text: Are you a navel-gazer? The definition of a navel gazer is "one who is extraordinarily self-absorbed with him or herself on any given issue; excessive introspection and reflection when action is more necessary"
  Well, it's an accusation that the Chief Executive of Global Radio, Stephen Miron, makes of the whole UK commercial radio industry, in an interesting article in today's Media Guardian. He cites a lack of creative and commercial ambition in the sector, which he believes has resulted in UK commercial radio lacking the essential momentum required to move forward.
  There's no doubt that Global Radio are 'on a mission' to redefine the meaning of 'local radio' in 2009, with the next stage of the Heart rollout having just occurred. Whether you think that's a good thing for the industry or not is a matter of opinion, and time will tell if it's the right thing to do both in terms of audience and ad revenue.
  There is one comment I thought fairly amusing in the interview, where Miron talks of the mainstream nature of BBC Radio and advertisers desires...
  The idea, he says, is to create a commercial rival to Radio 2. "We have advertisers who say, we wish we could advertise on Radio 2. Well now you can - it's called Heart."
  I'm not sure if Stephen has listened to Radio 2 lately (if at all)... but last time I checked, it didn't sound anything like Heart. It's an ambitious aim to become comparable to a station that had a budget last year of £51.3 Million, but "a man's reach should exceed his grasp" and all that. So to be sure, I thought I'd double check, and start with an obvious area ... current music. So you can see I'm not 'pulling the wool', here are the 2 current playlists to inspect;
  *NEW* DUKE SPECIAL - Sweet Sweet Kisses
  *NEW* JASON MRAZ - Make It Mine
  *NEW* MADELEINE PEYROUX - Instead
  STEVE CRADDOCK - Falling Rocks
  *NEW* AL GREEN - Just For Me
  *NEW* BENJAMIN TAYLOR - She's Gone
  AC/DC - Anything Goes / Big Jackeatest Day
  So... the eagle eyed amongst you no doubt spotted that a massive '3' of the songs on Heart's playlist are also on Radio 2's playlist 2. That's around a 10% crossover. Blimey. "It's practically identical guv'nor"... apart from the 90% difference that is, of course.
  I won't even dare to compare the speech content, but it's suffice to say that today on BBC Radio 2 when Jeremy Vine was discussing the positive environmental impact of water metering designed to help protect limited supplies of water and reduce consumption, Toby Antis on Heart was forward promoting the fact that "Candi Staton's coming up".
  As Chrissie Hynde famously once said.. 'Don't get me wrong'... I think Heart is a really strong brand and a fantastically well produced commercial radio station. But sorry Stephen Miron... Radio 2 it ain't!
  What could posses a man to make such a bold claim as to liken output of BBC Radio 2 with Heart? It sounds like one of those ridiculous claims that only an awful newspaper like 'The Mail on Sunday' would concoct! Hang on a minute... what role did Stephen Miron used to have? Oh... he was Managing Director of 'The Mail on Sunday'...
  Posted by Nik Goodman at 9:31 pm 1 comment:
  Labels: BBC Radio 2, Heart, Media Guardian, Stephen Miron
  As the world of radio, online, social networking, mobile and audio entertainment seem to merge daily into an amorphous glob of content, there are always new things that grab your attention. Some of them will be good, and some less good! But here's something that caught my eye today that I thought I'd share.
  I'm deeply in love with my iPhone and I'm not alone in seeing the potential of Apps and the relevance to today's radio world.
  It's called 'AudioBoo' and it's basically an iPhone audio blogging app. So, think of Twitter, but instead of being limited to a fixed number of characters to let people know what you're up to, you have 3 minutes of audio to record! You hit a button to record, and then publish it when you've finished and then anyone who wants can listen to it either via the App or via the website. You can add photos and geo-location data too, which gives it lots of potential. And you can link it to Facebook (and soon to Twitter too)
  It's like a mini broadcast platform really! At the moment, it's still in development phase, and there's lots of people 'booing' things like them whistling, and recording themselves doing a test etc, however, I'm sure over time the users will find the best way to make use of it.
  As I'm writing this, someone has just 'boo'd' (if that's the right phrase) from the stage door of a Lionel Richie gig waiting for Lionel to come out. It was like a little 30 second colour piece by a reporter! Brilliant!
  Technology has really democratised media hasn't it. But surely, in the world of radio, we stand a better chance than most of understanding how to make interesting audio that people will want to hear?
  I can imagine a breakfast / morning show host using this to keep loyal fans in touch with what he or she was doing during the day by recording little 'boos' for them. A jock can do a link now whenever they want right into their iPhone, post it, and people will hear it! No more waiting till 6am the next morning!!
  In the same way as Twitter has worked for celebrities, I wonder if this kind of idea could be of interest to us engaged in the world of radio / online / mobile / audio entertainment... or whatever business you think you're in currently!
  I really like the Audioboo concept. Let me know if you have any smart ideas on how radio stations could use an app like this and we'll share them...
  Posted by Nik Goodman at 11:01 pm 1 comment:
  On the flip side to all the BBC hype surrounding U2, it's worth listening to / watching Christain O Connell's interview with Bono and The Edge on Absolute Radio for several reasons.
  1. It's just 3 guys sitting around talking about music and 2 of them are talking about being in a really big band. Christain creates such a relaxed atmosphere, you really feel you're eavesdropping in on a private conversation, and and as a result the 'rock stars' feel comfortable to open up perhaps more than they do when their interviewer is hyped up, as is often the case.
  2. Absolute Radio understand the power of delivering good content across multiple platforms, so it's nice to see they have bothered to film it properly with a multi-camera shoot. It's still a radio interview... but with decent pictures!