An Open BBC For the Internet Age

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Reith did not invent the phrase ‘inform, educate, entertain’, I learnt from today's BBC's Charter review proposal document.  I really like facts like that.

No, it was clever old David Sarnoff, the founder of commercial radio in the US. He wrote that its function was “entertaining, informing and educating the nation”. The report then goes on to point out mischievously that “Reith can take credit only for re-ordering the three and, characteristically, turning them into imperatives”. I want to have a drink with the person who wrote that impish sentence on page 77 of this 99 page document.

Like Reith, I shall not trouble myself too much with matters television.  On radio, the report is distinctly obsessed with 'distinctiveness'. It understandably labours the point that "all BBC radio services are distinctive and some are unique".  “To break hits, they have to remain popular stations— otherwise fewer people would be exposed to those new songs.” It seeks to define distinctiveness with some success. I like to dress distinctively, but I still wear a pair of jeans and a casual shirt most of the time.  

A little like the debate about immigration statistics, one can argue about the music differentiation figures cited in the report, as it compares Capital's 398 tracks in a month with Radio 1’s 3868. Commercial radio clock hours have about 22% fewer content minutes than the BBC's; and the Radio 1 figures include the impressive off-peak specialist shows.  But we know the point.  Both stations are right to be doing what they do.

The overlap comparisons also pit Radio 2 against Absolute.  Putting to one side the irony of using a diagrammatic approach which mirrors Absolute Radio’s canny comparemyradio.com  site, the figures suggest Absolute spins 1598 tracks, compared with Radio 2’s 4423. Different every time you listen.

The Government’s Green paper question about the level of overlap between Radio 1 and 2 is addressed.  The loopy civil servant who suggested that was presumably still under the impression that Radio 1 and 2 still simulcast the David Hamilton afternoon show.  Radio 1 shares just 6% of music tracks with Radio 2; and Radio 2 shares 5% of tracks with Radio 1, is the report’s understandably huffy retort. Just 13% of the combined Radio 1 and Radio 2 audience listen to both stations.

I’d be a little annoyed if I were David Holdsworth (and I’d love to be him, actually), as the report announces that local radio audiences are declining, in a way they do not malign 5 Live’s current audience levels. 

58% of BBC Local listeners are aged over 55, boasts the report. If I’d have written the report, I would have pulled off the 50+ figure, given that’s what its licence demands it serves: it would have made a more favourable graph. (Interesting though, that poor old Ben Cooper is scowled at in the BH lift by the man from the Trust for Radio 1’s poor showing amongst surly 15-24 year olds (40%), yet BBC local radio (UK) has just a 21% reach amongst 55+. And Radio 1 attracts 15% of 45-54s compared to BBC Local's princely 16%).

The report recognizes that your once proud local rag may now be a weekly free-sheet in which press releases are conscientiously pasted:  “on current trends the BBC could become the only traditional news provider in some areas—so to avoid that, we propose to open up our spending to support local newspapers and others.  …. the BBC would allocate licence fee funding to invest in a service that reports on councils, courts and public services in towns and cities across the UK. The aim is to put in place a network of 100 public service reporters across the country. Reporting would be available to the BBC but also, critically, to all reputable news organisations.” That’s a brave suggestion; and will not appeal to those journalists who get their legal highs from being first with a story, but it’s tasty food for thought. 

On the other hand, “local newspapers would be invited to provide BBC local services”. That must generate the suspicion that BBC local radio in the future could be run very differently from how it is now – and I have long been an advocate of giving the over-generous BBC local radio budget to a talented team and let them get on with creating a great truly local listener-focused radio station with a clear remit, away from the BBC burden.

There is praise too for ‘BBC Introducing’ on BBC Local Radio. Rightly so too.  It’s a great effort across the country, and I suspect that Dean Jackson on BBC Radio Nottingham (who deserves far more recognition than he ever gets) is responsible for a fair number of the 30 acts discovered this year.  I confess I often wonder whether this show is an uneasy tenant in its current home, rented from the 50+ targeted BBC Local Radio. But there is no doubt this project should have a conspicuous, fitting and maybe enhanced place in the BBC fold.

What of 5 live? Well, it covers 51 sports.  Do 51 sports even exist? I’m tempted to invent another and then complain to the Trust about under-representation. “5live’s sports output has never been broader” trumpets the report, forgetting the fact that its audiences are not really at a height.  Maybe there’s a connection. 

