G Media: Blog

UTV Sites Go Live

Gav Richards — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:51:57 +0000

Today we're excited to launch 13 new radio station websites for UTV Media (GB).

Click a logo to visit their new site.

UTV's brief to us was very clear. They wanted more than just a radio station website. They wanted to be a local portal for each broadcast area.
Local news, businesses and community information needed to be front and center. The sites just had to scream 'LOCAL', playing to the strengths of the stations.

Navigation
Simple and strong navigation was key. It's unmissable on each site, and follows through each page supported by sub navigation on the left, breadcrumb trail at the top, and logical URL structure.

Design
The template had to be clean and minimalist. We decided to utilize the outer background space to showcase local imagery. Following research into each area, we selected a handful of landmarks to feature at the top of each site. So Signal has Alton Towers, Radio Wave has Blackpool Tower, Peak FM has Chesterfield's famous crooked spire, and so on. These images can easily be swapped out for advertising takeover opportunities.
The site homepages feature some nifty dynamic features. Hover over the local news, traffic or events to see more content from each section.

CMS
UTV needed a powerful but easy to use content management system. Their new sites are built on our industry renowned Airwave platform. Feedback has already been fantastic, with staff at each site picking up the system very quickly.

Ewan Miller, Digital Designer at UTV said: "Airwave is in a different league to other content management systems. It's going to improve our efficiency tenfold. Sweet!".

One feature we think UTV will particularly benefit from is our recently revamped Programming Schedule tool. It means that they can set time periods on all the stations to mirror the schedule of Signal 1 exactly. So all they have to do is update that one schedule, and it automatically replicates on all sites for network programming. Not only does this mean the 'On Air' and Schedule pages, but it could potentially include Radioplayer and mobile applications.

We also customized the local directory section especially for UTV, adding video and premier listings for the first time.

Social Networking
We integrated Facebook assisted registration for the first time with these sites. This means that if you don't have a Facebook account or aren't able to use it (say at work) then you can still sign up and log in to the clubs, but those that choose to use Facebook can register very quickly.

And if that wasn't enough, we completely redesigned our CMS interface just before the guys started using it for the first time, making it simpler to use than ever.

The team at each station have been working incredibly hard to populate the sites over the last couple of weeks, and it's very exciting for all of us here at G Media to see them go live.
The trust and support of UTV is only going to help us make our products and services better for all of our radio clients, across the UK and worldwide.

Exciting times are ahead!
We'd love to hear what you think to the new sites in the comments section below.

Thanks
Gav

30 under 30

Ricki Lee — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:54:18 +0100

We are delighted and very proud of our very own Gav Richards for being included in the Radio Academy's 30 under 30. His passion for the radio industry, technology and innovation is truly amazing and I'm thrilled he's been selected.

Congratulations Gav! If you want to pass on your congrats, drop him a tweet @gavrichards

See the entire 30 under 30 on The Radio Academy's website.

Ricki Lee
G Media

ownacolour.com

Ricki Lee — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:52:40 +0100

We don't know if you've seen this or not but we wanted to share 'Own A Colour And Save a Child's Life' (ownacolour.com) with you.

It's a superb viral campaign for unicef and we not only think the concept, design and technology for this is amazing but it's also a worthy cause.

We made a donation today and now own G Media Dark Blue, G Media Light Blue and G Media Pink.

Check it out.

Ricki
G Media

Lincs FM Group choose G Media

Ricki Lee — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:02:47 +0100

It's been a busy week for us at G Media and today we're pleased to announce the Lincs FM group has chosen us to relaunch all 9 of their radio station websites.
Here's the press release

LINCS FM GROUP TEAM WITH G MEDIA

Lincs FM Group today announces that it has agreed terms with technology company G Media to redesign and development all 9 of it’s groups radio station websites.

Stations such as Lincs FM coverings Lincolnshire and Newark, Trax FM, Doncaster and Bassetlaw and KCFM Hull and East Yorkshire will also be available on Android soon as the deal is to include deployment of more mobile applications.

Keith Briggs, Lincs FM Group’s Director of Operations & Development said: "I was impressed by what G Media had to offer, a very powerful CMS that offers us new opportunities to interact with our listeners across the group, I look forward to a successful partnership.”

Ricki Lee, from G Media said: "It’s been an amazing year for us and adding further sites for the Lincs FM Group only makes it better. We already provide iOS apps for them and we’re looking forward to building on that relationship.”

