Master The Social Network

it's easy, engage, be real and don't take it too seriously.  According to Michael Lebowitz founder and CEO of 'Big Spaceship' corporations make 5 mistakes:

Mistake 1
Faceless corporations do not have a sense of humour, they are not good at funny.  Or worse they get it badly wrong like Durex South Africa who allowed a tweet joking about female sexual violation to be sent out … oh dear, oh dear.

Mistake 2
They are too slow to respond.  In a world of instant gratification social media demands an instant response. Journalist Robert Jordan from Forbes gives the brilliant example of those pesky 'Tamagotchi' virtual alien pets that you HAD to feed and water, or they died. That's just like social media.

Mistake 3
Companies have no voice.  They are politically correct and inoffensive like a BBC Local radio phone-in.  Social media demands that your company has a voice.  Have fun, visualise and engage with your customer.

Mistake 4
They are nameless and faceless.  When a customer @yourcompany do they actually become part of a dialogue or are they just sending their @ into a virtual void? Be human and be polite - reply and engage.

Mistake 5
Companies try to reduce everything to a process and that includes social media.  You just can't do that, social media is a living breathing organism that you nurture and form a relationship with.

listener-centric

 the best way to create powerful compelling radio is to move yourself away from the cosy air-conditioned radio studio and become listener-centric. What do they (the listener) want?  What would give them the very best listening experience? How can you as a broadcaster or station boss give the listener more than he or she expected to hear and how can you deliver it using all the different carriage at your disposal.  (By that I mean your broadcast service, podcasting, visualisation and social media, etc.)

If you are an Amazon employee some of this sounds remarkably familiar. Love, tolerate or loathe  Amazon - it is a very effective global company.  Their corporate mantra is to be customer-centric and it has made them a very successful business that may not be particularly profitable - as again their mantra is to re-invest profits into growing the company ever bigger at the discomfort sometimes of government and individual.

Too many radio stations seem to put their listener at the end of the chain, rather than at the front. The BBC has traditionally given listeners what they think might be best for them, a Reithian ideal wrapped up in their charter and put into practice by 'a bunch of Oxbridge lefties who have never done a decent days work' to paraphrase a well know Daily newspaper.

So here in the UK if you are a commercial broadcaster you have a unique opportunity to be listener-centric and duck and dive around the BBC who have a habit of talking-down to the Great British public. Whereas you can fulfil need by offering a more direct experience.  I am not talking about 'dumbing-down' - after Producing more than 16,000 hours of talk radio I have witnessed first-hand (or ear) that some of the most euridite thinkers have had life-experience rather than academic achievement.

So let's take some of Amazon's best ideas and put the listener first.

Creative Space

we all need it here are some pics of awesome work spaces.  So why is the space we work in so very important.? Well I have just moved studios the big back bedroom in our house was the studio, spacious and quiet, now I am in a tiny box room at the front trying to make it work as a space, I am about half-way there.

My good colleague Steve Blacknell a fellow voiceover artist cannot work from home, he told me the other day. "I can't get the buzz or the performance at home, I need to be in a studio in London with real people directing me."

I know how he feels, however convenient my little voice booth is here at home, it's not the same discipline as being shoved in a booth in a Soho studio.  That doesn't mean with the right frame of mind you can't create a decent performance.

The key is to make the space apart from the house, make it a place that you go to work in.  Dear Darling Sandi Toksvig who has written a clutch of best sellers, toddles off to a shed at the bottom of her garden - a space away from the kids.

So why not take a few ideas from Google and the rest and make your space somewhere different and creative. Below Dr Who storage, Epic office reception - a mock tube train.  Google and their slide, Groupon and their TV set like space.

Social Vandals

@archiveatBBC most of us are aware that during the late sixties and seventies the BBC television archive ran out of shelf space.  Rather than build more shelves they decided to perpetrate the most appalling cultural vandalism and destroyed or wiped many shows that would deprive historians and the public for the rest of human time.