As someone who has little interest in any of the 51, I do not have the passion for 5 Live I once had. Sport and news are probably only linked in media-land because they both comprise the spoken word.  They are uneasy bedfellows. It is a puzzle to me that the BBC does not have a proper rolling news service.  If this country goes to war at 7.00 one night, Radio 4 And 5 Live listeners will continue pruning their roses blissfully unaware, distracted by Alan Green’s enthusiastic commentary or Brian Aldridge whinging. Frankly, I’d create a new AM and DAB radio channel, simply simulcasting the audio of the BBC TV news channel. If the BBC is thinking more radically about repurposing content for various platforms to exploit its differing usages, as it argues in this report, then they can borrow that idea if they wish.

There is mention, in a broader context, of “a transition from rolling news to streaming news”; and one wonders just how long it will be before some real-time linear channels become on-demand programme strands.  Whilst there’s a ready appetite for Radio 4’s news programmes, I have to confess my injection of 'You and Yours' and 'More or Less' are always from the iPlayer. Winifred Robinson is a dish best served cold. Could that be another way, in due course, to reclaim a network for a rolling news radio channel, and conclude Radio 4’s dilemma of likely audience size versus place on the daily schedule for particularly distinctive content. 

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it is ‘rolling content’ which will disappear first.  Maybe we just want links on social media to  content about ‘stuff happening now’ which we can select at will.  There’s a hint of that in the report.

The growth for BBC radio digital growth looks impressive, but it’s maybe churlish of me to argue that there were only around half a million DAB receivers in the UK when the graph's x-axis began in 2003. 

The BBC has a hundred years of radio content sitting around on shellac discs, C90s and USB sticks that my dad and I have paid for (He was born six years before the Corporation began). We want to hear it.  As a bit of a radio historian, I am frustrated that so little exists online, although the Genome and similar efforts are laudable. There’s a halfhearted ‘not now updated’ archive site too.  I’m glad that the BBC seems poised to open up its content to its shareholders, whether anoraks like me, or more simple folk who want to interrogate a more useful genuine subject.

“Bringing together what the BBC does across arts, culture, science, history and ideas and add to it work done by many of this country’s most respected arts, culture and intellectual institutions. It would also make the most of the BBC’s rich archive heritage— from speech radio to our television collections—and open it up for others. For curious audiences around the world, the BBC would create and manage an online platform that, working with partners, would provide the gold standard in accuracy, breadth, depth, debate and revelation. It would offer audiences the thrill of discovery and the reassurance of reliability.”   Good stuff, Tone.

There’s justifiable praise for the BBC World Service as “the UK’s most important cultural export’.  Those who moan about us ‘having to fund radio in other bloody countries’ conveniently forget that this thing probably pays for itself over and over again in the long term, in human as well as commercial terms for brand UK. It's fitting too that the BBC funds it.  After all, back in 1929, the Treasury and the Post Office  kept 36% of the Licence Fee.  

This solid, thick pipe of income is a huge privilege, and we need to know it is spent wisely.

This report is an impressive piece of work and a good starting point. There’s some blunt pride from an organization which is often too quick to apologise when it should stand its ground; there is some fresh thinking and ambition; and there is a recognition that the BBC future will be different from the past. Let’s, please, just make sure we hang on to the right bits. 

A blog about a book: 'How to Make Great Radio'

Over dinner in my favourite Indian restaurant in Nottingham recently, I was rambling intolerably about 'my book' to one of my cynical but lovely radio friends.  I told him I'd learned loads whilst writing it. '"What like?", he asked, as he stuffed a naan bread in his face.

So, when the Jiffy bag finally arrived from the publishers last week, bearing ten lovely-smelling first copies of my humble publication, I thumbed gingerly through the pages, to remind myself what I hadn't known when I started to write it.

Every day in radio is a school day, not least when you're trying madly to justify, or disprove, those 'radio assumptions'.

I thought I was the only competition cynic until I stumbled across the words of legendary American programmer, Bill Drake: "We did a lot of on-air promotions at KHJ, and we did almost none at KFRC in San Francisco. Both stations were successful". In his opinion, "most contests are garbage".  He's surely right; far too many offer little in the way of witness value. They are either too demanding, too dull or too exclusive; with prizes seen as unattainable and mechanics focused on the minority taking part, not the majority listening.  Gone are the days when the radio station was the only place you could win a decent prize.  BBC Local Radio, which suspended contesting in the days when it was discredited, would likely concede that their stations are better without  many of them.  Cheers, Bill. Nice to stumble across substantiation for my prejudice.

Isn't it annoying when 'major names' pop up on radio who fail to grasp the 'one listener' thing.  That 'You' thing.  They drone on about "anyone out there'" and getting my 'thinking caps' on.  For goodness sake, anyone who knows anything about our great medium knows that the most important word is 'you'.  If it's good enough for Ken Bruce: 'People respond to one person – talking to them as one person’; and Wogan: ‘Radio engages because you talk to an individual’, it should be good enough for the rest of us. I also cite some early crackly recordings from the 'first' disc jockey, Christopher Stone, from 1927 who said in his show: 'I know you'd like to hear some more of that, and so would I".  Almost a century ago, and at the very beginnings of our medium, he'd nailed it.

