UK Radio heads off on Tour…

OK – not quite a world tour, but Scandinavia.

Picture: www.swedenvisitor.com

I’m off next week to speak at a couple of radio conferences. Firstly, on Wednesday 23rd September at Radiodagen in Stockholm, and then on Saturday 26th September at Radiodays in Copenhagen. It’s my first couple of conference presentations, and I’m looking forward to them. I’ll be presenting a two-part session. Firstly, I’ll be talking about some of the creative treatments we used when I was at Capital FM to promote CapitalLive – as series of live concerts and artist days that ran in the Summer of 2007. Then, I’ll be examining some of the ways that I, and my colleagues at Pure Tonic Media have used to blend artist and music imaging perceptions into our station production. There will be lots of audio (so I don’t have to talk too much) – and hopefully I’ll have managed to edit it down by the time I get there (since it currently overruns by 20 minutes or so). If you are coming to the conference – come and say hello. And don’t forget, you can find me on Twitter – @jamesstodd

 

I’m also looking forward to meeting up with former colleagues such as Nik Goodman, Justin Kings, and Nick Piggott, along with people such as Clive Dickens from Absolute Radio and “media futurist”, James Cridland.

James and Nick have promised to bring one of these along with them…

Picture from http://radiodns.org/latest/

It’s the new DAB radio from PURE – the Sensia. It gives you radio, and pictures and applications that allow you to see all sorts of fun and games such as Twitter status updates and more.

I think it looks great – though not sure how many people will easily find the £250 that it will launch at. Then again. DAB prices have fallen and fallen now – so I’m guessing it will be in the Stodd house within the next 12 months. And it looks like it has an iPod dock too – and I still need to buy something to play that through – so now it looks more tempting. Hell – maybe I’ll have one by Easter.

To find out how it works, the aforementioned James Cridland has already examined it along with @matt. And Nick Piggott can probably tell you more about it and RadioDNS too. They know far more about it than I.

It does look like a great big rugby ball though.

Boom. The Big Dawg makes me laugh

Westwood.

One man brand.

Takes the mickey out of himself in the new promo for his new radio show on BBC 1Xtra.

A clever idea – simply executed. And it’s all about him. Brilliant. Just goes to show that simple ideas work the best.

You’re gettin’ hit with the (blah blah) radio

I’ve been driving a lot around the UK recently to various family events and a couple of weddings. And one thing has become clear. I need to get a DAB radio in the car this Christmas. Partly for the need to be able to get FunKids. Partly to be able to hear BBC 6Music. But mostly to be able to hear Absolute Radio  in listenable quality.

A couple of things have struck me during these journeys. Firstly – the rollout of Heart hasn’t ruined local music radio. It’s eminently more listenable than many of the previous offerings found on the drive across country. Wall to wall classic hits, hardly any talk – “does what it says on the tin”. It’s not my choice – in fact hearing the same songs every day in a slightly different order would drive me insane- but you can tell it will probably work well for them in the short to medium term.

Secondly, it’s become really obvious that the BBC doesn’t really cater for my listening needs fully. In fact, if I had the previously mentioned in car DAB, then  I’d probably have a hefty dose of Absolute Radio on the menu.

Out of habit, my first choice station is BBC Radio 1. I like Chris Moyles (in small doses) and think Scott Mills does a really good job. And the odd times I catch people like Zane Lowe, I’m hooked – mainly by his energy and by his enthusiasm. I caught most of the chart show and the first part of Switch last Sunday night – and it made me wish I was 15 again – just the sort of show Radio 1 should be doing.

Radio 2 is rarely a listening choice. I occasionally catch a bit of Jonathan Ross at the weekend, but rarely get the chance to hear Chris Evans. And once the children are in bed – it’s usually stuff on the house, work or TV that grabs my attention.

And whilst I feel BBC 6music should be up there for me – I probably hear more of it’s output via the Adam and Joe podcast.