The new websites and apps will launch in December 2011.

Featured on: The Drum,

Press Release: Download

UTV appoints G Media

Ricki Lee — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:04:56 +0100

We're happy to announce UTV has chosen us to supply websites, launching later this year. Here's the press release.

UTV MEDIA GB AWARDS WEB CONTRACT TO G MEDIA

UTV Media GB today announces that it has awarded the web contract for its local radio station network to technology company G Media. The contract will cover the redesign and development of 13 websites for UTV, which aim to supplement on-air programming and bring people up-to-date with local information.

New websites for stations such as Signal 1 in Stafford and Cheshire, 107.6 Juice FM in Liverpool and The Pulse in West Yorkshire are being developed, backed by the Airwave platform which will allow UTV’s programming and digital teams to easily manage all of their online activity.

Calum Macaulay, UTV Radio’s Director of local radio said: "We’ve been really impressed by G Media’s passion and drive and I think they’ll do a great job for us. They are radio guys who have a clear understanding of what radio companies need and will deliver that for us.”

Ricki Lee, from G Media said: "We’ve wanted to work with UTV Media for a long time and are thrilled they have awarded us their contract. Our team are extremely excited about the challenge ahead and cannot wait to get started.”

The new websites are set to launch before the end of the year.

Featured on: Radio Today, The Drum, How-Do, RadioWorks

Press Release: Download

Studio Inbox - Texts and Tweets, Together

Gav Richards — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 11:14:52 +0100

In 2008 we created SMS Inbox - a brilliant way to manage text messages in studio.

We know that on air, presenters tend to ask listeners to either text in, or tweet them. Therefore it makes sense to be able to see all this information at a glance.

So today, I'm really excited to announce an innovative leap for SMS Inbox.
We're renaming it Studio Inbox, and we're bringing texts and tweets, together.

It couldn't be simpler for stations to add to their existing Inbox, simply by checking their Twitter account in Settings.

We think stations and presenters are going to love this new feature, making it easier than ever to see instant communication from their listeners.

Radioplayer. Community First

Ricki Lee — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:00:56 +0100

Gaydio, The UK's first gay FM radio station today became the first community radio station to launch on Radioplayer with the help of the team here at G Media.

Gaydio Station Director, Toby Whitehouse, says: "Weʼre really excited to be making another UK radio first by joining Radioplayer, which has become the standard method for listening to UK radio online. With 5.7 million people listening over the past 4 weeks, it makes sense to let those potential listeners know weʼre here."

The Manchester based station joins the BBC and many commercial stations in using Radioplayer, which gives listeners access to live and on demand radio from hundreds of stations in the UK - all in one place.

Michael Hill from Radioplayer added: "One of the key principles behind Radioplayer is that it should benefit the entire industry. Iʼm very proud that weʼre beginning to see great- looking Radioplayers for student and community stations, which are now one click away from Heart, Smooth, Absolute, and Radio 2."

If your radio station wants to be on Radioplayer, contact us today.

Press Release.

Twitter - We've Moved

Ricki Lee — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:36:12 +0100

Happy Easter everyone and we hope you're enjoying the long Bank Holiday weekend.

Today, we've been busy at G Media HQ and are pleased to announce we have completed our acquisition of @gmedia on twitter. We've been in deep negotiations for a while now and would like to thank Geoff Mattie (the previous owner of @gmedia) for his support during this transition.

If you have found this blog post because you used to follow Geoff on twitter at http://twitter.com/gmedia don't worry, you are still following him using his new twitter name @geoffmpm. We've also agreed to tweet his new twitter details for a while to help people find his fantastic posts.

For all our followers. You'll still receive our tweets but please remember to now tweet us @gmedia rather than @gmedialabs.

We're keeping hold of @gmedialabs as we have future plans for this twitter feed, so please feel free to also follow this account.

As you can probably imagine, we are very happy to announce this and look forward to receiving your tweets to @gmedia

Ricki Lee

Android is here

Ricki Lee — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:06:37 +0100

We've been working on our android app for a while now and we are so pleased with the end result. The app complements our existing iOS app well.

Our main task was to ensure everything iOS has Android would have as well. We have achieved this which means both apps share the same data. You makes internal changes to your content once and this will be shown across all our mobile applications.

Android also features RadioVIS as it's slide show enriching the app further with live dynamic content.

Download the Planet Rock all today.