Few candidates in the last General Election stood up to make a speech without offering an anecdote about the chap they'd 'bumped into' the night before.  We know that story-telling works.  The greatest presenters master the art on radio.  The greatest ads call upon it.  Vocabulary, pace and detail create colourful pictures.  In researching the book too, I was drawn too to the words of John Cleese, who spoke of the mental 'skip' the listener makes from the start of a tale to the punchline.  In that skip lies the pleasure and amusement. Too large, it fails, Too small it offers no satisfaction.  One word can make a difference.  Even if just a  swear-word: ‘You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!’

Why do some newsreaders whine every sentence and inexplicably draw out the last word, regardless of its significance?  Accomplished voice coach, Kate Lee, suggests that great reading is often about ‘sounding even more yourself ’. She observes how some readers appear almost intimidated by the importance of the material. Once they say to themselves ‘this is news’, she believes their brain then promptly ignores all all the natural nuances of conversation. Contemporary, conversational news delivery is a real art.

Fascinated by the way the 'mood' in a studio can change what comes out the speakers the other end, it was great to hear the anecdote about a leading performer who used to play the Cagney & Lacey theme tune before starting his show.  Off on that tangent, I then stumbled across how both David Cameron, and indeed Enoch Powell in his time, observed that a full bladder kept their mind alert and their speeches powerful.  Maybe not one to try.

I stumbled across some fascinating material about the voice and how it engages so well on radio.  Including the theory that the 'disembodied voice' on the radio connects with the listener as does a mother's voice to a child in the womb.

And who would not want to know the story of the birth of tight, Top 40 format radio in a bar in Omaha, Nebraska.  Next time one of your listeners complains about hearing the same song over and over again, you'll want to know that tale too. 

And so the list goes on.  I learned a little more about mic technique; commentary; interviewing; the psychological response to words; and getting callers on-air.  I mused about dealing with over-enthusiastic listeners; spoke to some great producers; and delved into the use of social media.  I stumbled across some brilliant old research about the relative merits of male and female voices; and I counted the words per minute which Wogan deployed as he said his last breakfast farewell. 

I was persuaded to add a chapter about how to get into our medium; and I volunteered another about how to keep your job.  And some necessary caution on risk-taking, 'stunting', research, law and compliance.

Given that text books are boring and the chances of any publisher agreeing to my autobiography are slim, I've littered the book with anecdotes from my lucky time in the business.  Lest I forget the two occasions when the police have called into reception; Dale Winton's interview techniques; or the words of advice Mrs. Thatcher's daughter proffered on programme preparation.

And there's the chapter about teasing.

As every 'author' will understand, the awful thing about writing a book is that the second your work is despatched to the publisher, you think of something you should have included. Plus, last Autumn, no-one new what Perisope was. Things now change by the day in our great radio world.

Many thanks to the likes of Matthew Bannister, Christian O'Connell, John Myers, Ben Cooper and Nick Ferrari for offering generous early reviews.  What's useful is that they suggest it's by no means just a book for beginners. 

Radio is rarely a matter and wrong. Some of the greats break the rules brilliantly.  And those who disagree with my mad assertions or theories will hopefully concede that the debate itself is likely helpful. Or they can write their own book.

If it helps, please grab a copy at £14.99 (£10.99 e-book) from my friends at Biteback Publishing.  Proceeds to the Radio Academy. 

And here's this week's Number One...

In our school, bringing in a radio was an offence for which you could be hanged. It was even more serious than wearing platform shoes or the wrong colour shirt.  Nevertheless, just as in totalitarian states, we ignored the law because radio meant so much.

Admittedly, we only risked the wrath so we could hear the chart, rather than the latest news from the Empire. This was a period when Tuesday lunchtime was sacred. Paul Burnett would effortlessly run down the BRAND NEW chart.  

Anxious to hear who was up and who was down, we would assemble in frozen huddles, rather hoping the marauding teachers would pursue the smell of smoke from neighbouring miscreants rather than the sound of JAM jingles from our small crowd.

Back then, blackberries, apples and oranges were confined to orchards; and radio was the only way to get the news. 

Having caught the update between Geography and double Maths on a Tuesday, we could then look forward to Sunday.   It was actually the only exciting thing about a day on which all shops were closed; the lukewarm weekly bath was taken; and that back to school feeling would hit the pit of the stomach when the miserable theme tune to 'Sing Something Simple' rang out as you searched for your PE kit.

