"There's something rockin' in the State of Denmark..."

I've always been a fan of radio stations getting behind the national footbal team at times of World Cups and Euros etc... and what better way than to stage screenings in iconic locations. So, here's a picture of the 'Town Hall Square' in Copenhagen last night as Denmark had their 'do or die' match against Japan. This is 'the' place where large crowds gather for big event and things like New Year's Eve etc... and is the Danish equivalent of Trafalgar Square if you want a UK comparison! Over 35,000 fans were entertained with live music, and DJ's from the Radio 100FM team hosted the whole thing. Brilliant event. Shame about the result of the match if you're Danish!

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...



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!

Radio 'Going Green' in Copenhagen

I’m in Copenhagen right now and it feels like the ‘place to be’ as the world’s leaders, and media, descend for final few days of the COP 15 Climate Conference. It seems every TV and radio reporter possible is here and every second person is carrying some sort of recording equipment.

From a ‘media operator in Denmark’ perspective, it’s great to have such a big event on your doorstep. The creative and ‘fun’ possibilities are massive. (Yesterday, the afternoon host at Radio 100FM talked to the gym instructor at the hotel where Arnold Schwarzenegger is staying to discuss his morning workout routine!!)

But how does a music radio station reflect upon the reason that the conference is taking place and bring the rather massive issue of Climate Change to an audience who tune in mainly for a diet of ‘fun’ and inoffensive pop songs?

At Radio 100FM we felt it was important to present the issues in a palatable and mainstream way. So throughout the duration of the conference, we’ve been running some imaging giving ‘tips for living a greener life’ which are presented by kids... or as they’re referred to on air, “The next generation of Radio 100FM listeners...”.

We also developed a series of short features called “The Green Minute”. These try and explain some of the big issues in a simple, conversational and easy to digest package, which is, you’ve guessed it... 60 seconds long. So things like De-forestation, Carbon Trading and Renewable Energy are all summarised and explained in these features which run in every daypart across the station. Naturally, we’re recycling lots of the content!

Add in some topical ‘Top of Hours’ welcoming the world to Denmark plus some other 'green' sweepers, and pretty soon you’ve tapped into the vibe and have introduced the whole climate change issue to a very mainstream audience, reflecting the significance of the event.

This is backed up with some good online content that is written with the brand in mind (i.e. not too detailed and not too ‘newsy’). And the final touch... change the station logo to a special climate change / green logo for the duration of the conference. (It's normally blue).

I believe all radio stations should try and reflect big events happening in their country / their ‘patch’, regardless of how it fits with their brand. There are many ways to do this and here in Denmark, we’ve just used a few of them.

When you work in an industry that mainly entertains people and plays pop songs, it’s nice to occasionally feel that you’ve done a little bit to introduce some weighty issues of global significance to a section of the public that may have not previously thought about them a great deal. The fact that their favourite music radio station is talking about climate change, may in a tiny way, help to bring the issues to an even wider audience across Denmark.

Now it’s up to the politicians to do their bit!

"Alas... poor Radio"

The radio business can be the most fun business in the world to work in, but we can’t escape the fact that it’s a business. If you work in the commercial world, you’re more than aware of the tough trading conditions that we all currently face in markets all over the world. The last couple of weeks have reinforced to me the challenges of the business side of the profession I love.

The story takes place in Denmark, and although it’s quite a few miles from Elsinore, there’s a little of the ‘Shakespearian tragedy’ about the whole affair.

The owner of Radio 100FM, Denmark’s largest commercial station was John De Mol, the Dutch media tycoon, who’s company is probably most famous for bring Big Brother to our screens. He decided that he no longer wanted to be in radio, and having sold his Dutch radio business some time ago, wanted to dispose of his Danish station. However, rather than wait for a buyer to come along in a ‘down market’... he withdrew his funding, therefore forcing the station into administration and bankruptcy rather quickly. The station did not have large cash reserves to keep it afloat.

Danish commercial radio on a national scale has a history of financial problems with the ill fated Sky Radio, TV2 Radio and now Radio 100FM. Without going into too much detail, the financial structure that has been imposed on stations is more than burdensome (both from government and from rights holders), however Danish commercial radio is looking forward to a new era of the government understanding the issues more acutely, and encouraging growth of the sector as opposed to setting insurmountable financial barriers.

