It seems only weeks ago that we wrapped up the first series of the blog, on January 11th of a brand new year. It’s actually been months and with time comes change. People change, opinion changes, situations change and aspirations change; Governments change. Radio changes by the day, that’s the beauty of the beast and it’s an endearing factor of our industry, often cited as the reason people get into the job in the first place. Radio has seen the winds of change more intensely than many others; we live in a different world now than that of years gone by. I may only be approaching 20, but my years in the job have shown me the rotten end of the stick too.
I’d never really listened to my local ILR, Tower FM, due to the demographic of where I live; their signal fails to reach me despite being firmly in their TSA (transmission service area). I was aware they existed but was largely ignorant of what they actually where; like Oreos or Justin Bieber. This didn’t suppress my excitement at the possibility of working for them, they where a professional radio station after all. I knew, at 16, I wouldn’t exactly be given the Breakfast Show but anything that gets you through the door is a bonus. The Station Director, Dave Stankler, had asked me to call him after winning the BBC World Service competition and I didn’t take much persuading. He put me onto the stations programme manager, a nice Scottish bloke called Brian Paige. I was scared to death of Brian. Not because he was in any way scary, he could have been Father Christmas and I’d still have broken into a cold sweat when he said my name. It was simply because he was a REAL programme boss; a man who genuinely had a key to career success.
Brian offered me a job as a technical operator; I would operate the equipment in the Tower FM studio while a show was broadcast from a different studio across the UTV group, this is a job that most people do as a step on the ladder. UTV are the Irish owners of several radio stations in the UK including Tower FM. The show was called ‘Cash Time’ and the format was similar to those TV programmes you find late at night on Channel 5. There was no music and it was simply the presenter looking for the answers to various simple questions; “Name a chocolate bar” for example. The presenter had a list of 10 correct answers and if you got one, you won some cash. Simple, effective, quite addictive and a pretty good revenue maker - the format became very popular with broadcasters. It seems like quite an easy thing to pull off on TV, and it is. But Radio? Maybe it was a bit of a strange idea, but it was giving me a job.
This was Tower FM’s first ever networked show, a world in which a reasonably large station was fully local is almost impossible to imagine now and even at 16 I could see something was a little odd. Surly the idea behind local radio was to serve the community it was based in? Networking obviously distracted from this and the fuss was massive. More and more groups began to network shows across the stations they owned and gossip began to build in radio land and on forums. People passionate about effective local radio naturally became unhappy with the big companies cutting jobs and shows, sadly for me; I got swept away in the hype. While working as a tech op I got wind of some change. UTV brought out plans to network the whole evenings, 7 days a week. In my unfounded dismay I posted the news on a forum before the group had decided to announce the plans. I didn’t break the news; I just contributed to a debate. Either way it was massive error and I felt the effects. I got a call from Brian, he wasn’t angry and was dignified in telling me what I had done was wrong. I was young and naïve and knew I’d made a mistake. It was never my intention to cause a problem for anyone, but then it never is, is it? My role became redundant due to advances in technology and I wasn’t asked to work for Tower FM again.
Ironically, I got my first ever radio job thanks to networking and I lost it due to networking too. My frustrations where shared with millions of others, those who lost jobs, those who gained work and those who simply watched from afar. We have all watched as the opportunities are slowly withdrawn and the cuts take hold. But such is the nature of that very thing we cite as a bonus. We say we love this job because every day is different. The winds of change move in many ways and they don’t always bring good news. Radio is shaped in a very different way now. Money isn’t what it used to be and business is at the heart of what we do. Cuts don’t happen for the fun of it. In order to remain financially viable, lots of stations cannot afford the resources we would like. Passion is a beautiful thing, but it’s not always practical. I’ve heard just recently from a colleague who tells tales of a rock and roll lifestyle in radio with money floating all over the place, only a few years ago. This is not the world we live in now and that’s a fact we have to face. If only I had realised that earlier.
It doesn’t mean the end of the road. The jobs are still there and passion is still firmly in place. I believe that even the toughest bosses of the biggest companies still have a burning desire to make great radio, deep in the heart of everything they do. It means that the hardest working and most talented people get on and that’s not a bad thing. It means we have to raise our game, in a world more competitive than ever before, the quality of what we do has never been more important. The future is as bright as we want it to be, we need to work hard to maintain great output and I honestly believe things will get easier for everyone. It won’t happen over night, the news of the BBC’s strategic review in which 6Music and the Asian Network are binned & Ofcom’s decision to relax the restrains on commercial radio confirms we are still firmly placed in an age of cutbacks, but if we believe enough that things will get better then they will; maybe not in the traditional form, but we are the ones who will be making those decisions in years to come.
It was a time of need for me. Not a conventional need, I didn’t have a mortgage to pay or mouths to feed but I did have a burning passion to fulfil. I had desire and ambition and so I turned to the place many people turn in times of need, a pillar of power ready to weather the strongest of storms, the biggest broadcaster in the world and one that commands respect in every corner of the globe. They gave me my break and I was ready to repay them, and luckily, they where ready to let me…
Good to be back!
To be continued…