In depth: Absolute Radio

General

• Virgin Radio is being rebranded as Absolute. The conversion started at the beginning of September and will be completed in a month.
• Virgin's last redesign launched in September 2006. In December 2006 they launched their VIP section. By the beginning of October they will have had to change the site to fully reflect the new name and branding.
• Absolute offers listen live streams in an amazing variety of formats: Windows Media Player (20k, 132k and 192k), iTunes: (32k and 128k), AAC+ ( 32k only), MP3 (32k and 128k) Ogg Vorbis: (~16k and ~160k) and Real Player: (8k-32k, 128k).
• Absolute encourages listeners to use it's bespoke media player wherever possible. The player is in a pop-up encouraging users to continue listening after they have navigated away from Absolute's site. The media player is multi-purpose being designed for on demand as well as live listening, audio and video. It offers track information, click to buy, information on the show and ways of contacting the DJ on air.
• Absolute have three music fulfilment partners at present. Amazon does physical product with iTunes and 7Digital providing DTO services.
• Oddly Virgin doesn't offer all it's shows on-demand as the BBC does. It offers a selection of 8 podcasts which can be streamed live as well as downloaded.
• Virgin offer two other live streams; a classic rock stream and Xtreme for breaking tracks. These services are online only and as far as I can tell jukebox services with ads and voice tracking. They keep playlists on last.fm but the URL change associated with rebranding seems to have broken the updates.
• Two DJs have blogs. Christian O'Connell's seems the most updated. Sarah Champion has a blog but I can only find a single post. They appear to be using a bespoke blogging platform with their own commenting system.
• As with all commercial radio stations competitions play an essential part in pushing listeners to the website. Very often these promotions carry a sponsor (e.g. win a fantastic day out in association with Kinder). They offer a number of different templates depending on the advertiser.
• The site carries news feeds from Sky (headlines, sport, entertainment).
• You can download or stream the latest news bulletin and the latest sports bulletin.

Commercialisation

• Only one ad on the homepage
• Two banner ads on all other pages (a standard banner and MPU at 728x96 and 336x286 respectfully)
• Floating MPU on some page
• Sponsorship on certain high traffic areas. For example breakfast is sponsored by Sky with bespoke placement in the header. The media player is sponsored by UPS. They get banner placement and a full video ad before the media player loads.
• Promotions which are mainly delivered through competitions
• Affiliate deals with music and news providers

CRM

• Virgin have made a big play for increased engagement on their site with the launch of the VIP area in December 2006
• Signing up offers you the following:
  • Newsletter
  • Community / basic social networking / user blogs
  • Personalised services and recommendation
  • Rewards and Kudos
  • Quizzes and games with community scores and leader boards
  • Some exclusive content and competitions

Performance

• Consistently the top performing UK commercial website
• I'd estimate that receive over 1 million UUs / month
• Launch of VIP likely to have increased number of PIs and session time

Comments

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the music you listen to all influence the way you think and feel about yourself and the world around you.