RadioCentre Training Days

Now the summer is behind us, and it's started raining properly again, we can get back to business... so it’s time for another batch of RadioCentre training courses! I ran a couple of these earlier in the year and for those who weren’t able to get to them, we’re repeating them at the end of September and beginning of October.

For those who don’t know, RadioCentre in London is the organisation that is responsible for building and maintaining a strong and successful UK Commercial Radio industry — both in terms of listening hours and revenues. It operates in a number of areas including working with advertisers and their agencies, working with government, Ofcom and policy makers, and also stations themselves. Developing talent (both on and off air) is vital to maintaining that healthy industry. Therefore, RadioCentre help facilitate a comprehensive training programme.

“How to be a Better Presenter” is a one-day seminar aimed at presenters broadcasting in small to medium size markets, on all dayparts. In a crowded radio market, how do you make your shows stand out from the rest? When you have fewer resources than the big guys, what are some of the ideas you can use to make your show sound bigger and better. It’s a practical seminar covering specific tips, tricks and techniques for making listeners listen longer - and keeping coming back for more.

“How to Effectively Coach Your Presenters” is a one-day seminar aimed at Programme Controllers / Programme Directors, Producers, and any one who is directly involved in coaching on-air talent. Investing time in developing talent is one of the most important areas within programming, but is often overlooked. How do you get the best out of your presenters? How do you manage big egos as well as focusing on developing promising new talent? What are the most effective ways of providing feedback to your presenters? This seminar will cover specific tips and techniques for coaching presenters and provides programmers with a useful and practical advice that will help them develop their talent themselves.

If you’d like to come to either of these, you can find out more by clicking here, or email me and we can chat about them some more...

RadioCentre Training Days

One of the recent developments that has been really good for the UK commercial radio industry has been the creation of an umbrella trade body called ‘RadioCentre’. RadioCentre formed in July 2006 from the merger of the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) and the Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA). Its members consist of the overwhelming majority of UK Commercial Radio stations who also fund the organisation.

RadioCentre do a whole host of things for commercial radio, one of which is provide training for presenters and programmers alike. For many years, people working in commercial radio really only got training just “doing the job”, but there’s now, fortunately, an understanding that if we want a healthy and vibrant industry, we need to ensure we’re sharing as much knowledge as possible and developing our presenters and programmers.

I’ve been asked by the excellent guys at ‘United Radio’ (who provide some of the training days) to host a couple of sessions as part of RadioCentre’s 2008 training programme.

If you’re interested, here are the details:

Advanced Presenter Coaching – 25th February 2008 (London)
This is a one-day seminar aimed at Programme Controllers / Programme Directors, Producers, and any one who is directly involved in coaching on-air talent. Investing time in developing talent is one of the most important areas within programming, but is often overlooked. How do you get the best out of your presenters? How do you manage big egos as well as focusing on developing promising new talent? What are the most effective ways of providing feedback to your presenters? This seminar covers specific tips and techniques for coaching presenters and provides programmers with a useful and practical advice that will help them develop their talent.

How to be a better presenter… - 20th March 2008 (Bristol)
This is a one-day seminar aimed at presenters broadcasting in small to medium size markets, on all dayparts. In a crowded radio market, how do you make your shows stand out from the rest? When you have fewer resources than the big guys, what are some of the ideas you can use to make your show sound bigger and better. This practical seminar covers specific tips, tricks and techniques for making listeners listen longer - and keeping coming back for more.

Each seminar costs £110 (...a bloody bargin if you ask me!!) and if you’d like to attend, you should email the lovely Lucy Forster at RadioCentre (lucy@radiocentre.org). In the great tradition of things like this… book early as places are limited!!

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!!