It’s ‘All Change’ – both for this blog and my main website, which has had a makeover.
My blog is now an integral part of my website and all future posts – as well as past ones – can be found there. So please change your favourites/bookmarks etc.
… or ‘Press the Button’
The latest results are now available for the period 21st September – 20th December 2015.
As they include the first figures for the re-branded Radio X and Chris Moyles at Breakfast I suspect a lot of people will want to know how they have done. So…
Radio X has increased its weekly reach by 77,000 listeners year-on-year from the former XFM, although only by 10,000 quarter-on-quarter. Following a massive drop in hours at the beginning of last year it has been rebuilding and now has its highest hours since Q2/2011.
Moyles has debuted in London with 300,000 listeners – which puts him slightly ahead of Christian O’Connell on Absolute in the key 8.00am – 9.00am hour.
As always BBC Radio 4 and Radio 2 continue to dominate, but the commercial winner – in terms of % Share – this time around is LBC. However it is also the only major commercial station to have lost audience (Reach) year-on-year – down 51,000 – although it’s up 110,000 quarter-on-quarter.
Smooth has also posted its highest reach, with 800,000 weekly listeners, although it still has a long way to go before it becomes a serious challenger to Magic.
Otherwise, as you can see, the game of ‘musical chairs’ continues.
As usual I shall let the charts do the talking…
(Click to enlarge)
Note: Figures used in all charts for Absolute are those for ‘Absolute Radio (London)’.
Previous results – Q3/15 and Q4/14
As ever there is some good, expert, analysis from Adam Bowie and Matt Deegan, as well as insighful comment on Northern Ireland from John Rosborough.
Charts © Paul Easton 2016
It was 15 years ago today that I became a ‘DAB pioneer’ as Programme Director of FLIX RADIO, which launched on the Coventry multiplex.
For those of you interested in such radio trivia the first piece of music played on the station was ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ by Richard Straus, from the film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.
The station was owned by Infinity Media, part of the UKRD (UK Radio Developments) group, and was based at the studios (well, actually the engineering ‘racks room’) of Eagle Radio and County Sound in Guildford, Surrey.
The station’s format was ‘Music from the Movies’ – popular songs and instrumental themes.
FLIX RADIO plays a wide variety of instrumental soundtracks and vocal music – much of which has topped the pop charts over the years, whether specially-written for the film, or a former hit that has been featured in a recent film; often enjoying a new lease of life as a result. Memorable music such as ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from Titanic; ‘I Will Always Love You’ from The Bodyguard; the hits from the James Bond films; music that conjures up a memory to make you smile, such as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as featured in Wayne’s World, and evocative themes featuring composers such as John Williams, John Barry and Lalo Schifrin.
Although most of the programming was automated non-stop music interspersed with jingles (from JAM in Dallas) and promos, the connection with UKRD enabled us to run a couple of showbiz and film review items produced by and for the County Sound Radio Network.
We also had ‘FLIX4Kidz’ on Saturday mornings and a programme featuring big orchestral movie scores on a Sunday.
During the day we had the ‘FLIX Movie Minute’ each hour with the latest movie and showbiz news – presented by Natalie Shaw or ‘Michael Knight’ (who, it may now be revealed, was actually UKRD/Infinity CEO Mike Powell).
We didn’t have ‘proper’ studios as such. All of FLIX came from the rack on the left of the picture, which contained the computer servers as well as the necessary bits and pieces for providing the webstream. There was also a keyboard and monitor on an adjoining desk.
We were also able to use the Eagle/County Sound studios for production of idents and promos, but otherwise everything came from the rack.
FLIX expanded onto other DAB multiplexes, including South Wales. Our online stream, which featured ‘Now Playing’ info via RCS RadioShow enabled us to be heard further afield and it was nice to get emails from appreciative listeners from around the world.
There were also plans to launch further digital services, including an oldies station ‘Deja Vu’ (“You’ve Heard It All Before”), ‘Talon Radio’ – a rock station based around Eagle’s ‘android’ presenter – and an all-Christmas format. Applications for a Yorkshire regional FM licence were submitted to the Radio Authority by both FLIX and Deja Vu, although we subsequently lost out to Real Radio (Now Heart Yorkshire).
Towards the end of 2001 Infinity Media and UKRD ‘de-merged’, which meant we had to move out of Guildford into new premises just outside Horsham. This involved what must have been the quickest, and easiest, radio station relocation ever. We simply unplugged the rack and wheeled it into the back of a van, drove it to the new site and plugged it all back in again. A quick computer re-boot and FLIX was back on the air.
