About Hippynet
Broadcast infrastructure for stations that demand reliability
Who We Are
We're two broadcast engineers who work full-time designing and supporting playout systems for national broadcasters. Our day jobs involve BBC, Channel 4, and international broadcast infrastructure where 99.99% uptime isn't aspirational — it's mandatory.
Hippynet is what happens when engineers with that experience decide to serve radio stations of all sizes. Community stations running on volunteers. Regional DAB multiplexes. Hospital radio serving patients. Internet-only stations building audiences. You all deserve infrastructure built to national broadcast standards, not generic web hosting with a streaming server bolted on.
We don't hire support staff who read from scripts. When you call at 2am because your stream dropped during a live event, you get one of us. We understand Icecast mountpoint configurations, SHOUTcast transcoding, AutoDJ crossfade timing, and backup transmitter feed requirements. Because we configure those systems for national networks every day.
What We Stand For
Reliability First
Redundant infrastructure and real-time monitoring designed to keep your stream on air. We build for uptime.
Engineer Support
24/7 support from actual broadcast engineers who understand your technical challenges. No scripted responses.
Innovation
Pioneering solutions like AutoPod for automatic podcast generation and backup transmitter feeds for seamless DAB/FM coverage.
How We've Evolved
In 2010, Hippynet started with physical servers in data centres — racking equipment, running cables, configuring RAID arrays. That worked, but scaling meant buying hardware months in advance and hoping you'd predicted capacity correctly.
We evolved to a hybrid approach: critical services on physical hardware, burst capacity in the cloud. Then we realized something: cloud isn't necessarily cheaper, but it lets us deliver better service. A physical server failing at 3am means emergency data centre trips. A cloud VM failing means migrating to new hardware in minutes.
Today, we leverage multiple cloud providers across multiple availability zones. Infrastructure as code means we can provision identical environments in minutes. If one availability zone has issues, we migrate VMs. If an entire region has problems, we spin up in another. Your stream stays online.
Our monitoring evolved too. We started with basic uptime checks. Now we run Zabbix and Grafana monitoring every metric — CPU load, network throughput, listener counts, audio levels, even monitoring silence detection systems with proactive checks. We often know about problems before they affect your stream. That's the difference between reactive hosting and broadcast engineering.
Meet The Team
Oliver
Co-Founder & Principal Engineer
Oliver is a Principal Engineer at Red Bee Media, where he's worked for 8 years designing managed playout systems for national and international broadcasters. He specializes in control and monitoring of IP video feeds using DataMiner, C# scripting, and MCR infrastructure at scale.
Oliver completed the BBC's Broadcast Engineering Apprenticeship, earning a BEng in Broadcast Engineering from the University of Salford. He spent nearly a decade volunteering at Drystone Radio, serving as Technical Lead and Director, where he maintained 24/7 broadcast output using automation software and built resilient streaming infrastructure.
Oliver created AutoPod in 2019 and joined forces with Ben to bring professional broadcast infrastructure to stations of all sizes. He ensures every Hippynet service meets the same standards he applies to national broadcasters.
Ben
Founder & Systems Architect
Ben founded Hippynet in 2010, providing broadcast infrastructure to radio stations worldwide for over 15 years. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Digital Broadcast and Media Systems from Liverpool John Moores University.
As a Broadcast Operations Engineer at Red Bee Media since 2016, Ben supports BBC and Channel 4 playout at MediaCityUK, working with Snell Morpheus ICE playout systems, BNCS automation, and Studer audio mixers. Previously, he worked at MUTV (Manchester United TV) and ADI.TV managing transmission and MCR operations.
Ben's innovations include StreamMachine (geographically diverse streaming for 100% uptime) and the technical architecture powering Hippynet's services. When Oliver approached him with AutoPod in 2019, they formalized their partnership, incorporating Hippynet as a limited company in 2020.
The Journey
Hippynet began in 2010 when Ben, working as a broadcast engineer at MUTV and later ADI.TV, saw radio stations struggling with generic hosting providers who didn't understand broadcasting. Armed with a BSc in Digital Broadcast and Media Systems, he started building professional streaming infrastructure specifically for radio.
For nearly a decade, Ben ran Hippynet while working in professional broadcast environments — first at MUTV's MCR, then ADI.TV managing live production facilities, and from 2016 at Red Bee Media supporting BBC and Channel 4 playout. His innovations included StreamMachine, a geographically diverse streaming service targeting 100% uptime.
In 2019, Oliver — then finishing his BBC Broadcast Engineering Apprenticeship and working on national PSB channels — was volunteering as Technical Director at Drystone Radio. Frustrated by the lack of good listen-again solutions for community stations, he built AutoPod: automatic podcast generation and catch-up radio for stations that couldn't afford enterprise systems.
Working together in professional broadcasting, Oliver and Ben realized they could build something better by joining forces. Ben had the infrastructure and systems architecture from running Hippynet for a decade. Oliver had the automation and tooling expertise from creating AutoPod. In 2020, they formalized their partnership, incorporating Hippynet Broadcast Technologies Limited.
Today, both still work full-time in professional broadcasting — Oliver as Principal Engineer at Red Bee designing systems for international broadcasters, Ben supporting BBC/Channel 4 playout operations. This keeps them sharp. The infrastructure they build for national broadcasters informs the reliability they deliver to community stations. Your radio stream gets the same engineering rigor as a national network, because the same engineers designed both.
Ready to work with broadcast engineers who get it?
Join the radio stations that trust Hippynet for their critical broadcast infrastructure.
