Virgin Radio to relaunch on Virgin Train

[radamfi]

According to

http://talksport.com/press/all-aboard-virgin-radio-star-160316188590

Virgin Radio has today announced that the station will launch via a feat of technology and a world first – a live radio broadcast from a moving train; a Virgin Train of course! This epic journey comes complete with performances from some of the UK’s leading bands, including Travis, The Feeling, Mystery Jets, Gavin James, Emmy the Great and Walking On Cars.
At 11am on the 30th March 2016, the ‘Virgin Radio Star’ – the train’s new name, to be officially unveiled on the day – will depart Manchester Piccadilly and journey through the UK, via Crewe, Birmingham and Rugby, to its final London destination.

On board will be Virgin Radio breakfast and drivetime presenters, Edith Bowman and Matt Richardson, who will be broadcasting the new station’s very first show to a nation of listeners and a train full of VIP guests, including Sam Branson...

Virgin Radio will relaunch on 30 March with the first show broadcast live from the train from Manchester to London. The train will be renamed Virgin Radio Star. The article says it will leave at 11 o'clock, so presumably this is the train:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/U10514/2016/03/30/advanced

(Virgin Radio originally launched in 1993, went through a number of owners and in 2008 was renamed Absolute Radio because the then new owners didn't want to continue paying to licence the Virgin name. The owners of talkSPORT have decided to revive the Virgin name.)

 

[thenorthern]

Will they broadcast the station through the currently unused at seat radios? Given that the new Virgin Radio is only on DAB it will be very hard to receive otherwise on a train.

On a serious note though I don't think Virgin Radio and Virgin Trains have no legal connection as one is wholly owned by The Wireless Group PLC and we know who owns Virgin Trains.

Its strange how 15 years ago though there was Virgin everything such as Virgin Trains, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Credit Cards, Virgin Cola and Virgin Megastores.

 

[radamfi]

Will they broadcast the station through the currently unused at seat radios? Given that the new Virgin Radio is only on DAB it will be very hard to receive otherwise on a train.

They will have an internet stream.

 

[randyrippley]

I hope theres a quiet coach on that train

 

[RichmondCommu]

Given that you can listen to the radio on your phone I really don't know why they are bothering to be honest.

 

[causton]

Given that you can listen to the radio on your phone I really don't know why they are bothering to be honest.

Bothering to do what, exactly?

 

[fairysdad]

Given that you can listen to the radio on your phone I really don't know why they are bothering to be honest.

Bothering to do what, exactly?

I suspect there's a little confusion here - it's not a case that the radio is to be relaunched as receivable on the trains (presumably via the disused at-seat headphone sockets) which is what I suspect RC is thinking, but instead that the new Virgin Radio station is to start broadcasting on 30 March, with their initial broadcast being an Outside Broadcast from a Virgin Trains train.

(BTW, I think that using the word 'relaunch' is incorrect as it's not Virgin Radio as was that is starting up, but a completely new radio station that happens to be using the currently-defunct (in the UK) Virgin Radio name and branding. It's kind of akin to First Great Western now using the trading name Great Western Railway - is (/was) it GWR being relaunched, or a company using a defunct name?)

 

[bicbasher]

From my understanding as mentioned above, this is a brand new radio station set up by the same people who run Talksport, who have acquired a brand franchise from Beardie. There are other Virgin Radio stations in France and the UAE to name two that I've heard of.

The former Virgin Radio is now Absolute Radio.

Fingers crossed Network Rail don't muck it up next week!

 

[450.emu]

From my understanding as mentioned above, this is a brand new radio station set up by the same people who run Talksport, who have acquired a brand franchise from Beardie. There are other Virgin Radio stations in France and the UAE to name two that I've heard of.

The former Virgin Radio is now Absolute Radio.

Fingers crossed Network Rail don't muck it up next week!

may be an Absolute Disaster if they lose signal whilst passing through a tunnel :roll:

 

[Ash Bridge]

I thought the BBC broadcast a live version of Top of the Pops from a HST travelling from Paddington to Bristol back in 1984, I don't think any band performed onboard but a certain obnoxious individual plus other dj's did the presenting live from the moving train, plus this was a TV transmission and not just an audio broadcast.

