Internet radio has developed organically without agreed protocols, making distribution problematic for radio stations, and discovery a challenge for listeners. The generation of good quality, consistent metadata to describe internet radio content is key to solving this problem and unlocking the medium’s digital future. The output of RadioDeck was a toolkit comprising a browser-based Content Management System into which radio stations and audio producers publish live ‘linear’ or pre-produced ‘on-demand’ radio. The project objectives were: 1. Making radio discoverable: encouraging audio producers to create and align their metadata to make radio fully discoverable online, building on best practice. 2. Opening up a viable market place: growth in discovery of and listening to IP-delivered radio will lead to increased revenue flows across the value chain. 3. Democratising the medium: barriers to entry are lowered, allowing new entrants and plural voices, and stimulating innovation. Some of the project’s outputs will be disseminated through a Creative Commons licence, with the toolkit’s open source status encouraging further evolution.

Through cross-sector collaboration, Radio Connected tackled several interconnected issues that have inhibited internet delivery of radio. The aim was to propose a modular set of applications to better connect internet radio with the growing range of IP-connected devices and to deliver it to users. The project objectives were: 1. Self-publishing: creating a simple user interface with which radio producers can upload programmes 2. Making radio / audio discoverable: developing solutions to allow dynamic tagging of radio / audio via speech and music recognition tools 3. Licensing: developing platform- and database-agnostic solutions to manage the tracking of radio / audio delivered and the reporting to rights holders 4. Delivery across IP Networks: developing a cost effective solution to both store and then deliver hosted radio content, blurring the listener's distinction between live streaming, caching and download to optimise efficient use of bandwidth 5. Audience metrics and monetisation: opening up the potential to accurately track audiences, creating opportunities for targeted advertising assigned to relevant metadata tags and geo-location.