I read the news 2Day... Oh boy!

By now, you may have seen the story about ‘The Kyle and Jackie O Show’ on 2Day FM in Sydney. The crux of the story is that a 14 year old girl admitted being raped during a live ‘lie detector’ benchmark on their morning show.

The mechanic works like this. One person who has suspicions about the behaviour of another person can arrange for both appear on ‘The Lie Detector’ and awkward and embarrassing questions are then asked. The results are there for all to hear, as a producer or polygraph analyst is there to say if the person being grilled is lying or not. It could work for a husband and wife, boyfriend or girlfriend or even on this occasion, a parent and child.

You may want to hear the item in question so I've uploaded it onto my You Tube channel...

This story has highlighted a few issues.

There’s a very thin line between genuine entertainment derived from real life situations, and really uncomfortable listening. I think you’ll all agree that this was the latter. It’s quite good fun to use a ‘Lie Detector’ to see if your boyfriend has stuck to his commitment of not drinking beer for a month... or if your wife has ever bought a pair of shoes and not told you. This kind of stuff is light, fluffy and pretty harmless.

Where 2Day FM got it wrong was taking a morning show benchmark, which should be about fun and entertainment, and inserting some very difficult real life situations into it. Any decent radio station has a moral responsibility to not recklessly exploit people for the benefit of ratings, and frankly... this was a disaster waiting to happen.

The producer or presenters would have met with the participants before hand, and should have checked ‘which way’ this on air item was going. Alarms bells should have started ringing, and you can tell by the tone on-air of both the parent and daughter, that there was obviously quite a tense relationship anyway. The girl states the whole thing is unfair. They simply shouldn’t have been allowed on air if there was any suspicion that it may go wrong. The producer obviously made the call... which proved to be the wrong one.

Issues such as underage sex, drugs and drinking are legitimate issues that could make for very compelling radio. However, probably not on a morning show and certainly not dealt with in the way we’ve heard here. I’m all for radio dealing with awkward topics, and there are some fantastic examples of when radio does this, but not in the name of entertainment.

To her credit, Jackie (the female host) did her best to get out of the situation, whist Kyle’s “And was that the only experience you’ve had?” response to the child’s revelation has to go down as one of the worst attempts at a recovery... ever. It’s almost Alan Partridge-like in its crassness!

The GM of 2Day FM said in a statement "Kyle and Jackie and 2Day FM were saddened by the turn of events this morning. In the normal course of preparing the segment all due care and consideration was given to the family and clearly we didn’t know anything about the incident."

"The moment we became aware of it was live on air and we shut it down as soon as we possibly could. As is only appropriate, we are offering all the assistance we can to the family, including counselling, in what is of course an extraordinarily difficult situation.”

So – what can we all learn from this?

Vet participants carefully!
Make sure you have the ‘right kind of people’ on the air for any listener participation piece. The more potentially risky the item, the more checks should be done. Giving away a pair of Madonna tickets should not require too many checks!

If it goes wrong... stop right away!
Sometimes more damage is done trying to perform an immediate ‘on-air recovery’. If you can stop an item and play another record... do so. Then you can buy yourself some time to work out what to say, and perhaps apologise if necessary

Use Delay!
If you plan something on air that has the potential to go terribly wrong, at least run it in delay so you can bail out of the show buying you the 7-10 seconds that you need to lose the most offensive bit.

The story is still ongoing and Kyle Sandilands, who is a bit of hate figure in Australia anyway, is certainly “persona non grata” currently. He’s been ditched from the ‘Idol’ show on TV... there’s talk of the police investigating... and the show’s been suspended while an investigation has been launched. The press are having a field day.

Personally, I think it's actually the mother who had arranged for them to go on the air, that should be hung out to dry! What kind of parent would want to do that? Perhaps the same kind that appear on The Jeremy Kyle TV show in the UK. Hang on a minute... what is it about the name 'Kyle'?

Who's Bad?

I’ve spent the last couple of days with my head ‘in research’ finding out all sorts of interesting things and generally reminding myself of how ‘fun’ a good piece of well executed radio research can be. (Feel free to reclassify me as a bit of a research geek now!)

One question that was discussed in passing over the last few days was “I wonder how Michael Jackson records will test in an AMT if you did one right now?”

After the increased exposure of most of his back catalogue on not only all formats of radio for the last few weeks, but constantly on TV, what are the audiences views on these records? Do they like them more? Are they all now burned to death? Does the fact that the albums are flying off the shelves mean that people are reappraising the songs and therefore mainstream radio should be playing more of them? What’s the best testing Jacko song on the planet right now?

I don’t have any of the answers... and couldn’t ask any of these questions in the piece of research I’m now studying, as he was still alive when we wrote the questionnaire!

But I wonder if there’s...

a) Any good data out there looking at this right now
b) If anyone has any educated guesses

Answers on a postcard to Nik Goodman, 88-108 Geek Street, Testville, USA

(Or just post a reply!)