 

[radamfi]

The train is due to sit in Crewe for 21 minutes, Birmingham International for 30 minutes and Rugby for 28 minutes, so I wouldn't be surprised if bands play during those times, meaning that they can rely on getting a stable transmission signal.

 

[tellytype]

World first? My foot.

I'm a broadcast engineer specialising in Outside Broadcasts, this sort of thing is being done all over the world on a daily basis. Maybe not on trains but frankly, a train is the same as a car or a boat or an aircraft...and I was presenting travel news live into radio stations from the latter quite a few years ago!

A few ways they could do this - all of them bar one will use an IP audio codec (like a Telos ZIP one, Tieline Commander) so will need some kind of internet connection, likely using the on board Wifi - upstream via GSM-R or 3G/4G backup but not sure this is going to work too well in tunnels etc, or maybe it will now GSM-R is being made more robust.

The other relies wholly on the conventional 3G/4G networks with no GSM-R, well that'll be a mess then...

Finally there are a limited number of high quality GSM audio codecs (Sonifex just brought one out, Comrex do another that is lower audio quality) which might just do the job, but again, relying on public mobile network.

I wouldn't in any case send live performances or music down any of those except maybe the ZIP One, because of the lossy encoding. Usual practice is the presenter links are live over the codec, the music is played in back at the studio & the whole thing is 'driven' by a 'tech op' who pushes all the buttons, in this case in Golden Square.

Live band performances? Well, maybe, but also maybe pre-recorded, uploaded to an FTP site and then played out from base. All that, plus the ad breaks etc means actually the time the link is being used is tiny in any given show.

I did some analysis many years ago of Absolute & I think the music to speech ratio was 27% speech, so actually 27% of an hour, not much in reality. That might've changed over the years but when you break it down, they might just pull it off

On the subject of TV Outside Broadcasts from moving things - Check out something called LiveU - bonds multiple 3G/4G networks and sends HD video ready for broadcast. Been used in moving cars, boats, heaven knows what. If you've seen an OB on 'This Morning' on ITV, you've seen one in action.

P.S: @bicbasher - There's also Virgin Radio in Calgary

 

[thenorthern]

I would think they will use a broadcast delay so that if they do loose connection (i.e. going through a tunnel) it won't sound like they have gone off air.

I don't think that any of the Virgin Radio stations are owned by Virgin Group. I have trying to work out though how the ownership of Virgin Rail Group works and its hard.

 

[tellytype]

I would think they will use a broadcast delay so that if they do loose connection (i.e. going through a tunnel) it won't sound like they have gone off air..

Very unlikely to use a delay (unless the output is already on a swear box!) - just play audio in from the studio end if the link drops. Depends of course, they may have hacked the studio around to do it that way

 

[northwichcat]

Its strange how 15 years ago though there was Virgin everything such as Virgin Trains, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Credit Cards, Virgin Cola and Virgin Megastores.

Only Virgin Cola has gone. Virgin Megastores in the UK disappeared due a management buyout but still exists internationally, Virgin Credit Cards are part of Virgin Money UK which includes former Northern Rock banks which they purchased off the state. Likewise Virgin Radio existed as a brand internationally even if the old Virgin Radio UK became Absolute Radio.

 

[radamfi]

(BTW, I think that using the word 'relaunch' is incorrect as it's not Virgin Radio as was that is starting up, but a completely new radio station that happens to be using the currently-defunct (in the UK) Virgin Radio name and branding. It's kind of akin to First Great Western now using the trading name Great Western Railway - is (/was) it GWR being relaunched, or a company using a defunct name?)

I see your point and of course the new Virgin Radio is a new station, however Virgin themselves consider it to be a "re-launch":

https://www.virgin.com/company/virgin-radio-international

In 2015, plans were also announced to re-launch Virgin Radio in the UK subject to the necessary broadcast licence being awarded.

Also, the website for the new Virgin Radio says

http://www.virginradio.co.uk/

VIRGIN RADIO IS BACK!

 

[miami]

World first? My foot.

I'm a broadcast engineer specialising in Outside Broadcasts, this sort of thing is being done all over the world on a daily basis. Maybe not on trains but frankly, a train is the same as a car or a boat or an aircraft...and I was presenting travel news live into radio stations from the latter quite a few years ago!

