Consistency isn’t boring

Everyone wants to be special. Do something “out of the box” or original and fresh. I understand that urge and it’s a noble desire.

A little shout out though for the more mundane. The usual. The everyday. It’s both important and necessary. If everything was shiny and exciting, nothing would stand out. More than that it would also be incredibly annoying!

In radio it’s even more important for there to be consistency and particularly with regular shows. Last week I posted about Ken Bruce for example- everyday there is a consistent performance and a “know what you are going to get” vibe which is key to growing and maintaining an audience.

Breakfast show are the same, and in some sense even more important. Think about it for a moment- the breakfast listening environment for music stations is a tough one. You are competing with LIFE. Competing with kids finding shoes, clamouring for breakfast, dogs wanting walks and time pressures of getting out the door on time. Attention is in short supply. In that environment imagine if your show was as manic, wild and different every day with no consistency or basic similarity in offering from day to day. You would be adding to the mayhem not giving an escape from it!

It doesn’t mean boring. It’s about adding enough extra sparkle, change and something different to be fresh, but not upsetting the apple cart so much that it’s a new maze to navigate every morning.

Add into that mix that listening time at breakfast in particular is sporadic. Background listening is a norm of radio and something not new, and radio naturally moves from background to foreground, but breakfast listening has a big environmental influence too. The time pressure and commute reality adds an extra layer of complexity. If someone is still commuting (and sitting on this train typing this right now- plenty of people are)- the chances are that the arrival at work will, even momentarily, stop your listening. It’s a hard stop too. Even if eventually it restarts after the initial intros and hellos of meeting work colleagues etc. Listening is compartmentalised, sectional and defined. It’s also habitual as I could bet that if I were sitting on this train at the same time tomorrow, I’ll see some familiar faces.

Taking all that into account- just picture what it would be like again if your regular show kept reinventing itself everyday- or even every week! It would be a fantastic way to shed listeners! As I have said, it doesn’t mean you need to be boring or the same day in, day out. It just means that each chapter should obviously be from the same book.

Your daily reflection of life- your observation of the day’s events or items in the news might be all the “fresh and new” that is needed, assuming you are competent at putting the nuts and bolts of a show together.

Stop worrying about being out of the box too much and focus on making the box the best it can be!

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In praise of Ken Bruce

I’ve drafted a few posts from time to time about individuals who grace our communal airwaves. Steve Wright, John McCauley and now Ken Bruce. I mused over posting this for some time, after first sampling Ken in his new home on GHR and thought at the time, “I’ll come back in a while and see how it sits”.

Much as been said and posted about the move from Radio 2 to Greatest Hits Radio and indeed I have also posted something along those lines in the past. This though is a bit different. I wanted to give the show in its new home some time to bed in, knock the rough edges off and gets used to the surroundings. (I should add that from the initial listen there weren’t any noticeable rough edges!) Anyway, there is so much change… BBC National to Commercial. Ad-free to having ad breaks. Single output national network on Radio 2 to multiple split complexity at GHR. BBC Studio to commercial studio and operation. Let alone thing like a playout system change, desk change, mic change, how it sounds in your headphones change (seemingly insignificant but can make a world of difference to any presenter- just ask one!).

Ken began on GHR at the beginning of April and so nearing two months later, its enough time for the raw “newness” to have worn off, new habits to form and any idiosyncratic habitual errors and slips to have been largely ironed out. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it is still very NEW. By now though the new car smell should have started to dissipate a tad.

Firstly, worth noting that the old show at Radio 2 was no easy ride. It was the biggest show in the UK if not Europe, and so had a lot riding on it. This new home and show is also no walk in the park either. Just from listening around, GHR does some complex and well thought through splits. I am impressed by the volume and the localism. Sitting in Derbyshire listening to DAB, getting Derbyshire travel and hourly news on the local multiplex and this replicated around the UK is pretty heavy lifting. I’m reminded of my days in the Smooth network when switching the former Gold AM and Local DAB outputs to Smooth and most significantly NOT doing all of those local splits. Local traffic was a thing for sure (provided by Inrix) and that existed previously, but the AM and local DAB took the London output feed and so you could sit in the West Country, or more annoyingly Wales and hear, “London’s Smooth” spoken from presenters in non-split and the London News bulletin. GHR is a different to that and a level of effort and production that makes a big difference- to a demographic for whom localness is more important too. I know from experience that this effort takes a lot of time and careful planning, accurate timing from presenters and journalists spread across the country- which takes a LOT of buy-in. There are many moving parts and much can go wrong, but boy when it goes right!

