"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!!

"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.

RAJAR Qtr 1 2008 - "Story of The Blues"

Every set of listening figures tells a story beyond that of the immediate numbers, and the latest set of figures in the UK issued by RAJAR last week are no exception.

Actually, it’s a story with several tales to tell.

First, the main theme. The BBC is starting to pull seriously ahead of commercial radio, with almost 57% of listening verses Commercial radio’s 41%. Depending on which side of the fence you sit on, you can either see this as just rewards for investment in content and talent… or a blatant abuse of a privileged position designed to drive any commercial rivals into the ground… and stand on them hard! The BBC is long used to allegations of this sort, and to be fair, has to walk a delicate line of being successful… but not too successful, because “that’s just not fair”!

Perhaps it’s also tied into that peculiar British disease. We like success, but then when we see something becoming too successful, we cry foul, and denounce it as terribly unjust and really not very… well… ‘British’. Odd. To give a parallel example in the world of retail, I need only mention the word ‘Tesco’! ‘Nuff Said!

With Radio 1 back above 11 Million listeners and Radio 2 at 13.6 Million, there is no doubt that the BBC has made further inroads into the beleaguered commercial sector.

Virgin Radio’s resident number cruncher (and generally all round good-egg) Adam Bowie has written a very thoughtful piece on his personal blog about this topic and illustrated the theme with a rather good graph, which I've "borrowed". (I'll give it back whenever you want Adam!)

I think I need say no more on this topic, as the lines speak for themselves!

Another theme in this great RAJAR story is the tale of woe that continues for GCap. Capital has now slipped to 4th place in terms of reach with Kiss 100 now cume-ing an audience of 1.583 Million a week compared to Capital’s 1.563 Million.

Despite Kiss being a strong listen, I expect this to reverse itself over the remainder of the year as the ‘Denise’ effect kicks in. Word on the street is that the internal research is very strong for her and it’s only a matter of time before this translates to RAJAR. The fact of the matter is she’s a far bigger star than Johnny now. But how long can Capital hold on to her for? Hmmmm…

Elsewhere in GCap, Xfm’s worst nightmare has come true. Its market share is under 1% (at 0.9%) and its audience dropped a whopping 26% to just 379,000! (That “let’s get rid of all the DJ’s across the day” was a cracking idea wasn’t it!!) Is it time for that brand to be “humanely euthanized”? The boys at Global Radio certainly have a full ‘in-tray’ when they take over from the GCap!

And finally to a more subtle, yet highly significant tale: The number of people listening to some sort of digital radio continues to grow. Almost a third of the population (31.4%) listens to digital radio at least once a week, with DAB being the dominant technology. Sure… most of this is to analogue stations on digital, but it was great to see Planet Rock cume well the half million mark! Even The Jazz signed off with over 400,000 listeners. A bit too hasty to switch that one off? Over 27% of the UK’s population has a DAB radio, so it seems although the commercial sector is in turbulent times over the economics of DAB, the public still quite like it.

So, what’s the morale of our story? Simple really - invest in content! Easier when you have guaranteed funding I accept, but nonetheless, it seems to be a bit of a no-brainer really. And what is commercial radio’s answer to the current situation? Networking. Hmmmm – is this really investing in content? More on that to follow I think…

Witch Hunt?

I have a confession to make.

In 1992, whilst doing the evening show on Christmas Eve on Radio City in Liverpool, I put a caller to air claiming it was Santa Claus. It wasn't. It was my Brother in Law... Phil, doing a rather bad impression of an old man with a white beard, carrying lots of presents.

If I was at the BBC right now, I might well have a taxi on its way to take me home... forever!

The "fake callers" scandal goes on.. and on... and on! Today, another incident has come to light! According to the BBC...

"A pre-recorded section of Radio 1's Jo Whiley Show on April 20, 2006 featured a phone competition in which a member of BBC staff posed as a caller from the audience. The incident came to light following the recent publication of further editorial breaches. A number of staff members have been disciplined. We would like to make clear that Jo Whiley was unaware that the caller was not a genuine member of the public. The BBC Trust's Editorial Standards Committee has been informed of this today."

Oh dear. How many more of these are going to rear their heads? I'm sure there are quite a few producers / production assistants who are having sleepless nights at the moment. Fess up and do the right thing, and you might get the "Leona McCambridge" treatment!

She was the unfortunate producer who was at the centre of one of the original "fake caller" scandal on BBC 6Music, having admitted to using production staff to pose as a caller. 6Music Director of Programmes, Ric Blaxill, fell on his sword shortly after Leona was given her marching orders.

So where does this leave us? Is the relationship between a radio station and a listener irrevocably damaged... regardless of station? Does it affect the whole industry in the UK?

One of the real issues is the fine line between creating "radio theatre" and conning the audience. It's probably OK to say "I'm opening the golden envelope now..." when you haven't got an envelope in the studio, let alone a gold one! But asking people to call in without a hope in hell of getting on the air, coz the show's pre-recorded is probably pushing it.

