Spike Radio
May 4th, 2009 by Tom Murphy
A gang of Aussies from Spike ad agency in Sydney set up the coolest multimedia venture on Sunset Blvd. In 2000, I mellowed for a while as Producer at Spike Radio, Toyota’s Gen Y entertainment portal. Our state-of-the-art studio delivered Nike’s Radio Free Sydney that same year. Two at the same time.
Spike Radio was rated #1 online radio by Shift magazine
Spikeradio award nominations :
2000 ATOM Awards, Melbourne – Finalist Best Innovative Production
2000 Golden Awards of Montreux – Finalist Best Editorial/News/Media
2000 London Interactive Association Awards – Finalist Best Entertainment
Live in studio guest appearances and DJ sets included contemporary artists such as Beck, Groove Armamda, BT, Alex Gopher, Paul Oakenfold, John Digweed, Supreme Beings of Leisure, Blackalicious, Dilated Peoples, Jungle Brothers, Ben Lee, and others. Live radio amped to 11. My favorite job of that era. RIAA compliant too.
Note: The Flash demo of each branded show has to download before playing. Wish I had live streaming versions.
The Spike Radio player was a modified Windows Media player streaming multi-language Flash ads. I marvelled at the combination of live radio broadcast, Flash ads and mp3s, streaming through Akamai’s edge networks back in 2000. I want to do one of those again. Spike ruled.
The business base for Spikeradio included an number of sponsorship and services deals. These included Toyota (Overseas Marketing Division), Le Rendezvous Toyota:Paris, Nike, ATT, Paramount Pictures, Paul Frank, Skechers, Clearly Canadian , Fingerhut,and UGO (Under Ground Online ).
Olympics 2000: Radio Free Sydney
Nike and Blast Radius agency (New York) contracted Spikeradio as the producer for their online media project, Radio Free Sydney. The project consisted of DJ’d radio stream broadcasting 24/7 from L.A., in-sync with live journalists in Sydney, Australia, for the lead up and duration of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Radio Free Sydney integrated a unique blend of programming of new music, daily athlete commentary/interviews and editorial stories on Sydney’s culture into Nike.com/2000 website. Nike.com/2000 won the Communication Arts’ Interactive Design Annual 2000 – Best in Interactive Design Award.