I have my own story about the LBC and IRN archive - a new owner at LBC decided that we had run out of shelf space and that the archive was to be pruned down to just a handful of 'important' recordings. (Familiar story hey?) I along with Chris Lowrie (still at LBC)  and Derek Cole (Now at Sky) were given the task to fill a very large builders skip with archive tapes.

The three of us decided that this would be cultural vandalism.  Derek went hunting around the building and we filled the skip with all manner of junk - old sound mixers even a broken dishwasher from one of the kitchens.  Then we layered a thin cover of tapes on the top - to make it seem we had emptied out most of the archive.

Then came the tricky bit making the archive room look less full of tapes.  Well by shoving a lot of tapes closely together and sliding reels on top and by farming off the whole of the LBC show 'Cinema Screen' to its former presenter - Carol Allen - we managed to pull it off.

Writing this I can still see in my mind Carol Allen's old estate car driving away from the underground car park so weighed down that there were sparks coming from underneath as it caught the concrete floor.

Fast forward to another time and place and our precious archive was now stored at Kings Cross - a bid for lottery funding had been put in to have the whole of LBC/IRN recordings from 1973-1997 digitally archived.  The bid was successful and Bournemouth University took on the mammoth task of cataloging all the tapes.

A few weeks ago I was teaching a student who had a masters in Journalism - I asked what their dissertation was about? "Oh comparing the BBC radio and Commercial radio coverage of the miners strike during Mrs Thatchers time as Prime Minister, did you know there's a fantastic audio archive of commercial radio on the University Library system?

As a footnote 'Cinema Screen' and all its tapes that had been sitting in Carol Allen's garage were lovingly collected by the British Library and now reside in their archive.

Vox Pox

Oh how I hate Vox Pops just heard some on a news bulletin.  Some years ago LBC and IRN were based at ITN and the bulletins were full of 'we asked people on the street what they thought'  Except they were people on the street outside ITN's studios at 200 Gray's Inn Road.

Gray's Inn people in the street tended to be lawyers or legal clerk's -  as the studios were close to the Inns of Court and a smattering of slightly drunk Irish people as there was a big Irish Centre nearby so the  result was a biased and editorially worthless bit of audio. Oh of course unless they said something bizarre or outrageous that is lol.

#Copyright Fright

the day #LBC973 got told off by the BBC.  It seemed like a good idea to play something to fill the small hours of the night when nobody called in.  It was a bad idea to pick "Hancock's Half Hour" but it had been released on record so what's the problem?

The problem was that the Producer in question decided to play a whole episode.  Three weeks later my boss Robin got a polite letter from the BBC it read something like this.

We notice that on the XX of XX you decided to play a whole episode of "Hancock's Half Hour." On this occasion we will not charge your radio station for this performance as we believe that you made a genuine error but for your reference here is a breakdown of performance cost that you will incur should you decide to broadcast again without permission.

It then went on to list every cast performer and their fees.  "The Estate of Kenneth Williams £80.05 - The Estate of Sydney James £90.05." and so it went on.  What the 5p was all about I am not sure.

So why did the BBC send us a bill for a properly released record?  I mean LBC had a PRS/MCPS licence .. aha BUT the BBC comedy releases were not signatories to BIEM (The world copyright protection society)  - This is the complicated world of copyright and how you can easily land yourself in a pile of copyright crap.

Shout Out

Yesterday I talked to a real #radio #listener about #LBC973.  It was another day of @Greateranglia delays and my fellow commuters started to talk to each other as we waited 20 mins for a train to arrive. The guy who always stands next to my for the last two-years asked what I did? When I told him, he said I love the radio, I listen more than I watch TV.

When I said I had been working for LBC 97.3 the last couple of weeks he replied much as he loved the format he "didn't want people shouting him at the breakfast table in the morning."  At first I thought he was picking on the big man - Nick Ferrari, but what he actually meant were the shout with too many words commercials that still populate the radio airwaves here in the UK.

I have just read a very good book by Tony (Radio Operators) Hertz "The 7 Secrets of Creative Radio Advertising."  He agrees with me that shouting radio ads with too much copy squeezed in to 30 seconds never worked and as each day passes sound out of tune with the way we consume advertising now.