In 2002 an interesting sponsorship deal with a major cinema chain led to the station being ‘re-branded’ for a few months as ‘Warner Village Radio’ (“powered by FLIX”), which could be heard by people browsing their website.
Sadly the global economic situation following the events of 9/11 made it difficult to raise continued funding for Infinity, which meant FLIX eventually had to close; becoming one of those DAB-only stations such as Primetime, Core, Life, theJazz, The Storm and OneWord, which are now but a distant memory.
The curtain finally came following Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do (I Do For You) at Midday on 31st January 2003 – exactly two years after FLIX launched.
Still it was fun while it lasted.
Once again it’s time to take a ride on the Rajar rollercoaster so fasten your seat belts and hang on tight – it could be a bumpy ride!
Before we start, these figures cover the period 29th June – 20th September 2015. As XFM re-branded to ‘Radio X’ the following day those of you eager to see how the station – and Chris Moyles in particular – are getting on will have to wait a bit longer.
London has become a very competitive and volatile marketplace with stations gaining and losing listeners, share and hours each quarter. A good example of this is Heart, which has been bouncing up and down like a yo-yo over the past couple of years. It lost 324,000 listeners since the last quarter but gained 213,000 year-on-year.
Similarly Kiss may have shed 31,000 listeners quarter-on-quarter but are up 248,000 since last year. It still gives them the top slot in terms of reach with 2,089,000 listeners, just 3,000 ahead of Capital.
LBC is down this quarter – possibly to be expected after the previous record-breaking quarter, which included the Election. In particular its usual dominance of late-night and overnight listening has been dented this quarter – although Steve Allen’s early breakfast show ‘4am spike’ is still there. However LBC has maintained its national audience of 1,481,000 – although with a drop in hours.
BBC London, which has recently re-branded, has seen an increase in audience. It has also announced some weekday programming changes, although we won’t really see the full effect of those changes for another six months.
Finally, XFM had a good final quarter before the re-brand with its highest audience for two years.
(Click charts to enlarge)
As always here are the half-hourly audiences…
Note: Figures used in all charts for Absolute are those for ‘Absolute Radio (London).
Previous results – Q2/15 and Q3/14
As ever you can find some good, expert, analysis from Adam Bowie and Matt Deegan, as well as insighful comment on Northern Ireland from John Rosborough.
Charts © Paul Easton 2015
That’s it. Thank you. Ride over!
In the aftermath of the revelations about Jimmy Savile a number of high-profile arrests were made. Some, including Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall and Max Clifford, received prison sentences. Others, such as Coronation Street’s William Roache walked free from court or had their cases dropped.
Broadcaster Paul Gambaccini was arrested for ‘historic sex offences’ early in the morning of 29th October 2013. Although police handed the papers to the Crown Prosecution Service on 10th February 2014 it was not until 10th October 2014 – almost a year later – that he was told no further action was to be taken.
During that year, which he describes as ‘twelve months of trauma’, he remained on police bail; and was persistently rebailed every few months without ever having to report to the designated police station. In some cases he discovered this from the media rather than official sources.
He was never charged.
“Arrest a journalist and he will keep a journal.”
Paul’s journal is now a compelling and hard-hitting book which chronicles his highs and lows, frustrations and anger, while also peppered with musical references and light-hearted comments as he helps us live through his experiences. At times these can be very dark, for both Paul and his husband Chris.
I resolved to survive and managed to lose a stone. But every day I suffered six or more rage attacks, which resulted in a fear of walking across bridges because I did not wish to find myself halfway across The Thames from my South Bank home in the midst of a rage attack.
He describes himself as having been used as “human flypaper” by the Crown Prosecuting Service in the hope that news of his arrest might bring forward further accusations. None ever came and the case against Paul was eventually dropped because of ‘insufficient evidence’.
One worrying aspect of Operation Yewtree is highlighted during a conversation with comedienne and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig:
I explain that I first learned that the operation does not demand evidence, only people who agree, when Yewtree rang Liz Kershaw and asked if she wished to make an allegation against Dave Lee Travis. Sandi says, “They phoned me and asked if I would like to complain about anyone.”
“Anyone?” I repeated, genuinely shocked.
“A-n-y-o-n-e,” she replied slowly.
After having been told that no further action was to be taken he learns that the police had already been investigating the matter for six months before his arrest and the case had been dropped. It was only after a second person was identified that Paul was arrested.
On Saturday 15th November 2014 Paul Gambaccini returned to BBC Radio 2 where, once more, Saturday was “our day for America’s Greatest Hits.” Later that month he also resumed his role as presenter of Counterpoint on BBC Radio 4 covering the semi-finals and the final; Russell Davies had been covering the earlier heats.
