[no_toc]This page refers to the 2017 event and is no longer being updated. Visit the current Radio TechCon homepage for more on this year’s event.
You can learn more about the topics our speakers will cover on the sessions page.
David Lloyd – Radio TechCon Host
Former commercial radio executive turned radio historian and broadcaster, David has been in radio forty years, running stations of all formats from Galaxy to Century, LBC to Virgin. He’s also the author of How to Make Great Radio and his new book, Radio Moments.
Steve Daly – Head of Technology, BBC Archives
Steve Daly has worked in engineering roles across the BBC for over 20 years, specialising in audio-visual content creation, distribution and archiving. Throughout his career he has been closely involved in the whole gamut of programme-making, designing and delivering systems for live transmission, editing, studios, outside broadcasts and notably for major global sporting and entertainment events.
Simon Fell – Director of Technology and Innovation, European Broadcasting Union
Simon Fell leads the team spearheading developments in broadcast, media technologies and innovation at the EBU based in Geneva. Additionally, Simon is the Chairman of the World Broadcasting Union Technical Committee and of the ETSI Joint Technical Committee for Broadcast Standards. He is also a member of the IBC Council.
He has four decades of experience, formerly with ITV as Director of Future Technologies; previously he helped establish Carlton Television where he held several executive positions and helped launch digital broadcasting in the UK.
He has chaired the Technical Council at the UK’s Digital Television Group, and was Chairman of the HD Forum.
Additional roles include Director of Engineering for Rushes, Chief Engineer of 625 and establishing Channel Four. His early career included periods in the USA with Rank Cintel and at YTV in Leeds.
Roger Hall – Technology Training Manager, Global
Roger Hall has been Technology Training Manager and Technical Consultant at Global for 11 years, helping them get the best out of all the technology that they use. Prior to that he did technical support and training at RCS, as a result of which he gets intimately involved with the music scheduling and playout of Global’s services.
Carol Harrison – North East Big Bang Manager – RTC North, STEMNetwork
Carol is passionate about everything STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) related. She has worked over a number of years in the gap between industry and education in order to raise the profile of STEM sector opportunities for young people and help inspire the next generation of STEM recruits using a network of STEM Ambassadors in the North East of England.
Stephanie Hirst – Presenter
With over 14 awards and 11 years hosting Capital FM’s breakfast show, Stephanie is one of the UK’s biggest radio stars. In 2014 she took a break from broadcasting for personal reasons and in October of that year, revealed that she is Transgender. Having taken a break from the airwaves, Stephanie returned to radio and moved to the BBC where she hosts a ‘Vinyl Revival’ show every Saturday night on BBC Manchester. Expanding into TV, she is part of the extended family on ITV’s Lorraine where she has also been a mentor for their ‘Change One Thing’ campaign.
Starting her career aged 12 at Radio Aire in Leeds, securing a slot on the overnight show at 16, this took her on an unbelievable journey hosting some of the biggest commercial radio shows in the UK, including the national Sunday top 40 show ‘Hit40UK’ for 3 years, along with interviewing some of the world’s biggest stars.
Michael Hill – Managing Director, Radioplayer
Mike runs Radioplayer, a non-profit BBC/commercial radio collaboration that’s now spread to 8 countries. Their aim is to keep radio simple to use, particularly on devices connected to the internet. They’ve launched web players, apps, hardware devices, and are now focusing on hybrid radio and in-car listening.
Mark Henry – Head of 5G and Service Evolution, BT/EE
Mark Henry has been in telecommunications for over 20 years, with diverse roles in Fixed and Mobile with AOL, Orange, Wanadoo, EE and now as part of BT. Mark has played an important part in delivering many strategic projects including Local loop un-bundling, Radio Access Network sharing, Orange T-Mobile integration, Spectrum Auctions, 3G & LTE launch and the Emergency Services Network contract for Public safety services over LTE. Mark is currently Head of 5G & Service evolution at BT/EE.
