Sounds Like You Want to Hear - 40 years on

Reunions are awful things. Bumping into people you'd rather not see again; people you barely recognise; and acknowledging that you really are as old  as everyone else is.

The 40th anniversary celebrations of the first tranche ofcommercial stations are well underway. I gather the LBC celebrations in 2013 went off with a bang; the old Metro, Hallam and Piccadilly crowds really enjoyed themselves; and just a few weeks ago the, old Radio Tees (Tfm) crowd toasted four decades since Les Ross lifted the arm on the turntable for the very first time.

Last weekend saw the 40th anniversary of commercial radio in Nottingham. Radio Trent was the 13th in the list of stations celebrating those forty changing years. 

We were privileged to be allowed to take over the old premises on Castle Gate for the night, thanks to the wonderful co-operation of its current occupants, Base 51/NGY. (@Base51) They manage an impressive new centre for young people in the city, housed in this lovingly restored historic building.  The old car park, home of so many arguments in Trent's day, when presenters would rush up during a two minute oldie to shift their vehicle so the OB Land Rover could escape, has become a surprisingly attractive patio where generations of  the old Trent guard could assemble in the early evening July sunshine.

Ron Coles, who, as MD, nursed the station through its mid-life crises, stood to relay messages from those who could not attend; and Nick Shaw paid tribute to all those who had gone to work in what must now be a very great radio station in the sky, including his dear brother, John.

In a bizarre twist, the new venture now houses Notts YMCA radio/audio (@YMCA_digital) facilities in its basement, so in some senses the old subterranean studios have been restored to their seventies purpose. The breeze block studio walls remain, and even the old sealed window through to the old MCR 'control room'.  John Peters, first voice on-air, stared at his reflection, aged 24, in the glass.

A drink or two had been consumed by the time guided trips around the building began, so emotions were high as the Trent team revisited the scenes of their crimes.  Newsreader, Tim Heeley, drew up a chair in what would have been the newsbooth to deliver a familiar, reassuring late night bulletin, as he had most nights in the 80s.

How brilliant it was to shake hands once again and trade memories with  the journalists, the presenters, the sales people, the traffic team, the creative producers and accounts staff who had captained the old station through its colourful past.  I tingled when I met the characters I'd grown up listening to, whose voices were the reason I worked in radio.

All generations were represented, from the smiling pioneers right through to a welcome smattering of the current Capital crowd, including  Dino & Pete from breakfast who were welcomed as inheritors of the 96.2 crown.  They represented today's necessarily efficient, focused radio stations, which now together deliver significantly greater audiences to East Midlands' commercial radio than we battled for in the vintage, vinyl days.

Returning to our old home was a little like one of those odd dreams where random people from your life gather in an impossible location.  Or being treated to an opportunity to step back in time, and continue, in loco, the conversations which had been severed some decades before.

As we cleared up the venue late that night and restored the venue to its new purpose after a beautiful emotional journey, we slotted our  memories back in their rightful place at the back of our minds.  The old logos, the old jingles, the old pics returned to their cardboard boxes too, like Christmas decorations on the twelfth night. The reminiscences  are over for now. 

Meanwhile, for all those lucky enough to still be working in this great medium and still as excited as ever, let's set out to create some more great times we can, one day, also look back on with similar huge enthusiasm.

• More - very personal - memories in my book 'Radio Moments'. Grab a copy now!

Radio. And trust.

Richard Huntington, Chief Strategy Officer, from Saatchi and Saatchi, will never put on weight. His energetic and persuasive presentation today at the impressive #tuningin conference, staged by a new colourful and United RadioCentre, commanded the attention of the usually fidgety throng.

His message was clear, as befits an inspiring speaker. Trust matters to brands. He told with affection the story of Barclays Bank which, like Lloyd's where I worked for a desperate seven months, used to chain its pens to the counter. They were fearful that people might rush in, intent on stealing the lot. They did not trust their customers. And if they don't trust their customers, why should their customers trust them? The story ends happily, as Barclays cannily moved to branded pens, inscribed with the motif 'borrowed from my bank'.

Great brands do not ask for trust, they show it, in the hope their customers will offer loyalty in return. This concept of repricosity is well-established. In my book, I quote the work which suggests that even offering a cup of coffee to someone helps to build an expectation of mutually fruitful dealings. In commercial radio, that repricosity can be shown by delivering entertaining or useful commercial content, rather than shouty ads. 