And that’s why this week’s Radio 2 news has excited me (though not my friend Steve – younger than me but far more musically diverse in taste – who is a staunch TOG). There will now be a real reason for me to listen at breakfast and possibly later in the day. Many people, such as Matt Deegan, Adam Bowie, Nik Goodman and James Cridland have written in detail about what these changes may mean and the opportunities and/or threats they will make for Commercial Radio. For a show and station like Radio 2 that is so dominating the audience figures – a change such as this could be catastrophic – particularly if they lose their core listeners. But it also presents an opportunity for everyone else

For me, I hope Evans brings something new to the mornings. Terry Wogan is genuinely one if the best speech broadcasters. It’s just his style doesn’t suit our frenetic routine in the morning. Now, I’m not expecting Chris Evans to replicate his old Radio 1 show again. But he’s shown in the afternoons that he can be entertaining, play great music and (more importantly) interact with every listener whatever their age. If he can do that – with maybe a little more pace in the morning- then so much the better. The rest of the daytime lineup isn’t so much my thing – though Jeremy Vine works well. What interests me is the talk of Simon Mayo coming over to do drivetime. My friend Steve thinks that if this happens, the BBC will have to issue everyoneone with free Valium. I however would welcome him – particularly if it created a show which were part music, part current affairs and had some if the classics 5live elements such as Mark Kermode as well.

I briefly mentioned Absolute Radio earlier. I wouldn’t discount them, though from all of this. Commercial radio keeps bemoaning the fact that it’s hard to compete and there’s no room for creativity. The fact they now have signed Dave Gorman to add to Frank Skinner in their weekend lineup shows that there are some operators who are slowly gathering their weapons to start taking on the BBC in the battle for my listening hours.

Rubbish Christmas Lights?

I was listening to Jo Russell on Absolute radio at the weekend when I was driving home from Ikea (spotlights, toilet roll holder and a new bedside light if you must know). She was bemoaning the fact that people put Christmas lights up too early. I absolutely agree. Rule of thumb in our house is normally the Weekend before Christmas. Just try living in a house with a 5 year old now at school and you realise that Christmas is their all consuming interest from about September!

Now I love Christmas. And nothing makes me feel more christmassy than shopping when the Christmas lights are on. But I’m really not sure about this year’s offering on Regent Street in London.

These are on the theme of “wish upon a star”. They are Eco friendly and powered by energy efficient bulbs. And the overall effect is as if the stars have descended upon the shops. Just not sure if they provide the spectacle that the lights used to. I remember when they were animated and a real thrill (though perhaps I’m putting myself in the mind of a 5 year old too much again).

Just off Regent Street, the shops on Carnaby Street look out onto something more festive… Loads of giant snowmen. Though to me, they remind me of the giant marshmallow man in Ghostbusters.

Maybe I am just getting old! 

I want it all. I want it now.

 

Image http://www.geardiary.com

“I want it all. I want it all. I want it all. And I want it now”. And so sang Freddie Mercury back in 1989.

Back then, the thought of an “on demand” world was little more than a pipe dream on “Tomorrow’s World”. But I have seen the future , and it sits in my living room now. I fire up the Virgin Media box and that’s pretty much what I get – down a fibre optic line. Want the Christmas “Doctor Who”? Simply select the BBC iPlayer and it’s there on screen in seconds. Fancy an old episode of “Spaced”? Click on 4OD and it’s there just as quick. And maybe anything from a massive catalogue of stuff from Warner Brothers TV in the US – just as easily.

So has this really changed my viewing world, when just a few short months ago, I was singing the praises of the Freeview recorder box that we watched everything on – never in real time? Not really – but now I can get the iplayer or 4OD (and soon ITV content) whenever I want it.

So what about radio? Will I ever consume it in a similar way? Sure – there’s the iPlayer to catch up on whole shows. Or the many shows (both BBC and commercial) that I can download as podcasts. But maybe I don’t want it quite that way. Maybe I want to become the scheduler just like I can be on my TV. Maybe I want my “radio” to be exactly how I want it.

