Creative Review for February

Matt Lomax and Kerry McCarthy.

Here it is then… the difficult second edition of the Earshot Creative Review. It’s been wonderful to get such a positive reaction from the first programme and more than two hundred downloads is certainly many more than any of us expected.

This month we bring BBC Radio 3’s Kerry McCarthy and Matt Lomax together. As you’ll hear, they got on rather well despite reading from opposite ends of the radio production stylebook.

Speaking of books, there’s a review of The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, recommended for busy but disorganised radio promotions people and we uncover the true story behind the groovy ad for Daniel’s Fish and Chips.

Play the audio here: Duration 30′00″ (see, we’re pros).

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Music beds in this edition are all courtesy of radiobeds.co.uk Voice imaging is by Dan Snaith.

If you’d like the producers of the Daniel’s Fish and Chips jingle to produce something for you, call David Greenwood on 07967 655275.

Any views expressed in this feature are those of the contributors and not of the BBC or Bauer Media (or Daniel’s Fish and Chips come to that). We acknowledge all rights held by the owners, creators and performers of the recorded works which are included solely for the purpose of review.

Tags: BBC Radio 3, Kerry McCarthy, Kiss, Matt Lomax

Reasons to be optimistic about radio

Have you noticed a haze of toxic gloom wafting across the radio industry? Me too. It’s almost enough to make you search the playout system for the love theme from Romeo and Juliet and attempt an impromptu Simon Bates impression.

But please don’t. That cloud of neurosis is man-made and if you ignore the fashionable doomsayers for a moment there’s much to be cheerful about.

Yes, there’s work to do but if you’re anything like me you’ll do better work when you’re full of hope and a decent breakfast. A friendly reminder of what makes radio so wonderful seems like a good place to start.

So, starting tomorrow and continuing for the next couple of weeks, I’ll post daily a reason why I believe we can be positive about radio’s place in the world and our place in radio. No rose tinted specs and no talk of green shoots, just fundamental strengths that underpin the medium. Things we can work with.

I’ve come up with thirteen reasons but there will be more. Feel free to add your own. We all know radio is amazing. It’s time to remind ourselves why.

As we say on the radio, it all starts tomorrow morning at 8.15.

Photo: smiley dice by Leo Reynolds, on Flickr. Used under licence.

Tags: optimism, radio

Word of the day: Fataafat

In 2006 I was invited to speak to a gathering of advertising agencies and radio people in Mumbai. As the new private Indian FM radio networks were getting established they wanted to talk about creativity in radio, managing listener attention and other aspects of promotion.

Among the things I didn’t expect was the quite delightful way with which I was treated. Indeed, the level of respect, scrutiny and attention was a little unnerving with people noting down carefully my every word. Then the press queued up for interviews. The journalist from the Hindustan Times seemed particularly anxious to get my personal view of everything I’d experienced in Mumbai from the radio scene to the nightclubs to the hotel food. Talking about radio may be my meat and potatoes but that doesn’t mean I have a view on the Alloo Gosht.

In Indian radio no cross-ownership is permitted with the result that the main networks fight largely over prime territory in the mass market centre ground. They have to find qualities beyond their playlists to distinguish themselves in the minds of the consumer. On-air personalities, talkable promotions activity and brand attitude all become very important.

Radio One 94.3 is one such network. Its CEO Vineet Singh Hukmani sums up his station’s brand as being for “the fataafat generation”, meaning “quick and convenient”. Says Vineet, “todays Indian 24 year old wants everything fataafat…be it love, money, fame, justice… they want it quick and convenient”. 

And here’s how that looks set to music:

This track and video was released unbranded to all the prime music television channels where it gained popular airplay, and radio where some of Radio One’s competitors even scheduled it. Now this branded version is spreading virally before a full-blown television, cinema and on-air campaign breaks, all to mark Radio One’s extension in to a seventh urban conurbation, Kolkata.

I love the way Radio One is confidently doing its own thing in this promotion. It’s not hitching itself to an established celebrity but instead created its own house band “Neo” (Neo = One, geddit?). Radio One owns the band, owns the song and now it owns the attitude.

Even two years ago the self-confidence of India’s new radio industry was very clear to me. It wanted to learn from others’ experiences but then proudly build its stations on its own terms. And so it has. It’s high time I went back, this time to learn from them.

What properties does your station truly own? What attitude does your brand convey? What do you do to help people think of your station when they’re not listening to it?

Sorry, I came over a bit Mark Ramsey there.

Tags: india, mumbai, promotion, radio, radio one 94.3