Thrilling Radio

As I arrived home last night from spending the week in Copenhagen I settled down to watch to the BBC 10 O Clock News, saw the Michael Jackson story break at around 10:20pm and soon realised that we may be on the verge on something quite considerable.

Out came the laptop, on went the kettle and BBC News Channel / Sky News... and communications were established with the radio station I had just left. As I was hearing about the story on the TMZ website, which were the first to report Michael Jackson was dead, I started planning for the morning ahead.

I even managed to capture a screen grab of both TMZ and The LA Times as I went along ... a kind of strange ‘breaking news’ collector’s item of a momentous culturally significant event.

The timing was quite convenient (if these things are ever convenient, particularly to the person dying!) because it meant that most listeners in Europe switching on the radio in the morning would be hearing the news first from their favourite radio station, that Michael Jackson had died.

Therefore, there was a great opportunity to plan a ‘content packed’ show throughout the night and be ready for 6am... which is exactly what I did!

As consultant Programme Director for Radio 100FM in Denmark, I took charge of providing direction for that particular station in areas such as tone of voice, music, production etc... but I was backed up by a fantastic team who all came in early to ensure listeners got the best possible product. For good measure, all client stations received a bespoke 2am ‘advice’ email! :-)

What were the key ingredients?

Information – people needed to hear the facts about what had happened
Reaction – getting reaction from both listeners and celebrities on the breaking news
Mood Music – reflect the passing of a musical icon by playing lots of his songs
Tone of Voice – ensuring we found the right voice to demonstrate a genuine sadness at someone’s passing without being overly sentimental or mawkish
Production – capture the feeling and significance of the event with production the caused an emotional reaction

After 90 minutes sleep and a hastily arranged 4:30am conference call, we were up and running. The team on the ground put together a really excellent show and listeners were provided with some first class radio, balancing all the key ingredients.

I thought I’d share with you the some imaging that we had on air this morning, (produced by Imaging Director Bjarke Rasmussen) which has cuts of the station’s newsreader, a famous Danish TV host commenting on MJ’s death, clips of the press conference and of Michael himself, and a simple yet effective script. This was followed by an appropriate emotive Michael Jackson song and played at the top and bottom of each hour all day.

A sad day, but a great opportunity for radio to do what it does best.... react quickly to changing events, deliver information and capture the public mood. I hope your station took that opportunity.

Light My Fire

How committed is your morning show? How far would they go to entertain their listeners? Would they, for example, set themselves on fire? Hats off to Jacob Wilson from client station Radio 100FM, who's a host on their morning show ‘Morgenhyrderne’ who did just that! Take a look...

And if that wasn’t enough, a week later he tested a new summer remedy for bee stings and subjected himself to a being stung by some sort of killer bee, on purpose, just to test it for listeners... twice! Ouch!!

Radio hosts that are committed to entertain the audience by ‘going the extra mile’ are the kind of guys you want on your team. Nice work don’t you think?

Having a ‘liberal’ Health and Safety policy at your station also helps!!

Flavour of The Old School

This morning, at one of my daughters’ schools, it was “Fathers Into School Day”. They do this thing at her school a couple of times a year. It’s a kind of ‘open day’ where just the Dads can come and hang out at school, sit in on the lessons, see what goes on, help your kids with their school work and have some lunch. (Don’t worry – they have a “Mums Into School Day” too!)

My eldest daughter, Issy, is 6 and she thought it was great fun to have her Dad in her classroom, and show me everything she’s doing, and introduce me to all her mates (including her boyfriend!).

But actually, I think I had more fun than her! It was a great opportunity to just experience the school during a normal working day, and see everyone go about their business.

It reminded me of something we did many years ago when I worked at Power FM. We had a ‘Listener Open Day’. Listeners could turn up at the radio station on a pre-determined day, get a tour of the building, hang out for a while in the studios and see the DJ’s in action and generally get the vibe of the place. I even think we also asked for a small donation too, which went to a local charity.

I remember getting the feeling at the time that the process really helped to cement the loyalty of listeners even further, and acted as a real opportunity to be entirely transparent and show people what went on at the radio station which for many, was a significant part of their lives (i.e. they woke up with the Morning Show, listened at work, listened in the car etc)

Certainly, my experience today brought me much closer to ‘the brand’ (in this case, my daughters’ school) and made me feel much more of an emotional bond with it.

Winning the radio battle is as much about ‘encouraging loyalty’ as anything else... so any initiative that does that (at very little real cost to the business) must be something worth considering.

Most of the current thinking in many companies, regardless of sector, is how to create a dialogue with its customer base. This is a slightly harder job when you’re a bank or sell bread for example. But in radio, we’re good at communicating with people... so why not try removing the microphone and transmitter, and have a real dialogue with some real listeners for a change. Chances are they’ll tell some of their friends that they had a trip round their favourite radio station, and “...the guys at Radio FM were really nice you know...!”