In my future world  I’ll want to be able to do this…log on to “My BBC” and create my whole experience to take away on my iPod – something that updates according to my choices every day. I’ll choose what content I want and choose the music as well from my iTunes library. My music that I own and the BBC content that I’ve paid for. But why just BBC content – why not let me have the best commercial radio can offer as well (served up in a data packet with an advert bolted on)? 

So maybe my morning commmute will have me listening to this 30 minute example on my Ipod – which I will have synced before picking it up to leave the house at 7.30.:

Random ipod track

BBC News from 5 Live

Most recent BBC Travel from BBC London

Random ipod track

Chris Moyles show guest from yesterday

Radio1  session track from the Live lounge 

A guest from Geoff Lloyd’s show on Absolute radio (with an ad bolted on)

Business news from the Today programme

A most played track from my iPod

etc.

Sure – there’s a million and one things to prevent this happening – but when websites can pull together content and generate meta data tags to personalise the visiting experience, I’m sure there are ways and means of exporting this data into an application that works with my portable music device – or even to my DAB radio. Don’t ask me how – I don’t work in R&D – but I bet someone here could make it work.

But how would you promote your content when people weren’t consuming the media in a traditional way? Well there’s a topic for a long night in the pub…

It’s not TV. But I like it.

This morning’s Chris Moyles Show was streamed online to allow you to see the whole show – in all it’s behind the scenes glory. And I really like it. 

On the Radio 1 site, it’s viewed via the Visual Radio Player. This allows you to see live video of the show – cut live by Radio 1’s online team plus a load of enhancements such as moderated text messages, a realtime show blog and also song details/artist biog etc which display instead of live video when the songs play. I didn’t try accessing it on my iphone and guess it may not have worked – but a mobile option would be great – particularly on the train (bandwidth issues notwithstanding).It’s an enhanced listening experience – but is it TV – or radio with pictures?

Radio1 have done this before online – and it works as an added extra – not so good if you’re on the move, but a fantastic extra, particularly for the many people listening at work – have it open on the desktop and click on it if you really want to see what’s going on. It would work especially well if  the show was live at an event – say backstage at The Brits or all weekend at Glastonbury – as an enhanced experience. 

It worked today because they did the show as normal – not really playing up to the fact to the cameras being there – and that’s the main point. This is still visualisation for radio rather than creating a TV viewing experience. But that’s not to say that radio shouldn’t be an enhanced experience. The idea of being able to listen to a station on the move, click on the application to bring up travel information or buy the song playing is available on most radio station websites. But added extras and new ways of presenting the information are all things that differentiate one station from another.Compared this to the trial last year when the Scottt Mills show ran on BBC 3 as a TV show; it worked really well – but many of the features felt like they had too many contrived visual elements.

So this is the BBC – big resources, big ideas and fairly big budgets. But what about those who need revenues to do the same? 

This application from 95.8Capitalfm does a similar thing (in smaller measures)…

Whilst it works best in a wifi area-  (data usage is quite high) – it allows you listen to the station, get “now playing information” and, really useful for a local station, live tube data and traffic camera pictures. It also allows you to switch between a number of Globalradio’s services – keeping it in the family.

Of course, if you can see the presenters doing their job on screen – how long before  video  well and truly kills the radio star? Will  ”a good face for radio” still be acceptable?

I Want it All. I Want It Now. UPDATE

Ok.

So I wanted it all – when I wanted it. So maybe it’s a pipe dream.

However – I can do some of it – sort of – and certainly on my iPhone on an app I randomly came across called Stitcher

It’s basically allows you to stream podcasts  - at the touch of the button – categorised by genre, subject and even brand. So you’ll find loads of BBC content  plus stuff from ABC, CBS, CNN, and pretty much everything else. And it does it over wifi and also when you’re out of a wifi hotspots (though not sure how your battery or data consumption will like it). Basically it pulls together loads of podcasts – but you can listen without downloading. 

