Radio Festival - Glasgow 2008

So it’s time to head for Glasgow for another ‘festival of radio’… otherwise known as… er… "The Radio Festival". The programme of events looks like the usual mixed bag of ‘Must see’, ‘Might see’ and ‘Sorry I don’t think I can come to your session, I’ve got to check my emails!”

The media reporters will all be out there in force, writing up things as they happen, giving live blogs and up to the minute interviews etc. And I’m sure their coverage will be first rate as usual. I will try to take a more considered approach (!) and bring some of the highlights once all I’m safely back south of the border!!

If you’re not going, don't worry, I’ll bring you all the hot news and any interesting stories that are developing in my next blog. If you are going to Glasgow, I’ll see you at the bar where I'll be organising a whip round for GCap. We're looking to raise £1.1 Million so... as they say, please give generously!

Secret Scam

“Gross failure of senior management”… “Serious, repeated and deliberate breaches”… “Fundementally misleading and inaccurate”. These are not words you would wish to have used to describe your company, or the way it behaved regarding an Ofcom investigation.

The phrase ‘damning indictment’ hardly does justice to UK regulator Ofcom’s adjudication that’s just been released regarding the (almost defunct) radio group GCap Media, and its breaches of the Broadcasting Code in respect of their networked ‘Secret Sound’ competition.

I’ve read a few adjudications in my time (and been part of a few too!), but having just finished all 29 glorious pages of this particular one, I don’t even know where to start!! You can read it for yourself here… but be warned, this is like ‘hardcore regulator porn’. It’s dirty stuff and you may need a stiff drink and a lie down after reading it.

I’ll try not to recount the sordid tale in all its details, as I would need…well… 29 pages… but in essence GCap ran a Secret Sound competition across its One Network for 4 weeks. The problem was that the practise of deliberately putting callers to air with wrong answers to prolong the competition was agreed by a “Director” responsible for networked output. Basically listeners were paying on a premium line to enter a competition that they couldn’t win, and people within GCap knew this was going on. Oh dear…. Oh dear!

Some brave individual grassed GCap up and Ofcom launched an investigation. So did GCap. Only, apparently GCap's investigation wasn’t really very good and “… not thorough or extensive” with “… no formal or written report produced”. In fact, Ofcom thought that GCap didn’t take the matter seriously enough.

When they did finally issue a statement (4 months later!) on their corporate website, GCap said something like ‘Terribly sorry listeners... Didn’t mean any harm... No hard feelings?’ Actually what they really said was, that this was an “an isolated incident” and a “system error”, when actually they knew it was a little bit more than that. This part has really annoyed Ofcom .They said today in their ruling...

“For GCap to describe this deliberate and repeated unfair conduct as “an isolated incident” and a “system error” was fundamentally misleading and inaccurate and represented, in Ofcom’s view, an inept attempt at “news management” on GCap’s part. The fact that GCap’s Board had authorised the wording of this statement, and its publication on GCap’s corporate website, was a matter of serious concern to the Committee.”

Spin gone wrong! Very badly wrong.

There’s quite a comedic moment in this story which refers to the fact that listeners could get a refund if they wanted to... but as GCap only publicised this on their corporate website, and not on station websites... or on air, out of the 297,215 entries they received, they refunded... wait for it... a single listener the grand total of £2!

Ofcom’s tongue lashing didn’t stop there. They go on to say that they...

“... considered it wholly inadequate that GCap had demonstrated an unwillingness to disclose for several months the specific details and seniority of those responsible for the unfair conduct. This was the first case of its kind in which the behaviour of the licensee (or as in this case, the parent company acting on behalf of the licensees) had effectively hindered Ofcom’s investigation.”

Sweet Jesus!! Could this get any worse? Well yes actually. As a direct result of this hindrance, the fine was going be higher. Ouch. How high in total? Well how about £1.1 Million! There goes the Christmas Party... for the next 20 years!

The list of bad practice goes on and on... from allowing junior members of staff to run a huge network competition with no apparent managerial supervision, to no accurate record of entries, to lack of proper training, to the GCap board signing off on a statement that was ‘economical with the actuality’!

All of this resulted in a... “...significant breakdown of the fundamental relationship of trust between 30 local station and their audiences” which according to GCap is its “most valuable asset”. Funny way of showing it I guess!

So, as GCap is in its final throws as a company, with this rather ignominious end to its life, what can we learn?

Simple. Don’t con your listeners. In any way. It will come home to roost.