6.00 pipped, and mother busied herself ironing and prepared to watch 'Upstairs Downstairs'.  Meanwhile, in our icy bedrooms, we would crank up the radio to enjoy the FULL Top 20. It was broadcast in stereo.  Not that anyone had a stereo radio, but mono FM was certainly better than AM.  Back then, Radio 1 was not on FM, but hijacked Radio 2’s frequencies on occasions at the weekend, presumably when the Light's delirious management had gone home for a sherry.

Like Blue Peter presenters, you can tell someone’s age by the chart show presenter they loved the most.  Some respected radio brethren go dewy-eyed at the words ‘Bruno Brookes’. Others wet themselves if anyone mentions Tom Browne.

Sunday evening was self-evidently inspired scheduling for the chart.  It had not always been thus. When Alan Dell first took a Biro to a copy of the music press in 1957 and ran down the numbers that matter most, it was scheduled late on a Sunday night.   

David Jacobs then started to assemble something more akin to our current chart, broadcast on Saturdays, before AlanFreeman barged in and appeared to prefer to work Sunday teatimes.  From that moment, whatever its name or the programme in which it was housed, the ‘chart’ has been part of our Sunday evening ritual.

The BBC possibly thought, with good cause, that the fragmented commercial radio network would never be able to assemble  a nation-wide chart offering.  Some stations had charts. Some did not.  Trent in Nottingham was allergic to anything resembling chart shows in its early ‘credible’ era, before eventually installing one which peculiarly began with the Number One.

Eventually, commercial radio’s trade body (then the Association of Independent Radio Contractors) played Kofi Annan and co-ordinated a 'Network Chart' chart offering across the commercial network of stations.  Back then, networking was rare across any stations, let alone the whole country. 

In those pre-satellite days, the chart was originally despatched down the mono ‘IRN line’, so it sounded little better than ‘Dial a Disc’ (Ask your granny about dial a disc).

View image | gettyimages.com

David ’Kid’ Jensen was its first host, known as a ‘national name’ from his time at Radio Luxembourg  and BBC Radio 1.  Nescafe was to be its first major sponsor, although the coffee folk could not be mentioned in the programme title itself. The programme evolved, as the sponsor changed, to the Pepsi Network Chart, to the Pepsi Chart and then hit40Uk and now the Big Top 40.

It worked though. The commercial radio chart is now bigger than the BBC’s. Both are huge. 569,000 adults tune in as the BBC’s chart begins, with another 68,000 runny-nosed kids eavesdropping too.

There are few mass-appeal destination shows now on British music radio.  The days of gathering round to listen to ‘Music Whilst You Work’ are long gone.  The chart show remains the single best known appointment to listen.  It's ironic that maybe the only other is 'Pick of the Pops' on Radio 2, a retro version of the chart itself, bearing an original name.

If the BBC do re-paint this national treasure, I wish them well.  The great thing about BBC radio is that it can be first to try stuff out, without risking millions in revenue.  Rightly, their decision will be unaffected by my fond ramblings above and more influenced by the tastes and interests of a complex and savvy new generation. It would be an unnecessary cheap gag to suggest that some of those listeners nowadays would find counting to 40 a challenge.

Sunday night is a time when people are available to listen to radio, and that possibly means more than being ‘first’.  In the short term, I imagine commercial radio would benefit from the displaced audiences.  The new flavour of BBC chart would, however, find an important new place in a new generation's heart and would likely still be the one the TV shows come to when they want to do a piece about the Christmas Number One.

Presenting a chart well must merit a mention some loud applause here. It demands huge delivery skill, precision and rhythm. Maybe not quite as much skill as in bygone years, when one had to find the records, time them, then add up all their durations, and those of the ads, on the back of an envelope. 

View image | gettyimages.com

Every word counts.  As I played back Simon Bates's first Top 40, aired in November 1978, I observed he boomed 'This week's British..." before playing the 'Britain's Number One' jingle.  With a smile, I noted in the write up that he would have kicked himself for doing that.  He tweeted to let me know he had. Let it go, Simon. Let it go.

Whilst radio will remain powerful and special for a good few generations yet, I cannot help feeling that no 15 year old would ever bother breaking a rule for it nowadays.  What I am sure of, however, is that this very Sunday, some teenager would have listened to Marvin Humes or Clara Amfo and thought "that's what i want to do when i grow up".

Grab a copy of my book 'How to Make Great Radio', published by Biteback

How old are the best presenters?

I was 19, a spotty young presenter with straggly hair and a long duffle coat.  My then Head of Programmes peered over his large desk, before pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and concluding one of our rare coaching sessions with the remark: "You won't be any good as a presenter until you're 30".

At the time, I puzzled over the observation.  Actually, that's a grown up way of saying I was a tad upset.  My age was not something I could really do awfully much about. 

