"Welome to... yesterday's show!"

Johnny Vaughan's Breakfast Show on Capital now runs for 4 hours. Well... sort of...

Today, the main body of the show shifted from 7am to 10am, with the 'ole favourite of running the "highlights" of the previous days show between 6am and 7am.

On the plus side, if you're a fan of Johnny, you'll get an extra hour... well, you'll get some of the best bits you enjoyed the day before repeated.

When I heard about this move, it got me thinking (yes -painful as it was) about what the motivations for this decision were.

It could all be about ratings of course! In theory, one can argue that the cume of the show should now be measured between 6am and 10am... the duration of the entire programme. Adding in an extra hour will increase the total reach. However, we all know that most of the media will dismiss the first hour, coz it's not live, and compare the 7am - 10am hours instead. Having said that, the 9am - 10am hour usually generates far more audience than 6am - 7am, so whichever you cut it... the numbers should improve with this move.

(It feels a little bit like that old trick of reducing your measured survey area a little bit, to give you a better percentage overall!)

Extending the 'Johnny' brand an hour into the daytime so more people get to sample him could be an underlying theme, however I find this unlikely to be the lead factor.

With the rise and rise of time shift listening and non-linear radio, surely it may have made more sense to develop and promote a stronger 'listen again' proposition and get consumers more familiar with this?

The official press release said something like "This change mean that Londoners will be able to enjoy Johnny at whatever time they get up or travel to work" (Not strictly true if you get up at 10am... but we get the point!)

Although there's live news and travel in the first hour, I can't help feel that the audience are being cheated a bit.

In a world class city like London, where lots of people get up at 6am, having a re-run of yesterdays funny bits in peaktime, seems a bit cheap. How can the 'sense of the day' at the start of the day really be conveyed in editorial, when you're running gags from the previous day.

If they decided to run the 'best of' bits between 5am and 6am, I could argue the case that this would be acceptable... but from 6am? Sorry - I think Londoners deserve a fully live morning show from 6am.

The upshot of the move is a nudging effect for one of Capital's strongest benchmarks - Flirty at 9:30. It's been there for quite some time now, and it seems a double negative whammy to have to move this highly popular feature an hour later too.

I look forward to the next RAJAR press conference where there will undoubtedly be a bun fight over the figures!

Global Dominance?

Richard Parks' appointment as Executive Director of the new Global Radio consortium is an interesting development for a number of reasons.

From a programming perspective, How will Magic 105.4 fare without him? How much of it's success was derived from the magic-dust that he sprinkled on the output... and how much was derived from the focused, dedicated and hard working team at Mappin House. (Let's remember that Graham Dene is moving over to Smooth Radio shortly too, so it may be hard for them to keep the momentum up losing a couple of key staff... despite being Number 1 in London!!).

Parky going over to the company that owns Heart, one of Magic's main competitors, will no doubt benefit Heart a great deal, with all the knowledge that Richard will bring with him!

As Global Radio sets out its stall, the reports of a deal to be done with Richard Branson to buy Virgin Radio back are also circulating.

Suddenly Global Radio has a potential group made up of the Heart, Galaxy and LBC branded stations, plus Virgin Radio too! And it's obviously very serious about it's ambition when it recruits someone whom many people see as the "Uber-Daddy" of Commercial Radio for a place on its board.

(By the way... Will the new Exective Director of Global Radio discuss the potential aquisition of Virgin Radio with the Virgin Radio Chief Executive? "Hello son.... Hello Dad!".)

The commercial radio consolidation game is still in full swing, and I predict there's a lot more to come too!

When Terror Strikes...

Local radio is great in times of disaster. At least that's what I thought.

On Sunday morning I listened to Radio Clyde (Clyde One to be precise) in Glasgow to get an update and local perspective regarding the events at Glasgow Airport. After all, it's (thankfully) not that often that a terrorist decides to drive a bomb through the revolving doors of your local airport.

I was hoping for perhaps bulletins every 15 minutes or so, as the attack was the previous afternoon... but as it was the start of the Glasgow holidays, lots of people would have been trying to fly away, so cue lots of local info.

And what did I get?

"Ross King... Live from Hollywood"

Surely some mistake?

Nope... Ross King was chatting away about nothing in particular from his LA studio and for a large portion of the show I heard, there was nothing relating to the events of the previous day. Had I missed all the action?

