CBSO and ADO. A tale of two Orchestras

They both absolutely rock. We should be proud of both bands.

We have great orchestras in Birmingham.  Why, I saw two this week. Now, I just may have been the only person who attended both of these gigs, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to see other kindred spirits: the music making was equally passionate and fulfilling, and the audiences welcoming and knowledgeable.

Wednesday night was the CBSO, rollicking through Mahler 9 and a brilliant contemporary piece, Kai, from Mark Anthony Turnage. Top notch delivery from all concerned, brilliant Symphony Hall acoustics, and a few members of the audience I would have tipped off the top balcony had I been able to reach them when they coughed or sneezed during the final movement.

Thursday night was the ebullient and witty Mama Matrix - I’d never seen them before, and I loved them to bits - and the third public gig from the Alternative Dubstep Orchestra, at a seething Hare and Hounds in King’s Heath.

Seething is actually the right word. I’ve never seen an entire audience go bonkers in quite such a complex and bendy-twisty way. If was if the crowd turned into a collective skanking jelly. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of this is due to the extraordinary heroics of guitarist Tom Hyland, who plays and dances with huge expressive freedom. But you simply can not single out anyone from this collective. The mix and approach are so infectious, and the shifts and splits in direction are fresh and mesmerising. I am deeply impressed. I love catching a band as it locks into something new and individual and unique. This was one of those moments. And they’ve hardly got started.

So who are these guys? Well, the full details are on their facebook page, but simply put, they are a live mash-up of genres, with stupefyingly good live djs (last night, Malicious DJ and The Doctor, with an appearance from Maxwell 45) and brio musicianship and skills from a multiplicity of music disciplines. Some musicians – they all play with other outfits - rotate in and out, and they plan for flexibility and surprises, underpinned with a solid sense of structure and purpose. There is a very early video available for you to watch, but it cannot capture what they do live. And a mixed multicultural band draws a multicultural crowd, who as I’ve already said, mashed themselves up into a pulsing, oozing, frenzy. In some ways, the gig  reminded me of the Rock Against Racism gigs of 30 years ago – but here, the driving force was the sheer pleasure of experimental music making, powered by the purest idealism and goodwill.

This is very new and very vital, and I urge you to check them out. They play monthly gigs (so far), at the Honeycomb Club nights at the Hare and Hounds in King’s Heath, with intensive rehearsals in between time. The set is brief – four or five numbers - but those numbers are extended work outs which stretch the band and the audience.

Huge props to all concerned, not least the unstoppable Shelley Atkinson and Karl 'Malicious DJ' Jones, who dreamed up the concept, and then charmed, cajoled and bullied the project to its feet and into vibrant life. Respect and admiration doesn’t begin to cover it. And many thanks to Richard Shakespeare for the use of his picture

An INTERESTING year… because we live in interesting times. Don’t we?

It’s New Year’s Eve, and I’m taking stock. In many ways, this has been an extraordinarily diverse and creatively fresh year. I’ve found myself both trying new things with new techniques, and also handling old-school projects in new ways. I’ve met some truly great people, and worked with new and old friends and colleagues on some inspiring projects. I’ve pushed myself both creatively and technically, and winkled out some new skills. All that’s good, and in some ways a very pleasant surprise. But, as it says at the top… we live in interesting times. There are a lot of clouds on the horizon, both for music and radio. But let’s do the good stuff first, shall we?

Yesterday (Thursday 30th December), I spent a very refreshing and pleasant hour guesting with Brett Birks at BBC WM. It’s on the BBC iPlayer for the next six days or so here – scoot through to the start of hour 3 to hear it. We were talking music, local issues, and trailing the BBC WM transmission of my Handsworth Evolution documentary. This was a commission from Birmingham Music Heritage, and I don’t think that they or I had any idea of how the piece would be received. The doco is permanently up on SoundCloud; you can get there from this blog page. The doco was also aired on WCRFM in Wolverhampton on Boxing day, and it is due to get a further airing on Rhubarb Radio in the new year. That’s lots of stations, and the more the merrier, say I: as I stated when I put the thing upon this blog, the doco is available, free of charge and gratis, to any station that would like to run it – just drop me a line and I’ll get a copy to you.