So right from the off, the show has a local feel and accent to it which wouldn’t have been there with Ken’s former home. It’s not pretending to be local though, but an added benefit and extra relevance for a regional listener. Sitting in the middle of that tech and timing complexity, is the voice of Ken Bruce- sounding effortlessly at ease. It is a compelling combination for the demographic.

It takes a supreme professionalism to make it sound so effortless. A swan looks elegant above the water, but beneath it they are paddling like crazy. There is a deftness of touch, a confidence and surety that there is no need to overdo anything- provide just enough, and then move on. Listener interaction via messages and what could be described as “dad joke” type comments build a sense of an inclusive team with listeners and Ken. It’s not an exclusive listen, but welcoming and open and you don’t feel left out of the joke. There are of course echoes of Wogan here- the same feeling of being in a “club of listeners” (TOGS).

There is an overwhelming feeling of having fun too- Ken sounds like he is enjoying the experience and sharing that with the listener who responds in kind. His style never takes himself too seriously and it brings with it a sense of charm.

What also strikes me is that this massive change- everything that has altered with the fabric and workings of the show previously, has happened with a presenter who is- well… not in the early bloom of his career. Age is not, and should not be a defining factor, and I don’t see age- what I see here is immense EXPERIENCE. It’s still impressive though!

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The untold Rajar story.

This week sees the publication of the listening figures for UK Radio. Rajar is jointed owned by commercial radio and the BBC and gathers the listening figures, the currency of listening for the industry.

Stations will get the figures at 10:30am on Wednesday morning, with the publication at 00:01 on Thursday morning. It has become a flurry, an extremely busy period in any station with analysis taking place from 10:30 onwards to get the overall story of the release- what is the headline? I’ve posted previously on the frantic and busy nature of the job at hand.

The mainstream radio press and general media will have very little attention space for the release. You just might see a post about something to do with overall national numbers for Radio 2, or Greg James on Radio 1. Some might even try and pull out some story about how Ken Bruce leaving Radio 2 has shown x, y or z. As I have posted before, those actual numbers won’t be evident until later- so those stories are probably inaccurate or at least premature.

The untold story of Rajar, irrespective of the individual movements in radio station numbers, is the overwhelmingly consistent power of the medium. Radio listening is truly massive. Its the untold story and ignored by everyone by and large.

Total Hours to ALL RADIO.
Source: RAJAR/Ipsos/RSMB Wave 4 2022

The hours listened to radio, ALL RADIO has moved very little as you can see from the graph. Over ONE BILLION hours listened to radio in a week, every week over the last year. That number might be news to you- its part of the untold story of Rajar. EIGHTY NINE PERCENT of the UK population listen to the radio in a week. 89% in a week!

Sure radio has declined in its number of listeners- you have often heard the story of streaming growth, smart speakers, internet, downloads etc etc. Ten years ago after all in December 2012 All Radio reach was NINETY PERCENT. Yes that’s right in 10 whole years All Radio has dropped a massive 1 percentage point. In actual numbers though surely its more telling I hear you say- don’t hide behind percentages. Ten years ago in Dec 2012 Wave 4 release All Radio reached just over 47 million people in total in a week. In the most recent release prior to this week (Wave 4 2022), All Radio reached nearly 50 million people a week (49.6m). Radio appears to be dying upwards!

The untold story of radio? It is massive and continues to be massive. It doesn’t mean it should be complacent, but the news of its death appears to be a tad premature. Yes it should evolve to survive, and it has been doing. Radio is relevant, present and important. Remember when you read stories of how radio is being overtaken, the stories are written by “non-radio entities” who wish they had the influence and impact that radio has. It’s in their interest to make radio smaller not shout about how big it is.

Good luck to all my friends, former colleagues and passing acquaintances this week with the latest release. I hope the Rajar God is good to you and all those you hold dear. Just like buses, there will be another release along in 3 months so even if its not pretty this time, it will be temporary.

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Kill the Best Bits.

I think I might have posted something on this before but its worthy of a repeat… I just don’t understand the point of “best of radio show” style podcasts!

In many ways even more true for radio shows than say podcast series which maintains their weekly or daily feed with a compilation episode or two- which I can sort of understand.

