The BBC's new Radioplayer will finally launch early in the new year, allowing listeners to tune into over 400 live streams of broadcasts from both BBC national and local stations and from leading British commercial radio stations.
Rather niftily, taking lessons from the likes of Spotify and Last.fm, the BBC Radioplayer will also feature and option to let listeners search for individual songs, though specific details on how that technology (and the music licensing details that are behind it) will work are still to be revealed by the BBC.
PCs, phones, TVs
The UK Radioplayer is a pop-up console that will work on PCs initially, with plans afoot to roll it out to other platforms including Mac, IPTV and smartphones soon after launch.
Users will be able to instantly search every station on the network for news, sport, music and their favourite tunes of the moment using the Beeb's newly designed radio search engine.
Stations involved will also be able to develop their own offerings to give listeners all kinds of 'added value' extras such as click-to-buy music services.
Heads of Terms for the project have been signed by the BBC, trade body RadioCentre, Global Radio and Guardian Media Group.
You can check out the BBC's current radio offerings online via its website at www.bbc.co.uk/radio/
Via musicweek.com/