This was a sweet, sweet project to work on. I have had some truly lovely feedback. There really was something special about the Birmingham Music scene in the late 70s and early 80s, both in Handsworth and Balsall Heath, and indeed across the whole city. New and enthusiastic players emerged from all sides, bursting with skill, creativity and optimism. Rock Against Racism played a crucial role in introducing audiences and musicians to each other.

I’d like to think that time laid some foundations for the sparkling cross-cultural collaborations we enjoy now. It’s too easy to view each new generation as sweeping away the conventions of their crusty and conservative forefathers. In fact, now that we are seeing some of the children of those great 70s and 80s musicians make their way in our local music scene, I know this is not the case. Sometimes, anyway.

Five or so weeks back from yesterday, we launched the Pilot Project website. I’ve written at length about this, and it’s fair to say that the site has had a gratifying impact. Lots of traffic, lots of time spent on the site exploring. I am especially grateful to my fantastic team of advisors and collaborators, some of whom went far, far beyond that extra mile to help the project find its feet. You know who you are; I can not thank you (or, indeed, pay you) enough.

The next steps are already underway. However, I won’t go into detail just yet about these. But if you haven’t been to the site yet, why not go there now? Click around. Read about how it came together. And, above all, explore some of the sensational music from our region.

There’s more: I've seen new and exotic client radio stations for the consultancy side of my business. I’m also now a proud member of the RNIB Talking Books reader panel, and I can’t wait for my next assignment. It’s serious fun, and I work with people, many from radio, who know the power of the spoken word in a way few others do. And I am pleased to be able to report that – tentatively – Rhubarb Radio seems to be building solid foundations for its future. Props to those good people who are making this happen.

Now… the downside. Mmmm. Where do you start?

I mourn for many of my talented radio colleagues, people I trained and worked with back in the day, who now, saddled with mortgages and bringing up families, have to carve out a new future outside of an industry that has decided it has no need for their talents as it rolls its radio ‘brands’ out across the country.

I hate the notion of a radio ‘brand’. It's got everything to do with not communicating... in an industry whose lifeblood is communicating. Maybe the Radio industry thinks its brands are akin to a chocolate bar…something you pick up easily because you know what it is, no matter where you are. And maybe that’s so. But maybe it’s also the case that a brand is such a familiar and known quantity that you can throw it away all too easily.

Here’s a scenario: I’m ditching my long-term fave station. I stuck with it when it suddenly morphed into Flake FM a couple of years ago. But I’m tired of that now, so think I’ll go over to Wispa FM. There’s really not a lot of difference, and somehow I don’t much care for either these days, but it’ll do for now. I suppose. Until something better comes along. Or maybe I’ll just go off cheap predictable sugary bland confectionery altogether, because they do this stuff better on the web or on the telly.  

Closer to home, I hate the way our local music industry is being starved of venues because property developers want to make a quick buck running up shoddy flats, and in so doing, try to get long-established neighborhood music venues declared noise nuisances. I know we need more housing; no argument there. Possibly we don’t need so many ‘luxury’ flats, but I’m not the one selling these, so how would I know?

I do know we absolutely need our venues. We need our talent to be able to work in those venues. It’s all part of the local economy, dammit. The next UB40 is out there. But if they can’t get started, then there’s no chance that the next UB40 will develop into a long-term vibrant business that will generate dozens of jobs and millions and millions of pounds for the West Midlands economy over the next 30 years. But, hey, some property guy from out of town will have sold a few more cheap flats and made our neighborhoods even more sterile. So that’s all right then. If you doubt that this is the case, just read this. 

There’s more of course: Arts funding, for example. But I think I’m going to stop there. I’ve ended this year in a much better place than I thought I would. For that, and for the talented and generous creative world of radio people, arts and music people and, especially, music makers, that I find myself sometimes part of, I am truly grateful. 

Here’s to 2011. We all need a good year. I hope we get one.

Rhubarb Crumble

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about radio. I’ve been busy with the Pilot Project, of course, but there are other reasons. The overall radio picture is relentlessly depressing. Imaginative and capable broadcasters are being squeezed out to make way for networked output, with less and less sense of an obligation to listeners or communities. All this to allow more er, ‘brand development’ (Radio practitioners who feel unjustly maligned are welcome to reply to this post).

Last month, there was more bad news. Like many community stations, the eccentric but occasionally quite wonderful Rhubarb Radio is feeling the cold winds of recession. The current managerial team is bailing out; an intensive effort is being mounted to build a new and solid structure for the continued existence of the station. As I write, there are positive signs. The latest revival news is here.