Jamie Laundon – Senior Technologist, BBC Design and Engineering
Jamie Laundon delivers complex technology projects for the BBC’s national radio networks, with a focus on connectivity, workflow design, metadata and networked audio.
His 15 year radio career began within UK commercial radio at Heart and LBC in London, before becoming Technical Manager at Galaxy Radio in Yorkshire. He later joined Radio Computing Services (RCS) as an integration specialist working with radio networks across Europe and the Middle East. Jamie is a member of the Engineering innovation team researching BBC Radio’s next-generation ‘Internet Fit Radio Studios’, with a focus on networked audio interoperability.
Scott McGerty – Compliance Manager, Spark Sunderland
Scott McGerty presents the Amazing Chart on Amazing Radio and is the longest-running member of Sunderland’s Community Radio Station Spark. Scott is the Compliance Manager for Spark so oversees the delivery of the station’s Key Commitments and ensures that Spark remains local and engaging to their 15-24 year old demographic. Scott was one of the first to innovate live radio through Facebook Live and led Spark to a Gold award for Best Innovation at this year’s Community Radio Awards.
Dan McQuillin – Managing Director, Broadcast Bionics
Today’s connected radio studios must engage audiences in real time via audio, social media, video streaming and sharing. Dan has been helping broadcasters deliver radio’s best content to new audiences and platforms, enabling stations, listeners, artists and newsmakers to share radio content with a viral audience that has delivered hundreds of millions of likes shares and views, enhanced interaction and reached new younger audiences.
Since pioneering work on hard-disk audio systems a quarter of a century ago, Dan and Broadcast Bionics have lead the industry through transformational technical changes. Today he is equipping studios to handle opportunities and challenges of the social media revolution.
Broadcast Bionics are developers of PhoneBOX, Oasis and Virtual Director, the industry standard in exceptional audience engagement and communication for radio and TV.
Andrew Murphy – Lead Research Engineer, BBC R&D
Andrew has worked at BBC Research and Development for over 17 years, joining the department directly after graduating from Cambridge University with a Masters degree in Engineering and Information Sciences. He has led the development of both hardware and software to support research in a number of fields and has worked within standardisation groups such as Digital Audio Broadcasting, Digital Radio Mondiale, Digital Video Broadcasting and 3GPP. He is currently leading BBC R&D’s work into mobile broadcasting and in particular the department’s work on eMBMS and 5G. He also chairs the EBU’s project group on Mobile Technologies and Standards.
Denis Onuoha – Chief Information Security Officer, Arqiva LTD & Chairman Association of International Broadcasters Cyber Security Working Group
Denis Onuoha is the Chief Information Security Officer at Arqiva, a UK infrastructure company which supports 40% of the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure including the Broadcast, Finance, Energy and Utility sectors. He holds a BSc in Computer & Network Security from the University of Hertfordshire and an MSc in Information Security from Royal Holloway University London, focusing on Smart Metering security. He is a qualified ISO27001LA, ISO22301LA&LI, ISO27005RM. He has attained ISACA’s CISA and CISM certifications. Denis is a member of various UK Government Information Security Exchanges and is currently the Chairman of the AIB Cyber Security Working Group and is a member of the CREST industry advisory panel.
Ken Phillips – Radio Outside Broadcasts, BBC
Ken Phillips leads the team behind some of the BBC’s biggest radio outside broadcasts – events like Glastonbury, the Olympics, One Big Weekend and the Proms. Ken’s background is in music radio. He previously produced daytime and specialist shows for Radio 2 where he also, inexplicably, found himself producing possibly the world’s only series of live music OBs from a plastic battleship.
