Beautiful Day

Idea. Ambition. Dreaming. Daring. Hoping. Determination. Planning. Excitement. Planning. Tension. Planning. Reality. Quality. Result.

Perhaps these were some of the phases that the team at the BBC went through in putting on last Friday’s spectacular event. For those who don’t know about it, that small Irish group ‘U2’ played a mini ‘secret’ gig on top of the iconic Broadcasting House on Portland Place in the centre of London, bringing Friday night rush hour traffic to a standstill. Looks good doesn’t it!

Now playing on a roof is not a new thing, granted... but back when The Beatles did it, I imagine there was a little less bureaucracy around. These days, getting anything done, anywhere, no matter how small, usually takes forever and a day to sort out. So the logistics and planning involved in actually making this happen are fun beyond belief to imagine!

But... sure enough... it happened. Someone somewhere (probably quite some time ago now) said in a meeting “Wouldn’t it be great if U2 played on top the BBC?”. And other people at the meeting said “Yeah – that really would be brilliant! Can we make that happen?” And hopefully the person who had the initial idea said something like “Why not? Let’s give it a go!”.

Now, I’d love to think it was as simple as that, but as we all know, it’s all part of a big global promotional wheel that started turning a long time ago for the launch of U2’s new album (which I’ve just finished listening to and is very good by the way!). Management, record companies, broadcasters, media owners, all have conversations well in advance and eventually a plot is put together... and if everyone’s got it all together correctly, the benefit for all involved is immense. (Being "Letterman's" house band for a week for example... Nice touch!)

Did the BBC just give U2 the biggest plug for any album release ever in the history of the BBC? Probably. Did U2 benefit? Definitely. Did the BBC benefit? Undoubtably. Did listeners and viewers benefit? Undeniably... the cumulative content was great. A win-win all round perhaps (or perhaps not if you don’t really like U2 and watch / listen to the BBC, as you couldn’t really avoid it if you were in the UK recently). The occasion even has its own mini-site... www.bbc.co.uk/u2 ! Not many bands get that from the BBC!

And you know the BBC have got behind something in a big way when they give it its own logo!

So, what can we learn from this U2-schmooze fest?

1. Despite the potential enormity of the task, dare to “dream the impossible dream”. Come up with a simple, yet brilliant idea!
2. Planning is everything
3. More planning is required right after that
4. Have deep ‘public service style’ pockets / a rich record company / a big sponsor behind you
5. Plan some more... just in case
6. Promote the ‘b’Jesus’ out of it
7. Enjoy a moment of glory when it all comes together

The point here is not about U2 or the BBC or promotion to the point of undue prominence. It’s about ideas. Having ideas. Believing in ideas and making ideas come to life.

Without ideas, we all tread the path of mediocrity.

Go have an idea.

And now go and make it happen.

"Now it's not time to catch up with the news in your area..."

I’ve just been to my local farm shop in the beautiful Berkshire autumn sunshine, right on the edge of Windsor where I live, to pick up a few vegetables for the weekend / logs for the fire etc. Most of their produce is grown and farmed locally. It’s a business on the rise as the trend for finding alternatives to supermarkets continues, and the zeitgeist continually moves towards a greater interest in the providence of food. There’s a genuine belief that local is good. Going to the shop strengthens a feeling of identity and community. In a world that’s collapsing around our eyes and ears, there’s something reassuringly nice about ‘local’.

I say this because, as you may have heard this week, Global Radio in the UK is axing its daytime local news bulletins across most of its stations. Local news will now only feature at breakfast and Drivetime and there’ll be a 1 minute long national bulletin from London throughout the day. Local it seems is not good in the world of Global Radio.

I suppose this is the final, inevitable nail in the coffin for truly “local radio” across the daytime for all of these stations. It’s also a fantastic opportunity for rival stations broadcasting to the same area, that do have locally produced news, to bang the drum about their product being made locally, featuring local stories that are actually relevant to the area. Feel free to get in touch if you’d like me to write you a series of promos!

I still can’t help feeling that Global Radio is missing a trick by ditching all their daytime local content. Stuff happens in the day too. It’s not just at breakfast and drive! But more importantly, it just reinforces the message that across the day there’s no local content at all… apart from the adverts. Radio listeners in a capital city like Cardiff deserve better than a 60 second bulletin with just some national headlines that frankly, you can from any number of sources these days. Might as well not bother… Or maybe that’s the next step?