I really want the Rhubarb revival to succeed, for a number of very good reasons, listed below. But I have been struck by the harsh cynicism, and sometimes malice, with which Rhubarb's bad news has been met by many of my colleagues in mainstream and associated radio sectors. I want to challenge that. 

It must be said that a number of community stations seem to be not so much about community as about layers of control-freakery and ego-tripping. Rhubarb is certainly not immune. But, to be brutally frank, not one of the 70 or so stations I have worked at or advised could be said to be immune either.

Truth be told, I don’t know anyone who puts a show out who doesn’t have ego drive. Ego drive can be a very good thing. It should encourage competition; it should make you strive to make your show, or your station, the very best that you can make it. .So rivalry certainly comes into things. But it should not extend to barely disguised glee at a fellow broadcaster’s troubles. When I was programming at BRMB, I wanted to take the opposition (at the time Radio 1) down, big time, and it felt really good when I put a serious dent in their figures. That did not extend to wanting to demolish the BBC or shutting Radio 1 down.  There were those in commercial radio who did, and do, want it shut down, but that’s another story.

The spectrum of ability and impact in radio is continuous and seamless, from beginner to practised. There’s no clear division between the big boys and the tiddlers, much as the big boys would like to see it that way. But I have a problem with hearing one radio person tearing into another operation – no matter what reasons they may have. A bit of humility might be nice. It’s only radio, after all…..

We all started somewhere. Chances are it was a tiny station, online or otherwise, a whole world away from today’s glossy radio factories. Dumping on stations like Rhubarb, especially when they’re on the ropes, is an ugly way to thank the people who put your first college or community or tiny local station up, so you could start to practise your craft. I started in student radio. It was not perfect then; it’s not perfect now. But you won’t find me dumping on it.

We need those community stations. We need the room to allow people to experiment, to try new tricks, to learn their craft, to practise until they’re perfect. And we need community stations to reflect and support their communities, to champion the music from their town, to float new ideas.

When a station folds, it’s sad, but the world does not stop turning. But when a small station folds, yet another door closes that might admit brave, fresh and idealistic talent to the world of broadcasting.

When I was putting the Pilot Project team together, I approached a lot of stations. From the mainstream, apart from the gracious and constructive help afforded me by the BBC Introducing team at BBC Shropshire, I drew a blank, even from areas where I might have expected some kindred spirits. But four of the fantastic advisors who worked with me on the Pilot Project were or are community radio djs. They were and are valuable to me because of their knowledge and enthusiasm. This knowledge and enthusiasm also took them into radio, and their stations were the richer for it. Three of those advisors were from Rhubarb. All of them do excellent shows.

I want to keep listening.
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See more radio and broadcasting posts on Radio To Go

More Pilot Project stuff. The lessons we learn...

It’s fascinating how people use website information. We’ve had the Pilot Project site up for coming up on four weeks as I write this.

We’ve just added a new link – you can now email to info@pilot-project.co.uk.

I’ve been monitoring usage with Google Analytics. It’s telling us all sorts of stuff about where people are tapping into the site from.  But the nice story I have to tell today is that, placed at the very bottom of the Advisors page, accessed off the About page, is a small paragraph thanking some of the people who went above and beyond the call of duty in offering comments and advice. You kind of have to dig to get down to this section. But people have been digging. 

Mike Davies is a long-standing West Midlands Music journalist. He was down to be an advisor, but had to withdraw from our first shot for personal reasons. But happily, towards the end of our first curatorial period, he was showering us with ideas, which were most welcome. Yesterday Mike dropped me a note, because a band he worked with back in the day had been digging deep into the site, and turned his name up way down at the bottom of the Advisors page. And emailed him.

Not what I planned. But very nice to hear about. It shows how something like the Pilot Project , which is pretty damn well connected up, due to its fab team of advisors, can turn up even more connections. We saw a lot of synergies on launch night, and there have been more since then.

Another piece of news smacked me round the head this morning. I’d been double checking a couple of details on the site, and found out that the really excellent Senses, from Coventry, have called it quits. Sad for their followers, and it represents another tiny milestone for the Project.