Radio is trusted. We know that. My station received an email a few weeks ago from an angry listener complaining to us about a client from which she'd had poor service. She blamed us, because we'd aired the ad. She made our responsibility abudundantly clear 'I heard the ad on your station, so I thought it wouldn't be a rip off'. 

Another listener wrote to us last year, having bought a ticket to our marvellous Free Radio Live annual multi-artist gig at the Genting Arena. She asked if we were laying on a train. We, her trusted friend, had sold her a ticket and she felt we might be able to offer her a lift too. The fact that listener invested in tickets even before any line-up is announced is trust again.

Matt Deegan related to me, over a tasty slice of ham at lunch, the angry epistles he receives from parents who feel that the odd song on his Fun Kids station is unsuitable. One sympathises with the agony of selecting songs for a range of kids of all ages.  The listener, however, had no such sympathy. She felt the station she trusted had let her down.   We get the same, with listeners writing occasionally saying 'I know I can normally have you on, but today I worried about what you said when my kids were in the car'.

BBC station BAs will often tell of the calls they get asking the location of a doctor's surgery or what time B & Q closes. Radio stations are trusted to know everything.  

Which is trusted more - radio news or the press?

Expectations are high. When a programme ends its run, or a programme strand no longer can justify its cost, listeners are indignant. How dare you change something? Whether a commercial or a BBC operation, there is an expectation that radio stations are there to provide a public service. A service they trust. 

Radio should make more of the trust it commands. Do people trust ads on a Google search as much as they trust an ad on radio? Do people trust a presenter delivering a commercial promotion more than a banner on a website? 

And, we should be sure that, however, our industry continues to change, we treasure that reputation. We should, in the words of Richard, 'leave something on the table' and not extract every ounce of value from the listener without consideration. 

My book 'How to Make Great Radio' is out now from Biteback publishing. Proceeds to the Radio Academy.

You’re up to date, I’m Fred Farnsbarns

Why do people insist on proclaiming their own name when they appear on the radio?  

It’s a policy I can defend with energy for regular programme presenters who spend hours each day with their listeners, for years and years.  For those personalities and on most formats, it’s only polite every now and again to shake hands with the dear listener, say hello and announce who you are.

What is a little more puzzling is when ever-changing contributors diminish their short time on air by announcing their name as though it truly is much more important than anything else.  The travel, weather and news headline folk really seem hell-bent on trumpeting their name sufficiently clearly for their mothers to hear. 

On some stations, by the time we’ve got through the station jingle and sponsor, and they've announced the fact that they are about to deliver the travel news and announced their name in full, there’s scant time for the hold-up on the M1.

On others, we are formally introduced to the nasal work experience lad who’s been asked to voice a news report into which he’s had no input, for no discernible reason. His identity is of no relevance and adds no weight to the contribution. He's hardly our Home Affairs correspondent.

This headline position of the contributor's name suggests someone believes it is the most important thing of all.

Again, if you are an expert correspondent in your field, ‘part of the show’, the whole show (whatever the format), or make a regular substantive contribution, there’s a good case to be made for saying who you are.  In those cases, your reputation and familiarity brings value.  On a fast-moving rota, where different thoroughly proficient voices pop up across the schedule, delivering utility information without reputation, do listeners really care too much to whom those honeyed tones belong?

I wonder why we do it.  In my experience, sadly, most listeners to many successful music stations only just remember the names of excellent presenters, even though they appear for hours every day.  How many would actually recall the names of the folk providing the many breathless cameos?

It was not always thus.  Until the ‘30s, British news bulletins simply launched straight into the latest delicate headlines from the Empire, delivered in impeccable tones.  The perils of wartime, however, brought a risk that bulletins from other less reliable foreign sources might be confused with Auntie's. At a time where the first casualty is said to be the truth, it was felt that listeners “must be able to recognise instantly the authentic voice of BBC broadcasting".

View image | gettyimages.com

The instruction was accordingly issued that newsreaders should identify themselves.  FrankPhillips was first to do it - 75 years ago, in July 1940.

Back then, they made a meal of it too: ‘here is the news - and this is Alvar Lidellreading it’. 

Identifying yourself brings its price too: listeners know who to blame.  One irate listener scribbled a neat note to the DG after hearing Phillips purring from his Bakelite set: "sack that man immediately; we'll never win the war while he is reading the news".