Meanwhile, new owners Global are having to get out their cheque book. And just in case there was any delay, on the front page of the ruling Ofcom have made it clear that cheques are “payable to HM Paymaster General”.

How very helpful.

"Money's Too Tight To Mention"

“The Credit Crunch” has quickly been absorbed into the vernacular and barely a day goes by without me hearing it in a news report or reading the phrase in an article somewhere. High fuel and food prices, inflation rising, no sign of an interest rate cut and tumbling house prices all add up to an economy that experts call “Shrinking, High Inflation Turbulence”… or to give it’s proper acronym… S.H.I.T.

It was interesting therefore to hear the 'Credit Crunch' phrase used in a promo on Magic 105.4 for their current station-led share driver called “Magic’s Money Box”. The line went something like…

“The credit crunch is here and Magic 105.4 have been saving so that you can win some much needed money…”

Although sometimes I want a music radio station to ‘take me away from reality’ and not remind me that it now costs me £80 to fill up my gas-guzzling SUV, I thought that it was a rather good use of a very topical, very talkable issue within a promo to highlight the contest. Rather then just say “We’ve got loads of money to giveaway” they related it to the current economic situation in the UK, and to real people’s lives.

People in the UK are having to pay more for almost everything at the moment, so here’s your friendly radio station who feels your pain, understands your concerns, and in the ‘years of plenty, put some aside’ to give it to you when the going got tough.

Getting a level of topicality into production, whether it be for a promo for a contest, some general station production, or some music imaging is a great way of connecting your station to your audience. It shows that you don’t live in a virtual radio world where it’s all about ‘45 minute music sweeps’ and ‘more variety’, but you actually understand your listeners and their lives. It could be news based liked Magic did. It could be connected to the latest TV show, or movie release… or even the weather. Whatever the topic, if it’s current and it’s scripted well … get it on the air, even if it’s just for a few days. It’s amazing the difference that doing something so simple makes.

"What's Your Name Again?"

So Virgin Radio has been snapped up by Absolute Radio and their backers, The Times of India Group for £53.2 Million. First, congratulations to all the team at Absolute Radio International. Those who know them, or have worked with them, know what a first rate team they are both as owners and consultants. This particular UK national licence is safe in the hands of people who are passionate about radio. Good stuff.

The interesting thing about this deal is the decision to discontinue with the ‘Virgin Radio’ brand and launch a brand new radio brand. The BBC’s James Cridland has written a thoughtful article on his personal blog about the pros and cons of this decision, and comes to the conclusion that ditching the name is a good idea. Certainly, when I was Head of Music at Virgin in the late 90’s, the audience was over 4 Million and the Virgin brand had a lot more ‘media and consumer equity’ than it has now. So, with a war chest of £15 Million to re-launch this station… what’s this thing going to be called? How do you go about dreaming up a new name?

There are different tacks you can take. You can adopt the “Does What it Says on the Tin” approach, which delivers names like… Rock Radio, Classic FM, Planet Rock and The Jazz. You kind of know what you’re going to get even if you’d never listened to these before.

Then there’s the “Evokes a Mood” approach which gives us gems like… Smooth Radio, Easy, Chill, Beat and Vibe. This is more subtle, and yet nudges at expectation without being as direct. But you do have a hint at what you were going to get.

Then there’s the “Just Call It Something Cool” type of brand. For example… Kiss, Galaxy and Xfm. If you’d just touched down in the UK and had no prior knowledge of Galaxy, you’d have no reason to suspect it’s a Dance and RnB format aimed at under 30’s. But the name’s quite a good one nonetheless.

Of course the days of naming your station after a river are hopefully gone! Yes that’s right international readers… there are plenty of stations in the UK named after a local river!! As are the days of giving your station the Latin word for ‘undefeated’ which bore significance for William the Conqueror but isn’t that great as a radio brand. Come on down ‘Invicta FM’. We know who you are!

The only time I’ve been involved in naming a station was when I worked at Virgin Radio and we had been given a place on one of the London DAB multiplexes to fill with a ‘Soul and Disco’ station. The process involved the then Operations Director Andy Mollett saying “I’m going to toilet. When I come back I want you to have a name for this station”. And “The Groove” was born!! It has since died a death... but not, I believe, as a result of its name!

But the main point is this. In the long term, listeners won’t really care about what it’s called, as long as it delivers the content and music they want. Sure… some names are better than others, but we tend to only think a brand name is bad if the brand is bad. Bad brands make bad brand names. You can call a great brand whatever you want… people will still consume it.