Any site that takes a snapshot of 'now' is going to have to deal with change. Our approach this time around? We note that fact that with regret, the Senses are no more… and keep their music online for the time being. If there is any justice, the talented individuals from that band will go on to do other things, and if and when they achieve some success, it’s a nice to think that some of their earlier excellent work will have been archived for posterity. In a way that is the whole point of the Pilot Project. In the meantime, I’m racking up more feedback to evaluate as the Pilot Project progresses…

I mentioned some stats, didn’t I? Well, now... 

We have an average of well over four minutes on site per visitor. That means a helluva lot of people are sticking around for rather longer. Even at average durations, that means more than one track being checked out by each visitor. Not at all bad in these days of dysfunctional site surfing. 

Most popular page once you get past the home page? Well, it’s the Artists page. But the next most visited page is a surprise: it's the About page, which covers the whys and wherefores of the whole project.   

At the start of the site’s life, two thirds of visitors were from the West Midlands. Now it’s about 50%, which tells us that the site is rippling out across the world wide web rather nicely. And initially, most of the traffic came from Facebook and Twitter and blog plugs. Now we can see a small but growing slice of interest directly from Search Engines.

I could go on. I will, next time….  

Don't forget to email: info@pilot-project.co.uk

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Pilot Project 2

Well, we did it.

The Pilot Project site is streaming. And it's the morning after - one of those post-launch days. 

I've felt this way before, mostly when getting radio stations on the air. It's that succession of increasingly long and frantic days, making sure that all the bits come together, with adrenalin taking over to a ridiculous extent. Anybody who has worked in radio will know what I am talking about. But this was, if anything, more diverse, using a wider ranges of skills and disciplines. No matter: the West Midlands Pilot Project is now streaming live. If you want the background and the context of the site, it's detailed on this blog on the post immediately below this one, or you could go to the About pages on the site itself and check out the brilliant team that I am privileged to work with. But, really, what I'd love anyone reading this blog page to do is... to crawl all over the site, and then feed back to us, via this blog if you like. In fact, please do do this: let's make this a very public discussion. 

We have plans to develop from this most promising of starts; I hope to be able to realise these plans. The bottom line always was, and is now, that this site, and. hopefully in time, sister sites across the country will cherish and celebrate the talent that now emerges online, and feed this into the British Library New Music Network, stored permanently, for posterity.

Yes, the site undoubtedly has the potential to expose and promote our magnificent local talent, and, yes, it is a sign of the times that websites like this are now able to take on more of a role in exposing and championing this talent. And I do mourn the fact that most local radio has abandoned any sense of responsibility for taking this role on. But now that it is live, the changes and developments will be gradual, as we evaluate how we're doing so far. Remember, this is still an experiment and a test bed. We've just gone from phase two to phase three.

What's next? Oh, fixes, tweaks, software adjustments, editorial revisions, and planning, analysis, reports....

What's now? Play with this site. Enjoy. Talk it up. Tweet it, Facebook it. If you're a musician on it, let us know if it makes any difference.

It's worth noting that in our first six hours of live streaming, 36 % of visitors came from OUTSIDE the West Midlands. 25% from the UK, 11% from North America. So, hey, there is a minor promotional effect already. But I stress that this site is not built to directly promote new talent: it is meant to both record it and - especially locally, with the help of my magnificent team of curators - to celebrate it. No reason why those aims can't go hand in hand, though.

The Pilot Project

In 2010, we took a first step to curating a national archive of new independent music. There's a long way to ago...

On Thursday 18th November 2010, at 7pm, I was a happy man, if slightly apprehensive. That’s when the Pilot Project website went live. Before then it was an idea and a holding screen. Now, it’s something else altogether. Over a thirty month spell of planning, cajoling and nagging, The Pilot Project has gone from a rough concept to a really solid website, packed with good stuff.  It’s done so with considerable help from some truly great people, and a very welcome grant from Digital Content Development at the Arts Council. And it’s given me craft satisfaction, the likes of which I haven’t felt for ten years. Then it was a huge classical database, built from scratch for lovely RTE lyric fm. That was great fun and very worthwhile. 

This is too, and it could turn out to be even better.

Magyar Radio. State Radio under the cosh.

Working in Radio in Budapest. Pretty much like The Mailbox... or Donnybrook... or Oxenstiernsgatan.

Magyar Radio Headquarters

I wrote most of this on the way back from a radio consult gig in Hungary. I’ve done this sort of thing quite a lot over the past twenty years or so, working all over the UK and Europe. Maybe fifty different stations; sometimes it feels like a lot more.