Now, everyone’s cottoned on, and we’re all hissing our names, regardless of the relevance. Maybe we should extend the policy by introducing ourselves proudly by name each night to the checkout operator at Tesco. I could even play my accapella name-checks to them from my phone, come to that.

This July, the habit is 75 years old.  Do we still need quite so many names in quite so many places? Time for a re-think now the War’s over?

That was David Lloyd  reporting.

My book 'How to Make Great Radio' is published by Biteback,  

Proceeds to the Radio Academy.

The RadioMoments Challenge

Loading The Radiomoments Challenge

It's seventeen before eight - the folly of radio time-checks

‘It’s 17 before 8’ uttered a hugely experienced broadcaster the other day; and one for whom I have huge respect.

‘7 minutes ahead of 8’. '

 23 after 8'. 

'It's 14 minutes past the hour of 6 o clock'.  

What?

Stop this nonsense.

Why do presenters have this obsession with over-complicating or oddly-phrasing something as simple as the time?  They toil over translating it into a language unfamiliar to any citizen on earth.

The rule should be simple: say it as if a response to a friend asking you the time. As with so many matters in radio, say it as you normally would.

In real life, what do we say? ‘Just gone twenty past eight’.  ‘Five to eight’.  ‘Nearly half past eight’.

As I began working to set up Lincs FM, the Chief Executive shared his list of obsessions with me – as CEOs are fully entitled so to do. He hated silly time-checks; and even went as far as spitting out his tea if he heard a digital time-check.  Thus, it was never, ever 17.43 in Mablethorpe. Oh no.

By 1967, Tony Blackburn appeared to have adopted his policy of only telling the time on the half minute.  'Its seventeen AND A HALF minutes past eight o clock'.  He does it to this day. Mind you, Tony can do what he likes – his irony works.

In a recent focus group I moderated, the topic of time-checks came up. Playing devil’s advocate, I suggested they might be redundant nowadays. Not least because we all carry phones with the time on display and alarms built in; digital radios show it even when in sleep mode; and, for goodness sake, even your cooker even tells you the time. The assembled radio listeners were indignantly unanimous in valuing radio’s reassurance and gave me the impression that if the radio said it was ten past eight, and everything else suggested ten past seven, they’d believe the radio. That’s nice.

I was then prompted to ask a similar question of 5000 listeners in one of our sporadic questionnaires last month, just to double-check that it remains correct to glare angrily at breakfast presenters who forget to mention the time.  Maybe life has moved on, I mused.

The result surprised me.  A majority deemed time-checks very useful and 89% found them very or quite useful. Only 3% suggested they really were not needed.

Listeners like their benchmarks vaguely on time too.  Most stations have a policy on how far away from ‘on time’ you are allowed to be.  Some are honest about it on-air: ‘it’s just after eight 'O clock’; or you might hear the journalist who’s been twiddling their thumbs for ages spitting out an angry: ‘It’s THREE minutes past eight’. Some stations pretend it’s still 8 'O clock, when that time is but a distant memory.

Then Pips sound nice, as does Big Ben.   They make things sound terribly important.  A sense of precision and accuracy, even though we know that buffered online listening and digital transmission now mean the pips can arrive in Mrs Miggins’s kitchen at about ten past. As above, it matters not really, a reasonably accurate steer is generally all you need.

View image | gettyimages.com

The Pips have been sounded since February the 5th 1924; a bright idea from good old Johnny Reith, who was not averse to precision.  The Astronomer Royal, Sir Frank Watson Dyson, duly sorted out some mechanical clocks in the Royal Greenwich Observatory  - after chatting it all over with the chap who invented the pendulum clock. Handy to have mates like that.  Two clocks were used, in case one broke down.  It’s the unique way they’re funded. Mind you, they only cost twenty quid each.

The BBC generate the Pips from within Broadcasting House nowadays.  If that gig ever gets pitched out for independent production, I’m going to turn up in the lobby of BH with my descant recorder.

Thanks to talented James Cridland and cheery John Myers for reminding me about this matter, which is a notable and annoying absentee from any chapter in my book.

But please, no more silly timechecks. And don't bother telling me it's the year 2015 either. I know that. 

My book 'How to Make Great Radio' is published by Biteback publishing.Proceeds to Radio Academy

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. 

Pictures from the Past

Disc jockeys are meant to be heard not seen.  But these pictures from the Getty archives really do sum up a time and a place.