The downside of the bankruptcy was that a whole load of good radio people were made redundant and that’s not a pleasant process, regardless of which side of the desk you’re sitting on.

The good news is that the Managing Director, Jim Receveur (good name for radio!) has bought the assets of the old company (the name, the studios, a few of the staff) and the station is still on the air! The brand is such a strong radio brand in Denmark with around 1.3 Million weekly listeners (12+) and a loyal base built up over 6 years, so it’s just too good a proposition to let it go to the wall.

So, the station is currently being run on a skeleton staff. But this week there were some part time roles advertised in a bid to ensure that there are enough people to maintain the level of quality and service to both listeners and advertisers.

This is a positive move and although the future shape and level of staffing of the station is yet to be fully formed, it’s a move in the right direction to build the business back up again.

If there’s ever a time for radio programmers, producers, talent, journalists etc to appreciate the “business” of radio... it’s now. Keeping costs at an acceptable level and placing resource where it gives the best return is essential. Being creative and flexible with clients is vital. But more importantly, addressing the whole business model of radio actually the opportunity that this recession really presents.

The media landscape is changing so fast that radio needs to rapidly adapt its revenue models to survive in future. We can’t continue the over-reliance on the ‘spot ad’, reinforced with a dollop of S&P revenue along the way. If we ignore what is happening to media and the patterns of consumers as we approach a new decade, we do so at our own peril.

(Without trying to sound too much like Gordon Brown)... the setback is the challenge and the opportunity to learn.

And I’m certainly looking forward to the challenge ahead with this particular client.

"I'd like to thank God..."

Radio Awards are funny things.

I say that, because I’ve had perspective from being both a judge and potential recipient of an award last week.

If you win at an awards ceremony, it’s obvious that the awards are a really important thing and “it recognises the efforts everyone made” etc... If you lose, then of course they mean nothing because... “it’s all about the listeners really” etc...

I’m happy to say that at the Danish Radio Awards 2009, one of the biggies... “Station of the Year”, went to Radio 100FM (where I am Consultant Programme Director). So of course, let me first say that this award recognises the efforts that everyone made throughout the year!!

I’m pleased, not only because I believe the station did some innovative and engaging programming in 2009 and the team worked exceptionally hard, but because it beat the ‘might’ of the public service station P3, which is a little bit like BBC Radio 1... only quite a bit broader in its output.

I was reminded of the nice pot of money that some public service broadcasters have given to them in some countries whilst I was speaking at the rather excellent Radiodays conference in Copenhagen at the weekend. The new shiny ‘DR’ headquarters was the venue, and boy... have spent a bit of money on their building!! It was so over budget when they finished it, that the DG lost their job! I think one of the toilet blocks is bigger than the whole Radio 100FM office space! But it’s not what it looks like... it what’s you do with it, right?

Meanwhile, last week I judged the Radio Academy’s Promotions and Marketing Awards in the UK. There were some great entries in my category and I look forward to meeting everyone on the night of 22nd October.

If you came along to either Radiodays session in Stockholm or Copenhagen... thanks for coming. Standing room only in both venues. And if you want the handout from the session, just get in touch.

Radio 100FM at Smukfest 2009!

Here’s a short video showing you some ‘behind the scenes’ action of the Radio 100FM coverage of Smukfest 2009!

And here are a couple of Outside Broadcast tips that working on this event reminded me of...

Planning
Plan, plan and then do some more planning! You can never be too prepared.

Technical
Invest as much as you can in the technical setup. If everything works well technically, then producing great content is always a lot easier

Location
Choose your location carefully. Too tucked away and you won’t get the visibility you need. But if you’re right in the centre of the action, it could be more difficult to control the environment

Roles
Make sure everyone knows exactly what their role is in pre-production, and on site. If everyone’s doing their assigned job, things should go smoothly

Brand Interaction
Have a reason for people to stop by and spend some time with your brand. At this event, we had an internet cafe where people were checking out their email and Facebook all day

Detail
It’s the small things that can make the difference and really make your brand look good. A fridge stocked full of cold beer for bands who drop by, or handing out branded umbrellas if it starts to rain

If you want to see some more videos and pictures from the event, you can visit the Radio 100FM Smukfest pages here

Smukfest Update!