There’s something special about the first walk to work, in a new city, heading to a new client. Budapest did not disappoint, with golden autumn sunshine, mist over the Danube, and people everywhere heading out for the workday.  The work is (almost) always a pleasure, invariably interesting, with endlessly different technical challenges, irrespective of the music programmed. And in case you’re wondering what all this has to with this blog, which is supposed to focus on radio and music in the West Midlands… well, actually, there’s quite a lot.

UB40 30th Anniversary thoughts

Call me DJ Urassic: I’m pretty ancient on the evolutionary scale of djs. Actually, I don’t jock anymore, and that’s probably a good thing. But I do go on the radio to do things like the Handsworth documentary. And because I’m ancient, I get called in now and again to talk about one good old day or another.

This month sees UB40 touring to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of their first album. As I was the first jock in the known universe to actually play any UB40 on the radio, I’ve been tapped up several times for reminiscences. This led to a thoroughly enjoyable hour today on BBC WM, gassing with Carl Chinn, taking calls and waxing lyrical about four track recording sessions in bedsits in King’s Heath. Ironically, the station on which I played that early UB40 stuff was... BRMB. You know, the 'Made In Birmingham' guys. They haven’t been in touch. But, hey, I don’t think they play UB40 that much these days. And truth be told, back in the day, the station wasn’t impressed by my interest in obscure local bands… at least until those bands stopped being obscure.  

Interesting fact: UB40 are the fourth most successful British band EVER. Consistency and long-term appeal will do that for you.

Second interesting fact: they deliberately chose to keep their business in their hometown. Not many bands do that.   

Third interesting fact: only a town as multi-ethnic as Birmingham could have ever produced a band like UB40; they know it, and we know it.  That’s why their gigs are so satisfying. It was interesting to note during the programme today that many of the callers feel a very real sense of gratitude as well as a kinship with the band. Seriously.

Fourth interesting fact – and this is where it gets personal: the session I ran on BRMB was a custom rough mix of some of the tracks that were being worked on for the first album, Signing Off. I asked for early mixes; I got them, they worked just fine. The session, in fact, was a stomping, whooping, huge success for the Rock show that I ran at the time.

Whenever I tell this story, I get asked if I still have the original reel to reel tape, as it would be a priceless piece of Birmingham music history – the very first evidence of UB40 on record.

I don’t, of course. In those days, stations recycled tape, wiping the content to re-use the medium. Pro reel to reel tape was expensive stuff. Why, a 10.5” reel, giving you half an hour of play, might run you £15 in 1979, and that was too much money to tie up. This is a difficult concept to explain to anyone under 30 years of age. Factor in inflation, and that £15 gives you enough money to buy a couple of terabytes of hard disk storage… Enough for thousands of hours of material.

Now, it’s easy and cheap to make room for audio storage. Then, it wasn’t.  So countless hours of priceless material has been lost down the years. BRMB is not alone: the BBC did the same; everyone did. So a lot of stuff got lost. Some of it, like the UB40 sessions, irreplaceable, and of huge historical significance.

In a few weeks, I am launching a project  - the Pilot Project – which aims to go some way towards preventing this sort of thing happening again, so that we can stand a better chance of holding on to the vital and powerful music that is being made right now. It’s been two years in the planning, and we are a long, long way from nailing this thing down permanently.

It’s a tough call. But I live in hope. Watch this space for details, very soon.

Handsworth Evolution – a documentary

One tradition. Three generations of Birmingham reggae.

I spent a lot of time in the summer of 2010 bathed in classic reggae grooves, chasing down some of the musicians I worked with at local radio, over a generation ago, for a radio documentary. It was a true pleasure, and while it wasn't quite a labour of love – Birmingham Music Heritage paid me, bless, em, but they didn't pay me that much – I certainly put in way more time than was economic.  The picture here is from Birmingham Museum and Art Galleries; the site's well worth a visit. 

While working on the documentary, I got to hang out again with some dear friends from back in the day – so nice to catch up with some of the guys in UB40 that I hadn’t had a chat with for ages - and forge new friendships with guys like the great Andy Hamilton, and the amazing Apache Indian. And I got to do a bit of proper radio as well. It’s all there – the story of how the children of those early post-war immigrants came up with a vital new approach to reggae, mixed, matched and mashed up... and invented whole new styles of music along the way. And right now, there’s even a third generation doing new and vital stuff. Now, with the blessing of Birmingham Music Heritage, whose commission it was, I am making it available via MixCloud. Know what? I love internet publishing. All three parts are after the jump.