Looking back, he had a point.  It really is not until later in life that a presenter can really master their art.

Your command of radio techniques does improve with practice, of course, but more importantly, you have lived. 

Provided you keep in touch, you can display a cultural grasp of both now and then.  Showbiz is littered with older personalities revered by younger fans.  Older soap opera actors are the real stars of the show.  A younger radio presenter can often struggle to relate well to older listeners. They can so easily be out of their depth.

When a caller comes on-air, you have but seconds to connect: to show that you 'get them'. To react; to say the one thing they relate to; to help them build on their own story;  to find the entertainment; to avoid responding insensitively.  You draw upon your fund of life.

Great shows often rely on story-telling, whether as an entertaining anecdote or setting up a topic.  As you grow older, your bank of stories becomes almost limitless.  Whatever the topic on-air, something relevant has happened to you or to a friend.  You've met people rather like every single listener you'll ever have.  

Importantly too, by the time you hit your thirties, things have usually gone wrong for you.  You've likely loved and lost; faced a death or two of someone you know; had money problems and heartache.  When in trouble, we reach for advice for someone who's had their own problems and can empathise.  We do not reach out for a perfect person, or seek advice from the lanky 19 year old down the road. Listeners open up to people whom they feel are like them. 

When the broadcaster's face starts to wrinkle, the authenticity on-air grows; and being 'real' on-air is utterly key for so many formats on today's radio.

When we go for a great night out, we'll often surround ourselves with people our age.

The UK has a tradition of young broadcasters, certainly on music radio.  As commercial radio was born painfully here in the 70s, many of its first presenters were relatively young, even though the stations were full service, serving birth to death.  Meanwhile, in that same decade, across in the more mature US radio market, many Top 40 presenters were much older and yet still very much in charge of their markets. 'Veteran anchors' were commanding the most dollars.  Here, there was a seeming obsession with transferring presenters arbitrarily to Radio 2 or to the AM Gold service as soon as the clock caught up with them; whether or not they were doing an excellent job.  

                                    Dan Ingram on air in the US, aged almost 60

But look at the biggest names. Was Chris Moyles losing audiences as he grew older?  Not really, no.  Is Chris Evans worse now than he was when he was 23?  No, far from it.  Would Simon Mayo do an even better job now on Radio Nottingham than he did years ago?  I suspect he might say yes.  

To his credit, Richard Park realised that Birmingham's Les Ross still had another FM decade in him when he rescued him from Xtra AM in his mid forties and returned him to the hot rockin' BRMB.  One imagines Parky had wisely drawn a parallel with Les and Tarrant, who commanded  London on 95.8 until the age of 57.

Broadcasters try so hard when they are young.  As they mature, the best become stunningly instinctive.  Their stories improve, as does their story-telling. Their pacing is tuned and their sense of humour and timing matures.  Skills both in radio and in life have been honed. They are better and funnier.

It's good news that the BBC has turned its thoughts to encouraging more women broadcasters. Being parachuted into a peak show, however, is a demanding gig.  Few Olympic athletes would take their first skate at the Commonwealth Games.  Just as with a male broadcaster, if they have the skill to persuade listeners to value them, I wish those new recruits every success.

Should a similar initiative be established for older broadcasters? Is the age of a presenter not more important than their sex?

60% of all radio listening is by those over the age of 45. Are 60% of presenters over that age?

 

BBC Local Radio is targeted at those aged 50 and over, with a "strong emphasis on interactivity and audience involvement". Appropriately, 88% of all BBC local radio listening is by those over 45.  But are 88% of presenters? 

76% of all BBC Local radio listening is by those over 55. Are the majority of presenters?

If you are a 24 year old BBC local presenter, or indeed 'producer', how must it feel to know that 92% of the audience are older than you? 

There are a host of reasons why Radio 2's audience still loved Terry Wogan as he presented his last breakfast show, aged 71.

My mother used to ask when her voice was going to start sounding like a crackly old woman.  By the time she died at 76, it never had.  When you use your voice and are aware of it, it stays remarkably consistent into your 70s and beyond.  Does Tony Blackburn sound so much different in voice quality from when the was a bright-eyed 24 year old?

Yes, some gifted older BBC local radio stalwarts are still on-air, but as local radio  has become the route in to radio, there are many very young presenters on-air too.  Not because the listeners suggest that is what they want; but simply because the local stations help us feed our industry.

One can witness some of the younger presenters on that 50+ format struggling to relate.  It's hardly surprising. Why should they know that the death of Kathy Kirby is worthy of a mention  when they were not born when Abba were at their peak? Even their parents are a little too young to help. For a talk format, that diminished level of insight into the target audience can be a real handicap.  The very best younger broadcasters address the challenge with huge self-awareness, hard-work, sensitivity and skill. The rest may not.

