Thirty seven years ago I sat in a room with Tommy Vance and handed him razor blades as he sliced snippets out of a reel of tape containing the main theme for the newly launched Capital Radio in London. Our task was to provide short ‘stingers’ that would be placed on to cartridges for the presenters to play as essential identity plants for the station.
It was also my task, in the tiny room where we created in-house commercials, to answer the phone by declaring, “We produce!” I was eighteen years old and was on a short loan spell at Euston Tower, thanks to the links between the music agency for whom I worked and several of the launch disc jockeys who had been recruited from a biscuit factory (and that’s a whole column in itself).
Since those early Roger Scott/Joan Shenton/Dave Cash days, Capital has changed ownership several times and now its future lies on the boardroom table of the Global “no-one was available from Global” Radio group. If you wonder who they are, let’s put it this way: if you listen to commercial radio in Britain, then you’re almost certainly listening to a station owned by Global.
This week, Global announced that they are launching, in January 2011, the ‘Capital Network’ with the less than snappy title “95 – 106 Capital FM, The UK’s No.1 Hit Music Station” (although with Global’s dominance of the market, they might just as well have called it “87 – 108 FM”).
Across all these stations only the breakfast and drive time shows will be produced locally whilst the rest of the output will be networked in from London. The only reason station owners don’t go the whole way with networking is that for advertisers and station branding, only the breakfast show and (coming in a distant second) the drivetime show have any credibility. Equally, listeners in Devon have little interest in the traffic light failure in Derby.
Let’s look at the impact of this loss of local radio in the UK, by contrasting the situation at Trent FM (soon to be part of that Capital Network) in England, and WLRFM, an independent station in Ireland, proud of its local approach to broadcasting throughout Waterford and much of the southern half of Ireland.
If I listed the current presenters at Trent, you wouldn’t know any of them; that’s the way it should be in local radio. No television ‘talent’ and no big names on a downward career path. Trent FM attracts 11% of its potential audience to tune in each week. Their retina burning, brain spinning website offers a reasonable level of local news and interest, but the Man at Global believes audiences will be sustained, and grow, by bringing you Roberto and The Bassman from London rather than Steffan LaTouche or Lloydie from Trent.
Radio power brokers are investing in their belief that listeners would prefer to feel part of a wider group, that chit chat and showbiz ‘news’ from London is more of a hit than local issues. These people are paid to know more than you and me, and I can find no hard evidence to show that they are wrong.
I attend a lot of debates, presentations and meetings where musing on the future of the media almost always reaches the conclusion that no-one knows where that future lies. There is usually a lot of talk and little outcome.
I wanted to find out why Irish listeners feel such a strong link to their local station, whilst British audiences are turning to national or networked radio. WLRFM producer, Jennifer Codd, and drivetime host Ian Noctor told me that their confident combination of providing international, national and local coverage was thriving. Indeed, Ian summed their stance up with the winning phrase, “An eye on Waterford, a window on the world.”
In the mornings on WLR, presenter Billy McCarthy runs a phone-in show that to London listeners may sound like the phone-in programmes that Robbie Vincent or Brian Hayes were running a couple of decades ago. Yet there is something that catches the imagination of the audience as one can hear and feel the energy and strength of purpose as the calls vary from farmers worried about this year’s harvest, to a chef delivering recipes for cake, and advice on how to care for your Labrador.
Ian’s drive show mixes contemporary music with interviews and discussions on the day’s news – no listener phone calls but plenty of interaction through text and email. Ian described how WLR ensure they involve the community and their listeners by becoming part of the daily lifestyles of those listeners. WLR attend events throughout Waterford, and have a clever, versatile approach to outside broadcasts allowing them to reach stories with speed and minimum delay.
Perhaps WLRFM are simply giving their potential listenership what they want to hear, but I think their success lies deeper.
Firstly, despite our geographical closeness, there is a marked difference between the nations when we consider our relationship with ‘home’. British people have become much more mobile over recent decades, travelling ever increasing distances to the workplace, and relocating if necessary. It feels like there is less of a tie to a local area. We feel more affinity to being British than any pride in being from (for example) Surrey, or Gloucestershire.
Irish people feel far more strongly about their locality. Drive through several counties and you will see flags in almost every front garden, depicting the colours of Cork, Kilkenny or whichever county you’re passing through. Now this actually seems to reflect more upon an affinity to hurling or football loyalties, but we don’t see the Middlesex flags flying in St John’s Wood when there’s cricket playing at Lords.
So my conclusion is that each of our countries’ radio providers are striving to deliver a service that reflects the lifestyle and needs of its listenership. One isn’t right and the other wrong; they serve different purposes. The new Capital Network will deliver a national rival to Radio One. WLRFM continues to give Waterford a mix of local, national, and international news, interspersed with local travel and weather, and Lady Gaga.
Thirty seven years ago, on the launch day of Capital Radio, David Symonds played Bridge Over Troubled Water, on vinyl, and prayed the needle didn’t jump. Now, Margherita Taylor at Capital, and Ian Noctor at WLRFM can call up a track by Simon and Garfunkel or anyone you care to name, with a couple of clicks. Yet the one thing that hasn’t changed in those years is this certainty. If you don’t deliver what the listeners want, they, and of course, the lifeblood of your advertising, will go to the next preset. No-one from Global was available.
My thanks to Ian Noctor, Jennifer Codd, and the WLRFM team in Dungarvan, Ireland.
Terence Dackombe, September 2010