Enjoy here, one of the launch pics from the opening of Radio 1 in 1967. Sir Tony staring into the camera lens, griping onto a pair of those funny BBC headphones. And what a fine bit of woodwork there from the BBC joiner.

View image | gettyimages.com

Rosko was the rebel in those days, with his lunchtime show. Look, he's barely clothed here.  John Dunn famously introduced  his news bulletin in Rosko's show with: 'now the news. In English..."

View image | gettyimages.com

And on the station's first birthday, the presenters famously gather feet away from Broadcasting House, to return to the steps of All Souls Church.  For many of the characters, it is the closest they'll get to singing hymns. The assembly was a little diminished from the parallel shot a year before, not least because the fledgling Radio 1 policy was to hire everyone on four week contracts and see who worked out best.  Canny approach.

View image | gettyimages.com

Down the road at Capital, in a rare 1973 shot in his office at Euston Tower, Chairman Richard Attenborough is likely none too pleased as he peruses the company's early accounts. 

View image | gettyimages.com

And the early team at London's LBC were no strangers to challenging accounting. In this shot, a tech op watches as Janet Street-Porter and Paul Callan present 'two in the morning' (get it?) on that launch day in October 1973.  I'd prefer to have been the tech-op, as he got to hammer the buttons on the ITC triple stacks.

View image | gettyimages.com

Commercial radio, in a fashion, had been heard in the UK much earlier, thanks to the wobbly signal from Radio Luxembourg, after it returned following the War.  Its influence was sufficiently powerful to make stars of people like Pete Murray, later on Radio 2 and LBC. Even the Teddy Boys looked up to him. And Pete's suit looks a lot better than a sweat shirt with your name on which his descendants puzzlingly chose to wear.

View image | gettyimages.com

Back at Capital, surely 1974 mid morning host Michael Aspel does not surely need quite so many EQ channels on his mixer.

View image | gettyimages.com

And colleague, Kenny Everett, is evidently aghast at the contents of the Capital Radio manifesto.

View image | gettyimages.com

As Capital's Graham Dene celebrated 5 years with the station, a cake arrived. With Michael Aspel in it. Thank goodness those rumours of radio being rife with back stabbers are false.  Technics turntables were poised  - alongside the classic Neve desk which was a stranger to PFL.

View image | gettyimages.com

Kid Jensen arrived in the UK from Radio Luxembourg in 1975, lodging at Nottingham's Radio Trent for a year before graduating to Radio 1. Here he is, in a novel pose.  It is certainly better than clutching headphones, or pointing to an alarm clock or cheque. 

View image | gettyimages.com

By 1976, the cult of Wogan had begun; and this talented Irishman began to relax and enjoy it. Just keep your feet away from those Gates turntables, Terry. They were truly the best.

View image | gettyimages.com

Surprisingly little audio exists of Chris Tarrant, despite his long rule at the Capital London helm.  Maybe he was more of a listener's presenter than an anorak's - and there's little wrong with that. Thank goodness we have pictures though. Note how many more screens there are in this 2004 shot, compared with the 1960s BBC shots. 

View image | gettyimages.com#

Frank Phillips is the name of a BBC newsreader better known than many before him. Not least as it was Frank who became the first newsreader to announce his name.  All part of making British broadcasts immediately recognisable as such in times of War.  The habit stuck, and now every contributor of travel, weather, whatever commences their broadcast with a smile and a proud namecheck.  Even though the War's over.

View image | gettyimages.com

You don't see many of those discussion booths now: minimalist acoustic rooms equipped with just a bouncy table, a mic and a talkback box, thanks to the show engineering happening 'through the glass'.  Pete Murray enjoyed himself here in October 1970, with a pair of those dinky little BBC cans clipped to his 'earoles. 

View image | gettyimages.com

The old BBC desks were industrial in style. Like cars before power steering, you had to pull these faders down with force when your needed the next jingle from the ITC cart machine.  It was no problem for good old JY, even with the future PM looking on and crashing the vocal in February 1975.

View image | gettyimages.com

You can always tell a jingle anorak when they  concentrate more on the cart labels in a pic rather than the person pictured. Try this Radio 1 shot from the early eighties. Ignore Adrian Juste at your peril, though.

View image | gettyimages.com

Thanks to all the photographers through the ages who have patiently witnessed our medium. We are grateful.  

One final shot.  How delicious is this. As the BBC moved premises in 1932 from Savoy Hill to the newly built Broadcasting House, a photographer paused to film the removal men at work. But why has than man got a crate on his head. And who is in the coffin?