Let me dig deeper. I should say that I can see the thought progression that winds up with a “best of us” podcast from a radio station perspective. It’s (fairly) easy to put together – the content is available and it gets you a podcast in the works quickly. Here is an alternative view: It’s dull, uninventive, panders to the ego and is a placeholder bit of content which as an industry we should have done with by now!

If you are a radio station, host or show team and you want to have some sort of podcast, then great, well done I applaud your eagerness. Make it worthwhile- put the work in! Make it work for the medium on which it will reside and if you can’t, won’t or don’t have the time then you probably don’t want it enough and shouldn’t do it. Think of it differently. If you decided that you wanted to have a blog post each week, and you could think of what to type, or subjects to write about and so instead just posted transcripts of the words spoken on your show, then yes “technically” you are posting a blog article, but in reality it isn’t particularly a great example of the blogging art form (if it is an art form!)- either way, its dull, uninventive, panders to the ego and is a placeholder bit of content.

Now I know, (because I’ve had the discussions a few times), that there are some people who will like to listen to “best bits of the show” and might not have heard it in real time. I get that absolutely and there always will be some. You might never get them to listen to the show in real time, or engage in any other way. I’d wager though that the vast majority of them would be lapsed listeners- lifestyle or location/job means they can’t or don’t listen anymore to the live thing and the actual number is fairly small. The other regular audience tends to be “super fans”. They are first to comment, engage and take part in anything you might do live on air and will happily re-listen to regurgitated on air content served in podcast form. My view is that neither constituent group grows the overall worth and interest by much and ultimately isn’t a particularly large contingent. It doesn’t really move the needle in terms of overall strategy, brand growth or evolution.

Hold on a second though! Time to own up. I have to admit that I’ve had shows that have done best of podcasts in the past. In the early days of podcasting, without the ability to use music in the pod and as a music station, the choices for what to use in the podcast arena were few. Producing a compilation of the best bits of a station’s speech heavier shows, like breakfast, was a simple answer and had some modest success. The Radio 1 days of Chris Moyles Breakfast Best Bits and others too, always appeared at the top of the podcast charts- a quick scroll just now and the Top 100 doesn’t feature ANY of these types of pods. We have come a long way baby since then, and with bespoke, engaging and amusing podcast-only content available, the menu of “second helpings” from the on air show isn’t as potent as it once was. Let go of it and think differently.

I remember back when I sat in a programmer’s chair, even though we began with a ‘best bits” podcast, it quickly changed into bespoke, original content. Initially with a few best bits from the on air mixed in, but then less and less as we found they didn’t fit anymore. the podcast lived essentially as an additional show, but without the music, and gave the show team an opportunity to run some content which didn’t always make it to air, and then to even test out some content which later appeared in the live environment on the on air radio show, and so treated the podcast as a rehearsal for the live thing or a test bed for content. It had another benefit, from a situation of programmer and breakfast host or team- with the constant watching brief to keep things succinct, efficient and short as they can be for on air, the podcast gave a release and a chance for the breakfast hosts to flex their speech muscles, develop some concepts and refine their art is a non-live environment (with the opportunity of an edit). The by-product of that was that the on air work got better, refined by the rehearsal and test-bed opportunity and the flexing of the skills. The podcast was certainly a better listen and started to develop it’s own following which complimented the on air and gave those on air listeners something more worthwhile than a repeat of something they already heard.

Just as weak radio output and weak programming doesn’t grow the impact of radio, weak content in other forms- weak podcasts, weak website, weak apps have a similar downwards pull for radio.

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Norman Cook said it best.

One of my suite of podcast choices is Annie MacManus’ “Changes” podcast. The last in the series 8 was a must listen for me and I found it snapped something in my brain. (This happens quite a lot!)

Norman Cook was the guest, aka Fatboy Slim. Now, I’ve heard Norman speak a few times and always been interested in his views, story and of course music. The interview though contained a comment from him regarding music and the sharing of it, that just suddenly gave me an “Oh yeah, thats it!” moment.

I’ve always found Annie Mac impressive and her Radio 1 days were supreme. Listening from across the radio divide in commercial radio I was quietly appreciative of her skill, gravitas, and credibility in the genre. I’ve never met, nor worked with her, (the closest being standing in the audience outside Cafe Mambo- see pic below), but find her podcast interesting as it shows so much more than the radio work or DJ work did, and delivers some fascinating stories from the guests.