Searching just now, I’m randomly listening  to KNX 1070 Notable News from Los Angeles – so for the sheer geek  factor of almost live radio from anywhere in the world – this is great. In fact – a lot of the U.S stations seem to update podcast content snippets of various parts of their output from the latest news bulletin to the latest weather. And since the application let’s you choose favourites into a playlist – I could build a playlist right now of the latest news for KNX 1070 Notable NewsL.A., plus weather for New York (because maybe I’m off to the airport to fly there)from the Weather Channel, followed by The Hollywood Minute – and finally BBC Radio 1’s Entertainment News from the UK.

So my “personalised” radio journey still continues. Maybe the BBC can start adding hourly news updates, Traffic Radio can add the latest  travel bulletin by county  and maybe Global Radio can get me a daily dose of the best bitching from Steve Allen (as let’s face it – he is the master of that genre).

If someone could give me the content snippets to pick and choose from – then I’ll be closer to getting exactly what I want.

Or am I maybe being too demanding?

Bob gets the job. But “can he fix it?”.

So with a minor amount of fanfare and somewhat little surprise, the BBC Radio 2 controller job is going to Bob Shennan - former head of 5Live and most recently Channel 4 Radio’s Director of Radio (until they bailed out of radio).

Is this a good thing – and is it really a surprise?

Well – he knows the BBC politics inside out (having run 5Live for 8 years and launched 5Live Sports extra). And maybe Radio 2 needs a steadying influence over the next few years – to help recover from the blows it’s been receiving. Does it matter that he’s not got much music radio experience? He’s got the incredible music mind of Jeff Smith to steer the music – so no worries there. And he’s injected a large dose of personality (and ego) into 5Live – so maybe he’s the man to bring the new blood in.

But what are his main challenges?

1)Decide what to do when Wogan goes? Evans? Baker and Ball?
2)Protect Wossy. The pressure is being piled on him by the tabloids. Let the guy do his job and give him the editorial confidence to do it
3)Tweak the focus – let me know exactly what I’ll get when I listen.
4)Ignore all the armchair pundits – what do we really know?

The trouble with Radio 2 is that it has a really loyal core audience (much like Radio 4 – where it’s impossible to make any wholesale changes to the schedule without angering the career complainers). It’s a station with a split personality. At one end of the room, there’s the cool furniture where Chris Evans and Jonathan Ross sit- being entertaining and edgy. Then there’s comfy leather sofas where you’ll find Wogan and Ken Bruce chuckling away and delivering a warm cosy feeling. Steve Wright sits midway – doing the same sort of radio he’s always done. Jeremy Vine sits in a big chair by the window reading the Broadsheets (whilst secretly wanting to rock out all day). And out back, there’s the old time shows, musicals, big band – and buried away, the excellent documentaries

I want to like it – and I listen loads now. But I want to love it.

Will we get a killer lineup of Chris Evans, Jonathan Ross, Simon Mayo, Danny Baker (with Zoe Ball), Nicky Campbell, Stuart McConie, and Mark Radcliffe. Oh – and throw in a side order of Wogan at the weekends. And yes, Whispering Bob for late night Saturday night drives. And could we dare hope for Richard Bacon too?

It’s a dream job Bob. Enjoy…

School Closures on the Radio

As expected, the slightest hint of snow and London ground to a halt.

And so to the feverish task this morning of trying to find out if my daughter’s school was closed. A check on the school website…nothing. A check on the BBC London website…nothing. A check on Capital FM’s website…(shows how much great travel content was on there – but no school closures)….more than nothing (briefly at around 7.30am). 

I’m pretty sure Capital and BBC london  would have wanted to carry this information – so why nothing…?

I searched for school closures – and up popped BBC Kent and the most comprehensive one – Invicta fm…

So where did my  local council (the London Borough of Bromley) suggest I looked online? Nowhere. Their  advice was to tune into Time FM.