So how pleasing it was to hear The Lloyds Bank commercial this morning, no shouting just a narrative about a man who started a winery in Kent, that was followed by equally natural and understated ad for Waitrose unfortunately on the heels of Waitrose was a commercial for a secretarial service with a woman screaming the many and complex benefits - edited so there was not a single breath in her delivery.  The industry is getting better at making commercials but we are not quite there yet.

Off the road

Or the time that #LBC973 radio slightly cocked up the Motor Show sponsorship.  Speaking of cars, we had a company car then.  It was a contra-deal originally for us to both work at breakfast without LBC having to pay for cabs from Essex. (Union requirement)  I remember us both going to what was billed as an exciting sponsorship meeting.

When we walked in it was just the boss; he turned to us and said -  "I'm taking your car away from you!"  We asked when did he want us to return it. "Now!"  "Give me the keys - you can get the train home tonight." So we pushed the keys over to him and told him it was in the car park.

Then 'Sharon' from sales turned up, "I ave some excitin news" she said.  "Got a really good sponsorship deal next week wiv the Mota Show, that's the yearly car show at Earls Court, you know?"

I remember saying that I had heard of it, but did she know that this year it was coming from the N.E.C. in Birmingham?

"Oh fuck!"she replied.

The boss turned to us and said, "Well you and Therese (the Presenter) will just have to drive up there then won't you?"

"But you've taken away the car"

With that he shoved the keys laying on his desk back to us and said.  "I'll let you keep the car for another week then."  In the next blog I will tell you about a Brummie landlady from hell and a free can of lager.  

Rowling #Fail

 J K? 'Nobody knows who you are!' I said taking an unknown children's author into the studio.  @jk_rowling She had just written her first book, some rubbish about magic and a boy with specs. We will call you Joanna - that is your name, isn't it? That will never sell - I thought.

'As Big as WH Smith? I laughed. ' I don't think people want to buy books on-line' - me to Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon.

It is easy to misjudge people, dismiss their genuine talent and enthusiasm.  History is littered with bad judgement - the man from Decca who told The Beatles that groups were on the way out.  The vanity of Archduke Franz Ferdinand who was stitched into his clothes to make himself look dapper - who might have been saved if surgeons could have released him from his uniform in time and maybe the First World War would not have happened?

So the next time someone from your programming team comes up to you with an idea or a passion to do something, don't be too quick to judge them. 

Turn On Tune In

Lovin' Tune In radio I have just put the pro version on my iPhone available for just 69p at the moment, I can record shows, jump around replay and search for just about any radio station in the world that streams.  Locked in LBC 97.3 found tho I had to change the stream from WMA to AAC as it sounded much better even at 48k.  I can see the schedule and interact on the web and Twitter jump to a video of Steve Allen's life (the iPhone carefully fades the stream to play the video)

This truly is the future of radio ...er provided you have access to wi fi the 3g experience is a bit crap but you can mostly stream the stations.

TV People

TV celeb radio horrors. Some telly stars make the transition to radio and some radio stars make the transition to telly. As a Radio Producer I have had moments of complete despair as I have tried to teach a TV celeb the craft of making great radio.  Radio has no autocue, scripts, runners or for the most part programme assistants.  Which leaves your telly host very exposed.

There's a long list of TV presenters and telly celebs that get by because the camera loves them but if what they say aint up to much then there's a good chance radio will hate them and expose them and their shortcomings.

Sometimes there's no explanation, you would have thought Babs Windsor would be ace on the radio but her stilted embarrassing performance on Radio 2 had me reaching for the off switch.  I worked with one very famous TV Presenter she lasted exactly one hour, when she discovered the show wasn't scripted she went a whiter shade of pale and ran off to my boss to tell him that 'she didn't think that kind of radio was her thing.'

Good for her at least she knew her limits.  Then there are others who I really didn't think would make it.  The lovely Jeni Barnett and I went through a personal hell together where she pretty much screwed every link got herself into the most incoherent muddles but managed to pull through and then had an epiphany and suddenly got what she was supposed to do.  When we meet in the street we give each other one of those secret hugs that old soldiers who have fought wars together do.  I recommend Jeni's blog it's pretty much how she is.