Anyway- back to the point! Norman Cook spoke about his love of music and how when you find a new song, or hear something for the first time. The thing he said which made the impression on me was that the crystallisation of his own enjoyment of any song was only complete when he could share it with others. Play it for friends, family and of course punters in clubs. I’d absolutely always felt this myself and surprisingly it wasn’t until I heard him articulate it in this way, that it all clicked into place in my head.

I remember being passionate about a song that I really liked and wrestling with its lack of airplay or playlisting on various stations. I would get frustrated and annoyed when the station I was on, or worked for, didn’t play it and I didn’t stop to think why. At the time I would eventually stop myself and thinking “who cares, you can still play it for yourself”, but I still felt an emptiness. I forced the feeling down and ignored it as much as I could but Norman echoed what I had been thinking, and put it into words and talked about that passion. It not being shared, it not being played and heard by others had an impact on my own enjoyment. I got the added enjoyment from sharing the song with others, knowing they could hear it and experience the same thoughts as me.

Music has a passion and feeling like no other. It needs to be shared and maybe this is what I experienced. Radio can create that, generate the natural sharing moment and set off a chain reaction with the audience. Thanks to Annie MacManus and Norman Cook both for the good listen on the podcast, but also for completing a circle in my brain.

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The Cult Of Personality

You are famous- here, do a show!

If you scroll through the comments on socials or web regarding and celebrity stand in or hires for roles on air you find a general feeling of unrest to put it mildly. Now I know that the overwhelming advice screaming at us is “DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!” and for good reason but just take a second to analyse it a tad.

I’d like to credit John Pye- former Smooth Lake District presenter, which is where we met and became friends. He suggested this topic the other week and thanks to John for the inspiration and suggestion.

The main complaint about a “celeb hire” is that they are not an experienced practitioner in the role they are being hired for. So in the case of radio, they might be a singer, actor etc and dropped into a radio presenting role. You can see the argument as to their suitability and lack of radio presentation experience but in all honesty that view is a little simplistic. That view might offend, but let me expand it. Just because someone has little experience doesn’t mean they should be discounted, they might be untested but have something to offer. I’ve worked with people who are not seasoned radio professionals who have come up through the ranks and honed their craft, and instead they have come from another walk of life and have picked up the requirements really well and communicated very effectively. Equally I’ve worked with some who really have not! The argument that, “they take the jobs of media professionals”, is a little odd since it’s not a binary choice, and not hiring the celeb doesn’t mean it goes to a media pro or (and that’s the inference), their replacement will do a better job at it. I’ve worked with media professionals who have been worse than inexperienced celebs and stuck in their ways, incapable of taking advice or coaching so there are examples on both sides.

An inexperienced or inept “celeb name” parachuted into a show beyond their natural or assisted skill set, is seldom their fault. Someone in a programming role made a bad choice.

What is the desire? Buying a bit of glamour, a bit of the publicity, a rub off of some of the celebrity lustre is the hope from the station. It also could give a message of intent. A demonstration of a motive, power and desire from the station. Equally I’ve seen bad cases of that in action when programmers have been just trying to shout, “Look who I can hire!”- to anyone within listening distance. Generally the wrong reason to do it, I’d argue.

Hiring the right name- even without the legacy in the radio industry can give you some credibility or the brand some credibility and catapult it’s reputation more than a period of advertising. As an example- actually of something which didn’t come off the way originally intended for me. When at the Jack group and with Union Jack Dance, under the auspices of the Audio Content Fund the fantastic guys at This Is Distorted (Andi Durrant and Alex Jungius) pitched an idea for a short run series of shows for UJD. “Dance Britannia” hosted by Sister Bliss would feature interviews with the likes of Norman Cook, Paul Oakenfold, Groove Armada, Orbital etc- all friends and acquaintances of Sister Bliss and would showcase and celebrate the huge influence of British born dance music. I was really excited at the concept of this from a UJD perspective as it would have been bullseye for the station, establish a level of credibility- which was growing anyway at the time. Now, as Andi explains in the Radio Academy podcast in February- whilst it was a casualty of the demise of the UJ stations and at that time one of my regrets, thankfully it came to life with Kisstory. I would highly recommend a listen if it gets a repeat at anytime. This example of the right celebrity names, in the right format, on the right station, at the right time, for the right reasons just ticks lots of boxes.