The midday news rolled around and at last, some local coverage... but not to the level and standards I would have expected from a station as large as Clyde, and with such a heritage of providing great news. The bulletin I heard could have been broadcast live from the airport, for example; Just something to make me feel that my station was connected to my area and the story that was still unfolding was being covered from every angle.

The purpose here is not to bash Clyde, as I'm hoping they did lots of marvellous bits of radio I didn't hear relating to the terrorist attack. In fact, I'm sure they did. The point is, if something major happens in your broadcast area... GO BIG!

Never underestimate the audience's thirst for knowledge and their desire to turn to their trusted local radio station as a friend in time of crisis. You can really reinforce your stations credentials as THE local station to turn to.

It works for things like extreme weather (The Radio Forth Snowline in Edinburgh was hugely important for many years) and national stories with a local angle... like murders, kidnappings, riots etc. (A happy topic this one isn't it!!)

I was Programme Director at Capital Radio in London on July 7th 2005 and the attempted bombings in London last week brought back the memories of that day. The skill, dedication and commitment of the whole team at Capital meant that Londoners got all the information they needed to know at any point that they tuned in during and long after the attacks of July 7th. News Editor, Matt Schofield was instrumental in driving forward the information agenda for the station, and Capital regained many lost friends as a result of its actions on, and after July 7th.

I'd rather that people didn't try and blow us all up, that the kidnapping of children didn't happen and that floods didn't cause bodies to float down the river... but if these things do happen, I want my local radio station to really over-deliver in every way possible. That's surely the benefit of being local.

And while we're at it... Ross King wasn't very good either!

The Future of Radio...revealed!

So what is the 'Future of Radio' then?

That was the question posed to a panel of the finest minds at the cutting edge of broadcasting last week, as part of a Radio Academy sponsored session at the music industry conference 'London Calling'.

After persuading the technical guy that "Yes - it is pretty important that we have the sound working" (!) Chris Kimber, who is Managing Editor of BBC Audio and Music Interactive gave an excellent demonstration of what the BBC is currently very good. Namely, producing content that may start in the radio sphere... but morphs seamlessly onto other platforms.

Radio One's 'One Big Weekend', Glastonbury coverage and 6Music sessions were all paraded in front of a salivating audience who started to realise what their licence fee got spent on!

Chris believed that the future of radio would involve producing content that sat on lots of platforms and virtual places, like MySpace and Facebook... and that creating more engaging content with visuals was an integral part of how radio needed to progress.

James Cridland, the Director of Digital at Virgin Radio and soon to be the BBC's Head of Future Media and Technology, Audio and Music, tended to agree. He eloquently delivered a record 46 slides in 7 minutes explaining that the visual element of radio needed to develop further and that 'glanceability' to a screen whether online, on a mobile device, or a fixed point radio was essential to the future of the medium. Just displaying the frequency is no longer an option. Consumers want, expect and can deal with more visual content. James also delivered a passionate defence of FM radio, rubbishing suggestions by some sections of commercial radio that there should be an analogue switch off by 2015. FM works well and consumers still like it. Commercial radio are trying to tip the scales in their favour and using it as a ploy to gain the upper hand in the ratings battle. And he's got a point...!

Finally, the soothing tones of Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora took to the podium to tell us that online bespoke music services were the future. Well he would say that wouldn't he! He shared some great stats about the growth of Pandora and how he really viewed it as a 'music discovery' service, which helped disenfranchised music lovers in their late 20's and 30's still discover new bands and purchase products. He saw the movement of these services into the mobile environment as offering the consumer more choice, but did realise the distinction between a content rich, information led, 'DJ' radio station... and a wall to wall music offering. Yet it's all radio really. Well... just about!

I've listened more and more to Pandora recently and creating about a dozen custom stations (with my Marvin Gaye / Bananarama hybrid being a particular favourite!) and to me it is radio, but radio that is driven by your mood. If you want no interruptions, but a few musical surprises along the way, give it a go. It's like Magic without the DJ's... or ads... or repetition... or news... or weather... or Michael Bolton. Actually, it's nothing like Magic. Scrub that!

So what can we glean from staring into our crystal ball then? I believe traditional radio, web, TV and mobile will all converge (as they currently are) at a greater rate. The consumer will dictate what technologies they want and the responsibility of programmers worldwide will be keep pace with the technology and create cross platform content that works in these different arenas. A 2 tiered system will be created based on the level of content. Those who opt out of the content game will have a harder job to compete, but can do so providing they have a USP top their product (e.g. Last.fm / Pandora).