It’s Sunday morning. 15 hours of live coverage from Denmark’s Smukfest 2009 completed... and 7 hours still left to go.

The weather’s been great... the festival’s been great... and more importantly, I’m delighted to say that the coverage on Radio 100FM has been flawless.

The OB unit has really served its purpose well, both in terms of functionality and visibility.

And the content has been really engaging. You can see and hear a lot of it right now on the Radio 100FM website.

Interviews, live sessions and a fantastic array of ‘colour pieces’ have captured the unique spirit of this festival and communicated that to listeners right across the country.

The video camera has been in action and I’ll post some of the video I shot in due course and also share some of the ‘learnings’ that we’ve got out of the experience. Any major outside broadcast is always a challenge and it occasionally throws up the unexpected. Being flexible and being able to deal with issues as they arise is vital and I’ll provide you with some essential OB tips!

But for now, here’s a great way to ‘camp’ at a festival. In a Pig Pen!! They’re waterproof, equipped with electricity and camp beds and all the mod cons. What else would you expect from one of the major exporters of bacon in the world!

It's Festival Time!

I’ve just arrived in Denmark where I’ll be spending most of the next 7 days in a field. Let me explain.

Smukfest is one of a plethora of great festivals that Europe has to offer over the summer. A place called Skanderborg on the island of Jutland (about 3 hours drive west from Copenhagen) will be transformed into a mini tented city as hundreds of thousands of lovely Danes enjoy one big party, entertained by the likes of Kylie Minogue, Fatboy Slim, The Streets, Editors and also the finest Danish bands currently on offer. And Aqua.

Radio 100FM (where I’m Consultant Programme Director) will be presenting over 22 hours of live coverage of the festival and bringing listeners across Denmark the music, action and vibe of Smukfest 2009. ‘Smuk’ means ‘beautiful’ in Danish, and the setting is precisely that... beautiful. Acres of gorgeous woodland topped off with an idyllic lake, opposite which our OB wagons are being set up.

And why are we going to such lengths? Why do radio stations cover music festivals?

Visibility
It’s important for your brand to be seen, especially in the right places. A well planned and highly visible OB acts as a huge 3D billboard for you radio station if executed correctly

Music Image
All stations need to constantly reinforce their music image, and this can be effectively done by positioning the radio station alongside the right kind of event, both in attitudinally and musically. If you play a lot of Coldplay, being at a festival where they are appearing is probably a good idea. Your P1’s will see this as confirmation they’re with the right radio station for their tastes.

Content
Music festivals provide hours of great content for both on-air and online. If you’ve tied up the rights correctly, you can have exclusive performances from core artists to your station recorded from the main stages, interviews with some big stars, acoustic sessions and live shows that offer a real point of difference

Listener Engagement
Radio stations are often guilty of ‘hiding’ in their industrial estates or beautiful media style offices in the cool part of town, and as a result, the staff don’t get to speak to listeners enough. Having an opportunity to talk to and ‘touch’ listeners is a very powerful tool

Sponsorship Opportunity
Commercial stations can create a unique opportunity for a sponsor to be associated with the on air-coverage of a really cool event. Build in ticket giveaways, ‘best of’ shows, online coverage etc, and the value of the package can be quite substantial and deliver a welcome boost to revenue

There are plenty of other reasons to be there, but these are some of the main motivating factors that drove me to plan this Outside Broadcast. I’ve got a fantastic team of around 18 people working on the production, so it’s a large piece of activity to stage, but I’m confident that we’ll produce some quality radio for our listeners.

As the event unfolds from Thursday onwards, I’ll try and blog some updates with from the OB, and share with you how my vision for the coverage for Smukfest 2009 is turning into a reality.

Thrilling Radio

As I arrived home last night from spending the week in Copenhagen I settled down to watch to the BBC 10 O Clock News, saw the Michael Jackson story break at around 10:20pm and soon realised that we may be on the verge on something quite considerable.

