The Next... NEXTRAD.IO

Some  media / radio conferences can be a bit dull.

Especially if you wonder into a session that, according to the description, sounds pretty good... but after 5 minutes you realise the speaker hasn’t prepared or rehearsed very well, has exceptionally bland slides just crammed full of text, and is doing the topic a real injustice. Then you’re potentially stuck there... for an hour.

I’m obviously far too polite to walk out of someone’s session mid-flow... although there was one time, (not in band camp) but in a very small breakout session, with about 20 people in it, where I faked receiving a phone call and ran from the room like an expectant father, never to return. At that point, I felt my life was not long enough to listen to this particular producer's “inspirational music” for any longer than necessary. For all I know, some people are still trapped in that dark room in Copenhagen trying to escape.

Anyway – if you like the sound of those type of sessions, then stay away from ‘NEXTRAD.IO’!

Yes – the conference for those who make radio and care about content is back for another year, making a welcome return. Last year there was a great line-up of interesting speakers, of which I was pleased to be one. In a ‘tip of the hat’ to TED, we all had 9 or 18 minutes to say something relevant and engaging.

I think it was Churchill (or someone similarly great) who said that “it’s easy to make a speech for 2 hours... but for 10 minutes... that takes some preparation!”. So focusing everything down was a really good exercise to do. ‘Less is More’... and all that.

So – the organisers, Matt Deegan and JamesCridland, are looking for suggestions of who should speak this year, which is a nice touch. So if you have any thoughts, let them know. Likewise if you want to sign up to attend, you can do that too.

‘Being inspired’ is an essential part of our work like. We all need to be inspired on a regular basis. The results are always positive, as it fuels your creativity and desire to do better work, which can’t be a bad thing... can it?

So, if you fancy being inspired... you could do worse that go along for the day.

To get a flavour of nextradio, all the videos are now online. Here’s mine...

What Is Success?

Success is something we all look for.

Whether it’s being personally successful in your job, whatever you do... Or if you work at a radio station, both individual and collective success can be measured in different ways.

A few weeks ago we had the Sony RadioAcademy Awards, the undoubted pinnacle of creative achievement and success in UK radio. While the hangovers were still mellowing, the latest RAJAR figures came out that same week, and provided a different measure of success... an appraisal by the audience.

These 2 measures are very different.

Creative success can be just that – a wonderfully inventive and original piece of radio that may not reach a mass audience, but totally delivers in its creative endeavour. As a Sony judge this year, I heard many examples of creative radio that although very good, would not really trouble the listening figures too much. It’s about art, and that’s something rather tricky to define.

Then there’s success in terms of listening figures. Every radio station wants the most amount of people to hear its output. The listening audience have a rather good knack of knowing what’s good... and what’s not. Getting great numbers for your station is, I believe, perhaps more important than gaining recognition from your peers. Sure – awards are really nice, (especially when you win them) but nothing beats that feeling of having the listeners voting with their ears, and telling you you’re the best.

But there’s a third kind of success in radio. One that’s the sole domain of commercial radio... and that’s business success. Is your radio station a viable and profitable business.

There are many examples of stations that have failed because they just can’t get it all to work. Sure, good listening figures help in this equation... but it’s about having solid foundations to build and grow a business on. Without a viable business, you have nothing... no audience, no awards, in fact, no radio station at all.

So are these 3 measures of success linked?

Probably.

A creative station that understands it audience from the start is more likely to grow its loyal listener base and continuously add new fans along the way. This leads to increased investment from advertisers in the station... which leads to more revenue and profit, and greater opportunities to market the brand and invest in talent and content... which leads to more creative programming... which leads to more awards and plaudits. In fact, the whole thing is somewhat of a virtuous circle once it gets going.

When I look at these three measures of the success in commercial radio, for me there’s one station above all that delivers on all of them.

And that’s KISS.

The RAJAR numbers are nothing but impressive, and they lead the pack when it comes to young Londoners listening habits. And this, against stiff and improved opposition in the form of Capital.

They picked up Gold in Breakfast Show of the Year (10 Million Plus) and Station Programmer of the Year for Andy Roberts, which is great work again... and they continuously collect gongs at The Grosvenor House Hotel. (Little known fact - Andy Roberts’ house is made from nothing but Gold Sony Awards)

And, perhaps even more importantly, this station makes money. Stacks of it. Every year it delivers many millions of pounds of profit to Bauer.

Is there another station that delivers on creativity, delivers on audience, and delivers in profit in such a significant way? (If there is tell me, and I’ll write nice things about them too!)

So when measuring success in any commercial radio station, I believe it’s vital to look at all these measures. Only then do you get a true reflection of who’s genuinely successful.

Is Life Good?

I love the simplicity of this, and you could always change the word life to "your radio station"...

Moments

I love sharing creative ideas for no other reason than to inspire others or act as stimulus material, especially when they're not directly linked to the world of radio or audio. However, here's one of those 'moments' which does have a radio link.

Radiolab is a show about curiosity. “Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience.”

It originates from WNYC and you can hear it on certain NPR stations across the US, listen to podcast episodes, and see occasional short films they make and curate.

Here's one of those, called 'Moments' where filmmaker Will Hoffman went out in search of moments of life, inspired by a radio show about moments of death. What follows is what he found...

Radiodays Europe; Interview with Pete Waterman - Audio

If you couldn't make it to Barcelona for Radiodays Europe, the organisors have kindly made some of the content available from selected sessions. Check out this page here for all the audio, video and PowerPoint action!