Launching a new radio brand in the UK gives those who had lost faith with the old Virgin Radio a chance to reappraise the station under its new guise, and for those who love it as it is… it will be reinvented as perhaps something even better. I’ll bet you this though… It won’t be in Latin, named after a river, or decided upon during a toilet break!

"Difficult Is Worth Doing"

If you’re a programmer working in commercial radio anywhere in the world, how many times have you either sat in a focus group or listened to results of a research project where listeners are dissatisfied with the quality of commercials that your station runs?

Many listeners see commercials as a necessary evil and the ‘opportunity cost’ of listening to commercial radio, but few listeners extol the virtues of many commercials.

In a changing mediascape, broadcasters continue to face challenges to make commercials connect with their audience. In a world where ad avoidance is rife, how do you make the spots more compelling? Many radio programmers pretend there’s nothing you can do about what’s in the ad breaks… but imagine a world where you could influence that, perhaps by having stronger relationships with some key clients or advertisers?

The reason I mention this is tonight in the UK, Channel 4 and Honda are staging the first ever live advert on British TV. At 8:10pm, 19 skydivers will jump out of a plane over Madrid and attempt to spell out the word ‘Honda’. They have 3 minutes 20 seconds to do it. It ties in nicely with their “Difficult Is Worth Doing” strapline. This, to me, sounds quite difficult. It’s probably worth doing because I’m writing about Honda for the first time ever.

What a great way of getting people to actually engage with an ad. Make it a bit of engaging content with some jeopardy attached to it. It might work… it might not! Hopefully no skydivers will end up splatting into a Spanish field before the 9pm watershed. Afterwards… no problem…!!

Could this be adapted to the radio world. Perhaps… yes. Live ads on the radio were commonplace in the 50’s on US radio and were the early forerunner of sponsorships and promotions. But imagine working with an innovative client creating live radio spots that sat within a break, or were even the only spot in the break. Naturally, they’d have to sound like ads and also like the semi-suicidal Honda guys and girls, there would need to be a compelling bit of content to hook listeners in. But the theme of creating better, more memorable ads is something worth exploring more I feel. Otherwise we’ll continue to get listeners telling us the commercials are rubbish. And you know what… they’re right! Some of them are!! Here’s a little teaser film from the Honda guys as they practise heading towards the earth at 300mph head first! Nice!!

'Networking' - A Trump Card?

As soon as UK media regulator Ofcom announced in February that it was relaxing the rules on the amount of local programming it required stations to broadcast, it was only a matter of time until the bigger radio groups took advantage of this. ‘Global Radio’ were the first out of the traps with the move to network all output across Heart, aside from breakfast, mid-morning and Drivetime. ‘Galaxy’ have kept local Breakfast and Drivetime shows, but networked everything else.

Next was GCap (soon to be Global, so they’re pre-empting the inevitable really) who announced a new 3 hour daytime show across the One Network, details of which are still a little sketchy to be honest! And recently the three Xfm stations in London, Manchester and central Scotland announced they’re going to network another three hours of programming on weekdays, taking the local output from 10 hours to 7 hours. Lots of smaller UK radio groups are also taking advantage of the rule change and going a step further to relocate stations in central ‘broadcasting hubs’, with the obvious economies of scale that this brings.

So far Bauer have resisted the temptation to go for any daytime networking, with their ‘In Demand’ evening show being the only real networked programme. So what’s the deal? Is this good for listeners… good for the radio station… good for advertisers? Who benefits?

Yesterday, at the Radio 3.0 Conference in London, outgoing GCap Chairman Richard Eyre had some thoughtful insights about networking.

"Piping in a mega-DJ from London would mean sacrificing the key element of local radio: localness. The economics of radio in 2008 will mean that companies will not be able to resist. But it's still handing over one of our best assets to reduce costs. The economics say delocalise. But the relationship says keep it local."

With comments like that, it seems a shame that he’s the outgoing chairman really. I can’t help thinking that despite the best efforts of some radio executives to convince me otherwise, it’s all about saving money in the short-term during an economic downturn, and not thinking about the long-term effect of stripping localness from radio. I’m sure Global Radio have in their top drawer a plan to turn lots of their newly acquired GCap stations into the ‘Heart’ brand. How long before we hear a station’s positioning change to … “Fox FM – The Heart of Oxfordshire”. And we all know what comes next.

