Joining UKRP

Joining UK Radio Portal (UKRP) is a simple and cost-effective way of making your radio station available to over 11 million Internet connected Freeview TV and Set-Top-Box devices, and Amazon Fire TV Sticks across the UK.

UK Radio Portal is available throughout the UK via the 80 main commercial Digital Terrestrial TV transmitters that bring Freeview TV channels to consumers homes, and on Amazon Fire Sticks via the UKRP app.

For Freeview users, no app development, downloading of apps or sign-up process is required.  Everything is smoothly managed via the easy-to-use interactive TV service, which is underpinned by the UK Digital Terrestrial TV transmitter network, the Hybrid broadcast broadband TV (HbbTV) technology stack, and UK Radio Portal.

Amazon Fire TV Stick users can simply download and install the UKRP app. Details on how to do this can be found here.

Navigating and accessing radio stations via UK Radio Portal is a similar user-experience to the familiar and accepted approach of accessing content in VoD (Video-On-Demand) portals, but in case of Freevieew TVs, via channel number – channel 277.

This approach allows UK Radio Portal to provide an extensive variety of radio stations to the Freeview TV platform in an easy to use manner, regardless of radio station geographic location or genre/format.

Whether you’re a local, regional, multi-regional or national radio broadcaster operating under a UK OfCom licence, an international broadcaster, or an Internet only broadcaster, UK Radio Portal has a coverage and pricing model to suit your budget and coverage needs.

By supporting a high-quality rotation of on-screen HD images, your radio station branding and messaging will really stand out, and the flexibility to add on-screen promotional/banner advertising offers the potential to monetise this service too.

National, Regional & Multi-Region

For national, regional and  multi-regional radio broadcasters, UK Radio Portal’s coverage model follows ITV’s 14 regions and 23 sub-regions, as defined in the map (left) and table (below). Radio stations can be made available to one or more regions, based on the chosen coverage.

Links to coverage maps from can be found by clicking on the region name and the icon for main transmitter coverage selection.

Please contact us to find out more about joining, and to have a chat about how you can make UK Radio Portal work for your radio station.

Local & Ultra-Local

For local & ultra-local radio broadcasters, (e.g. community radio stations), UK Radio Portal’s coverage model follows the UK Local TV multiplex coverage in the areas listed below.  OfCom’s theoretical coverage maps for these areas can be found by clicking on the location name.

Please note that the actual coverage at each location may vary based on technical arrangements by the local multiplex operator compared to OfCom’s theoretical assumptions. If a Local TV multiplex is not available, then regional coverage (as per the table above) will be available as an alternative option.

OfCom Broadcast Code

Since UK Radio Portal is available to large audiences of all ages and backgrounds across the UK, UKRP endeavours to ensure that only appropriate content is made available via UK Radio Portal. 

Radio stations present on the UK Radio Portal are therefore required to maintain compliance with the UK OfCom Broadcast Code for both audible and visual content, including compliance logging (recording) of audio and meeting advertising standards.

Failure to adhere to this requirement will prevent UKRP from completing the on-boarding process, and failure to maintain adherence to this requirement can result in the suspension or removal of radio services from the UK Radio Portal.

The OfCom Broadcast Code provides guidance regarding:

• Protecting the under-eighteens
• Harm and offence
• Crime, disorder, hatred and abuse
• Religion
• Due impartiality and due accuracy
• Elections and referendums
• Fairness
• Privacy
• Commercial references on TV
• Commercial communications on radio

For more information, please visit: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code and https://ofcom.org.uk/dtt-ip-content

Copyright

As part of the on-boarding process, a copy of the radio station’s PPL (copyright) licence covering online broadcasting will also be required to be provided to UKRP. For more information, please visit: https://www.ppluk.com/music-licensing/radio-tv-and-online-licensing/