Virgin First With Radio Mobcasts

Virgin Radio is launching a series of mobcasts that will enable listeners to wirelessly download its Christian O’Connell, Al Murray Pub Landlord and Geoff Lloyd podcasts straight to their mobiles. The standard podcasts of these shows are downloaded over 100,000 times each month.
The service is available on Nokia handsets, and uses ‘spodradio’ software from Liquid Air Lab, a developer of mobile radio and mobile podcasting solutions. The software will be available as a free download on the Virgin Radio website, and will also enable listeners to tune in to Virgin Radio, Virgin Radio Classic Rock, Virgin Radio Xtreme and Virgin Radio Groove via GPRS or UMTS. The service launches later this month.
“Podcasting is one of the hottest developments in radio, and we’ve just raised the bar even higher with this innovation,” says Virgin Radio Director of Digital Media, James Cridland.  “By bringing mobcasts to radio fans wherever they are, we’re making our medium more accessible, and we will be able to command even greater audience figures. No-one else is giving consumers this control over radio content, and we’re proud to be setting the standard for digital radio firsts.”
Mikko Linnamäki, CEO of spodradio, adds:
“We believe that the mobile reception of excellent radio programmes from Virgin Radio, together with innovative concepts like podcasting, is the key to success. This combination will make it very interesting for music fans of the MP3 generation to switch to mobile jukeboxes from Nokia with attractive UMTS data rates. Spodradio is the first central interface between radio stations, handset manufacturers, record labels, network operators and users. It will significantly drive the sales of UMTS phones and UMTS data rates of mobile network operators.”
The mobcasts are the latest in a long line of innovations from Virgin Radio. It was the first radio station in Europe to broadcast over the internet, the first to be carried by Sky, and the first to launch a UK daily podcast.  It also launched the first comprehensive Online Music Chart to measure both downloads and music streams.