The cost to Paul, though – both financial and personal – has been high and he has discovered, sometimes surprisingly, who his true friends are.
Many people, in expressing their sympathy for what I had to undergo have emphasised the element of loss. They have asked how much money I have lost. Considering both cancelled income and legal expenses, the financial total is more than £200,000. BBC Radio stopped paying me the moment I was named in the press… I became instantly unemployable, and received no new offers…. I had no income at precisely the time I had to pay tens of thousands of pounds in legal expenses, none of which I can ever reclaim under English law.
Most of my long-term relationships with organisations were also lost. Charities I had helped to found or fund ignored me. The political party I had publicly supported, for which I raised funds for over a quarter of a century, shunned me. Only five organisations stood by me. I will support them for the rest of my life.
There is a greater loss. I have lost my faith in the British justice system. No one loves a country more than someone who has chosen to live there. When I came here from America at 21, I believed Britain had the world’s greatest culture, both high and popular. I was sure Parliament was the greatest legislature in the English-speaking world. Imagine how much I loved this country. Imagine my disappointment when it betrayed, psychologically tortured and abandoned me. My unqualified love for Great Britain has been qualified.
Great Britain persecuted me from October 29, 2013, to October 10, 2014. Its agents entered my home in the middle of the night, took away my possessions, arrested me on trumped-up allegations, disgraced me in the national media, deprived me of employment and kept me on bail for 12 months even though they knew they had no case against me.
These are the actions of a totalitarian state. But the most amazing thing is that no one involved thinks they live in a totalitarian state. They are oblivious to the roles they played in my persecution. This includes police officers, journalists, the CPS and the organisations that shunned me for fear of taint.
None of them originated the witch-hunt, but all went along with it because to resist it demanded more courage than they could summon.
The people of Great Britain have always been wonderful to me. They gave me a home, a quality education and a career beyond my dreams. They were personally kind whenever I met them. They deserve better. I hope they fight for it. I hope they get it.
They said it couldn’t happen here. It happened to me. Unless there is reform, it will happen again. It could happen to you.
What are you going to do about it?
‘Love, Paul Gambaccini. My Year Under The Yewtree’ is published by Biteback Publishing.
* The Yard Went On Forever was the title of a 1969 Richard Harris album written and produced by Jimmy Webb. Paul used it as the subject of an email to Elton John in January 2014 as he felt it was an apt description.
The Rajar figures for Q2/2015 (6th April – 28th June) have now been released.
Talk about swings and roundabouts!
After most London stations saw a drop last time they’ve picked up again this time. In particular Heart has been bouncing around for the last year and after a heavy fall in Q1 this time they’ve gone up again. Capital also did badly last time but have recovered to give them their highest reach for more than three years.
LBC which also tumbled in the last quarter has come back with their best-ever Rajar figures – helped, no doubt, by having a ‘good election’ with plenty of video clips being used on TV news bulletins to build awareness.
As usual here are the half-hourly breakdowns…
Previous results – Q1/15 and Q2/14
There’s also some good, expert, analysis from Adam Bowie plus some insighful comment on Northern Ireland from John Rosborough.
Note: Figures used in all charts for Absolute are those for ‘Absolute Radio (London).
LBC has dominated London’s late night listening for many years with popular presenters including Clive Bull, Anthony Davies, Duncan Barkes, Nick Abbot and Ian Collins.
At the end of March Duncan announced he was leaving LBC to move across to BBC London 94.9 to do their late night 10.00pm – 2.00am slot – which starts this evening (Sunday 5th July).
His new show will focus on London matters and promises to be a mixture of light and shade rather than what can sometimes seem to be an unremitting diet of ‘button-pushing’, ‘knee-jerk’ topics on LBC.
“Night-time radio has a special place in my heart and by joining the BBC I will be able to bring a new kind of late night broadcasting to the capital. It won’t be an endless diet of news and politics – it’ll be about real life and continuing to give nocturnal Londoners a voice on the airwaves.”
In the last Rajar (Q1/2015) LBC, in the London area, had a 10.9% share of listening 2200-0100 – the second-highest (after BBC Radio 4) at that time of night in the capital – against BBC London’s 1.3%.
Here’s how things currently look based on Duncan’s new 2200-0200 show time:
(Click to enlarge) 
It’s going to be a tough challenge to make inroads into LBC’s well-entrenched position so it will be interesting to see what happens over the next 12 months.
Incidentally, while looking through the figures I noticed this and couldn’t let it pass without comment.
Now that’s what I call market domination!