Ultimately the reasoning has to be correct. The support has to be correct if the experience isn’t there and the most successful examples are a combination of both. Mistakes happen, and I’m actually very forgiving for most- its good to try things and fail, rather than not bother and miss something which could be wonderful.

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Identify the audience. Run it decently.

I read the blog post from a few days ago from the huge radio brain of David Lloyd. One of his social followers asked him to sum it up in one sentence and his reply was succinct, “Identify the audience- Run it decently”. It was both a great response and also cuts to the main thing everyone should do within radio management and beyond really, as I’d argue that everyone in a company plays a role in that end goal. Now, his blog post was about the BBC and local radio and this post isn’t I should add- its inspired by David’s response which got me thinking. (Not the first time David has inspired me to be fair).

First, some history as a brief aside. David and I go back a long way- he was on the midmorning show at Radio Trent in Nottingham when I first stepped inside the building, my first job in professional radio. He has always been a great thinker and a creator in radio. Somewhere in my loft I have a cassette of David’s “split demo” of Trent and Leicester Sound, all created using tape, carts and in a totally analogue world. I would encourage a read of David’s blog posts- his unique position of having been in commercial radio, (on air, as an owner and also in middle to upper management), at the BBC and also at the regulator gives a level of clarity and insight all too often missing.

Identify the audience– it seems really simple and basic doesn’t it? It should be, although at times it can be more complex, it’s not beyond the imagination of articulate people to be able to do this. There are many experts and examples of how this can be done. In a few weeks I’m doing some teaching to some online foreign students about setting up radio stations and how you can identify audiences- it’s something I have been teaching and coaching since the early days of running PC School for GWR Group! There can be a lot of science behind it, but the principles are simple. Everyone is looking for a hole in the market, and then if there is a market in the hole. The more fragmented a market becomes the harder it can be to find a position.

Once the audience is identified, and refined- the next job is to run everything through that filter. If it doesn’t reflect on the audience, if it doesn’t pass the filter then it’s not relevant. If it can’t be tweaked to be relevant to the identified audience then junk it. Keeping things as pure as you can is the daily battle and clutter and deviation are your constant enemies. It takes a tough resolve and often you will be tempted to “just this once” take an opportunity that doesn’t fit. Don’t do it. One more thing- I mentioned “refined”- that is also important. Identify the audience, then refine it. Knock the rough edges off- sometimes this takes a bit of time and programming is always a series of contradictions and changes. I’m often reminded of Duncan Campbell (ARN Group Programmer), who I worked with when he was a consultant and then Group PD in GWR/GCap. Sitting in a meeting discussing something he said, “I’m a programmer so I reserve the right to change my mind- things are seldom black and white.”

Running it decently– again should be simple shouldn’t it? The opposite shouldn’t be your desire after all? To be fair though there is a wide gulf between decent and appalling! The number one thing to focus on is the people– you can’t do it without them and so they need to be on-side. Treat them, (all of them), in the way you would like to be treated if you were in their shoes. Occasionally people will disappoint you. Except in exceptional circumstances they don’t do this deliberately- especially if you have been treating them like you would like to be treated yourself. Events and outside influences can upset the equilibrium and cause turmoil (downsizing, market turmoil, liquidation etc), dealing with people fairly and carefully might be upsetting, difficult and require a careful plan, but again it shouldn’t be beyond the imagination and ability of people who have this as part of their job remit. I have had to have “difficult conversations”- the kind that end contracts or terminate them early, with many people across the years. I remain friends with pretty much all of them.

The programming of radio (and other audio outputs) has numerous facets but the things that makes it function, makes it gel together into that magic thing that can delight a listener, is the people that make it, create it, invent it.

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Linear Re-birth

The death of live, linear radio has been proclaimed numerous times over the length of my career. From the often cliche quote from the Buggles, “Video Killed The Radio Star”, to the iPod, streaming, smart speakers, on-demand and IP. It’s still hear and still huge. I’ve mentioned many times that the non-linear streaming community would kill to have a reach of around 90% for a medium which appeared in the 1920s!

Something interesting thought caught my ear and got me thinking about delivery methods and impact. I was listening to a discussion regarding binge consumption of online content- so a Netflix series etc. The points made were that whilst the binge watching of series in this way is popular and has become its own thing, it has a by-product which effects the overall impact of the content and the timeline. Let me explain further.