Jonathan Richards, Global’s Head of News, was quoted on RadioToday.co.uk as saying…

"No local story will be missed. In the event of a major local story all stations have the autonomy to break away from the network, and should there be a local disaster such as a flood or major crash, additional journalists will be drafted to the scene. This is about raising standards of news for commercial radio."

I love statements like that that go unchallenged! Saying that “no local story will be missed” seems to be pushing it quite a bit! Getting all those good local stories into Breakfast and Drive might be a bit of a squeeze I think. And how removing local daytime bulletins equals a “raising of standards of news for commercial radio” is incomprehensible? He seems to be implying that the standard of the local news bulletins on many of these stations was poor… so the answer was to just take them off completely! Who knows?! Don’t get me wrong… bad local news bulletins are cringe-worthy. But well-trained, passionate, local radio journalists with an interest in reporting the goings-on in an area, produce some fantastic local news. Just listen to the multi award-winning Radio City News for proof of that. (And imagine Radio City broadcasting news bulletins across the day that didn’t once reference the ongoing trial for the murder of schoolboy Rhys Jones)

One thing I do know is that we now have lots of local stations trying to sound like national ones, which kind of defeats the object of local radio really. How long will it be before Drivetime is culled from Ofcom’s local requirement, and the last remaining hurdle before for Global can run a quasi-national network, will be Breakfast?

And all this, at a time when The BBC Trust is considering the findings of a public value consultation over proposals to create video based local news websites in 60 regions across the country. Let’s hope this isn’t the start of commercial radio just handing over the ‘local’ card to the BBC as well.

"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.

The Radio Festival - presents "Radio Erectus"

It takes about week to absorb the vast amount of discussion, debate and dissection of radio that the Radio Academy's annual Radio Festival spews out.

So what did we learn?

Well without doing a session by session analysis, (which would be even duller than the 'DAB Audio Quality' session many of us endured) a few key themes seemed to emerge from the mist.

In no particular order...

Channel 4's entry into radio is a good thing
Commercial radio in the UK needs a extra shot of credibility in it's arm, and a broadcaster with 25 years track record of creativity, innovation and risk-taking can only improve the image of the sector and provide the BBC with even more robust competition in some key areas. Channel 4 Radio, E4 Radio and Pure4 all promise to be great stations and the return of Talk Radio to the multiplex, as well as Sky News Radio are welcome additions to UK's radioscape.

Digital Migration is thorny subject
Turing off AM and FM is a divisive issue. Many large broadcasters want it to happen pretty quickly. Smaller broadcasters are concerned they haven't secured carriage on DAB and never will. A 2 tired system of radio is going to create confusion for listeners , but the simulcasting costs for radio stations are prohibitive in the long term. Ofcom have promised to have a look at it! But drawing a roadmap for the future that everyone agrees on looks like being a tricky task. Radio is different to TV, so we can't just follow the Digital TV migration model... but likewise we need to ensure that radio is not the 'white elephant' medium that is outdated, out of touch and out of favour.

Commercial Radio has extended the hand of friendship to the BBC
The rivalry is fierce. The war of words erupts every quarter. The BBC versus the commercial sector? "Why can't we live together...?" asked Timmy Thomas in the rather excellent song from 1974? It seems Andrew Harrison, the new CEO of RadioCentre - commercial radio's trade body, had been listening to this tune for some time prior to penning his speech. The theme was something along the lines of 'working together for the greater good of the medium'. While there are many areas that seemed to make sense, eliminating pirates, looking at Digital Migration together etc... there were a few areas which raised an eyebrow! Collaborating on content is a nice idea... so you get a commercial radio version and BBC version. Somehow, I can't see the BBC giving up exclusivity on a lot of the areas of music they cover! But the spirit of the message was a positive one and hopefully the BBC understands the importance of a healthy commercial sector. The question is "how healthy" does commercial radio want the BBC to be?