Timefm – a small South London station  were manfully trying to keep up to date answering the phones, and reading out as many school closures as possible – and taking calls from listeners and generally doing what a real local radio station should do. They seemed to have updates on their site – but that seemed to crash a lot. But they got the job done this morning.

Now, one suspects, there was a decision taken somewhere in London at some point to delegate out the provision of school closures to the ultra local radio stations – but in this hooked -up online age – surely there could be a system where the London councils could co-ordinate the information – to be available for all to see – either specifically tailored as a real time feed to all council sites – or equally – to be available on the otherwise excellent travel coverage on sites such as capitalfm.co.uk .

I guess it shows how much we’ve come to rely on websites for information – but it was reassuring to  know that stations such as LBC and Capital, plus the small ones like Timefm – could still step up to the job and give me all the information I needed.

UPDATE:

These 2 blogs have interesting takes on the subject  from the Surrey and Northumberland

 

Seacrest….online

Just happened across the updated for 2009 (or so I guess) Ryan Seacrest website for his show – he is the master of self promotion. But is there anything radio stations can learn from “Brand Seacrest”?

Image from www.ryanseacrest.com

This site is all about Ryan, where you can see him, where you can listen to him, and especially, who he’s been talking to.

But then, this guy’s show is something else – in terms of content and especially how it’s used. If you think that UK stations are networked too much – this show (and it’s many derivatives) are networked and reversioned around the world.

A couple of years ago, whilst I was still working at Capital 95.8, Ryan and his team (Dennis Clark – his Exec Producer, plus his team from Premiere Radio networks who look after his syndicated shows) came to London. They spent a week doing their L.A breakfast show from Capital’s studio. What was interesting was how they did it ; how much was live, how much was pre recorded “as live”, and especially how the content was used an reused. Let’s face it – when you’re on air as a breakfast show in Los Angeles – but also on air 10-1 or 1-4 or maybe 3-7 on maybe 2-300 radio stations- the brand needs to be about Ryan and his celeb friends.

Then there’s American Top 40 – or it’s variations. This alone needs a 2-3 hour weekly recording session, just to record the links for all the formats, plus various localisations for the stations that take it.

Of course, when a guest comes in on Ryan’s show – they put their headphones on, don’t care how they look and just think of it as a radio show…don’t they?

Not with Ryan… The studio often has cameras set up to shoot the guests and Ryan – they don’t wear headphones but have in-ear monitors like on TV…so the content can show on Ryan’s YouTube channel, or be used on his E! Entertainment show, or maybe as footage on American Idol. And of course, the branding on the walls is for “On Air with Ryan Seacrest” 

 

Image courtesy of www.ryanseacrest.com

Anyway – back to the main point. His site is Web.2.0 and more in terms of interaction. You can share everything, link to everything, interact with everything.  You can link to his social networks – yes he’s on Twitter – and Facebook. And all of these platforms allow him (or his team) to post content that brings you into even more contact with him – and ultimately his show and ultimately the stations he’s on. You can even (should you so wish) share all of his content on your site – from a fully interactive player that gives you audio and video, to sharing any of his blogs or gossip feeds.

So if you’re not a KIISfm – but maybe slightly smaller, can you even hope to interact on this scale? Well, maybe not – but the tools for interaction and sharing are all out there – and don’t take the biggest brain to work out. His site is built on the WordPress platform (please correct me if I’m wrong). If you’re reading this blog – or have a facebook profile, there’s no reason why you couldn’t build something simpler but similar. And if you’re in radio, working as a producer and you don’t think you need to know how to do this – think again.

Stodd – out.

PS – Not everyone like’s his show though…

U2 Buy The BBC?

So, U2=BBC. A brilliant marketing coup for a record label and band. Or a misuse of a publicly funded broadcasting organisation’s airwaves and webspace?

Image (C) BBC

Let’s get one thing clear. I’m a massive U2 fan – and thought the whole concept was fantastic. And it worked on so many levels. From the Culture Show to Radio 1 to Radio 4’s “Front Row” to the rooftop gig. I’m not complaining – I got a text from a friend around 6pm and managed to get to near the front – an almost perfect start to a weekend.