Undoubtedly a huge benefit is the vast availability of the content- so unlike a linear delivery its available to everyone all the time, meaning the consumption isn’t limited to a specific time frame centred around it’s time of broadcast. The overall volume of viewing or consumption is therefore quite large, but would build over time. For example, I have watched series 1-4 of The Crown but as yet not the fifth series (I know!). The reason is that I’ve had a few things competing for attention, but also my wife has started watching it from the very start and so I’m waiting for her to catch up before watching series five together. So in terms of the overall ‘reach” of the series, I will be included once I get around to watching and be added to the many millions, but I’m behind the pack of the initial burst.

Thing is, the ‘moment’ surrounding the series launch has now passed- even though it will be still NEW to me. It won’t be a discussion point or the famous “water-cooler” chat by the time I’m invested in it. This was the discussion I was witnessing about linear, which made the observation that one of the things they really liked about “Succession” and “The Last Of Us” and others, was the episode by episode release which created a bigger impact, moment, discussion and event. They made the comment out loud, “I miss and like LINEAR for that reason”.

Of course the two things can happily co-exist at the same time and be true and not all content suits linear drip feed. Apple TV+ drip feeds series often, Ted Lasso series 3 for example, and then pushes the “All Episodes Available” once it has run completely as do Sky, ITVX, Netflix etc. Availability of catch-up and listen again to mop up the latent missed live broadcast is extremely helpful to the linear world too.

Topical lives well in radio and that leans really well into linear the world. The sweeping brush of “everything needs to be on demand” is not as blanket as at first might be believed.

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It is personal

I was listening to one of my regular podcasts last week when a point raised by the host just fired raft of thoughts and emotions in my head all at once.

They mentioned that when someone meets them they can tell from the way they are greeted, where the person knows them from. If they “high five” them, then they tend to know them from their TV work and appearances, but if they say hello and have a detailed and interesting conversation, then they tend to come from the podcast audience. They then talked about how intimate and personal the relationships through podcasts are.

This was the moment when a million things rushed through my brain at once, ranging from an urge to shout, “Welcome to radio! We’ve been doing that for many a decade!”, to a pleasant thought of how experiences developed through an audio medium are yet again underlined for a new audience and a feeling of being old, seeing someone realise something which you have taken as fact for over 30 years in your professional career.

When I was on air- which is a lifetime ago I hasten to add- listeners would recount to me something I had said about family, pets, home life, holidays or something else from my life- sometimes weeks or months after I may have said it on air. “Oh how is your daughter doing with that thing?”- normally met with a puzzled look from me translated as “how do you know?”, having forgotten I had ever said it and wondering if this person in front of me was stalking me or living in a bush in the garden!

Radio, and by default podcasts when executed well, create a strong personal relationship with their listener. Undistracted by the visuals of TV or video- the words, stories, connection and emotion creates a bond in the mind of the listener like nothing else. Radio is a medium which talks one on one with its listener. Even today with a world of scheduled songs, streams and software- I suspect a lot of listeners would think presenters pick the songs themselves. It’s ‘their’ choice, curated for the listener. Something which is part of radio’s power and it’s longevity.

It doesn’t happen overnight, and a relationship grows with a regular audience, but even at the start, there is a connection which is inherent with the medium- it comes built in. It’s comes from the one to one nature of the medium. Viewers to TV inherently know that there is a camera operator or more, a director, a vision mixer (even though they won’t know the job titles or how many)- it is understood that it takes “many” to make it. It is also viewed in a “many” forum- or at least can be- a TV viewed and watched by a family or a couple or a group etc, all watching the same thing at the same time. In itself a powerful thing of course.

Now radio can be listened to by many in one setting as well so where is the difference? That comes from where the pictures, feelings and images that radio broadcasts are generated. Images? Yes, radio broadcasts images or rather a form of words and suggestions that create images that appear in the mind of the individual listener. So even if there are a group of people in a room listening to the radio, the images and thoughts generated by the words of the presenter are generated individually in the minds of each person one by one- unlike TV which just shows everyone the same picture. If you say, “picture an elephant wearing a shirt standing on one leg”- each person hearing it creates a unique image in their mind (different elephant, different setting, standing on a different leg)- the same thing on TV would show just the one image that everyone watching looks at. Did anyone match the image below or did your personal picture look different?

