Anyone in the East/West Midlands tell us what the "computer problem" Carlos has just apologised for is?




I was wondering if DAB was getting the London feed due to the amount of London ads I am hearing?

I've just spent 25 minutes listening to Carlos and he sounds really great.
I listened to Lynn Parsons for a while this morning and, quite frankly didn't like her at all. She talked far, far too much. Her show sounded too much like Sarah Kennedy's for my liking.
Perhaps she would be more suited as Sarah's replacement on Radio Two.

Are these problems due to issues with "segregating" the ads & idents for different coverage areas and /or playout system problems (which one do they use btw?) and scheduling? Sorry if I haven't used the correct terminology, I'm not in radio.

The east midlands adverts were not firing so we had dead air until a back up song played.

They seem to have just fed the East Midlands TX with the West Midlands feed for now so wrong idents and ads etc.

Same just happened with the London feed. All a bit of a joke really, this is professional radio I assume!

I admit that it's quite embarrassing to have these problems still happening on day three. But I still say give them a chance to sort it out. I remember the very eaerly days of Classic Gold networking in the South of England and there were no end of blank ad breaks, jingles playing out of sync and other cock ups.

Thanks for that.


Fair enough but this is a national service and presumably they had planned this for months so it could be argued the service should be near perfect by the on air date? I do of course realise that cock ups do occur but dead air etc is a bit off.

Influenced by Tony Blackburn's "more chat less music!".
On Saturday he said when they both used to be at Radio 1 she once brought in a trampoline for fun! But looking at dates he had left R1 before she joined, but he was then on BBC Radio London!

I'd love to know what these London ads are as whenever I listen to Smooth on DAB/102.2, 95% of them are national ads, unlike Smooth WM (online) which has more regional.

So 5% are London ads then? Answers your own question

Not done an audit of ads like you, maybe the London ads just stick out more for me.

I love Smooth Radio - a station that plays Katie Melua, George Benson and Bonnie Raitt (3 of my favourite artists) does it for me always.

How long before Real Radio goes national, one wonders - especially with Capital going UK wide next year (and possibly Magic, so I've heard).

GMG have said Real's strength is staying regional and is very strong in South Wales and Central Scotland.

He was at Capital Gold when Lynn was on Radio 1. She was at Capital FM before then so maybe there's where the trampoling took place!

I heard him say that and I don't think there was any mention of Radio 1. Remember prior to the changes, she used to follow him on Saturday and Sunday on 102.2. Maybe that's what he meant.

As an aside, Cecilia by Simon & Garfunkel seems to be on heavy rotation...

Day 3 & it's still happening then!

Bet they wish they had left it local. Networking always goes wrong. Bet R2 are really really scared now!

Networking does not always go wrong 99.9% of the time networking works fine and actually if you were going to compare automation and network mistakes with mistakes made by presenters you'd find that local jocks make alot more mistakes.

Anyway I am suprised at these problems happening to GMG because it's not as if they are new to networking, they've been doing it very well with Real and Smooth for sometime.

Yes, I'm sure they really regret saving all those salary costs plus the costs of running various studios in the Midlands & the North East.

Networking hardly ever goes wrong on Heart, on the rare occasion that it does it's headline news on here.

I read about this on Radio today and out of curiosity I thought I'd check the two smooth radios, the Yorkshire multiplex is running at 128kbps stereo while the digital 1 version is running at 112kbps stereo and even with my dodgy hearing I could tell the difference. The Yorkshire multiplex sounded a little sharper, which is the one that's going to be Rock Radio.

There maybe different compressions and sound shaping between the two multiplexes, but it's the same output on both. Is that little bit of difference between the bit rates between the two multiplexes making that much difference for DAB sound quality?

Ofcom approved 112k providing new advanced encoders and listening tests were done.
Also the latest Orban digital audio compression units are supposed to help to improve coding at low bit rates!

Maybe they have not got the setup right or the bit rate does make a difference. Galaxy and BFBS were 112k at one time and are now back to 128k!
Interesting a while back most of D1 was empty, now we have 12 stations and 3 data channels fighting for the bits!
Absolute 90's was supposed to have been a test until October but now looks like it is staying on D1!

Global and GMG who still own the MXR regional muxes can now expand coverage, but do not seem to be in any rush to do it!

Seems some older DAB sets do not cope well with 112k whereas other sets are OK, see the In Car DAB Reception Problem thread!

Smooth use RCS for their playout.

I really like Smooth BUT asome songs like Seal, Paloma Faith & Eliza Dolittle need to be dropped or drastically cut back on rotation.

They have no intention of spending any more of their own shareholders' money on further transmitters, in an article today Stuart Taylor has repeated Ashley Tabor's view that the licence fee should pay for it. A decision on this is due next year.

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/rss/...estone-Smooth/

Guess they are after the BBC TV DSO fund surplus which might also go to broadband or regional TV rather than DAB!

Smooth (2.8m) is not the 2nd most listened to commercial radio station after Classic as Heart (7.7m) Galaxy/Capital (5m ish) Kiss (3.7m) and if Magic (3.7) each combine into single stations will have more total listeners according to Rajar!

He says about Nokia phones having DAB chips, not sure about this but some Samsung and LG phones have DMB chips which should be able to pick up DAB, but are not enabled in the UK!

He also says about listeners like new music, much of it fits the easy listening format very well, but some listeners will be unfamilar with the songs and artists, but I think most 40+ year olds like them!
Paloma and Eliza seem like they will be at home in the 1930's!!.
There are some great up and coming new artists with good easy listening material which should be played.

Thanks for the tip, I was using an evoke-1 hooked up to an even older Pioneer A-300 amp with Senheiser HD595 headpones, I've got a newer evoke flow to re-test on, but I'm gonna have to be quick before the comparison dissapears the downside to doing it now is that a lil beer alters the hearing, so gonna check it tomorrow