? Yes - it's the digital rights management session!
Tony Clark, director of licensing at PPL, which collects airplay royalties on behalf of artists, has no sympathy for broadcasters who try to buy up music rights on the cheap for their new media ventures.
"It's a road to nowhere," said Clark. "If users start off paying a negligible amount of money for music rights, the probability is they never will. Rights owners have paid a lot of money to create those recordings and it's not a route they are prepared to go down. What is an appropriate amount of money? That is the problem."
Clark says music radion stations are now in direct competition with record labels, who won't give up their rights on the cheap.
There used to be a clear distinction between radio stations and record labels, says Clark, now are trying to sell the same thing - a download of a top 40 chart and the latest Now! Compilation. In the old days you would listen to the chart and buy the album. Now you can download them both. But who do you buy it from?
Ah, but radio stations add value, says Victoria Cooper of commercial radio body, the RadioCentre. Rights owners are threatening to kill off radio stations' new media initiatives - podcasts and the like - if they keep denying them the rights to use their songs.
The good news is that the RadioCentre is on the verge of securing a deal with PPL to allow commercial radio stations to include music clips on their podcasts, says Cooper. Hmm. Clips, eh? Sounds like there is a lot more negotiation to be done.
Consultant Steve McCauley says the whole discussion is all a bit, well, parochial. He doesn't say we start thinking outside the box, but I think he means it.
Take YouTube, he says. None of us would have done that because we would have been frightened of being sued. Take illegal MP3 sites. Take the row about buying cigarettes online. "Value will be created in the minds of the consumer, not the industry. We need to find ways to innovate and we need to find frameworks in which that can take place." In other words, stop moaning about percentages and start innovating! Two words Steve: wishful thinking.
Here comes' more record label bashing. It's not radio that's been left behind by technology, it's the record labels, says one delegate. "CDs are horrible, nasty. Record companies need to work out what we want to buy and cherish." Bring back gatefold triple LPs!
3pm update
Virgin Radio will switch off its AM signal by 2010 because it is no longer economically viable to run it.
The station's chief executive Fru Hazlitt, said it would soon be cheaper for the station not to broadcast on its AM wavelength. It also broadcasts on digital and has a number of digital spin-off stations such as Virgin Classic Rock.
"We pay huge amounts of money to Ofcom for the AM licence, within the next year or two we should switch it off," she said.
"It just isn't worth it. I would like to switch it off tomorrow. At the current rate of decline [of AM listening] 2010 would be the outside number for us, but if we could speed it up in two years' time then we would."
Virgin is believed to spend more than £1m a year on the costs of broadcasting its nationwide AM signal. Under the terms of its national radio licence from Ofcom, it also pays around £1m a year plus six per cent of its revenue.
"People listening to radio on AM are getting the wrong impression of radio," said Ms Hazlitt.
"If lots of people are listening on AM that is a problem. The big strategic direction at Virgin is to get them off.
"I don't want them listening to the Killers on that dreadful frequency, and the Killers don't want them listening on that frequency either. You can't hear the intro. It's over, it's fucked.
"Young people coming to radio will not consume it on AM. They just won't want to. The comparison [with digital radio] is so huge it's just ridiculous. You didn't watch colour TV and decide you wanted to go back to black and white. AM radio is not the future. We have to more forward."
Hazlitt said around 30 per cent of Virgin's audience listened on digital. "Very soon it will be cheaper for us not to broadcast on the AM frequency," she said.
"The way our graphs are looking by 2010 it will not be commercially viable for us to broadcast on AM."
Along with the other national commercial stations, Virgin recently negotiated new terms for its national licence with Ofcom. Hazlitt said if the station wasn't able to adopt its new licence terms sooner than anticipated, then its AM frequency may not be economically viable earlier than 2010.
"I don't know how many people listen to AM. I think most people just make it up depending on who they work for," she said.
"Very soon it will be cheaper for us not to broadcast on the AM frequency, it really will. If the BBC didn't have to broadcast on AM then they wouldn't, and they certainly wouldn't broadcast music on it."
She added: "The good thing about AM is that it makes radio people see digital more clearly. For that reason I am glad AM is still in existence, it forces us to embrace the digital future. It finally gives us a level playing field with the BBC."
But Virgin still has 1.7m listeners on its AM frequency, compared with 823,000 listeners on its FM frequency in London.
"That's why I wouldn't switch it off tomorrow," said Hazlitt. "Because you know lots of people wouldn't be able to hear you in any other way. But during the next four or five years how much awareness will there be with digital TV switchover? That education needs to happen. It is very important."
3.15pm update
I don't want to be rude about the Australian chap who has been talking about the launch of digital radio down under, but large swathes of the room appear to be thinking what they are going to have for dinner tonight. He has been talking so long my watch has stopped.
He probably shouldn't have started off with a gag about the Ashes. It's only day one, fella, there are 24 to go! Like Shane Warne, though, he does have the endearing habit of answering every question with "Look..." Unlike Shane Warne, he isn't best mates with Kevin Pietersen.
4pm update
Here are some stats you might not have known about mobile phones. And if you already knew them, give yourself a gold star.
Some 86% of us send a text message at least once every month. Nearly a third of us use photo messaging - a significant growth area - and one in 20 listen to radio on our mobile phone
Don't be obsessed by teenage mobile phone users - of mobile phone subscribers who accessed services via a browser and downloaded content, only 28 per cent were aged between 13 and 24.
Downloadable ringtones are much more popular among females than males. It's the opposite for mobile phone games.
Did you know that one in five of us use our mobiles to respond to TV or radio phone polls? Am I the only one who finds that a little sad? And nearly 5 million of us a month respond to a TV via SMS messaging (and more than a million to a radio ad). Keep up at the back!
Right, that's enough stats. What about some websites? I like the sound of something called www.radeo.net, a search engine which accesses around 10,000 streaming radio sites and podcasts. Like a radio version of Google - lets call it Roogle. Or Radeo, seeing as it's already got a name. I am going to look up Ben Folds right now. Will let you know if it's any good. Eugh, you've got to register. Maybe later, eh?
5pm update
It's the last session now, and I'm on the lookout for a quote, which will sum up the day's discussion. Talk about a face for radio, this lot has got a fashion sense for the medium. I think a few of them got dressed in the '70s. Anyway, back to that quote.
And the winner is... Martin Stiksel, one of the founders of music website last.fm.
"You have to listen to the kids and give the kids what they want. The kids already know where to get their music and movies from. The trick is how to monetise that."
And now, the day's final act - the presentation of the Radio at the Edge's inaugural innovation award. A chap who looks like the BBC's Ashley Highfield - it IS Ashley Highfield - presents the gong to (drum roll please)... LBC's premium podcast from Chrysalis Radio.
Now, that really IS it. Now everyone's off to the bar for an on-demand beer. With a packet of digital scratcings. I may have been here too long.
