Planet Rock

For those of you who keep up with radio news, this one will need no introduction. Planet Rock has caused a huge uproar in the DAB market, as despite growing listener figures, awards and list of famous DJ's, their parent company (GCAP) is getting rid of them as they aren't profitable. There is a potential saviour though, as Brian May has taken an interest.

Putting all the publicity to one side, what's the station like for us Wi-Fi users? 2 words:-

ROCK ON!

Ok for those who like things a little less succinctly, Planet Rock is good. To be fair it's a niche station, but it's a pretty big niche you could easily include bands from The Beatles to the Darkness and still have room for ZZ Top and Alice Cooper (who as it happens presents the breakfast show). I do like my rock, and this station gave me a big fat load of it, mostly from classic bands, but not always there best known work. Some early Hendrix, a bit of Clapton, then back to earth with a large slice of Meatloaf. All good rock.

The technical side is as smooth as you'd expect from a profesisional station, although it does seem to take an AGE to buffer to the Revo, no worries though as once it's buffered, it's a solid connection. The site is... a little dissapointing, it has a forum, it has features on some rock stars, it's ok, its standard. It's dissapointing as the station seems to exist on it's passion for the music, so this basic site just seems so vanilla...

At the moment a commercial DAB station, with the obligatory online / wifi side, the station has DJ's, news and ads (although these seem to be relatively sparse and repetative, which is, as someone pointed out to me, possibly the reason they're not making money?). Even here though they're pushing the music. As mentioned Alice Cooper presents the breaky show, what he lacks in a sense of humour and vocal flow he makes up for in his huge knowledge of the people making the music. He seems to have a bit of a back story for almost every track he plays, and I love it, other presenters are also (if not equally) part of the Rock scene.

So without a shadow of a doubt Planet Rock gets a TUNE IN rating, seems a little 'small potatoes', as they won the Sony Digital station of the year award a week or so back, but there you go. Good luck to Brian May with keeping the station open, Planet Rock is so good, I've retuned my only DAB radio to it (although that was partially an objection to how bad Virgin / Christian O'Connell have become)