Quite, but what do you expect from Beardy and publicity. It's amazing the journalists that do this on a daily basis repeat this.

Live TV transmissions from campagin buses have been a staple of the 2015 and 2010 elections, and who can forget Alex Crawford's transmission of the rebels taking Tripoli - I believe a producer was manually aiming the BGAN, I don't think I've seen that in the operations manual.

However an entire station being presed from a moving train, rather than bringing it into a ground studio on an OS, is slightly more impressive -- if the signal goes you lose continuity.

Comrex do another that is lower audio quality)

A bit simplistic. Comrex offers many codecs, including FLAC, so unless you're claiming that a comrex ADC isn't acceptable (given the terrible bitrates on DAB) I'm not sure where this comes from.

(And portable comrex units have been in use doing lives for years from all sorts of moving vehicles)

On the subject of TV Outside Broadcasts from moving things - Check out something called LiveU - bonds multiple 3G/4G networks and sends HD video ready for broadcast. Been used in moving cars, boats, heaven knows what. If you've seen an OB on 'This Morning' on ITV, you've seen one in action.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-25839853 was either a liveU or a WMT, I forget which. If you'd doing a studio version you could use something like a viprinet too (although this is generally for TV - audio is trivial).

If you want a low latency Video codec pick up an OBE, set it into double-path/double-stream, and broadcast the same packets to your decoder on multiple uplinks, does wonders for packetloss, completely removes the need for FEC, and works into any old H264/RTP decoder.

 

[dgl]

There was even this from a Weymouth-CI-Weymouth ship.

As said before nowadays in the world of GSM setting up an OB link especially if it is just for audio it's really quite easy (and even easir if only speech is required)

 

[6Gman]

The press puff says it will "journey through the UK".

That would be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland presumably.

Be interesting to see a Pendolino in Belfast!

 

[Jonfun]

It's not politically correct to talk about "England" these days!

 

[miami]

There was even this from a Weymouth-CI-Weymouth ship.

As said before nowadays in the world of GSM setting up an OB link especially if it is just for audio it's really quite easy (and even easir if only speech is required)

Wow, that's an impressive broadcast, tricky even nowadays (I recall an issue trying to do a simple DTL from a floating barge in Kent when they were mine clearing).

Sky also tooted their own horn a couple of years ago with a live from a Scottish ferry
http://www.obantimes.co.uk/2014/06/11/first-ever-live-broadcast-from-a-calmac-ferry/

 

[gimmea50anyday]

GSM-R is a closed network for railway safety critical purposes. Mobile phones cannot and wont piggy back off this system as it uses a proprietary network frequency and isnt otherwise licensed by the regulator (ofcom i think) to do so.

So I have been told anyway. I asked that very question on here when I noticed my 3 mobile worked throughout Standedge tunnel shortly after the GSM-R kit was fitted to the tunnel entrances...

 

[Jonfun]

Standedge Tunnel's had a strong 3G signal for ages. It's the irony that you get a better signal in the tunnel than when you come out the other end into Yorkshire that gets me...

 

[radamfi]

This is how they are doing it:

http://earshotcreative.com/2016/03/production-secrets-of-the-virgin-radio-launch/

Production secrets of the Virgin Radio launch

“Technically it’s quite a big challenge. Geographically it’s quite a big challenge. We’ve done things with planes and this is at least as complicated.”
Phil Critchlow is holding a multi-page spreadsheet. It’s a minute-by-minute breakdown of every planned event on the four hour outside broadcast from a moving train that will launch Virgin Radio in the UK.
One column shows the activities his team is producing on the train, another details the running order for Virgin Radio’s London studio. Colour coding highlights the points at which they’ll mesh and further columns name landmarks, junctions and stations they’ll pass along the route and measurements of signal quality for the broadcast link.
Every moment of this launch is planned and set against a GPS located route map.