It’s quite easy to be snobby about the quality of some stations when you have a portfolio that includes well resourced brands like Heart and Capital on your books. And yes, the quality of the smaller stations could be improved in many places. But is the answer just to network this ‘mega-DJ’ from outside the area. Surely investing in training and development of new talent and programming skills on a local level is a more important long term objective? Go to places like Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds and imagine a world where Radio City, Key 103 and Radio Aire were pseudo-national stations with perhaps a local breakfast show as the only indicator of their true parentage. Sure you can use smoke and mirrors all you like to give the impression the output is ‘local’… but for me, you can’t beat the real thing. It doesn’t matter how good your smoke screen is, because local radio is best when it’s local… and not pretending to be local.

The next 12 months will see the inevitable ‘character-stripping’ out of many truly local stations, with some of their output replaced with no doubt well-produced, slick, but rather soulless programming. The radio landscape will be painted magnolia… designed to cause least offence, but not engender a reaction of any kind. Is this the type of local radio listeners want?

One of the great clichés about succeeding at programming a local / regional station is “Play the local card”. It seems that the deck is about to be rigged.

"If Winning isn't Everything, Why do they Keep Score?" - Sony Awards 2008

The starter was a nice warm vegetarian tart of some description… the main course was lamb… (I think) … and frankly the desert could have been anything, as by that stage a good quantity of the ‘table wine’ had been consumed!

I’m of course referring to the obligatory meal that accompanies UK radio’s annual back-slapping fiesta, otherwise known as the Sony Radio Academy Awards, or Sonys… or as most of the newspapers like to call them, the ‘Radio Oscars’! (It helps people understand it’s an awards ceremony I believe!)

The BBC traditionally does very well in these awards for 2 reasons. First, they make really good programmes and second, they don’t have much competition in areas such as drama and features and their news output is plentiful to say the least. This year didn’t disappoint for them, with the Beeb picking up around twice as many Gold Awards than the commercial sector.

A glut of famous names picked up some top awards, Jonathan Ross (who’d obviously been tipped off because he doesn’t turn up if he doesn’t win!) for Music Radio Personality, Russell Brand (who’s show I’m now warming to) for Entertainment Award… and Chris Moyles for Breakfast Show. His speech was a little like his show… very funny in parts, but there was no-one there to say ‘enough… move on!’ Even host Paul Gambaccini was unnaturally lenient in allowing the ceremony to drag on endlessly as Chris introduced his team one by one. Mind you, as he said himself, he’s unlikely to be there again, so he’ll make the most of it. The presentation of the award by his Mum and Dad was either really quite a sweet moment that brought a tear to the eye, or a hideously naff stunt designed to create a very crass ‘This Is Your Life’ moment onstage. You can watch it again and make your own mind up!

Commercial Radio did well in categories more suited to it’s natural home, like The Competition Award, Promo Award and Community Award which was picked up by Capital’s rather wonderful ‘Lights Out London’ initiative. Two awards that are normally very dominated by the BBC are Music Broadcaster of the Year and Specialist Music Award… but it was nice to see that the former went to Andi Durrant of the Galaxy Network, and the later to Krystle, a DJ I had the natural foresight and wisdom (!!!) to put on the air several year ago when I was PD at Forth. Being mentioned in her acceptance speech was really lovely and I have no doubt she’ll move on to bigger and better things in the years ahead. Well done Krystle. And beating Zane Lowe is no mean feat either!!

The list of guest presenters was varied as ever ranging from Joan Collins to Christopher Biggins… Boris Johnson to Tony Benn… and a genuinely moving appearance on stage by Edwin Collins, who’s still recovering from a cerebral haemorrhage he suffered several years ago. It kinda put the whole thing into perspective for me.

Needless to say, the merriment continued after the ceremony. Why the resident DJ feels that by playing the cheesiest 70’s disco records the dance floor will fill up is still beyond me, however he persisted with ‘Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel’ and ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ until some poor 'Tape Op' wearing a rather ill-fitting dinner jacket was dragged onto the floor by a tanked up Sales Exec to begin what, at best, could be described as “shit dancing”!

And as the strains of ‘Rock the Boat’ wafted through the barmy May night, and the queue of cabs lined up hoping for an expenses funded fare to Reading, we left it for another year, safe in the knowledge that we’ll all be back again in 12 months time.

Ghandi once said that there are two kinds of people… those who work and those who take the credit. He suggested being in the first group, as there was less competition there. On the evidence of Monday night, there are plenty of people who work, and work very hard… and it was nice to see them actually get the credit for a change.