So where is the line?

If you record a session on a Friday, and go on the air on Saturday morning and say... "we've got Band X live in the studio to play us some songs" and present them 'as live'... is that conning the audience? Having the band there live is infinitely more preferable than saying "we recorded this yesterday". But is it conning the audience?

But where does this end? If you record a call and edit it a bit before putting it on air.... is that also unfair?

Personally, I think a degree of theatre is OK. When you're actively involved in deception (i.e. call now to win) knowing that the audience are being taken for a ride, then you probably need to ask yourself 'why?'.

It's fair to say that these "smoke and mirror" tactics have been going on for as long as radio itself, not only in the BBC, but in commercial radio too. Because of the BBC's status and responsibility, it's having to air it's dirty laundry in public... but I'm sure the editorial guidelines within most commercial groups are being tightened up as we speak.

I bumped into Jenny Abramsky (BBC Audio and Music supremo) at a radio conference in Oslo recently and we talked about the current spate of BBC confessions. I admit to feeling rather bad for her at the moment, as she's no doubt going to face some awkward questions about the editorial integrity of the networks, and it's not really her fault!

So what's the solution? I believe this current witch-hunt within the BBC is counter productive. It continues to undermine the trust between listener and broadcaster. We know that quite a but of this stuff has gone on... do we need every instance to be trawled over? I think enough is enough. Let's call time on this. You can be sure that the BBC is having to be 'whiter than white' from now on and I'm certain lessons have been learnt.

And the commercial sector can be glad that the spotlight has not shone in its direction with the same ferocity.

Most radio stations, BBC or commercial, have probably not been involved seriously dodgy practises... but you can bet that any producer will think twice about calling a mate to help out on a pre-record now!

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!!

Xfm - A Backward Step

This weeks news that Xfm is to get rid of its daytime line-up of DJ's and run a listener-powered, non-stop music offering between 10am and 4pm is an incredible move.

When John Plunkett at the Media Guardian first got wind of the story, he published a speculative "they're thinking about this idea", which usually means the story has been leaked, but he couldn't confirm it completely!

"Surely some mistake", I thought. "They wouldn't do a foolish thing like that.... would they?"

Then came the confirmation. Radio to the Power of U will allow listeners to choose songs via text, phone, and online across the day.

Nick Davidson, the MD of Xfm was quoted on Media Guardian as saying:

"Our listeners are used to being able to control what they watch or listen to as these days people are inundated with choice. Allowing them to shape their own content seems the next logical step." (Actually if people are being inundated with opportunities to take control, falling into line and allowing them to do the same on Xfm is not actually the next logical step. However, I digress!)

OK. Here's the reason why this is a bad idea for Xfm.

Xfm is all about having a passion for new music. A passion that is emphasised and celebrated by its presenters. The DJ's on Xfm bring new music to life. They live it, breathe it, feel it and share it with their listeners who look to them to a trusted guide through the sea of musical mediocrity.

Cutting out these musical champions is like removing a vital organ from the radio station. Will it still function? Yes - but it will look a lot paler... probably be bed-bound, and need some sort of dialysis for the rest of its natural life.

One of the reasons why BBC Radio 1 does so well, is because it has entertaining presenters who share their passion for music with the listeners. Even Moyles gets excited about certain records at breakfast! The opportunities for exploiting the rich vein of content that sessions, interviews and new music features brings will all be lost across the day at Xfm. Gone. And replaced with what?

A faceless jukebox that I could replicate on my ipod.

Radio at its best is about the relationship that develops between a broadcaster who communicates in a unique way with the listener. Imagine Paul Gambaccini if he played 40 minutes of non stop music every hour... or Bob Harris entering into a 100 Minute Music Marathon! Great music radio stations need great broadcasters. Sure, there's all the specialist shows in the evening and weekends, but that's not where the mass of the audience is available. I know putting your consumers in control is very fashionable at the moment and having sections of your output where this happens is as old as the hills in radio programming. "The Giant Jukebox" anyone? But having it across at least 30 hours of primetime radio every week is frankly a waste of valuable spectrum.

I like Xfm and what it stands for. It shows that some in commercial radio do care about new music (even though it's always struggled to make any significant commercial revenues) and it's been a breeding ground and platform for great talent like Adam and Joe, Shaun Keavney, Justin Lee Collins, Christian O Connell and Ricky Gervais.

Just at a time when the BBC has extended it's lead over commercial radio across the UK, one of the major radio groups announces that it's pulling it's daytime line-up off its network of new music stations, and replacing it with listener requests. Hardly a move that will win back valuable share points from the BBC is it now? Shouldn't commercial radio be investing in content... not removing it from the airwaves? I'm sure that Radio 1 are laughing into the thier licence fee settlement as we speak.

This move is a negative, defensive step and my predication is that it won't have any significant positive impact on the audience. If anything, the loyal Xfm fan who tuned in to hear a knowledgable DJ get excited by music, will re-tune to find a station that has one.

Sorry Xfm. Bad move.