Planet Rock - The Technical Side

Gav Richards — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 13:08:55 +0000

It's great to see the new Planet Rock site go live today.

Their requirements were more bespoke than most of our clients, so I thought it'd be interesting to talk about the new stuff we've created for them.

First off, the design. My colleague Dan describes the design process:

"The challenge with creating Planet Rock's website was maintaining a classic rock aspect whilst bringing a new much more modern design.
We did this with the use of ticket stubs, amp background textures and generally a structured site with a grunge edge..."

We've made use of CSS3 and transparent PNG's to create the "breaking out" look. While it is clear there is a grid structure, Planet Rock wanted us to break the rules wherever possible, to create a more unpredictable landscape.

Next - the player.
With the official launch of UK Radioplayer just around the corner, we wanted to be ready to jump on that platform as soon as possible. For Planet Rock, we created a brand new live and on demand player, based on the design guidelines of Radioplayer.

In what we've termed the "hybrid" player, we've used JW Player as a temporary solution. However the most obvious change is the inclusion of a flash slideshow.
This uses RadioVIS technology to display a live "pushed" slideshow, with many slides utilizing data such as who is on air now, next and the songs being played.
We'll shortly be rolling out an update for the iPhone application which uses exactly the same technology. It means if you hold your phone next to the computer screen, the same images will appear at the same time.
Our upcoming Android app will launch with this technology.

On the On Demand side of things, we've worked with our streaming partners at Sharpstream to integrate Planet Rock's existing listen again structure.

Gig Guide
Planet Rock required a custom tool for managing a concert listing service. We created a brand new Gig Guide tool, which allows them to easily update artists, venues and gigs. The data is imported to the right column of the homepage.

Music Pages
We started work on this before work officially commenced on the Planet Rock project, but the guys helped us shape the direction for the new service. For every artist played on the station, we generate a dynamic page of information, pulled from other sources such as MusicBrainz, Last.fm, Wikipedia and YouTube.
For Planet Rock's version of this, we also worked with our friends at Folder Media, who supply data for ticket and merchandise sales.

We also did lots of work on customizing the listener club, but you're not likely to see any of that, so I wont bore you! :)

We'd love to hear your feedback, or if you have any questions. Pop them in the comments box below.

Thanks for reading.
Gav

Planet Rock Website Launches

Ricki Lee — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 10:45:19 +0000

We are pleased to reveal to the world over six months of blood sweat and tears (happy ones)

Planet Rock - Where Rock Lives

Today, Planet Rock launched a complete overhaul in design with a website and app from the team here at G Media.

This is by far one of our biggest projects to date and we've been on an amazing journey to get to the launch today.

We've introduced a tonne of new features;
The site seems to have been received well by listeners, staff and the radio industry.

Jonathan Arendt, Managing Director said "The new imagery entirely reflects Planet Rock’s broad range of classic and contemporary rock tracks. The new site will deliver listeners a vastly improved experience and bring a more integrated and flexible platform to our commercial partners."

We love reading comments about new sites on Facebook and Twitter - here are a few that have caught our eye so far.

On Planet Rock's Facebook page
Nigel Hopkins - Like the new website guys, far more modern.
Gary Butcher - love the new site!! better than the old one
Aran Eardley - So who else is liking the new morning show with Lucio? Plus new website looks awesome!

Tweets
@phillclark: New Planet Rock site today - well done to the guys at @gmedialabs looking really good. New iPhone app too!
@planetrockradio Morning! First Planet Rock Connection of the week comes from Paul. Will post the details on our sexy new website...

Radio Today: New start for Planet Rock

Hello 2011

Ricki Lee — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:43:22 +0000

So it's back to work after the festive season. Time to answer the same questions over and over again... 'Have you had a nice Christmas?' and 'What did you do for New Year?'

Just in case you were wondering, 'Fab Christmas, Nothing much for New Year. What about you?'

2010 was an amazing year for us and we're hitting 2011 running. Shortly this month, we will be introducing a whole heap of new stuff for a brand new client. It's a project we've been working on for best part of the year. Watch this space.

We're excited about UK Radio Player coming to a radio station website near you this year. I would like to thank everyone who's already expressed their interest in the various offerings we have. Find out more here.

So what does 2011 hold for G Media? We have a stupid amount of websites to build / re-design in the first quarter of this year, a few updates for you and well, some exciting new products to offer. I really cannot say anymore right now. But seriously, check back here soon for more details.

