Radio looks to the future
I’ve written on more than one occasion about my concerns radio in the UK is settling in as a back-seat passenger in the digital revolution.
With print and TV and online finding new ways to innovate all the time, the radio bods have turned up the “hits and memories”, closed their eyes and pretended it was still the 1990s.
How refreshing, then, to see the line up for next week’s Rate 2009 conference organised by the Radio Academy. A day in London looking at mobile technology, visual radio and other new platforms.
Some evidence radio is still a little hesitant to jump in, though, with one session entitled “Spotify: Friend or Foe?” (rule #1 of the internet: embrace or die) and “Why Radio Must Go Digital” (a debate threatening a schism in the industry).
It wraps up with what promises to be an entertaining Blackburn v Bacon.
Unfortunately the £300 ticket price is a bit beyond my means, but here are the things I would say if I were there…
Share
Share your content – it adds to its value! With news Bauer is pulling its Kiss FM content from Absolute’s innovative Compare My Radio Player, it seems we’re a long way off this mindset with some companies.
Innovate
Remember what the first pioneers of radio must have felt when they invented radio for the first time. The first time someone used it to create a package; the first time someone used it to read out letters from listeners. We are very lucky to live in the first age where it’s possible to reinvent radio. What a shame to waste it.
Outside the BBC, Absolute Radio so far seem the only ones even bothering to try. It’s paying off though. Their One Golden Square Labs have already brought out several innovative products, including Compare My Radio & Dabbl.
New platforms means new content
The top-ten-at-ten on a smart phone is exactly the same as the top-ten-at-ten on FM. Invest time (not necessarily always money) in new content. Surprise your listeners!
Remember what radio is good at…
…speech! Radio is such a powerful medium for getting across ideas and emotions, and yet here were are, with only a couple of totally speech stations in the entire UK. I know it’s expensive, and “risky”…but in this scary new world, fortune favours the brave. And no-one can put you down for trying. Radio 4’s 10 year high in listening figures proves the demand is there.
Radio At The Edge is on Monday 9th November at 9.30. Thanks to James Cridland for the hattip.
It is time for commercial radio to embrace the web
Newspapers, television and radio – the rule is simple: embrace the internet or die.
Newspapers were the first to feel the cold breeze of death standing nearby. Now papers from the Guardian right down to local titles run regularly updated websites, often complemented with video coverage.
The BBC has embraced it with much gusto across both TV and radio. From the groundbreaking (and bandwith-breaking) iPlayer to the Editors Blogs to Scott Mill’s daily podcast.
But commercial radio – not for the first time – is standing on edge of the swimming pool, tentatively dipping its toes in, while the others are doing underwater cartwheels. Visit any local commercial radio website and it is distinctively web 1.0. The focus is “what comes out of the speakers.”
But new communities are forming. People don’t just make connections with the box in the corner of the kitchen anymore.
As a whole, and as individual groups and stations, radio needs to act. Now.
What can it do? Well the wonderful world of web 2.0 offers a whole host of options and ideas for the digital prospector; here are a few. For as many as possible I have tried to include real examples.
Local news
This is the first and the most obvious web option. But news editors across the land please don’t just copy and paste 3 line cues onto the web. It doesn’t make the viewers journey there worthwhile, and you don’t write online text like you write radio cues. If this isn’t an option, at least take the time to remove radio-isms like spelled out numbers, typos, pronunciation guides and the word “sez”. Here’s an example of how Real Radio do it in Wales.
Presenter blogs
A well maintained and updated blog can create a new channel for presenters to connect with their listeners. It can reveal the ‘off air’ side to their life, and make listeners feel a closer connection. Features and competitions can be plugged too.
Newsroom blogs
The same thing goes for a newsroom blog. A chance to show what goes on ‘behind the scenes’ of the daily newsroom operation. Appeals for stories and interviewees could turn it into a goldmine. Similarly it must be regularly updated, and must use platforms like WordPress to ensure a Google ranking, tags, meta data and comments. Mercia FM in Coventry were an early adopter. Sadly the blog looks abandoned since October, and it didn’t contain any RSS feed.
Presenter twitter
Tweeting during shows gives followers the inside scoop on what’s going on in the studio. Most of all it gives listeners a free way to respond to on air elements. Text revenue might take a hit, but interaction will boost. It works particularly well on ‘getting-the-listener-to-suggest-ideas’ features. According to the Media UK twitter table, Radio 2 DJ Jonthan Ross has 106,000 followers and Chris Moyles has 66,000. There are more than 164 radio presenters registered.
Playlist twitter
An automated system can tell music fans what your station is playing now and next. Imagine if you just saw your favourite song was about to be played on XYZ FM. Wouldn’t you click on a link to listen online? Q-Radio based in London have their own playlist twitter-feed.
