Tuesday 16 February 2010

The BRITS 2010... in Danish!

It's the BRITS tonight in London, and Radio 100FM in Denmark are airing the whole show live and unedited, as it happens, from 21:00 CET, with a 2 hour warm up show runing from 19:00 CET.

I will be on standby, on Messenger, providing explanation of any overtly British jokes by host, Peter Kay... so their true comedy value can be appreciated by the Danish audience!

If you want to hear how it's promoted in Danish... take a listen to the promo...

Listen!

Even without the translation, you get the idea.

'Big up' to the guys at Somethin Else for facilitating it all. It's nice dealing with professionals!

Monday 15 February 2010

"Welcome to the show..."

Want a little laugh on a Monday? You may have seen this reported last week (and heard the audio) but in case you haven't... here it is!

Model and all round 'action-girl' Jodie Kidd was sitting in for Lisa Snowdon on the Capital Breakfast Show with Johnny Vaughan last week.

The weather finishes, and the Top of Hour jingle fires at 6am, and listeners were treated to this...
Not much to say really is there? Telling your listeners to 'fuck off' is certainly a fun and entertaining way to start a show! And I'm not sure there was a technical problem... the mic was working perfectly when Jodie started talking. ;-)

Tuesday 9 February 2010

Reach or Share?

If you looked at last week’s RAJAR figures released in the UK, and perhaps read a few of the press releases, you may have been slightly confused as to who is Number 1 in London?

Well – nothing’s changed insofar as the devil is in the detail and if you’re doing well in one metric you shout about that... and if you’re doing well in another, you shout about that.

Magic 105.4 are number 1 commercial station in share, with 6.1% and Heart 106.2 are number 1 commercial station in reach, with 1.881 Million listeners a week

And although they don’t shout about it as much, as they’re perhaps a little more restrained about such crass self-promotion (due to the “unique way they’re funded”) BBC Radio 4 are actually the number 1 station in London in both share and reach, with 14.7% share and 2.380 Million listeners a week.

At breakfast time, Capital have the largest breakfast show with 1.231 Million listeners whilst nationally, Terry Wogan’s much publicised last quarter delivered 8.102 Million listeners.

The biggest surprise was the growth of London talk station LBC, which has overtaken Capital and Heart to become Number 2 commercial station in share terms, with a highly respectable 5.7%. There’s no doubt that LBC is the star performer and gets the teachers 'Gold Star'!

So what can we glean from all this?

Capital’s current format is always going to deliver stronger reach than share. CHR always tends to do that, due to the deliberately repetitive nature of things. The average hours of 5.5 a week are actually pretty good. But Capital has historically always been about reach, so that’s the most important metric for that station I believe. Remember...reach before revenue!

Heart’s format should allow it to generate more average hours and 5.7 a week feels a tad on the low side. As we know, their ‘variety’ position is more of a myth (sorry... marketing position) than reality, as they tend to play a pretty tight bunch of songs over a week. So perhaps they’re playing more of the reach game than the share game currently.

Meanwhile, Magic seem to have got the formula right and although they may not play significantly more tracks than Heart in any given week, the image of being a ‘you can listen to us for ages’ station seems to have cut through... hence the 6.1% share. Plus there's no real significant difference between them in terms of reach and the other 2 competitors.

Meanwhile LBC’s average hours are up at 13.6 a week! They’ve got a growing cohort (841,000) of fans who just love that station. I didn’t know London had that many cab drivers!! This figure compares really well with say BBC London, who have 7.4 average hours a week and actually beats BBC Radio 4 nationally, which is at a mere 12.6 a week.

Often it’s smaller or more niche stations that have really high average hours. LBC has some way to go if it’s to be Magic 1152 in Hull (15.2), 107 The Bee in erm.... Blackburn, I think (15.4). And finally, come on down Premier Christian Radio with average hours of 16.6 a week. I know it’s difficult to compete with GOD. And some of those sermons go on forever...

So reach or share? Which is more important? Well of course, the answer depends on which one you’re doing the best in... and whichever that is, that’s the most important!

Actually – they’re both important. Lots of listeners, listening longer. And in London, this time, without sounding like Paul Daniels, you’d have to say... “That’s Magic!”

Image FM

So in the world of The Long Tail, there's infinate opportunity to do niche products and indeed niche radio stations. Just yesterday I was listening to an All Michael Jackson station that popped up on my Pure Sensia. They were playing Michael Jackson funnily enough.

Well how about a station that appeals to... Radio Producers and Imaging Directors!!

Look no further. It's called Image-FM!

Their plan is to create a radio station that collects great imaging from stations around the world, and play it for others to hear. I'm led to believe there'll be a few records too... so your ears don't start to bleed after 5 minutes, but what a nice idea.

Here's a sweeper from them!


Listen!

You can read more details on their website which includes info on how to submit stuff to be played out.

But imaging is just a form of niche content in a way... and so instead of being force fed the latest showbiz news or hearing a rather overly edited caller telling you which station they love, producers can settle down with a cup of tea, turn on Image FM and maybe get inspired by great imaging from around the world.

Tuesday 2 February 2010

"Give It Some... Hmmmm?"

Here's the new 'Heart' TV ad.

'Feel Good' or just 'Feel Bemused'? "Give It some Heart" or "Give It Some Cheese?" A 'smiley' branding job for Heart... or feel that it could as well be an ad for a new type of coffee... or a chocolate bar... or Class A drug?

Not quite sure it demonstrates 'music variety' particularly well... but it looks all shiny and colourful I suppose. I guess it's fairly inoffensive. A bit like Heart really.

Comments welcome!



"Solid Gold?" Solid crap more like...

Time for a complaint! Please indulge me. If you live in the UK, you'll be familiar with the 'Halifax' and their track record at producing particularly annoying TV ads.

If you don't live in the UK... be thankful that you're not exposed to them, but they esentially use real members of staff in their ads, mainly singing and dancing like cretins. The Halifax is a UK High Street bank, and if there's one good reason not to place your money with that particular bank, it's their marketing campaigns.

Their new TV ad is one that's particularly annoyoing for people working in the radio industry. Take a look...



Is there any wonder that sometimes 'radio' as a medium (especially commercial radio) fights to get itself taken more seriously when the image that's portrayed is the one you've just watched? It really is just the most horrible depiction of a breakfast show I think I've ever seen. I know it's just a make-believe station, and it's just an ad, and it's pretend and all that... but it's just utter crap!!! (Or am I wrong and it's the best advert for working in radio there is?) Do they really think this will attract customers?

If at a dinner party someone asks me what I do, and I say I work in radio... and they say 'Is it just like Halifax ad?' I think I may commit a serious crime punishable by a long custodial sentence.

And they've tarnished a fantastic record too with their shoddy advert. Shame on you Spandau Ballet for allowing that to be licenced!!

Complaint over. Normal service will now resume! ;-)