Happy New Year from all of us at G Media. We look forward to all the fun, work and play it brings for you and us.

Merry Christmas

Ricki Lee — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 06:59:18 +0000

Well it's Christmas Eve and firstly. What the hell happened to this year? It's gone so quickly.

We'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2010 has truly been an amazing year for us and we'd like to thank all of our customers (new and old) for keep us extremely busy but happy.

I was going to make a little list of our achievements of the year, but we've done so much it's really hard to even think where to start. I remember having a team meeting this time last year and we were so excited of what was to come. 2011 is going to be a massive year for us. We're so excited and cannot wait!

I would like to extend my thanks to the team here, especially Gav and Dan who have worked stupidly hard to achieve all that we have this year. I would like to, on behalf of the company and personally say thank you so much for your hard work, and here's to 2011.

Right we're off... Well for a few days anyway. we'll be enjoying the festive season, so our offices are now closed and will reopen 5th January 2010. Don't worry though, we're still around. So if you need technical support. Open up a ticket in Airwave and we'll be happy to help.

Have a drink on us.

Merry Christmas

Ricki Lee & all the G Media Team

School Closures - It's 'Snow' Joke.

Ricki Lee — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:55:58 +0000

First off I must apologise for my poor 'snow joke' comedy. But I couldn't resist.

This week we've have added a schools section to our News Centre module in airwave. This new section lets you add schools in your area, and set them to 'Open' or 'Closed'. Simple right?

We launched it as a beta product and opened it up for feedback from our clients before rolling it out. Thanks to some fantastic discussion between stations, we implemented more features to this tool.

An amber level, we've called 'Partial', for part closed, late open, open with advice etc.
A notes section to add important information.
Easy removal of all settings including notes & statuses.
Filter schools by city/town.
Share icons on index and school pages.
Headteacher replaced with Principal in North America.
Phone Number field added.
The full school list is automatically exported to a flat HTML copy which is now included in the Winter Weather Watch alert homepage, via an IFRAME.

Just days later heavy snow hits the UK and Atlantic FM were first off the blocks with amazing coverage for locals and concerned parents & carers.

As the snow kept coming and looking like it was never going to stop, we took it a step further by launching School Closures for iPhone. We added this feature to all of our iPhone clients who use our News Centre. Listeners are able to see the latest updates, browse by location, or search by name.

It was one of the quickest tool creation and enhancements we've done for Airwave thanks to our quick thinking development team and superb client feedback.

However, that said, we are not quite finished yet. We are currently working on more enhancements to connect this feature to a wider audience and also creating less work for Airwave users.

Snow coverage examples using School Closures.

Atlantic FM
Touch FM
JACK fm

A New G Media Website Design

Dan Sherratt — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:46:30 +0000

We at G Media are happy to present our new website. "Out with the old and in with the new" is a general rule at the G Media headquarters thus it was vital to have a website which reflected this.

The G Media website design started with three key concepts in mind: ease of use, personality and new thinking.

Ease of Use

Usability was of importance when designing the site offering call to actions to assist users with navigation. The homepage carousel also got somewhat of a makeover with more a more vibrant style. We acknowledged that mobile browsers are becoming more commonly used and thus made our website design iPhone and iPad compatible.

Personality

Personality was something that lacked in the old design we wanted to use more vibrant colours that coincided with the G Media brand.

Meet The team

The meet-the-team page lets our users have a sneak peek into the lives of the G Media staff using some nifty JSON technology to pull through our team members latest tweets.

Client Testimonials

We also feel that our personality is well represented by our clients. This was partially why we chose to show a random testimonial from our friends in the radio industry.

The Blog

After Gav and Ricki attended the Radio Festival down in Salford Quays it became quite apparent that G Media had a following on their UStream we wanted to strengthen this with useful blog updates which can be found in the footer of every page.

New Thinking

A new website breeds new thinking with our site being built in very many new technologies. We wanted to use new technologies to build the site but we also had to ensure that the technologies degraded gracefully to older browsers.

The structure of the site is built in HTML5 (Yes it’s at version 5 now) which has a numerous amount of advantages such as speed, structure and thread like operation.

After I saw an advert for a css3 frontend conference I challenged myself to build something harder, better, faster, stronger (Yes! i'm a fan of daft punk) with the use of new css3 features using text shadows, border radius and transitions. You’ll notice these little niceties if you’re browsing our website in Safari, Chrome, Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox.

Let us know what you think of our new design.