All aboard

Critchlow’s team at TBI Media has built its reputation around the delivery of big broadcast events. It’s what helped the company the win the Indie of the Year accolade in 2015 at the RPAs in London and the New York Festivals.
He pitched the idea to launch Virgin Radio from a Virgin Train to programme director Liam Thompson at the station before Christmas and together they’ve developed a plan around a confirmed route that involves live music performances, a travelling group of VIP guests and which requires around fifteen production staff on board the moving train.
At the start of the journey the train will be officially named “The Virgin Radio Star” and its branded livery unveiled. The idea is bold and relevant. With British bands on board the station literally carries music across the country. It’s also a little risky, but Richard Branson didn’t build the Virgin brand without taking a few risks.
The train departs Manchester Piccadilly station at 11:00 precisely and is scheduled to arrive into London Euston at 14:58. Yes, that’s a much longer journey time than the 2 and a bit hours you’d expect from Virgin Trains but this service is rather special and the team from TBI has planned for it all to be time well spent.

On air you’ll hear live music, conversation with presenters Edith Bowman and Matt Richardson and their celebrity VIP guests interspersed with elements from Virgin Radio’s new studio in the Wireless Group’s Southwark building. Everything is choreographed to take advantage of the train’s location, the people on board, the available link signal and the format of the new station. Even the on-board announcements are under the control of the production team.

Engineering works

TBI has fitted out one carriage of the train for live broadcasting while the rest of the first class section is reserved for guests.
In the broadcast carriage there are three technical positions. One is a simple four mic table arrangement where the presenters can interview guests at any point on the journey. There’s also a small acoustic performance area that can be used at any time along the route.
Finally, the team has removed seats and tables from the train to rig a larger performance area from which a five piece band can play a whole set while the train is stationary at a station.
Health and safety judgements suggest it’s unwise to attempt this kind of full band performance on a moving train so the planned running order allows for a total of 70 minutes performance time at three stops along the route.
Virgin Radio executive producer Mick Meadows is producing the presenters on the day while TBI Media who created the idea is organising technical delivery, the bands’ performances, physical branding and experiential elements with the VIPs on board.

Signal box

To get a low-latency stereo broadcast link and a return path with talkback to the train is no trivial matter.
If you’ve ever tried making a long uninterrupted phone call from a fast moving train or relied upon onboard wifi for anything more arduous than sending text around then you’ll appreciate the challenge.
With no safe way to strap dishes and cables to the outside of the Pendolino the TBI team has settled on a Viprinet solution from Wired Broadcast. The Viprinet box “bonds” the data capacity available through twelve mobile 4G and 3G connections spread across multiple networks to provide a data pipe fat enough to carry stereo broadcast quality audio.
The Pendolino’s inbuilt antennas, front and back, provide a diversity radio solution to the Vipranet box: it continuously measures both incoming signals and switches to the best.
A separate mobile TBU channel provides clean feed plus talkback from the London studio back to the train.
Despite the inbuilt redundancy with this solution and measured coverage of 70-80% along the route there will still be places where the signal is lost. When that happens the London team will pick-up until the link is re-established.
Phil’s team has tracked the line, mile by mile, minute by minute on an out of service train to identify the definite black spots, the possibly dodgy areas and those places positively bathing in 4G goodness.

Rock steady Crewe

At the train’s first planned stop in Cheshire a rock solid signal is pretty much guaranteed. The Virgin Radio Star will spend around 20 minutes in Crewe station for a live band session. It’s a pattern that will be repeated when the train pulls into Birmingham New Street and Rugby stations.
Travis, The Feeling, Mystery Jets, Gavin James and Walking On Cars are all on the train so we’re promised a mix of live music from these British bands as the show crosses England.
Everything that happens on board will be filmed and recorded with a wrap-up film handed over to the radio station when the train pulls into London. This will provide an archive of shareable material in quality and ensures nothing gets lost, even when the broadcast link signal drops out.
TBI’s events co-ordinator Louise Segal is responsible for the logistics planning and individual production teams are dedicated to certain areas of focus. One team looks after the artists, another takes responsibility for the sound, there’s a camera team and a separate lighting team, such is the importance of producing high quality visual material.
As a piece of radio and a practical project this is clearly ambitious and big but Phil Critchlow says that there’s nothing that’s particularly keeping him awake at night.
“We’ve done everything we possibly can within the available resources. I want everybody to be safe, I want them to all have fun and fundamentally I want the audience to tune in via DAB to hear the programme and when they do think this is a really cool way to launch a radio station that’s associated with a brand we really respect.”