One final thing. If you can start a company that can do 'conference sound' that...

a) works
b) is audible to humans... and
c) doesn't feel like you're trying to conquer the north face of K2 by asking someone to connect it up

...then you'll probably be able to retire to a large island in the Caribbean by this time next year, as the demand for your services should be enormous! Good luck with it.

Future of Radio - Preview

Having had a sneak preview of the presentations from the panellists at the Future of Radio session at the 'London Calling' conference later today, I'm certain there will be some interesting views expressed.

Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, the online 'music discovery service' tours the world as an evangelist for his service... and has a unique perspective on how music radio listeners tastes are developing. As a result of having him on the panel I've found myself being sucked more and more into the world of customisable radio stations. Is this the shape of the future?

Likewise Chris Kimber form the BBC and James Cridland, soon to also be from the BBC, have polished up their crystal balls and some great things to say about where the radio industry is heading both in the UK and globally.

A full review of the session coming to this blog soon... but I'm sure Marconi would be on the front row if he could be!

Jack Off!

A really neat idea from Jack FM Oxford. Countdown to launch with a blog by Jack!

It's a great way to start to establish the character of 'Jack' in print and if they get it right, they can really get a head start as to how Jack will come over on air.

Admittedly the audience may be mainly industry people... but again, this serves a good purpose and starts the PR bandwagon rolling for the format and launch in Oxford.

The best photo on the blog is this one of the newsroom!



I'm not sure if it's meant to be ironic or not... but if it is... very funny!

By the way - there's a US radio / research guy called Tom Webster who's so clever his head glows in the dark! He works for the rather excellent Edison Media Research, but he's also got a new venture on the go called Brandsavant, and there's a good article on 'radio stations and their blog policy' that's worth a read.

Anyway - I'm off to a charity fund raiser to help buy equipment for the Jack FM Newsroom.

"Hold Your Plums"

Climbing inside a hire car in any foreign country is a entertaining experience for many reasons. Having just been away on holiday, the memories are fresh.

Where's the gearstick again?
How do I move the seat? (Oh - it doesn't move...)
What's that horrible smell coming from the glovebox?
I'm sure I was promised air conditioning....
How does that radio work?

And once you've got the radio up and running, hitting that scan button is a little bit like playing a 'fruit' machine (or slot machine for our US readers!). You may come up lucky with "3 cherries" and score a virtual audio jackpot... or get a few lemons and plums along the way.

I played the radio slot machine game quite a few times last week and every time I did, I gave a selection of stations a listen. I was in Spain and I don't speak Spanish very well, but an interesting thing happened. You can tell a lot by a radio station just by having it on in the background for a few minutes, and make a pretty good judgement to stick with it... or hit the scan button... even if you don't really know what they're saying!

The stations I stayed with longer all had the same things in common and for me, these are some of the key drivers that define success:

Music Flow - All the stations I stayed with longer had solid music programming theory running through their output. It felt like someone had taken the time to look at the flow, tempo, era spread, genre mix and the overall feel that the music gave the listener.

Branding and Positioning - Having a competent branding strategy with strong production values and a easily communicated positioning statement were all common to the better Spanish stations that cut through. It was really obvious which ones had invested in decent production and knew what they were communicating to their audience about their music position... and which ones didn't really have a position. Knowing what you're listening to and what it's going to bring you is so important, particularly for new listeners.

Interruptions - Keep them to a minimum!! One of the most infuriating things during my "Spanish Hire Car Radio Listening Experience" was hearing the station stop down all the time. The DJ's went on too much and popped up left right and centre. It just made me reach for the button. If you have a music intensive radio station that needs to play the songs across the day, make sure you keep the interruptions down!

Commercial Load - Again, the stations that got it right were the ones that found the right balance between content and commercials. Fewer breaks seem to work, and if you can get away with two 4 minute breaks an hour, then that might not be a bad place to be. Certainly some of the stations got it right... where others were playing commercials about 6 times an hour. It just didn't work.

There seems to be some universal truths about music driven commercial radio, wherever you go in the world and Spain was no exception. 'Maximum Payout' to the 2 or 3 stations that got it right. 'No Credit' to the stations that didn't.

So next time you're in foreign country and climb into your hire car, have a go on the 'radio station fruit machine'. It may just take your mind off the fact you're driving a Mitsubishi Colt!