U2 on the rooftop (they're where the bright lights are..:-) )

But predictably, there were many people not so pleased with it including Tory MP Nigel Evans who complained (to the Daily Mail under a headline of “The Bono Broadcasting Corporation”) about why licence fee payers should pick up the cost of publicity of the new U2 album. For the BBC, this will have been about delivering something exceptional for the audience (not all, but a wide part of it) and it was able to tick many boxes. It was a subject that had a broad fanbase which enabled the project to be spread across 2 music networks and the speech network. It allowed some innovative online ideas from Red Button coverage to online microsites. And quite probably will have bought audiences into programmes that they might not necessarily have sampled before (such as The Culture Show and Front Row). Added to that – it created a couple of one off musical events that people can say “only the BBC can do that” – all things that should keep the BBC Trust happy.

As a licence fee payer, I’m more than happy for this to have happened – as part of what the BBC’s remit is to me. I don’t want to watch or listen or read about everything that they broadcast or publish. I have no real interest in Antiques or horesracing but I don’t have a problem with the BBC covering either of those subjects. And I can add it to the list of shared musical experiences where I can say “I was there”.

Of course, the BBC’s commercial competitiors (and I used to work for one) constantly bemoan the fact that this is the sort of thing they’d like to have done if they had the resources or the budget or similar. But quite often it’s the case that they quite simply don’t have the ingenuity to think of it. As I’m now coming to expect, Absolute Radio did a sound job of covering the U2 album too (with far fewer resources and no less quality). As a fan, I’ve downloaded the podcast and will devour their video special when it’s online too (made on a far smaller budget no doubt).

So did the BBC give over their airwaves to publicise a record. Not really. They were presented with a unique opportunity to create a wide range of content with one of the most popular bands in the world. To have turned it down would have failed me as  a licence fee payer.

I just hope the album is worth the wait…

BJ – Legendary Voiceover -RIP

 

I read with sadness this morning via Radio Today  the news this morning that the legendary american voiceover Brian James – much used in radio station imaging in the UK in the late 80s and 90s – has died.

To me, he epitomised the sound of large market radio in the UK, when stations were striving to emulate the big American sound. He was the voice used on stations such as Capital FM in the early 90s and created a high energy powerful sound.

Whilst I never had the pleasure of working with him, I had the pleasure of creating the odd bit of production featuring his voice – and it was one of those voices that was easy to use – mainly because he knew just how to deliver the lines.

RIP Brian.

New BBC Radio 4 Viral

I’d heard one was on the way – and saw it this morning via Paul Easton’s blog. An interesting spin to promote a programme that could be seen as stuffy and old school to a younger audience.

Audioboo – Instant reporting for radio?

I came. across AUDIOBOO by chance following a Twitter from James Cridland, one of the BBC’s online gurus.

Essentially it’s an online audio blogging tool – currently available as a free application from the Itunes store for iPhone, but I’m sure that will change rapidly.

Essentially, the application lets you record audio on your iphone. You can’t edit it – but you can pause, then resume. Once you’re finished, you can upload it. However, you can also add information – maybe a picture of who you are recording or where you are. Since it’s recorded on the iphone, it also adds a GPS tag of where it is recorded. You can also tag the recording with keywords. Then, when you are finished, you hit publish, and it goes straight up to the audio boo website front page for anyone to hear. It’s simple and at present, you can’t make the recording private. You can publish anonymously – or linked to a user account (where you can manage /delete your audio). At first I couldn’t really see the point; there are loads and loads of posts, mostly strange or dull, or even just bizarre (like my test recording last night of the sounds you hear walking from Charing Cross to Embankment tube…)

So what does this mean for radio? Well, it depends on what you want from it to be honest. The quality is fairly good for a phone based recorder – but the ability to get audio online or even back to base quickly may outweigh any slight quality concerns. The example post above (from journalist Matthew Weaver) is one of his recordings from The Guardian’s blog coverage of the G20 summit.  He didn’t use everything he recorded – but then again, you wouldn’t use everything you recorded as a journalist.