While Steve Allen, who is on LBC at that time. can be a ‘Marmite’ character, there’s no doubt that he’s doing the business for them. It can be very easy to dismiss 0400-0600 as a ‘graveyard’ slot, but at that time of morning around 1.36 million Londoners – approx 12% of the capital’s adult population – are listening to the radio at that time.
There’s been a lot of discussion following Apple’s announcement about its new online global radio station, Beats1, and its streaming service, Apple Music.
Music streaming services are nothing new, though – Spotify, Pandora, Last.fm etc. have been doing it online for ages.
Going back even further, in October 1994 (was it really 21 years ago?) I moved from Capital to become Head of Programming at Music Choice Europe, which was about to launch 50 linear audio music channels which would be available, initially, by cable and later via satellite, across Europe and parts of the Middle East.
Although Music Choice US had already been going for a few years, this was a totally new concept on this side of the Atlantic and I can remember a few Capital colleagues trying hard to get their heads around it.
Music was curated by a team which, over the years I was there, included ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris, XFM’s John Kennedy, Phil ‘The Collector’ Swern and dance-meister Jeff Young – all passionate about their particular fields of music, and who helped put together a broad range of music across our channels covering just about every genre – and sub-genre.
For example Rock fans could choose between Classic Rock, Soft Rock, Acoustic/Folk Rock, Heavy Rock and Alt/Modern Rock. We also had several varieties of Classical music (Favourites, Symphonic, Adventures, Baroque and Opera); then there was Jazz, Modern Jazz, Big Band and Blues, Pop; Old Gold (50s/60s), Gold (70s/80s), Country, New Country, Dance, Rap/Hip-Hop, Soul Classics, Reggae, Film/TV Soundtracks, Musicals, World Music, Indian/Bollywood Songs, Irish music, Love Songs and a Children’s channel.On top of this was a number of ‘European’ channels, such as (German) Schlager, French Chansons and Norwegian traditional music while Dutch, German, French, Turkish, Belgian and Italian pop each had their own channel.
Here’s a company promo video from the mid-90s (despite the warning it will play via the Watch on Vimeo button):
That was a lot of different music channels and many had their own individual quirks. I think we really pushed Selector to its limits – and also worked closely with RCS to develop some customised add-ons.
However, while the concept itself was definitely there the technology and other necessary infrastructure wasn’t quite ready yet.
56k dial-up (and still metered by many ISPs at the time) was about as good as the internet got in the mid/late-1990s – not to mention long-running licensing negotiations with all of the various European music copyright bodies – so online streaming was out of the question for many years.
When we joined ‘Sky Digital’ (who had a stake in the company) at its launch in 1998 the on-screen EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) displayed Artist/Title/Album info. There were plans at one stage to use the Sky handset’s interactivity to provide a ‘Buy It Now’ option to get the CD. Development was ongoing when I departed in August 2000 but I gather that proposal never really took off.
I suspect one of the problems was that it had been decided at the very beginning that the original album should always be credited on the EPG. On some channels many of the tracks we were playing had been sourced from vinyl – and often from long-deleted albums – but even if a track could be found on a ‘Best Of’, or other general compilation CD, we still had to credit the original. As a result many catalogue numbers were just not recognised during testing by the purchasing software and sales were not possible.
In 2010 Music Choice came off Sky. The following year the company was acquired by Canadian broadcaster Stingray, who later re-branded the service as Stingray Music.
I spent nearly six years with Music Choice Europe. It was an interesting, if sometimes very frustrating, time but looking back I feel proud to have played a small part as a digital pioneer.
Over the years I’ve managed to amass a large number of radio and radio-related books; many of which deal with the subject of ‘making radio’.
While many basic techniques have remained the same, the actual radio environment has changed immeasurably. Looking through some of those books now – especially those originally written some 30 or 40 years ago – there is much that has been rendered obsolete, or irrelevant, as radio evolves to meet fresh challenges brought about by changes in lifestyles and the way we consume media.
When Barbara and Claude Hall wrote their excellent ‘This Business of Radio Programming’ in the mid-1970s the prospect of people owning a single device that enabled you to make phone calls from almost anywhere, send text messages, take still or moving pictures, listen to the radio, watch movies and TV shows, and provide access to news, weather, sport and almost all human knowledge – but also be small enough to slip into your pocket – was still something straight out of a sci-fi story. Similarly, the way the world wide web has transformed our lives, along with online music services such as Spotify, downloads and the easy ability to listen live to radio stations around the world was probably unimagineable to most people back then.
David Lloyd has been around radio a long time as a presenter, programmer, manager and, for a few years, poacher-turned-gamekeeper as a regulator at the Radio Authority.