Podcasts!
The only reason these haven’t become a stable of commercial radio, like they have with BBC radio, is resources. In honesty though, making podcasts is so much fun, it’s hard to see why programmers aren’t gagging to put in an extra hours work once a week.
Online specials and archive
Big events and news stories should be given their own specific pages, with background information, extra facts, audio downloads and advice on where to go next. Key 103 in Manchester has developed an excellent page on cervical cancer in response to Jade Goody’s terminal diagnosis.
Audio slideshows
I believe this is a massive growth area for radio news. Practically it’s not possible to send a reporter out with both a microphone and a video camera and hold them both. But a small digital camera plus some cheap Slide Show technology can give your station the edge when a big story rolls round, and create something memorable.
Online video
For the reasons mentioned above this will likely remain a rareity. But it shouldn’t be disregarded altogether. Radio Aire in Leeds produced a report on the Karen Matthews case as the verdict was announced.
Traffic mashups
Connect your traffic and travel data with google maps and show your listeners where the snarl ups are. The CN Group started this in 2008 and it looks great.
Web chats
A big issue affecting your listeners? Get an expert in to answer questions, during a live webchat. As well as giving presenters something to talk about it gives your station an authority over a particular issue. At Viking FM we got a local financial expert to answer questions from listeners on the credit crunch. Lots of on air plugs and we got a good response.
Online polls
Thankfully this obvious way of generating original news content is being used all over the shop. In my previous life, working at Touch Radio, I used to run a daily news poll on the big issue of the day and run the results as an add-on to the story in the 5pm news.
A design overhaul
Turn listener communities into virtual communities
Imagine if listeners could register on your station website and set up their own profile? They could build their own community of fans of a particular show, swap pictures, get heads up on competitions and all that.
Facebook bonuses
The next best thing for this is to create an effective, regular and well run Facebook community. Thinking outside the box reaps rewards too. After launching a Facebook campaign to save a presenter from suspension, Viking FM then gave everyone who’d joined the group free entry to a local nightclub. Even before the nightclub announcement more than 3,000 people had joined.
Just a taste of the sheer numbers of people out there – if stations would just reach out and touch.
Journalists: make the most of your network
Just wanted to share a cool story treatment we tried out at Viking FM last week – which shows the power of using your wider network.
Viking is part of the UK wide ‘Big City Network‘ with stations from Manchester to Liverpool to Sheffield. It gives us a formidable pool of excellent content when big stories break.
Last week it was our turn to share, as a small walkout in North-East Lincolnshire (in the southern half of our patch) became a national workers’ strike. I spent Thursday morning at the picket line between the police and the protesters.
I’ve covered many protests, but this one had a real anger to it. It was like something out of the “Winter of Discontent”.
The next day, as the strikes turned national, we were able to call on sister stations in Teeside and Edinburgh where construction workers were walking out.
The result was this ‘tour of the UK’ style package at 1 o’clock which took our listeners to different picket lines in just over a minute.
It was sent and broadcast to other stations across the UK too, and really shows the importance of a well used network.
Of course the internet these days provides journalists with an almost unlimited network of people to link up with.
Local radio doing video content
Following on from – and in fact contrary to – my post a few weeks ago about online content on local radio websites.
I wrote local radio is lagging behind in terms of the quality of web content.
Here’s a good example of stations making it work – Bauer Radio’s Radio Aire (Leeds) produced a video report for the verdict in the Karen Matthews trial in the UK.
Journalists at the station – and others in the Big City Network – were able to throw listeners to it to enhance their coverage of the sensational trial.
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Can local radio succeed online?
Well, ask Andrew Harrison at the Radio Centre in this week’s Radio Magazine, not really.
He claims commercial radio is another victim of the BBC’s local TV plans, along with the online aspirations of local newspapers.
Well certainly in the 100m online contest, local commercial radio is at the back of the pack. Many sites have old clunky websites which haven’t embraced web 2.0. Content is rarely updated, I’ve often found the code is full of holes. Most of all, they don’t give their listeners a reason to go there.
Compare that to their BBC radio rivals, and now their newspaper cohorts and it’s a tadge shameful.
But maybe that doesn’t have to be the way.
Over at Viking FM this week, we trialled the station’s first live webcast. We arranged for a local financial expert to come into the station and answer questions from listeners about the credit crunch and what it means for them.
You can see the results by clicking here.
It was a lot more popular than we’d imagined, thanks chiefly to heavy plugging over the airwaves. But it shows, I think, people do have an appetite for this sort of content.
There just needs to be more dedication to doing it.
Adam Westbrook // ideas on digital storytelling and publishing 
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