First class return

A station launch is complicated enough – sometimes it’s a struggle just to get on air and keep the needles wagging – but Phil believes the effort, complications and risk involved in this project are justified because the return of a brand like Virgin Radio needs a big statement:
“Virgin Radio is an established brand and there will be an expectation from day one because of that. I hope this is an idea that lives up to those brand values. You need a big moment with something like Virgin to reintroduce it to new audiences as well as people who listened to it the first time around. There needs to be some Virginness about the whole thing.”

Virgin Radio is available on DAB and the RadioPlayer app in the UK and at virginradio.co.uk from 30 March 2016.

 

[miami]

So viprinet. If you're operating a full OB with limited interaction between studio and train you could do worse than dropping in a couple of BGAN HDRs on streaming mode, one on each side of the train pointing out of the window. Tracking would be a bit trickier, but not beyond the wit of a couple of students on work experience. Add them into the viprinet and you should have a signal everywhere aside from a few tunnels.

 

[Envy123]

Its strange how 15 years ago though there was Virgin everything such as Virgin Trains, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Credit Cards, Virgin Cola and Virgin Megastores.

Virgin Mobile still exists - "This is the Virgin Mobile service of [number]" is something I hear a lot nowadays.

 

[ryan125hst]

Thought i'd tune in and have a listen and the first time they went live to the train after I tuned in the signal glitched and they had to take over in the studio. This was at about 12:05. As good as 4G is these days, it is far from perfect. It's a great idea for a different launch though. Lets hope the signal gets a bit better as they travel further south!

 

[Agent_c]

Virgin Mobile still exists - "This is the Virgin Mobile service of [number]" is something I hear a lot nowadays.

Virgin Mobile is part of Virgin Media now. They have some decent prices.

 

[ryan125hst]

I thought the BBC broadcast a live version of Top of the Pops from a HST travelling from Paddington to Bristol back in 1984, I don't think any band performed onboard but a certain obnoxious individual plus other dj's did the presenting live from the moving train, plus this was a TV transmission and not just an audio broadcast.

How did they manage that in those days before 3G and 4G networks? It's tricky this days as the Virgin Radio launch is showing, but it must have been even more difficult then!

I'm a broadcast engineer specialising in Outside Broadcasts, this sort of thing is being done all over the world on a daily basis. Maybe not on trains but frankly, a train is the same as a car or a boat or an aircraft...and I was presenting travel news live into radio stations from the latter quite a few years ago!

A few ways they could do this - all of them bar one will use an IP audio codec (like a Telos ZIP one, Tieline Commander) so will need some kind of internet connection, likely using the on board Wifi - upstream via GSM-R or 3G/4G backup but not sure this is going to work too well in tunnels etc, or maybe it will now GSM-R is being made more robust.

The other relies wholly on the conventional 3G/4G networks with no GSM-R, well that'll be a mess then...

Finally there are a limited number of high quality GSM audio codecs (Sonifex just brought one out, Comrex do another that is lower audio quality) which might just do the job, but again, relying on public mobile network.

I wouldn't in any case send live performances or music down any of those except maybe the ZIP One, because of the lossy encoding. Usual practice is the presenter links are live over the codec, the music is played in back at the studio & the whole thing is 'driven' by a 'tech op' who pushes all the buttons, in this case in Golden Square.

Live band performances? Well, maybe, but also maybe pre-recorded, uploaded to an FTP site and then played out from base. All that, plus the ad breaks etc means actually the time the link is being used is tiny in any given show.

I did some analysis many years ago of Absolute & I think the music to speech ratio was 27% speech, so actually 27% of an hour, not much in reality. That might've changed over the years but when you break it down, they might just pull it off

On the subject of TV Outside Broadcasts from moving things - Check out something called LiveU - bonds multiple 3G/4G networks and sends HD video ready for broadcast. Been used in moving cars, boats, heaven knows what. If you've seen an OB on 'This Morning' on ITV, you've seen one in action.

As someone who is studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering, this kind of thing is another interest of mine beside railways. I've read something online before and seen a few videos of Sky News using similar equipment. It's far cheaper than a satellite link but seems to be great quality as long as there is a good 4G signal. As the mobile networks roll out more 4G coverage I'd imagine satellite links for OB's will be used less and less.

 

[sn1975]

Is this the train they are broadcasting from?

1T59 1100 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/U10514/2016/03/30/advanced