Of course, The Guardian isn’t a radio station – but as mentioned before in my Twitter feed, they have 8 radio studios onsite – so the multimedia offering is increasingly important to them. In this case, they could have someone on the ground, recording audio and blogging, and then have it all tidied up on site.

For a radio station – particularly one on a tight budget, this is a method of allowing a journalist to be on site, to record an item in pretty good quality, and then to post the audio with nothing more than the click of a button. Now of course, at the moment, this audio is available for anyone to hear – so maybe each recording needs to start with “I’m XXXX for Badger FM onsite at xxxx before getting into the audio – thus tagging the audio with your station name. However, once it’s uploaded, it just needs someone back at base to find it, download it and if necessary delete it. Since you can also take a photo to upload with the audio, and later download it – you also have a way of not only getting audio content for a news bulletin up to the site, but also a picture of the event for the website. All the audio can be downloaded – either directly from the site into itunes, or by grabbing it via the RSS feed.

And of course, since your listeners have phones, the ability to make use of the resource of citizen journalists at a big event or news story is immensely useful.  Think about what you could get from listeners at a big music festival – or caught up in big travel chaos when the snow comes agin – or maybe on the day when school exam results come out. Get them to record audio and post it – you never know what great content you may get from it. Since the site lets you publish your updates directly to your Twitter account, I guess there’s a fairly easy way to tag these Tweets and aggregate them into one place. I’m sure there are people out there who could explain this aspect far more concisely than me…:-)

So, if you have an iphone, grab the application and give it a go. record something meaningful, or something bizarre. You never know who’ll be listening.

 

UPDATE:

Here’s how Richard Bacon is using it to interact with his listeners on 5 Live

Capital FM’s Summertime Ball

 

Image (c) Global Radio

Being one of the large collection of ex Capital Fm staff, I don’t necessarily love everything that they do. In fact, since leaving last September, I’ve not listened that much. But, with the Summertime Ball, they pretty much nailed it.

The problem for Capital has always been doing something new and sustaining the demand. The first few Party in the Park shows sold quickly, were major successes and innovative radio events. The last one – the year before Live 8 was a hard slog to sell and the lineup didn’t necessarily live up to all expectations. Live8 allowed the event to be “rested”-  since Capital graciously allowed Sir Bob to take their already booked date. The world got Live8 and Help a London Child got a big pot of cash from ticket sales.

So when Global Radio took over – there was always a thought that the station needed a big event to hinge the summer on. Plans were afoot to run Party in the Capital last Summer at the Emirates stadium, but the time to plan it was too short and it was pulled. I guess that by  testing the water last Christmas with the Jingle Bell Ball at the O 2 proved the demand. So the Summertime ball was launched on air.

For any Capital listener over the last few months, it’s been impossible to get away from. Non stop promos and talkup almost every link when tickets went on sale. And then the few weeks in the run up dominated by ticket contests – using the tried and tested pattern of creating hype and demand for “must have” tickets. And let’s face it; with a solid chart based lineup of acts like Dizzy Rascal, Calvin Harris, Katy Perry, Ciara and The Saturdays for Capitals younger end, plus Lionel Richie and the reformed Blue for the 30 something, they were on to a winner.

Whilst the production sound on air was fairly predictable, it was solid and really helped build the overall event to a crescendo. (though the big male voicover really is starting to grate now). Listening over the weekend, the coverage was spot on- as you’d expect from the team left there. Live backstage shows and interviews, news on site and the best of the live tracks ( whilst maintaining the main playlist alongside).