So never underestimate the skill that's involved in radio and we should remember the saying 'one man's meat is another man's poison'

Eye eye eye like you very much

New iPad was born yesterday a sexy slim thing with an eye for a great display. BUT the real reason that the iPad and iPhone are such a runaway success is CONTENT Get your content right and you can be king of the castle.  The Apple App store has had over 25 billion downloads. Apps are great and downright sexy I mean who doesn't love shooting angry birds at little green piggies?

The radio industry should adopt the Apple mantra for success.  Get the content right and you attract an audience and, if you are a commercial operation, - you make money.  I know some really great programmers who know just the right buttons to push to get an audience but have  regrettably also experienced programme directors who have pandered to the owners or managing directors little peccadillo's and put programming or played music that the bosses liked, knowing full well that it didn't make the station better or encourage audience growth.

The Blessed Norman

Farewell Norman St John Stevas (You say it Norman Singe en btw) You were a Tory wet and my local MP for many years although your visits to our fair town were few and far in between.  I remember having the oddest conversation with you down the line at Essex Radio, that went along the lines of:  Norman: You sound very young how old are you?  Me: 22 years old.  Norman:  How splendid I really must come to your studios in person next time.  RIP Norman

Davy Jones

Davy Jones was my first celeb.  Green and only just in my twenties working for Essex Radio (As Heart Essex was known then) Davy Jones was over to do some kind of concert at The Cliffs Pavilion, probably to help pay the alimony for one of his ex wives.  I can remember being very excited, this was the first person I had ever met who was in any way famous.

I was a child in the late sixties and when Dr Who took its summer rest, the BBC replaced the show with The Monkees a kind of wacky sit-com with music - when you look back at the show now you realise that it was actually a pretty good programme with some great music.  I do believe there was a time when The Monkees a band put together by a TV company, gosh that would never happen now!! Outsold The Beatles.

Anyway I trotted up to meet Davy Jones and remember him crouched on the floor in front of the two TV monitors that showed the studios downstairs.  As we walked he said something like 'Great show man.' It took a moment to dawn on me, he meant the TV security monitors not the radio show.

I took him downstairs and again he suddenly stopped by one of the window openings to a studio, on the sill was a big pile of Essex Radio stickers.  He picked one up and said. 'Great Bumpers.' I thought what an earth is he saying?  'You mean the stickers?" I asked.  'Yeah he replied can I have some?'  I said of course he could, he picked up the whole pile and put them all in his pocket! Fantastic - r.i.p. Davy Jones.

Silly Plugger

Why Chris Evans is a brilliant little plugger.  Listening to Radio 2 this morning I caught Chris Evans teasing in detail the whole raft of specialist shows that BBC Radio 2 have on in the evening.  Which he described as a 'music school' for those who love all kinds of music.  He then played a song he had heard the previous night on one of the specialist shows, whilst cooking his dinner. 

It's so important to get listeners to extend their hours of listening it helps the Rajar and the revenue for commercial stations.  I just wish more talent followed Chris' example and skill at being the best plugger in town.

Something Sensible from the BBC!

"Radio is an art form and the best practitioners have a knack of understanding their remit on pure emotion and gut feel. Research can help but the best in the world only use this as a guide, it is never their slave." The Myers Report  Oh how I wish some PD's would have the guts to believe in this statement.

Attention To Detail

Busy making Professor Hallux's Map Of Medicine a new series for Fun Kids and The Wellcome Trust, I'm in the middle of an episode called 'Concussion and the Paramedic' each episode although only 5-6 mins long takes me about two hours to put together.

First I edit the voice artist performances then place them on my multi-track template, then I add the sound design - music and effects and other elements - like Professor Hallux's 'body' (A kind of monster he built in a previous series) The body is asking for his teddy and having a cry about it at the end - I provide that voice and the imaging voices around the series.