That's not their fault, they are seizing an opportunity, just like I did at 19.  It is the responsibility of the programmers, especially for the older-formated stations, to look beyond the university graduates, and to reach out to those characters who have graduated from the college of life. Certainly there's a rich seam of spirited women of a certain age who could become genuinely brilliant radio communicators. I witness few 'Loose Women' panelists in their teens and twenties.

There's a place for younger broadcasters and we all must learn our craft, but the younger formats are best places for this.  There's a place for inexperienced broadcasters too: off-peak hours. Remember the work of psychologist, John Hayes, who researched 76 famous classical composers and concluded that in almost every case, they did not create their greatest work until they'd been composing for ten years.

It's much easier to carry off being older than your target audience  - than younger.  In life, you have always been younger, but never been older.

If you've been in radio a few years, I challenge you to listen back to those old cassettes from the box in the garage.  Cringe at your first ten years of work.

Grab my book 'How to Make Great Radio'. Published by Biteback. https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/how-to-make-great-radio

The Psychology of Radio - 1935 style

“It has already grown from the insignificance of an embryonic idea in the minds of technicians to the stature of a Goliath in industry and public affairs. Vigorously endowed and shrewdly directed, it has developed sturdily, and with lightning speed has fashioned for itself a place in our national life” 

So says a 1935 book called ‘The Psychology of Radio’. 

The book was written in America, back in the days when radio was but a small child, and self-appointed experts were penning articles and posturing about it.  Just as they do about this digital thing nearly eighty years later.

It’s a fascinating read.  It makes mention of an impressive early experiment, conducted when there was an appetite to understand better this new fangled thing.  An evangelist gathered an audience and preached in a hall.  His sermon was relayed by sound only, as if a radio broadcast, to a neighbouring hall.  As the call came for the congregation to step forward and participate, the genuine assembly started to take action.  Members of the radio audience in the second hall were not motivated in the same way.  They stood there like lemons.

The author explained he felt this was not through some flaw in this otherwise miraculous medium, but simply because the vocal delivery on radio needed to be different.  In structure, it was said that a live speaker works for “immediate rather than long-run results, for emotional fervour rather than for future action”.  

He concluded:

“A radio spellbinder would have spoken quite differently. He would have used less bombast and more artistry, less brute force and more cunning. He would have directed his attention to the invisible audience and would have made each listener feel welcome as a member of the circle. He would have aroused the listeners' sense of participation in the occasion. "Friends, this is Huey P. Long speaking.."

All those years ago, the authors (Hadley Cantril  & Gordon Allport) had already recognised that radio was a one-to-one thing; and you had to address a single listener as you spoke if you really wanted to motivate.

The chapter observed that the voice on radio is different from a person addressing in real life in that:

• “In the minds of the listeners (radio) places music in the preferred position among radio program(me)s.
• It frees the listener from the necessity of conventional politeness toward public performers.
• It interposes a serious psychological barrier between the broadcaster and his audience through the destruction of the normal circular relationship.
• It virtually eliminates social facilitation among the auditors with the result that they are less crowdish, more critical and individualistic”.

Witness the medium’s educational prowess too. The publication suggests that radio improves the capacity of the average man to listen. And even “probably increases the vocabulary of the average listener”.

“It was discovered that the college student, with his long training in listening to lectures, is far better able than the untrained listener to understand and to recall what he hears. His advantage, furthermore,is discovered to be greater for auditory than for visual material. It appears, therefore, that intelligent listening is par excellence the mark of the educated man.”

“Although there is a prevailing tendency to use the radio as a background for other tasks, when the dial is turned to a specific program and when attention is directed fully to its message, an auditory training is provided for millions of people and its long-range effects may be exceedingly important. For increasing the world's population of "good listeners" radio deserves an extra star in its crown”.

So, if the boss ever tells you to stop streaming Gem 106 at your desk, just smile patiently and assure him that it’s training you to listen better to his wisdom.

Even back then there was a worry that radio might put people off their work

“Take, first, the case of the housewife or the student who is completely preoccupied with work. The loud-speaker emits its stream of sound, but it falls on deaf ears. The distraction is completely inhibited. As long as attention does not shift, the radio's effect, if it has any at all, is entirely subliminal. In such a case the effort required (and unconsciously exerted) to overcome the distraction may actually enhance concentration on the task in hand.... The stronger the potential distraction the greater is the compensatory attention”.