View image | gettyimages.com

Grab my book 'How to Make Great Radio' from Biteback. Proceeds to the Radio Academy

And the winner is...

U

The regulator used to call you cheerily if you’d won a radio licence. The phone would ring at precisely the designated time and you’d duly jump and down with joy, and hug puzzled colleagues, if the news was good. 

If the phone didn’t ring for a few moments, you anticipated the result was unlikely to be good.  Your number was self-evidently second or third on the regulator’s scribbled list.  As the minutes ticked by, gloom would descend as you realised you’d wasted a whole slice of your life.  No matter how well wrapped up in regulatory pleasantries, nothing can make the failure to win a licence feel any better.

There are no runner-up prizes, not even a licence in Macclesfield. On losing, disappointment is total. It’s a little like losing your seat in an election.  

There is the indignant surprise of failure. If you did not passionately believe that you had the very best chance of winning, you simply would not have entered the arduous race.  Blood, sweat, tears and significant expense form part of every decent licence application. Every word is caressed.

Even in the best-planned projects, there are moments of drama along the way.  I recall losing the chance of a Leicester FM licence in a pitch battle. We’d had the rival changing management at the last minute; potential board members getting strange things through their letterboxes; supporters changing side; and all manner of colourful happenings.  The licence, though, was safely returned to the incumbent.

What adds to the annoyance is you cannot really let off steam by portraying the opponent as the bad guy. Typically, every infuriating rival bid features some good friends, and involves some people you might wish to work for one day.

Despite the passion, anger and, on some occasions, legitimate concerns, few have challenged the radio regulator's vote in court and no-one has yet been successful in so doing. Those busy bodies have, it seems, been a little better at their jobs than the rail regulators. 

The day after that Ratae defeat, I simply grasped a spontaneous day's holiday and wandered around Abbey Park morosely in the sunshine, kicking the leaves, considering what might have been.  Licence wins and losses change the course of radio history and they surely change careers.

There are the occasional spurious licence applications where even those submitting them did not feel they had a cat in hell’s chance of carrying off victory, yet they did.  I shall let those lucky individuals tell their own story. There are also the winners who truly did not deserve to win and history tells its own story of those.

The current FM (and AM) local licensing regime is a ‘beauty parade’, that is to say we are invited to stroll up and down the catwalk with only the text of our licence applications to preserve our modesty.  Decisions on our relative attractiveness are based on the infamous Section 105 of the Broadcasting Act 1990, which bears a handful of dull statutory criteria.  Which applicant can best: broaden listener choice; appeal to local tastes and interests; attract local support; and be sure to sustain itself for the licence term? 

I am privileged to have served as a suited regulator for a short period in the 90s, when the

job of licensing fell to the Radio Authority, housed in its grey partitioned building close to Holborn Tube.  My department was called upon, inter alia, to feed what was then an enormously lengthy licensing process.  It even featured live applicant interviews to build up the tension in true X Factor style, although no-one was invited to Tony Stoller's house.

The Authority’s executives, most equipped with brains the size of Emley Moor, would diligently evaluate the applicants’ proposals with a huge degree of skill and, contrary to the beliefs of some, utter fairness. Then we would all march in to the meeting room, jackets on, ready to help inform the decision of the Authority Members.  These Members, always with a capital M, were an interesting crowd; and, as is the case with every Board, some took their responsibilities more seriously than others. And, again, just like in any Board meeting, discussion could sometimes leap off into wholly legitimate yet unexpected territory with surprising licensing results.

Is there an alternative route which would avoid this painful process? Not least because the winner can often buy the loser anyway. 

Independent National Radio, of course, was decided by the size of a cash bid in an envelope, just like the TV licence auctions in the early 90s, where some bidders overpaid whilst lucky Central sumbitted the minimum £2,000.  Had the highest FM radio bidder, Showtime Radio, got its backing together more successfully in 1991, then the gifted Anne-Marie Minhall would have been playing High Society rather than Handel by now.

I guess that the art of assembling good old-fashioned competitive licence applications will soon go the same way as roof thatching; as FM licences are routinely renewed whilst DAB gears up -  and the DAB system itself licenses the landlords not the tenants.  That’s going to save a lot of us a great deal of time, effort, worry and expense; and we'll probably live longer.

Grab my book 'How to Make Great Radio' - published by Biteback