On the script is an FX direction that reads "SFX AMBULANCE SIREN (MAKE SURE MODERN SORT NOT NEE NAW) as you can tell Fun Kids have high production values.  I know exactly what they mean, about ten years ago I worked on a project with the London Ambulance Service and the NHS - highlighting fake 999 calls - the budget was about threepence but the production value had to be of a very high quality. (It won a health award - which was nice)

Challenge number one - find an authentic London Ambulance siren - Solution - I got the guys in the LAS press office to 'borrow' a siren from the maintenance department, we hooked it up to one of their company cars and then drove it (rather naughtily) at speed with the siren on, up and down the little road behind ITN TV studios - where LBC was based.  I recorded the whole thing using a stereo mic to get that passing left to right sound.

Challenge number two - find 'callers' to copy the authentic calls that the service gave me that I had turned into dramatised scripts.  Solution people from the office to whom I gave a mobile phone and told them to run around the atrium (the posh name for the ITN basement) until they were out of breath then read the script.

The result was such an authentic sounding call that the BBC inadvertently stock filed in their archives as authentic and a couple of years later I was horrified to hear it used on BBC Breakfast News as authentic.  Luckily I knew the Editor at the time and a quick Email made sure that mistake wasn't made again.

So its amazing what a little thought and application can create, right back to Prof Hallux, in the next episode he is off to see a speech therapist, u u u uh oh!

R.I. and P Please Bob

Bob Holness it was a pleasure to work with you.  I worked with Bob on 'AM' the LBC Breakfast Show which made the management at the BBC sit up and listen and discover that commercial radio could offer a credible alternative to Radio 4 in the morning.  I think it was both Bob and Douglas Cameron's meticulous way they worked - that gave me an insight on how a show should be presented.

One of the things that amused me with Bob is he would polish the studio - every morning about 30 mins before the show he would come in with a duster and Pledge the studio - lay out his scripts, set up his own personal yellow Sennheiser headphones and then Douglas would arrive and also set all his scripts up. Together they created a comfortable and creative space with which to do their show.

A true professional that was brave enough to return to LBC to celebrate 30 years of the radio station, despite the fact he had suffered a stroke he and Doug presented the Breakfast Show on LBC News that day in 2003 with style and panache,  Bob Holness 12th November 1928 - 6th January 2012 RIP

A Naughty New Year

Grey dull and boring, no not the weather but most of the the radio and TV I have listened and watched the last few days.  It's all as if everyone at the moment is going through the motions and not really putting any effort in.

I think what I am longing for is the cheeky daft shows I have enjoyed in the past, just grabbing a couple of examples - on TV The Big Breakfast (pre Richard Bacon) on radio the daftness of Adrian Juste who did a lot more than just [sic] play comedy records and of course the supreme funny man Kenny Everett.

There's clearly an appetite for less grey more brighter broadcasting in the UK.  On TV the stand-up comedians have taken the ratings by storm - I thought Michael McIntyre was quite brilliant with his Xmas Show, although we did try him on radio many years ago and he had trouble 'pulling back' his performance - but by the end of the week I had warmed to him both as a performer and as a person to work with.

So lets do something naughty, something fun are you with me?

A Messy Christmas

Still trying to digest those left-over sprouts?  Discovered that the box the decorations were in is now strangely not big enough to put your baubles back? The fag end of Xmas has gone a new wet and windy year has started and what a messy Christmas it was. 

TV and in particular cable TV had some horrendous scheduling errors with trails for shows that had gone days before and tatty old Xmas imaging that should have dropped off the screen after Boxing Day.

It seems that an enormous effort is put into getting the Xmas schedule right, whether on TV or radio the shows are stuffed with extra content and celebs and festive music, but like that Aunt you wished you'd never invited over for Christmas - who is STILL making herself at home in your house in early January, the TV and radio programmers seem to forget about that bit after Xmas and before New Year proper.

Xmas Imaging - get rid of it after Boxing Day, give us something to look forward to in the New Year. What a perfect opportunity for a London radio station to promote the Olympics or the race for London Mayor this year.  Even the advertisers are to blame still advertising their festive ware - well past their Yuletide sell-by-date.

I know some will say Christmas lasts a week here in the UK as many take the time off work during this period, but I still think TV and radio missed a trick and an opportunity to look forward rather than backward.  Happy New Year