Out came the laptop, on went the kettle and BBC News Channel / Sky News... and communications were established with the radio station I had just left. As I was hearing about the story on the TMZ website, which were the first to report Michael Jackson was dead, I started planning for the morning ahead.

I even managed to capture a screen grab of both TMZ and The LA Times as I went along ... a kind of strange ‘breaking news’ collector’s item of a momentous culturally significant event.

The timing was quite convenient (if these things are ever convenient, particularly to the person dying!) because it meant that most listeners in Europe switching on the radio in the morning would be hearing the news first from their favourite radio station, that Michael Jackson had died.

Therefore, there was a great opportunity to plan a ‘content packed’ show throughout the night and be ready for 6am... which is exactly what I did!

As consultant Programme Director for Radio 100FM in Denmark, I took charge of providing direction for that particular station in areas such as tone of voice, music, production etc... but I was backed up by a fantastic team who all came in early to ensure listeners got the best possible product. For good measure, all client stations received a bespoke 2am ‘advice’ email! :-)

What were the key ingredients?

Information – people needed to hear the facts about what had happened
Reaction – getting reaction from both listeners and celebrities on the breaking news
Mood Music – reflect the passing of a musical icon by playing lots of his songs
Tone of Voice – ensuring we found the right voice to demonstrate a genuine sadness at someone’s passing without being overly sentimental or mawkish
Production – capture the feeling and significance of the event with production the caused an emotional reaction

After 90 minutes sleep and a hastily arranged 4:30am conference call, we were up and running. The team on the ground put together a really excellent show and listeners were provided with some first class radio, balancing all the key ingredients.

I thought I’d share with you the some imaging that we had on air this morning, (produced by Imaging Director Bjarke Rasmussen) which has cuts of the station’s newsreader, a famous Danish TV host commenting on MJ’s death, clips of the press conference and of Michael himself, and a simple yet effective script. This was followed by an appropriate emotive Michael Jackson song and played at the top and bottom of each hour all day.

A sad day, but a great opportunity for radio to do what it does best.... react quickly to changing events, deliver information and capture the public mood. I hope your station took that opportunity.

Light My Fire

How committed is your morning show? How far would they go to entertain their listeners? Would they, for example, set themselves on fire? Hats off to Jacob Wilson from client station Radio 100FM, who's a host on their morning show ‘Morgenhyrderne’ who did just that! Take a look...

And if that wasn’t enough, a week later he tested a new summer remedy for bee stings and subjected himself to a being stung by some sort of killer bee, on purpose, just to test it for listeners... twice! Ouch!!

Radio hosts that are committed to entertain the audience by ‘going the extra mile’ are the kind of guys you want on your team. Nice work don’t you think?

Having a ‘liberal’ Health and Safety policy at your station also helps!!

"It's Beginning To Feel a Lot Like Christmas..."

It’s time to get out the ‘Sleigh List’... those songs which only work at this particular time of year, but are like an old friend you haven’t seen for a while and welcome with open arms! (Mind you, after spending a few weeks with them, you’re quite happy not to see them again for another year...)

It’s always interesting to discuss with radio stations when do the Christmas songs start? What’s on the list? How fast do we turn them around? Do we still have to play Wham! (Answer: Yes we do!)

The great thing is that there are increasingly more and more Christmas records around, especially from many mainstream core artists who have probably recorded a version of their favourite Christmas song. Searching these out and giving them a spin always freshens up the Sleigh List, and can provide a nice talking point on-air. My favourite cover of a Christmas classic is Coldplay doing a version of The Pretenders ‘2000 Miles’ (which I know isn't the most well known Christmas record across Europe).

If you haven’t heard the Coldplay version, let me know and I can point you in the right direction ;-)

It’s really simple and has a ‘standout’ production feel on the track so if your station plays lots of Coldplay, then why not give this a few spins?

We all know about stations that flip their format for December and go 100% Christmas songs, so in the spirit of the season, let me recommend one to you. Client station Radio 100FM in Denmark run a soft AC station in Copenhagen, appropriately titled ‘Radio Soft’. Their Christmas format that they’ve just flipped to always proves really popular in Copenhagen and lots of shops tune in and play it out in-store as it’s a much better alternative to rotating the “Now That’s What I Call Christmas” CD 10 times a day.

