“Keeping it weird” in Radio R+D

Tim Cowlishaw is a creative technologist at the BBC research and development team, a multidisciplinary unit called BBC R+D’s Internet Research and Future Services, whose goal is making technological prototypes that the UK public broadcaster can implement in five years time.
Tim will show us radio experiments involving sound, interaction, technology and creative practices that will make us imagine the possible futures of public and community radio, making original (not to say weird!) use of the most innovative technologies.

Inside Carne Cruda with Rocío Gómez Fdez-Blanco

Rocío Gómez Fdez-Blanco works at Carne Cruda, one of the most well-known independent Spanish podcast. She has been working there for five years and has collaborated with various shows at Radio3 (The cultural Spanish Public radio station) such as “Hoy empieza todo”, “Coordenadas”, and “Mundo Babel”. She also collaborates with “Radiojaputa”

Rhizomatica and Latin-American community radio

Interview with Peter Bloom (Rhizomatica)

Peter Bloom has worked in community radio projects both in Africa and Latin America. Currently, he lives in Mexico and works at Rhizomatica, a decentralized telecommunications platform that considers radio as another service, such as mobile telephony or internet can be.

In many zones of Latin America, there are public goods that are managed by their communities in a distributed way. In the interview, Peter puts as an example the management of land suitable for farming, or the exploitation of water fountains, for the posterior distribution and selling bottled water.

And the question is: Can we do the same for radio?

We asked Peter about managing radio contents in a different way, about how the audience can participate, and how to monetize radio content (if necessary) to maintain radio stations and their collaborator’s excitement and dedication.

(English subtitles coming soon)

Interview with Karma Peiró

Karma Peiró is a journalist and a teacher specializing in internet and digital communication (we interviewed her when she was director of the Catalan publication Nació Digital). She told us how a news platform of this kind works, and she gave us her perspective of how the future of radio will be. Few people know as well as her how media adapts, transforms or starts from zero in the digital landscape.

(English subtitles coming soon)

Freesound: the big free audio library

Freesound is an audio repository (sound effects, field recordings, instrumental loops, etc.) which content is under creative commons licenses. This giant music library is built in a collaborative way, through contributions from thousands of users from around the world.

A question we make ourselves about the future of radio is the use of free-licensed content. If content is free of copyright the economic pressure for community radio is lower and the contents are easier to share with other radios. (See here the case of the podcast Carne Cruda).

Frederic Font is a researcher at Pompeu Fabra University’s Music Technology Group, and he works for projects like Freesound and Audio Commons.
He tells us about using free-licensed audio and responds questions about the future of radio.

Listen below the Freesound presentation:
(In Catalan, transcription coming soon)

Carne Cruda: A landmark for Spanish podcasting

Carne Cruda is one of the most successful podcasts in Spain. This project was born in the Spanish public radio (Radio3), then was broadcasted from a private mainstream radio channel (Cadena SER), and finally, their team opted to exist independently in the form of a podcast.

This project left radio platforms behind with the help of a crowdfunding campaign and currently is supported by listener subscriptions and donations, besides broadcasting live from theatres.

Carne Cruda’s content is under a Creative Commons license that allows many independent radio stations from all over Spain to include the show in their program schedules.

Man Tomillo is part of the team that makes possible Carne Cruda, and he tells us how are the inner workings of this podcast, and that the radio of the future is based on creativity and storytelling.

(English subtitles coming soon)

El setembre: cooperative business and digital journalism

Journalist Sara Blázquez has started together with her colleague Josep Comajoan the digital publication “El Setembre”.
Both journalists have chosen to form a cooperative –“Dies d’Agost” where they offer communication services- as a legal entity to manage their media platform.

El Setembre is a social, critical and cultural media outlet that gets financed basically through reader subscriptions, and which got the first funds to start through a crowdfunding campaign.

(English subtitles coming soon)

Alicia Àlvarez Vaquero: la ràdio i el jovent

Alícia Álvarez Vaquero és periodista musical, doctora en comunicació i professora de comunicació de masses de la Universitat Blanquerna, a més de ser bona coneixedora de les músiques urbanes i les audiències joves.

En aquesta entrevista, Alícia Álvarez, apunta que la ràdio pública ha perdut totalment la relació amb el públic més jove, ja que no fa cap esforç per parlar el seu mateix idioma, el llenguatge ràpid, visual i sovint fugaç dels memes i les “stories” d’Instagram.

Aquest públic jove ja no escolta la ràdio, però estableix un vincle directe amb els seus artistes preferits, subscrivint-se a la seva “radio” de Spotify (aquí el terme “ràdio” s’entén com a llista de reproducció generada automàticament a partir de la música basada en el perfil de l’artista) i obtenint la informació musical que desitja a través de Youtube i els comptes personals d’Instagram dels seus artistes preferits i de personatges influents d’aquestes escenes.

Digital journalism: interview with Marta Peirano

The journalist Marta Peirano responded our questions when we visited the offices of eldiario.es, a digital publication born in the context of the economic crisis, supported by their reader’s subscriptions, and which some of its staff journalists are shareholders.

Marta Peirano was director of the culture section of this media platform, and she told us about how a medium of this kind works.

Furthermore, Peirano is a writer, specializing in free culture and internet security, privacy, freedom, and rights.

(English subtitles coming soon)

Scanner FM, a pioneer broadcast station

Beside the name ScannerFM there are always two adjectives: pioneer and veteran. This online radio was the first in Spain to choose the internet as a channel for broadcasting. Their founders Bruno Sokolowicz and Carlos Medina participated in our first radioton, and they shared with us 15 years of radiophonic experience full of challenges but also awards and rewards. In 2006 they received an Ondas award (Spain’s most important prize in communication and journalism) for the coverage they made of the Primavera Sound Festival.

Listen here the recording of the Cultura Viva workshop with Scanner FM:
(English transcription coming soon)

Scanner FM – Carlos Medina y Bruno Sockolowicz