Attention, RAB! The article goes on to provide early thoughts on the topic addressed in more recent years by Saatchi & Saatchi's 1981/1995 'Ironing Board Study' and Classic FM’s/Bournemouth University's 1995 'Jigsaw study'. The theory that listeners zone in and out depending on what interests them:

“However, attention is at best a restless thing, always waxing and waning, and shifting from one focus to another. The sounds of the radio are seldom inhibited for more than a few minutes at a time.  The mind wanders from the task in hand to the distracting sound”.

Some things have come to pass:

“In certain ways radio is a dangerous competitor of the newspaper.”

And some prophetic observations on the delinquent use of radio’s immense power:

“The Nazi propagandist minister, Goebbels, uses it ubiquitously to spread the doctrines of Hitler and says that ''Some day the radio will be the spiritual daily bread of the whole German nation."

What about children though?

“About one-third of the children say that they lie awake in bed thinking of things they have heard over the radio. The same number report that they frequently dream of radio plots : three- fourths of these dreams are nightmares”.

Given American radio was, by then, already into commercial radio full throttle, the book also alludes to what later became ‘pester power’ in terms to children hearing advertisements and then lobbying poor Mama for said goodies:

“ The advertising appeal is ingenious and effective. It is directed toward the child's desire for physical superiority (victory at games and ''pep"). It comes just before the supper hour when hunger facilitates mental associations pertaining to food. It arouses the powerful motive of sympathy and compassion by asking the child to tell his mother about the product... Through repetition, tedious to the adult but interesting to the child, the association between the fantasy of the story and the product in question is indelibly established”.

Ah. Repetition builds reputation.

What of station formats?

• “a slight majority of this station's hours are devoted to network”
• “far more network programs are broadcast on Sundays than on weekdays;
• “the early morning hours (6-8) contain entirely local programs”
• “three-fourths of the programs broadcast during the best evening hours (7-10) are network relays;
• “the days when listening habits are least dependable (over the week-end) are filled with sustaining network broadcasts to keep the station on the air most economically..”

So, the truth is out.  In implementing 'The Future of Radio' in 2007, OFCOM just copied and pasted from this 1935 book for its Localness Guidelines.

By the way, according to the 1930 US census (which likely enjoyed jolly COI-type ads saying “fill in the form y’all”), there were suggestions that 70 per cent of homes were, were “supplied with radios”.  

If the behavioural assertions above are to be believed, the rest of the homes contained thick Americans with fairly chilled kids.

This is amazing. Average listening time was 19.6 hours a week. In 2014, it is 21.5.  The sample size was 507, by the way if Ipsos/Mori are reading this.  

Popular programme elements included ‘Dance Orchestras’ at Number 1 in the chart, followed by football and symphonies. Wow.  It’s commercial national radio. Absolute, Talksport and Classic.  Sports and old songs are in there too, in the next two positions, so thank goodness we have Smooth.  Least popular thing? “Advertising messages”.

How many stations in the listening repertoire back in the 1930s?

 “The average listener is not accustomed to tune in to all available stations. His habits at the dial are likely to be rutted: 5.6 per cent listen regularly to only one station while 76.6% per cent never listen to more than three stations”.

All these years later, the ‘habits at the dial’ of the average punter are much the same.

There’s some handy listener research, suggesting that 84% preferred music programming, with the remainder opting for speech. It also suggests that speech is used as foreground listening and music as background.

Forgive me for just lapping up the experiments on presenter voices, conducted by WEEI in Boston involving the tones of  twenty-four male (but of course) speakers and over six hundred judges. They sought to establish whether people could judge appearance by a voice.  We must try that trial again. A great contest for your breakfast show, maybe.

They  found that it was challenging to establish height from a voice, although some favourable results were uncovered owing “primarily to the case of a short fat man whose voice was thick, mellow, and "chuckling." . Give that guy a job on Radio 2.

Voices were matched to  handwriting “about one and a half times as frequently as would be expected by chance.”

Photos and voices were matched with some success as was political preference.  Close your eyes. Listen to Nick Ferrari and try to establish which way he votes.

I shall leave you with a brief glimpse into Chapter 7.

“Most people would rather hear a man than a woman speak over the radio. Yet few listeners are able to explain this preference: they can tell neither how the sexes differ in their vocal appeal nor why. Even the supervisor of broadcasting at the studio can seldom give reasons why his announcing staff is entirely male.”

I bet he can’t.

They resorted to another fab experiment with men and women reading articles into a microphone and  respondents were asked to score on various factors. 

"Women were found to be rated higher in some qualities and men in others. In general men are judged to be more natural and more persuasive. Except in poetry and abstract passages, the listeners felt that men took more of an interest in the material they were broadcasting. In four out of seven experiments, women's voices were judged as more attractive".