Their resident ‘Father Christmas’, Head of Music Martin Marx has been wearing his white beard for a few weeks now and putting together a really good bunch of festive treats.

Give it a listen and tell me you don’t feel Christmassy after tuning in for 10 minutes!

McRadio

Rebranding and re-launching radio stations seems to be all the rage at the moment.

I spend a good deal of time working in Denmark with the fine people at Radio 100FM. The rival national commercial station that was formerly known as TV2 Radio (originally named after the parent company, TV2!) has been recently bought by SBS, and just re-launched as ‘Nova FM’. Not sure in a fast moving digital world I would have stuck the letters ‘FM’ in the title of the station, but there you go.

“Virgin Radio soon to be known as Absolute Radio” has set a date when it will fully become Absolute Radio… September 29th for all you date junkies.

And, as widely predicted, Global Radio in the UK recently announced that around 30 of their newly acquired stations will be re-branded as Heart, and have lots of networked programming. This will, it is claimed, provide a much clearer brand for potential advertisers to buy into. It probably will.

So, it will be interesting to see how heritage names such as Fox, Invicta, GWR, 2-Ten FM and Chiltern handle the transformation process on air. Having “a conversation” with your listeners is the very modern and transparent way that Absolute Radio has done it. Asked by listeners why they had to change the name, they answer…

“The old one wasn't ours, it was lent to us. That means we could not do all the other things we wanted to do, in spinning off the radio station into other areas which we feel you wanted. Our new name, which we own, means we are freer to do what we want, and it also says that we're re-inventing ourselves.”

Fair enough. I buy all that, particularly the last bit… (plus the fact that it would have cost an arm and a leg to continue ‘renting’ the name from Branson, but I genuinely don’t think that was the main reason they ditched it.)

So, how will Global approach the similar dilemma of ‘name change’, particularly when many of the stations are familiar local brands and have been on the air since the early 80’s. Of course, nothing has the divine right stay the same forever, but how do you convince local listeners that it’s in their interests that you need to deliver a consistent brand to national advertisers, therefore you must remove most of the local programming apart from Breakfast and Drivetime, and rename their familiar local brand, with a quasi-national brand named after a vital organ.

There is of course the argument that much of commercial radio in the UK needs reinvention, and this is one of the only realistic ways to do it. Centralised control with some local management, product consistency and a uniform approach to marketing and promotions; A kind of ‘McRadio’ if you like. Hmmm…

Will listeners like this homogenised approach to local radio? Is there an unavoidable inevitability about it? And will the DJ’s have to wear brown uniforms and get stars on their badges for doing good local links? We shall see… but the most fascinating part of this is still to play out. How will the changes be communicated on-air. Or maybe they haven’t thought that far ahead yet?! Any ideas welcome!!

Name That Show

Congratulations to Mads Vangsø and the team at client station, Radio 100FM in Denmark, who this week successfully launched their brand new morning show.

It's called "Farvel seng – jeg elsker dig!". For those of you who don't speak fluent Danish... let me translate! The new show is called "Goodbye Bed - I Love You!"

With a title like that, you know you're in for something a little bit different!!

The issue of show names comes up from time to time. Should you name all your shows or only some of them... or none at all? Personally, naming all of your shows I think is a step too far, but giving your morning show a strong identity isn't a bad thing. Creating a sub-brand that listeners associate with your station is a nice shorthand for them, and can help define the show before a potential listener even hears it.

"The Rehab" - Sunday morning's on Kiss 100 London... you kinda know you're going to get chill out tunes! 'The Morning After' which is Kerrang! Radio's new morning show has some attitude to it... and ties in well with their late show that is appropriately titled "The Night Before"!

And while we're on the subject of show name... can we please impose a worldwide ban on "The Morning Crew" or "Dave and The Morning Crew"! It's so dated!

A 'crew' of people isn't something I would really want to wake up with, unless I was working on a ship or travelling on the Space Shuttle.

"Hi - you wanna come round and hang out with The Crew?"

"Where are calling from.... 1987?"

OK - I'll stop now. You get the point.