Have You Designed a Radio Station Website Lately?

BFM 89.9 - The Business Station

We're a business radio station - think CNBC but on radio - with a difference. We interview business leaders and personalities by day, but we play classic rock by night. We interview Harvard Business School professors one hour, tattooists and poledancers the next. We're known for giving CEOs a roasting (and some have stormed out of our studios), but also for giving young entrepreneurs a break. That's BFM 89.9, Malaysia's only business radio station.

We're the newest kid in town competing against media giants. Though we're small, we punch well above our weight, as our listeners are the opinion shapers in Malaysia.

But don't take it from us, here is what 2 listeners had to say:

1. "I wanted to thank you for providing those of us with a brain ( and I am led to believe there are quite a few of us!) with some decent radio discussions to while away the hours stuck in KL traffic! This is a revelation to me as after 8 years living in Malaysia, I had all but given up hope of decent talk radio. Since discovering BFM, the car radio dial has not shifted from 89.9."

2. "I’m not sure whether BFM is aware of how huge is the impact & difference you created by playing the music. What BFM is playing now, is actually a thinking man's music. So continue educating the masses with the music & together with your refreshing talk show, I believe it can change people to become savvy."

Our target audience are people who aspire to professional and personal success. They are professionals, executives, investors and business-owners by day but they are also gamers, guitarists and soccer players by night. They work hard, but they play hard too. They tweet and they facebook, but they also meet up with friends over drinks.

Our surveys show that they are opinion leaders of their cohort group. They are worldly and confident, but they are not arrogant. They are knowledgeable, but still yearn to learn. They mainly listen to radio in their cars, but they also listen to radio through their iPhones and Blackberries. They are Baby Boomer CEOs, as well as 18 year old Gen Y-ers, united by programmes that they can learn from, from finance and economics, to health and music.

Our target audience prefer real over fantasy, they want to know the hard truth rather than the PR spin. They want to know both sides of the argument, but in the end, they will make their own judgement.

Interestingly, 70% of our audience are between 25-45, slightly skewed towards men, although most of our radio personalities are women.

Most important principle is friendliness of the UI. We like familiar UIs, and derive inspiration from Google and Facebook. We are biased towards clean and uncluttered UIs.

The biggest use of our webite is for our listeners to search and download podcasts. They download via their computers,via their Nokias, Blackberries and iPhones. Our plan is to detect which device and browsers are visitors coming from, and to serve out the appropriate interface for each,

For this project, we will be seeking designs for the laptop or desktop computer screen interface. If you can design a mobile site as a bonus, if you win, we'll give you a bonus too.

Our current pages are at http://www.bfm.my and http://www.bfm.my/podcast. Self-feedback:
- search box for podcasts not prominent enough
- Masthead and fonts way too big
- Advertiser banners are untidy and below the screen
- lndividual podcasts are hidden in programme tabs

Key functionality/UI:
- Prominent search box to discover podcasts (think Google's or Facebook's status update box)
- A neat presentation of podcasts that allows for quick scanning of a lot more content
- Area for multiple client banners
- member log-in

Other functionalities:
- Live stream link of current on-air programmes
- Calendar of upcoming interviews
- Listing of music just played, or playing on BFM
- Editor's pick
- Live chat with presenters
- Live chat with sales reps