And if you'd like to hear the audio from the session I did with Pete Waterman (which seems to have been recorded on a wax cylinder for some reason, and edited a bit), here it is...

Radiodays Europe 2012; "How was it for you...?"

It’s exactly a week since I was stepping on to a plane and waving farewell to Barcelona - Radiodays Europe done for another year. So, what did we learn? What were the good bits? How has radio in Europe moved on in the last 12 months?

My sense was of an industry that is slightly more at ease with itself than last year. There seems an acceptance that different countries are at different points on the curve of evolution, and ‘a one size fits all’ approach is no longer relevant or even necessary.

There also seems to be a greater acceptance that a digital future is vital for the medium if it is to remain the cornerstone of peoples’ lives. There were fewer ‘nay-sayers ‘ or luddites around this year. Or perhaps they were just keeping quiet!

As always with any conference, there’s hopefully something for everybody, whether it’s technical innovation, new sales initiatives or creative programming. Personally, I enjoyed listening to Julian Treasure talk about the importance of sound, a topic close to my heart... and I found it fascinating to listen to the ‘in-car entertainment geeks’ map out the future of how radio might be incorporated into the dashboard of the future. No mention of a flux capacitor once though! Quite disappointing.

Sometimes radio conferences can be far too full of ‘PowerPoint’ and data, and graphs, and we lose sight a bit that we’re meant to be in the entertainment business. So I was really pleased to be able to pull together a session that had no graphs and no data... but just some fun pictures, a few music and radio clips... and a great guest.

Those who attended will no doubt tell you that for around 40 minutes, Pete Waterman chatted about something else close to my heart... pop music. And if you want to chat about that topic, I can’t think of anyone else I ‘d rather chat about it with. Some great stories about how some of the biggest pop hits of the 80s and 90s came together, and some straight talking about radio and the music industry... all delivered with a sense of fun and enthusiasm that’s really infectious. I had some great comments from those who attended (thank you!), and if you couldn’t make it along for whatever reason... watch this space... there may be some news on that in due course!

Playing a few old clips of Pete on Radio City in the 1980s reminded me of something that sometimes gets lost in the obsession with research and fixation on data... and that’s passion.

Passion for playing great music... passion for telling listeners a story... passion for life – being passionate on the radio in a genuine and honest way will always win over a ‘painting by numbers’ approach.

You can hear the passionate broadcasters a mile off. They stand out. They offer something unique... and in a constantly homogenising  radioscape, where music is ubiquitous, my feeling is that passion will drive the audiences of the future.


PS - If you want to hear one of the clips that I dug out from my archive and played in the session, here it is...

listen to ‘Pete Waterman on Radio City - 1988’ on Audioboo

Introducing 'Bounce'...

I launched ‘Nik Goodman Media Consulting’ back in 2006 with the aim of working with radio stations around the world helping to inject more creativity into their programming.

In the last 6 years I’ve travelled thousands of miles, been on countless flights, and worked with some fantastic radio professionals.

About a year ago, I was looking at different ways of expanding the business, and started developing the idea of a creative company that placed audio, and not just radio, at the heart of what it stood for. And something that could combine my passions for music and sound, as well as radio.

I called up long-time friend and collaborator Dan McGrath to discuss the idea. Dan has been involved in TV and radio for many years. He was part of Chris Evans' team throughout The Big Breakfast, Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and TFI Friday days, and was the Producer of The Chris Evans Breakfast Show at BBC Radio 1 and Virgin Radio.

Around 10 years ago Dan also set up his own company to supply music and audio production to media. This lead to him writing the themes tunes to a raft of high profile TV shows in the UK including, Strictly Come Dancing, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, the Lloyd Webber BBC 'Star Search' series and recently Take Me Out (ITV1) and Alan Carr, Chatty Man (C4). Our US readers will hear Dan’s work on ‘Dancing With The Stars’.

After many meetings (a few of which were in the pub admittedly) we both decided to launch a new creative company which focused on ‘all things audio’, more specifically... music, sound and content.

So, late last year ‘Bounce’ was officially formed.

At Bounce, our mission is ‘to create brilliant sound’. Having pooled our resources, we’re now collectively in a stronger position to offer a range of services to our clients, all under the Bounce umbrella of ‘music, sound and content’. If you you’d like to see what those services are,  visit the new Bounce website where we go into more detail.

So, we’re now in the first few months of the brand new company, and things couldn’t be going better to be honest with you. We’re already working with big global companies like Nokia providing them a range of audio and content. We’re currently developing new projects for the BBC and also working with app developers on enhancing their products. We’ve signed some exciting creative partnerships (more of that soon) and we’re even finding time to get in the studio working on some remix projects! And of course the work with radio stations around the world to provide them with creative consultancy continues, as ‘Nik Goodman Media Consulting’ becomes part of Bounce.

Radio will be a large part of Bounce moving forward, and my business partner Dan’s experience of working with talent and his creative energy adds considerable weight to that side of the company. But radio is also evolving, and the definition of what ‘radio’ is, is constantly being re-defined. So new models of working with companies who want to be in the ‘audio entertainment’ space have to be created too.

Bounce is part of that evolution: a company that loves music, sound and content... however and wherever it appears.

So, you’ll no doubt be hearing more from Bounce throughout 2012 and beyond, but in the meantime if you’re passing and fancy a chat, we’d be delighted to welcome you to our office at County Hall, slap bang in the centre of London. We do a great cup of tea, and our posh biscuits are proving very popular indeed!

Find out more about Bounce here...