Image created using AI image creator DALL-E

That process and individual generation of images and thoughts, is what cements a deeper relationship with the listener. It’s part of the reason why things “stick” so much more. A podcast can also do this of course, and much is dependent on the language (use of YOU). I always used to cringe when I heard someone on air say something like, “Welcome everyone” for this very reason. It didn’t always mean their show would fail- some successful presenters have done this, but ultimately they do themselves a disfavour and weaken their overall potential by not playing to the strengths and power of the medium.

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Non-compete

There is a story which is bubbling in the USA at the minute surrounding the use of non-compete clauses in contracts. I listened to a podcast discussion on it recently with interest, and read a post and whilst the differences to the UK radio market are stark, the argument chimed a bit.

Firstly, what is a non-compete clause? They exist in staff and freelance contracts and essentially say, “after you have worked here, or your contract ends, you can’t work for a competing business (sometimes geographically restricted or involved in the same area of business), for a period of time (normally measured in a number of months). I don’t pretend to be a legal expert at all, and so my explanations are purely my own take on the restrictions and its true that there is some guidance about any restrictions being “reasonable”, (that lovely none specific legal word!). The radio and media world is not alone in using them and its fairly straightforward to see the sense and rationale behind them: we don’t want our talent going across the road and working against us at a competitor, turning our “friend” into our “enemy” overnight.

For a freelancer, that can have quite the impact of course since the “post term” period after the contract has expired can mean no income. There is an interesting viewpoint from another industry, from a freelance writer in the US.

This is the bubbling background noise playing when I read the recent furore over Ken Bruce ending his on air stint at BBC Radio 2 earlier than he first thought (judging by his social posts), before starting at GHR. In fairness I’m not suggesting that any non-compete is relevant here at all, but the music playing contained some similar notes.

I have nothing to add to what has already been said about that specifically, and would suggest a read of my “friend with a huge brain”, Matt Deegan’s post on the subject which, as ever, is balanced and logical.

The argument brewing on the other side of the Atlantic though basically says, that those non-complete clauses prevent invention, innovation, wages and hurt future growth. The Federal Trade Commission in the states is proposing banning them, saying in their argument that they are, “a widespread and often exploitative practice that suppresses wages, hampers innovation, and blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses. By stopping this practice, the agency estimates that the new proposed rule could increase wages by nearly $300 billion per year and expand career opportunities for about 30 million Americans.” The impact on media has not gone un-noticed either as you might expect, and its impact on “millions of contracts” has been mentioned in response by the NAB (National Association Of Broadcasters in the US.

Put another way, if you tie up the best talent and prevent them from entering the wider job pool available to your competitors, then you take them out of play for a time, reduce their ability to create something elsewhere which is new and exciting or perhaps not been done before. The point also often stated is that they put a thumb on the power balance scale in favour of the company, reducing the value, care and attention afforded individuals, since their “cost of leaving” is high. Think what it would be like if they didn’t exist. How might the relationship with presenters nearing the end of their contract, or their agents change if they were free to go across the road? The power balance would change dramatically I suspect. That is the basic argument anyway in a nutshell. During the Covid Pandemic in 2020-21, the UK also looked at the issue and had a consultation regarding changes which would, “support economic recovery from the impacts of COVID-19, the government is exploring avenues to boost innovation, create the conditions for new jobs and increase competition”, thereby perhaps suggesting that their existence does the opposite? As yet there isn’t an outcome to this consultation and no indication that there will be one I suppose.

I have seen this from both ends of the argument, having been involved in hiring where people are prevented from working for me, or with a competitive provider for a period and also been under the same “post term” restriction myself. I can see the issue from both sides actually and find it fascinating to see the arguments played out in the US where there is an active proposal- which may well end up going nowhere of course. In any case I wonder how much traction the thoughts and considerations might get, and how far the ripples will go. As I say, its not something which is restricted to the media and radio world at all, but with a relatively small talent pool the impact can be quite dramatic.

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Want to get me working with you on your projects? Here are a few things I could help you with:

  • Coaching talent on performance. Remote or in person.
  • Analysis of markets and performance.
  • Leading training sessions- remote or in person.
  • Editorial advice and guidance.
  • Bespoke presentations or sessions.
  • Programming development and management.

Click the links below and lets start to have fun.