Before the analysis, 95 per cent of the listeners had already stated that men's voices were more attractive.  The conclusion states:

“This result shows a noteworthy difference between stereotyped and analytic judgments. It indicates that the preliminary judgment was based to a considerable degree upon mere prejudice”

How far have we really come in 80 years?

Grab my book 'How to Make Great Radio'. Published by Biteback. https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/how-to-make-great-radio

I would of liked to write about grammer, spelling and pronounceiation

I almost choked writing that headline.  All over social media and online, a generation seems unable to write 'would have', and prefers the nonsensical 'would of'.

In years gone by, those on many radio stations rarely needed to write much down, apart from scribbling some hasty notes on their music log: 'Edna from Norwich - wheelie bins'.  Now, life is different.  On-line and social media writing is part of our lives; and part of our jobs.  It's as important to craft the written word off-air as carefully as we select the spoken word on-air.  Few in radio now do not write consumer-facing material, whether producers, journalists, presenters or those in the commercial arena.  Much of such material is conversational in tone, but even writing that is an art. There's a difference too between conversational or necessarily truncated - and wrong.

What surprises me is how intelligent people can leave their school and university gates without a grasp of the basics.  I stare in  amazement at some frighteningly bright young things with whom I've worked over recent years when I glance down at a piece of their written work which befits a 12 year old. Is our education and parenting so bad, we are incapable of teaching our own language?  Those coming here from other countries appear to have a better grasp of the basics of our language than we do.  The time we should be spending polishing writing tone and style to complement our media brands beautifully, we are simply using to make basic corrections in red ink.

Is spelling 'definitely' correctly too much to ask? Or not baring all in 'I can't bear to see'?

The ability to use English to a decent standard is now crucial in our industry.  In the commercial arena too, things have changed.  Where once a suitcase full of dog-eared contracts and half-empty cigarette packets sufficed, sales execs now need to assemble great presentations.  How often are they spoiled by a glaring error in font 48, Comic-Sans?  At a time when we are writing more and more, the emphasis on that very topic is being diminished in the educational system.  Am I wrong to expect a graduate, in whatever subject, to have a decent grasp?  Said David, sans degree and with chip on shoulder.  Broken Britain. Harrumph.

As for the apostrophe, I'll concede that predictive text's dogged insistence on maliciously deploying the wrong usage is unhelpful, but one hopes that a grasp of the basic rules would mean most errors are corrected, certainly by the time content graduates to website or external email. It's fairly simple when you look at its place. Mind you, I'm almost giving up insisting on the correct apostrophe absence in 60s, 70s and CDs, such is the tide of examples where folk think that to use one is correct.   Thank goodness Absolute Radio gets it right, otherwise we'd really be in a pickle.  The bloke selling pea's from a van just outside M & S in Nottingham may just need a quick reminder, though.

A grasp of the meaning of words is also useful to those who work with them every day.  As we do. A senior BBC editor has just related the tale to me of how the Telegraph reported last week that "people were evacuated". And there the sentence ended.  As he points out, that would likely have created rather an unsavoury mess.  Where is the line between conversational and misuse?

Pronunciation also appears a challenge. Or 'pron-ounce-e-ation', some insist on saying. I guess we can blame the influence of American media for giving us 'loo-tenants' rather than 'leff-tenants'.  The Americans also gave us 'skedule'  (schedule) rather than 'shedule', although most in radio now use the latter off-air so frequently each day, I suspect I'm fighting a losing battle there. Mind you, we really should stop Sellotaping the sound of a gratuitous 'k' at the end of 'something' and 'nothing'. And I'm rather averse to hearing 'adverse', when they really do mean, well, 'averse'. 

Grammar on air can induce shock too.  Since first drafting this blog, one fellow Tweeter mentioned he'd heard: "Wasn't you going to ask me for a song" and the impressive: "what I done earlier".

It would likely render the topic too broad were I to to mention the way some media recruits

appear not to display the degree of 'general knowledge' one would expect of curious individuals. And a general shrugging of shoulders when that becomes evident, rather than an embarrassed sucking in of breath through teeth, and conceding 'I should probably have known that'.  Did I really hear 'Corps' pronounced as corpse?  I fear I did. Particularly unfortunate given the nature and context of that report.

Does it matter? Well, getting it wrong clearly annoys some people, and why would you want to do that?  It also sends off a 'we don't really care that much about getting it right' message, which is likely unhelpful.  And, yes, the wrong spelling or pronunciation can impact on comprehension. And, bigger yes, the best words and style really enhance meaning.  Language does indeed mature and evolve, but this is not about evolution, it's revolution. And its rong.

People frequently ask: "What should I study if I want a career in media?".  After some painful decades in management, I might smile and suggest wryly: 'psychology and social work'. But, thinking about it, 'English' is a another good response.