Jim Simmons – Product Owner – Audio Factory, BBC
Jim Simmons has more than 25 years’ experience at the BBC. His career began by sticking together and reclaiming old bits of recording tape at the World Service. His next role was chopping up those reclaimed tapes back in to bits as a Studio Manager. This went on for a number of years before he joined the team that launched BBC Radio 6 Music in 2002, where he chopped audio up into digital bits. Since 2014, he has been sticking those bits back together into chunks to distribute around the world as product owner of the BBC’s Audio Factory internet distribution platform.
Angela Stevenson – Senior Radio Technologist, BBC
Angela has loved radio for as long as she can remember and hadn’t left school before settling on broadcast engineering as a career. Since joining the BBC as an engineer in English Regions, Angela has moved into project delivery and now undertakes analysis and solution design for the national networks as a Senior Technologist.
Nigel Turner – Principal Engineer – RF Safety, Arqiva
Nigel Turner started his career with the BBC after studying Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Loughborough University. Most of his career has been as a broadcast antenna engineer, working both on projects designing, installing and commissioning new antenna and combiner systems and more recently as a field engineer maintaining and repairing broadcast equipment. He now works in Arqiva’s Health, Safety & Environment Team, advising on RF safety matters to Arqiva employees, contractors and site sharers.
Lauren Ward – Postgraduate Researcher in Audio Engineering, University of Salford
Lauren Ward is Postgraduate Researcher in audio engineering at the University of Salford and a General Sir John Monash Scholar. She researches broadcast accessibility for the hard of hearing and holds a B.Eng (Electronics and Telecommunications) from the University of Tasmania. Penguin aficionado and reformed community breakfast radio host.
Production Team
Andy Buckingham – SVP Product Innovation – Aiir / Creative Technologist – togglebit Ltd / Director, TBC Media Ltd.
Andy is responsible for leading product innovation at Aiir, one of the leading independent technology service providers for audio content creators, with a fast growing international client base. He also provides development and consultancy through his studio togglebit, with previous projects including the Radioplayer Car product, and is a co-founder and looks after the systems for the RadioDNS hybrid radio project. Andy enthuses about his ability to blend his two passions of broadcasting and technology, with over 15 years experience working in radio having previously been a presenter and producer for the second largest commercial broadcaster and formally studying computer science.
Ann Charles – Radio Production & Technology Consultant – Ann Charles Media / Director, TBC Media Ltd.
Ann is a radio producer-turned broadcast engineer who specialises in all things studios and workflow. Equally happy making programmes as running broadcast infrastructure projects, her career so far has included 12 years at the BBC, teaching journalism in New Zealand and training broadcast engineers and producers in South Sudan. She also travels the world as the workflow consultant for Broadcast Bionics. After several years as a volunteer, she formed TBC Media Ltd. with two friends to take over the running of Radio TechCon in 2016. Outside of work, Ann can be found fitting parents with baby slings, drinking gin, and eating chocolate (not necessarily all at once.)
Aradhna Tayal – Project Manager, Producer and Consultant – Clockhouse Media / Director, TBC Media Ltd.
Aradhna runs Clockhouse Media working across broadcasting, media, film and events. She formerly worked at the BBC, which she joined over 12 years ago as a radio engineer, looking after the studios and production areas for the BBC’s national radio networks. Aradhna subsequently trained engineers and technical staff on new studios, systems and workflows in the purpose built broadcasting centres at Media City UK, Salford and New Broadcasting House, London. She led a number of large-scale projects, including the launch of national television channels for the BBC’s coverage of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Most recently she led the technology strategy for BBC Archives and managed their project portfolio.
A big thank you to the wonderful Radio TechCon session producers, volunteers and organising committee:
Phil Bignell / Rupert Brun / Adam Bowie / Jordan Chambers / Tony Churnside / Richard Courtice / Ulrich du Bosque / Caroline Evans / Mark Farrington / Matt Gray / David James / Martin James / Richard Johnston / Alex Oliver / Simon Price / Angela Stevenson / Alec Thomas / Alexandra Thompson / Simon Tuff / Dave Walters / Jane Williams
Find out more about Radio TechCon 2017’s Sessions