My main disappointment was the online offering. Bar a couple of video diaries and backstage videos, there was nothing for people who weren’t there to interact with. In fact – I’m not sure the online offering had moved on much from what you’d have seen at the last Party in the Park. Granted, the online team is pretty small these days – but some extras would have been useful. Stuff like a live blog, webcams, stage feed could all be set up – even if the stage feed had picture and no sound. What about an online running order for people at the event? Or a Twitter feed of backstage headlines, photos and “up next messages”. The interactivity of the event seemed to be missing something. I know it was a radio event – but the added extras add to the experience – particularly post event. Then again – with only 24 listener submitted photos currently on the site – is online as important as we keep being told..?

If  you compare it  with something like Radio 1’s Big Weekend -Radio 1 had webcams, interactive message boards, on demand backstage videos and afterwards, the majority of the live performances. Now obviously, Radio 1 had the full might of the BBC’s resources to hand – and a shed load more people working on their event. But a lot of these things would have been fairly easy to incorporate. It will be interesting to compare some of the upcoming festival coverage by Absolute Radio to see what they achieve with an even smaller team.

Apart from this minor negative – Capital should feel proud of this event. You’d hope that it will make an impact to the listening figures too. But it feels like Capital may have found it’s feet again. 

The fans obviously still love it:

Sounding great! My daughter is in the VIP room, thanks to a lucky ticket in the program, and is one extremely ecstatic Capital fan. Thanks so much Capital you rock!!

Absolute Get it Wight

Image from www.absoluteradio.co.uk

Do you picture this lot as typical listeners of Absolute Radio?

Last week, I wrote about Capital FM’s coverage of their excellent Summertime Ball, and how the online offering was a little lacking for the tech savvy, online audience. I also hoped that Absolute Radio’s forthcoming coverage of the Summer’s festivals would prove that online content can be engaging, fun and also in some cases perception shifting. Having photos of listeners like those above helps them shift perceptions from being a blokey station to having a wider audience profile.

To me, Absolute’s coverage of this weekend’s Isle of Wight Festival punched well above its weight. Not only were there tons of photos posted during the weekend – both official and user generated. But there was a fair degree of interaction with their audience away from the event.

Via twitter, I got updates on when the acts were onstage and when new content was available online.

I also got a few updates live onsite from reporter Andrew Bailey via Audioboo

This was rough and ready live reportage – giving a bonus behind the scenes feel to the coverage. For the station – it was simple to create – needing just an iphone and a free program -plus the simple know-how to link to it via various platforms.

In addition, the audio from a number of stage performances is online – not with video but with photo slideshows. This again was something that could be achieved fairly easily with fewer resources needed than creating full video packages. It was also supplemented by video interviews by the key artists.

The beauty of Absolute Radio’s coverage however is how every piece of content is neatly tagged – so that music fans can search for their favourite band and easily find all the relevant content from them. Searching on Stereophonics for example brings you the backstage interview from the festival, plus backstage interviews from a couple of other events. Alongside that, there’s an artist biog and links to buy songs. But more importantly, a link to the 1,189 other Absolute Radio VIPs who also like the band – allowing more interaction and enhancing the station’s online community.

Having seen this offering, I’ll be interested in seeing what they continue to offer across the Summer of Live.

And this is how they did it..

Being Big

The other day I shared a link to this on Twitter and my friend @matt shared it on his blog

It’s a fantastic way to promote a massive event such as the MTV Video Music Awards. In fact, it’s a really good example of what you can do with some creative thinking and, I guess, a really big budget. And I wonder how many awards Britney, Katy Perry, Ne-Yo and Cobra Starship win on the night? I guess that doing this film for MTV won’t do their chances any harm.

So if MTV can do it – why can’t anyone.

NRJ did it in a similar way for their awards in January. OK – not with a song and dance spectacular. But still, featuring a load of big artists including Coldplay and Rihanna

But what stops you getting a big Hollywood Star in your video? Just a simple idea, good planning, and the balls to do it without asking I guess. Welshy – the former panel-op and audio producer on Johnny Vaughan’s Capital Breakfast show came up with this when the Bourne Ultimatum opened in London.

It may be long – but it’s a really nice idea – and the fact that they got the payoff with Matt Damon made this a really fun video – and got it some nice viral mileage as well.