And don’t underestimate the power of the building you work in! It may be just a workplace to you, but most people have never been inside a real radio station, so will probably find the experience quite exciting! You never know... in these recessionary times, a trip to your radio station may become the next hot ticket in town.

Athens Radio

When I’m on holiday, one of my guilty pleasures is getting out my portable ‘World Band’ Travel Radio and having a little trip up and down the FM dial to see ‘what’s what’ in the world of radio in my particular destination.

First stop on my (slightly early) summer holiday was Crete, where there was lots of radio available. Unfortunately, most of it was just terrible! The worst thing I heard was something that started off like a standard music image promo with short hooks of songs one after the other, but then they proceeded to play me about 8 minutes of hooks!! I felt like I was listening to an AMT broadcast live!!

Sorry residents of Crete, but all your stations seem to interrupt the listening experience far too much, and are way too commercial. The programming wasn’t ever allowed to breathe. There wasn’t a station I could find that was well put together and understood the basics. I hope there is one... it’s just I couldn’t find it!

And then, on to Athens...

Now that’s more like it! I sat on the obligatory sun-lounger by the pool with my headphones on. What started out as a little scan up and down with a few notes jotted on a napkin, turned into a couple of hours really interesting radio listening. It helps when you have absolutely no real pre-conceptions of the stations or their image. You can really listen to the output without being swayed by external factors. So, there are a few things worthy of mention;

Greek music is alive and well on the radio dial in Athens
There were many stations either offering what an untrained ear may call ‘Traditional’ Greek music, or ‘Contemporary’ Greek hits (and about every possible mix of the two in varying degrees, plus all the variants... like ‘rhythmic contemporary Greek’, soft AC Greek etc, etc) So it’s fair to say, the domestic music scene is very healthy and supported admirably by Greek radio.

Some of the commercial blocks are very long
Several of the stations offering a contemporary mix of Modern Greek hits and English language hits had commercials breaks which were in excess of 6 or 7 minutes each. They were just far too long. I felt sorry for the advertiser who was placed 13th in the ad break! In these cases both advertisers and listeners lose.

Sweeps of music work
For music stations, regardless of format, well programmed sweeps of music across the day just work. This is nothing new, but it’s interesting that some stations just ‘get it’ and put together really well programmed music sweeps with a great flow and musical treats, and some stations just interrupt you far too often. Guess which ones are more appealing to listen to? Not too difficult is it?

Standout Stations
A few stations broadcasting to Athens are worthy of mention:

Red FM - 96.3
These guys offer a really listenable mix of Modern Rock, Indie and Cool Classics. It’s a male skewed station, seemingly aimed at 25-39 year old blokes with a real focus on credible music and a well defined sound. Songs I heard over a couple of hours included:

Blur – Song 2
Athlete – Wires
U2 – With Or Without You
Rasmus – In The Shadows
Bryan Adams – Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started
Semisonic – Secret Smile
Blondie - Heart of Glass
Bob Marley – Is This Love?

96.6 (That seems to be its name)
Again, another male skewed station, but aimed a little younger than Red FM, probably more 15-24. The nearest comparison I can draw is with XFM in London. The running order is dominated by a stack of very cool and credible bands ranging from Foo Fighters to Razorlight, and the station has a really nice feel to it, with minimal interruption from DJ’s, who only really stop to tell you what band you were just listening to. They’ve just dropped a musical treat too... AC/DC – ‘Highway to Hell’! Nice production sound too. Songs I heard over a few hours included:

Muse – Starlight
Florence and the Machine – Kiss with a Fist
Verve – Sonnet
Moby – Natural Blues
Arctic Monkeys – I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
Alanis Morrisette - You Oughta Know
Razorlight – America

Lampsi 92.3
If you want a decent AC station, you’d be hard pushed to find a better one in Athens than Lampsi 92.3. It blends the biggest international hits with the best in current and contemporary Greek music. The format is clear to follow and the production sound is straightforward yet effective. News, weather, traffic bulletins... the whole nine yards are there for you to enjoy. It’s not the most exciting station on the dial, but it’s probably the least offensive, and many stations reach number 1 in the marketplace by being just like that. The adbreaks are a little on the long side, but they’re not alone on the dial in Athens for that! The lovely team at Radio Intelligence have done a good job in positioning Lampsi. Nice work. Songs I heard over several hours included:

Katy Perry – I Kissed A Girl
Lady Gaga – Poker Face
Duffy – Stepping Stone
Amy Winehouse - Valerie
Katy Perry – Hot N Cold
Enrique Iglesias – Taking Back My Love

So, as I wave goodbye to Athens in a few days, I’m pleased to report it has a vibrant and exciting radio market with loads on offer for listeners... both domestic and foreign!

On The Beach...

On holiday right now, but hearing some amusing things on the radio worth writing about soon.

Nomal service resumes shortly!