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Media
Absolute launch iTunes tagging
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 27 November 2009
Absolute Radio has announced it will become the first radio station in Europe to provide an iTunes Tagging service, albeit only in London where it broadcasts on FM.
The new service utilises the FM receiver that has been added to the iPod Nano, and uses that technology originally developed for the now defunct CLIQ download service. Basically, as you listen to Absolute, if you like a song playing you can press a button, then the next time you sync your iPod to iTunes you will be given the option to download the song from the iTunes Store.
CLIQ was developed by Unique Broadcasting, and planned to incorporate a download service into a clever radio set. The service never really got off the ground. However, technology developed for that service will be utilised by Absolute’s iPod service.
Unique’s Simon Blackmore told reporters this week: “We were extremely pleased to see Apple announce the arrival of an FM tuner in the latest iPod Nano and it’s now even more welcome having implemented iTunes Tagging with the team at [Absolute Radio’s] One Golden Square Labs, who continue to be at the forefront of technology”.
Unique CEO Simon Cole, meanwhile, said this: “The use of radio as a prompt to purchase for music has been a vision of ours for the last three years. I’m really pleased to see much of the work we have put into developing IP in this area coming to fruition in our work with Absolute”.
Elsewhere in Absolute news, their previously reported ‘listener controlled’ live music station Dabbl will formally launch next week with a recording of a recent Kasabian gig.