Getting that gig on Radio – it’s tougher than ever…

I realised, looking at the front blog page today, that, to my shame, I have not posted for well over a month; for this I apologise. However, I do have good reason for this apparent inactivity: I have been, and still am, ferociously busy on something I am calling the Pilot Project, about which I will blog in enormous detail very soon.

I'm also about to start teaching a seriously detailed Radio Course, concentrating on presenting skills. Normally I cover music scheduling, in a concentrated burst – not perhaps the best way to approach the topic - but this gig has me working on presenting and production, at length, with a team of committed and savvy students; I’m looking forwards to it. And, in a connected bit of serendipity, I was asked today for advice on how to apply to a station. So now seems a good time to pull all this together. More after the jump….  

If you want a paid gig on a radio station in the UK in 2010, you need to know a few key truths:

First: there are a helluva lot less jobs to go for now than there were at the beginning of the year. See my posts here and here for a few more details.

Second: the pay’s really not that great, unless you work your way up to stardom.

Third: the guys – it’s almost always guys, by the way – that you need to reach are, frankly, feeling just a bit beleaguered, what with budget cuts on one side, and job cuts on  the other.

But let’s say that you’re going to bite the bullet and go for it anyway. Here are some tips to help you along.

Listen, hard and long, to your chosen station or stations. Make a note of what you consider the strengths and weaknesses. Then listen, hard and long, to your stuff. How does this sound in comparison? What have you got that might fit with your target station? And what else has the station done that has worked well – or badly?

By the way, I’m assuming you have existing stuff; there’s really no excuse not to have existing stuff, even if you’re starting out – there’s community, student and internet stations galore. Go get involved, now, if you’re not involved already.

Put a demo together, specifically for the station you’re pitching to. Don’t just assemble a demo and think that will do for everybody – it won’t. 

Make the demo short. Lose almost all the music, and use the opportunity to show off with some flash music edits to highlight your production chops… or simply fade out and in. The station wants to know what you sound like, and how you work with music. Even though you are targeting a specific station, be true to yourself.

Put the demo together on a CD, and label it properly – printed label, with your name, address, email and phone number.

Find out the right guy to send it to. Include a CV that majors on your radio experience. Don’t forget to list real-world experience too – it helps to show that you’re a real person.  You got positive press-cuttings, endorsements, and letters of praise? Great! Put them together on the CD too.

Send it, and wait. The station almost certainly won’t come back to you instantly. But they may keep the CD on file, especially if it impresses. 

Keep waiting.

Do NOT pester the PD, his PA, or anyone else at the station.

Keep waiting.

If you don’t hear anything… well, you’re no worse off than you were before. Keep on working at your existing station and/or your day job. 

Keep waiting.

If they ask you in for a chat, go back to that list of strengths and weaknesses you drew up when you researched the station. Be ready to draw on that list… but whatever you do, be careful. They may have a truly crap drive time presenter… but he could just be the PD’s protégé.  The music selection may make you feel ever so slightly icky, but it’s almost certainly going to be a long time before they come to you for your considered views on programming. Rubbishing what they are doing almost never works.

But be ready to make constructive suggestions, based on what you’ve found in your research.  Present yourself so that they see you as having something they may need.  Throw some competition or promotional ideas out – and be ready for them to be pinched.

Have an answer ready if they offer you a job on (ha) ‘intern’ terms. Decide how you would handle a salary of rather less than you’re getting now at your day job.

And, if you get the job… have an exit route planned, just in case you conclude, too late, that you’ve landed a gig working with a bunch of deluded basket cases, lead by a penny-pinching psycho who will never pay you properly, or promote you. It's not uncommon - sadly.

And don’t count on this as a long-term career move. This year, there are dozens of able, worthy, experienced professionals, all of who have families and mortgages, who right now are wondering where they can go to, now their stations have been rationalised out of existence. A lot of stations cater to kids or parents with young families – that’s what the advertisers want. So they tend to go for presenters with that kind of appeal. The means... twenty and thirty somethings.

By the way, in case you think I’m trying to talk you out of going for that dream gig… I really am not. I’d just like you to have all the facts. But I really, really, want you in the industry if you happen to be hugely talented and determined.

Good luck….
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