BBC Music Jazz pop-up station goes live this week
By James Cridland for media.info
Posted 10 November 2015, 12.26pm est
"BBC Music Jazz", the latest in a series of pop-up radio stations, goes live this week on digital platforms. It's partially there to celebrate the London Jazz Festival, but will also broadcast the launch concert of Jazz FM (an Ella Fitzgerald concert in 1990 at the Royal Albert Hall), and some interesting archive content from BBC Radio 2, Radio 4, 6 Music, BBC Radio Scotland and Jazz FM.
It's the first time that the BBC has worked together with a commercial radio station to launch a pop-up. Previous pop-ups, which live on a temporary DAB channel as well as online, have focused on the Eurovision or a country music theme, as well as an additional channel for the Olympics.
"BBC Music Jazz" might have a rubbish name - missing the word "Radio", which is really ought to be there; but it's an interesting new direction for the corporation.
Pop-up radio stations in the past have had good effect on sales of DAB Digital Radio receivers and are incorporated into RAJAR, though the listening figures are not released by the BBC.
In Australia, the ABC also runs temporary, pop-up, radio stations. ABC Radio Extra is currently broadcasting a month of Australian music, though it has also broadcast very short weekend-long stations in the past, and rebroadcast Radio New Zealand in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake.
In South Africa, Primedia added "Oscar Extra", a temporary online radio station carrying continuous coverage of the Oscar Pistorious case.