'Non-Linear Radio' is important for everyone
There's been a podcasting session at The Radio Festival since the dawn of... well... the pod! This year it felt different. We heard from amateurs using podcasts as marketing. We heard from Danny Baker who does a daily show, which may make him a lot of money in the future! And we heard from practically every corner of the industry of the importance of making radio available to listeners whenever they wanted it. Podcasting is coming of age and stations without a strategy may well be left behind. Listen again, downloading shows and podcasts must now be viewed as core activity, and not as something on the periphery.

Of course, there were plenty of sessions which provided light relief. Russell Brand is a true personality who walks the fine line between genius and madness; Jeremy Vine is about as multi-media as you can get.... Is there anything he can't do well?; And Andy Parfitt has been spending a disproportionate amount of his time with teenagers! (But as he's the Beeb's "Teen Tsar", then that's OK!)

UK radio is at a watershed moment in its evolution. It will either miss the Darwinian boat and return to the primeval media swamp as some sort of lizard like creature which didn't quite manage to make it to dry land. Or, it will adapt to it's new surroundings, learn how to survive in the changing climate and eventually walk upright. 'Radio Erectus' could be on it's way!!

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!

The Future of Radio!

So what is the “Future of Radio”?

We’ve got an explosion in non-liner radio. Podcasts, listen again and time-shifting listening are now really taking hold. Listening on multiple platforms is growing massively across the UK. Not only DAB, but mobile environments, games consoles, IM applications. You name it, there’s probably a radio station broadcasting on it. And we haven’t even mentioned satellite radio, and the wealth of other platforms that a global perspective brings us!

If we had a crystal ball, what would the world of radio look like in 10 years time? Would changes in technology drive the programming sector? Would the conventional mass-market format still work? Would people still have their trusty old clock radio to wake them up in the morning?

Fortunately there’s a chance to pick the brains of some very informed individuals on this topic coming up soon!

‘London Calling’ is the UK’s largest music industry conference that gathers attendance from worldwide delegates and addresses a whole host of hot topics from the explosion of user generated content sites and what they mean for the music industry, through to the changes in marketing music to a variety of generations.

Naturally, the record and radio industries are so closely connected that putting a radio session on at this conference was a bit of a no brainer. So under the patronage of The Radio Academy (as it was Trevor Dann’s excellent idea!), I’ll be chairing a session called ‘The Future of Radio’.

My guests will be…

James Cridland, Director of New Media at Virgin Radio (and soon to be head of Future Media and Technology for BBC Audio and Music)

Chris Kimber, Managing Editor of BBC Audio and Music Interactive,

Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora - the US based online streaming portal for customisable radio stations.

All 3 have a great vantage point to help us work out the radio roadmap, and give us an insight as to where we are all heading.

If you want more details of the conference, head to http://www.londoncalling2007.com/

If you can’t be there, I’ll report back on what our future-watchers have to say, and how we can all act now to ensure that we’re ahead of the game when it comes to shaping the radio of the future.

RAJAR Qtr 1 2007 - The Post Mortem Part 1

So we've all had time to digest the RAJAR figures then have we?

As with every set of numbers, there's always something that grabs the headlines, and we weren't disappointed this time around. The BBC grabbing a record share of listening against commercial radio has to be seen the main story for Qtr 1 2007.

Moyles breaking through the 7 Million barrier, Radio 2 at 13.25 Million and even the rather niche offerings of 6 Music and 1Xtra scored record reach figures of 477,000 and 465,000 respectively. It's a very healthy picture for the BBC's music networks, and so the theory goes that commercial radio needs a strong BBC to ensure it is constantly injecting new creativity into its output. But it's getting a bit too strong for many groups who are really feeling the squeeze.

The response from Commercial Radio is naturally one of "Don't panic Captain Mannering!"... and you can't really say anything else faced with those numbers, can you? Fru Hazlitt, GCap's new London MD who's never normally understated, said "Yes - we still have some work to do!". Actually, I'm sure, privately, she's saying a lot more than that, but there's at least a public acknowledgement that commercial radio needs to innovate more, particularly in the area of digital and non-linear broadcasting to compete with the BBC more effectively.

There are notable exceptions, and of course there are pockets of excellence in commercial radio in many areas... Classic FM's broad range of output, Virgin's digital advances, Kerrang!'s execution of its format... but until there's some grass roots changes in the style of presentation in many local stations and an investment in talent development, then I fear Fru Hazlitt will be uttering that phrase for some time to come.