His new book ‘How To Make Great Radio: Techniques and Tips for Today‘s Broadcasters and Producers’ does what it says on the cover. It is packed full of excellent advice and peppered throughout with some interesting and entertaining personal anecdotes.
It deals with a broad range of topics including presentation and interviewing techniques, music content, news, promos, research, getting the most from on-air callers, the presenter/producer relationship, social media, stunts and risk management. You’ll also learn how using a chair enabled Dale Winton to get a great interview from a major music star – and David also covers the subject of teasing.
There’s even a section dealing with the tricky subject of legal and regulatory compliance with the helpful title: ‘How Not To Lose Your Job’.
Most importantly, this book is relevant to today’s radio industry. While David acknowledges there is no single right way to make ‘good radio’ he does provide a useful guide to ‘best practice’, as well as helping you to understand why things in radio are the way they are.
There are few absolute rights and wrongs in radio. Such is the beauty of the medium that sometimes something that should be utterly wrong turns out to be compelling listening. Some of the greatest broadcasters break all the rules that exist…
Some of the approaches I advocate might be challenged by other broadcasters and programmers. But I hope they’ll agree that even beginning to consider how and why some things work they do is time well spent.
David’s book is recommended reading for everyone who is interested in radio – not just for those starting out but also for those people who have been around the industry for many years and whose mindsets seem to remain stuck in the past, leading them to become disconnected from the present day realities of a fast-changing media world and, as a result, speed up the end of their careers.
You come to work to do your thing, and your employer gives you money. That’s the way it works. If they wish you to present your show wearing green stockings and a fluffy pink hat, then they can expect you to start scouring the wardrobe. You can always choose to work elsewhere if you feel pink is not your colour.
You may wish to programme the radio station differently too, but that’s not the job for which you’ve been cast. There is no one way of doing successful radio: open dialogue in the right forum is great, but it is wise to accept it when the route differs from the one you might have chosen.
The people who really succeed in their jobs in the long term tend to manage themselves and their careers well. They invest time and care in their behaviour, performance and reputation.
David has some wise words for those who may find themselves on the wrong end of that awkward “we don’t need you any more” conversation:
Tempting though it is to vent months of frustration, most people would agree that biting one’s tongue is preferable. The person you feel like slapping may your boss in another life – or at the very least, they will probably know your future boss. A single cathartic day can carry a heavy price. You may feel the radio industry is doing things wrongly, but if you acquire a reputation for carping on the sidelines, you are less likely to be in a position to engineer any useful change.
He also warns against ranting on social media and internet forums; and I’ve seen for myself a number of people’s burgeoning radio careers crash-and-burn following some ill-judged online comments.
‘How To Make Great Radio: Techniques and Tips for Today’s Broadcasters and Producers’ by David Lloyd is available in paperback and eBook from Biteback Publishing.
I’ll leave the final words to David:
Everyone can get better, no matter how long they have been doing the job. The very best carry on learning every day – and are eager to do so.
Next Radio – the one-day conference that shares the best new ideas for the radio industry – is back on Monday September 14th. This is the conference for those people who actually ‘do’ and ‘make’ radio, and from all areas – including the BBC, commercial radio, community radio, independent production companies and freelancers. Speakers – and delegates – are not just from the UK. Previous conferencers have included participants from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Slovenia, Sweden, the USA and Zimbabwe.
The thing I really like best about Next Radio is that all of its sessions are either 9 or 18 minutes long. Long-winded speakers and pointless panels are out, which means even if one particular session doesn’t float your boat you know something else will be along shortly that might – and with around 20 sessions throughout the day there’s bound to be plenty that will interest you and provide food for thought. There’s also plenty of time for networking and socialising both during and after the event.
The short timespan of each session helps the speakers to focus more on the subject and, in some cases, encourages some creativity – such as Radioplayer’s Mike Hill whose presentation aids included a chocolate cake (baked by his wife) and two bottles of Heinz tomato ketchup.
That may sound more like a bizarre Masterchef ‘invention test’ round but there was a method in Mike’s apparent madness – check out the video.
The other good thing about Next Radio is that it’s not expensive – in fact the first 100 tickets are on sale for the ‘Early Bird’ price of £99 (+VAT). Once they’ve gone – and I’m told they’re going quickly – the whole day will set you back £149 (+VAT). That’s still considerably cheaper than many other radio industry conferences.
Regular readers to my blog will know that I have been a keen supporter of this annual event since the beginning and, as I have said before, if my endorsement counts for anything I am happy to give it to Next Radio.
Paul Easton 