It was 48 years ago today...

I did my first radio gig. In the USA. On a Rock station.

On 27 May 1971, jetlagged after flying in two days before, I went on the air on WPHD-FM in Buffalo, in upstate New York. 

I was a Brit import; they named me Robin Thomas. There were a handful of Brits in US radio; work permits and visas made it tricky.  

This was the early 70s, the time of the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Free, Sabbath, Derek and the Dominos. What we now call Classic Rock. A big big slice of that came from the UK. British rock really mattered in the US then - it certainly doesn't now.

And for US Rock stations, a Brit DJ was an asset.  That's why WPHD took a risk on an unproven kid with only UK college radio experience. Bless.

The Hound, the passing of time, and the cruelty of change.

Talking bout my radio generations. 

When I was 23, the radio station I worked for went to number one in its market for the first and only time. It was my first radio gig. The PD was ecstatic, and we were pretty damn pleased with ourselves. 

I was an English import on a US rock station, WPHD-FM in Buffalo, in upstate New York. My presence, or rather my accent, was a gimmick, but it was a realistic ploy for a station which played tons of British Rock. WPHD really was the call sign; we targeted the, er, college market. Our sudden and surprising ratings success was due to boomers adopting the newer, cleaner stereo FM frequency; that, and the station's decision to, finally, lean heavily on rock hits in its programming. But, looking back, the listener switch to FM – a tech issue, and I'll come back to that - was the major factor. That same switch took place a decade later in the UK.

The Hound

From Kevin Golsby's Flickr stream          

Across town, leading his own soul station, WBLK, was the veteran broadcaster George 'Hound Dog' Lorenz. George Lorenz had been a 50s north-eastern US radio superstar at the leading local Top 40 operation, WKBW. He got to be syndicated worldwide for a spell. He was the real deal. There's photos of him onstage with Elvis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee... He discovered Wilson Pickett, for chrissakes - or so the legend goes. 

I loved George's vintage schtick. Lots of reverb, slick patter, cool name-checks, killer sense of rhythm and delivery, pacing, vocal range: he had the lot. It was super-classy stuff. Yes, it was dated, but it was still brilliant. George was there when rock and roll started. If you dig around on the web, you can find a bunch of clips to listen to. There's links to sites at the bottom of this post to get you started.

The radio-friendly news stand

I used to go downtown to the one news stand which stocked out of town papers. The vendor had a unique market: all the out of town radio guys who revolved in and out of gigs, from town to town. The life of a dj was - is - precarious: I would regularly meet guys at our sister Top 40 station who lived in caravan parks, trailing around the country from station to station. Mostly, they were divorced; you can understand why. Harry Chapin wrote about those guys. 

My downtown news stand man loved radio. I'd go down on a Wednesday to pick up an expensive UK Sunday Times and catch up on the football. And we'd talk radio. He used to listen to Twenty Questions, relayed on the local CBC station, booming into Buffalo from across the border in Toronto.

So, it's springtime, and my station of misfits, longhairs and hippies was number one in town. The news stand man asked me how my station was doing. Of course I went off on one about how we'd killed the opposition, quadrupled our numbers, all that. I gave it large, as we now say. I'd expected an interested reaction, but all I got was a non-committal 'is that so?' as he handed me my paper and sent me on my way.

I didn't get back downtown for a few weeks. But, soon after, George Lorenz passed away. The industry marked the passing of a legend; thirty years and more at the coalface.. 

When next I went to get my paper, the conversation went like this:

'I see your friend died.'

'Who? What friend?'

'The hound! George Lorenz.'

'I know! But I never met him. Wish I had, I loved his show.'

'Ah. Cos he was standing right behind you when you were saying how great your station was.' 

Oh, crap. 


I felt about two inches tall.

The cruelty of change

Tech changes everything in media. It always has. That brutal change was over 40 years ago. It did for a lot of old school US stations. Lots of stations folded, sold up, or flipped to cheaper formats like talk, once FM got to be the big deal. Later, much later, came networking and station clusters.  

I'm lucky – I'm not not a George: I don't own a station where time has moved on; I'm not suffering because massive changes have overwhelmed my industry and my business. The pace of change has accelerated since those days; it's given me new tools which I rather enjoy. But now, it's even more brutal, and it still doesn't take any prisoners. And, always, the changes come garlanded with brash new generation spokesmen who are happy to lay down the law to you and me about the new rules - rules which sad old fossils like us can hardly be expected to understand. 

I can guess how George Lorenz must have felt, listening to some Brit hippy kid, still wet behind the ears. A kid, moreover, who was banging on about his industry: Rock and Roll radio, the one he'd spent his whole life in, the one he had helped create. 

It really wasn't WPHD's brilliance that hit George's operation hard. Truth be told, we were barely competent; we had some classic stoner jocks who would put on the longest tracks they could find, because they were lazy bastards. We just got lucky when we got our five minutes in the sun; it could have been anybody. And the station lost its market-busting share as soon as savvier operators cottoned on to what we had been doing. No, the damage was inflicted by two big changes: demographics and technology. New audiences, new generations, and new methods of delivery. 

Hey, where did my audience go?

That change is still going on now. FM is old hat. New music doesn't reach us on the radio so much, if at all, and each new generation grabs the new tech and sweeps effortlessly forward with it. When radio was able to embrace the new tech, that tech served it well. But now? 

Tech has evolved to fit what management wants – radio now has tools like like hyper-speedy research systems to let them get closer to their audiences. I'm not sure they're being used right, but I'm not pushing those buttons. 

And, just as it did over 40 years ago, tech has also taken an entire generation of listeners and shifted its perspective. That is a big, big problem for radio. If people grow up without getting into the habit of listening to the radio, what can radio to to stem this flow? I'd love to hear some ideas.

Young listeners....?

Here's an example. I'm working with some very smart young people on a string of radio projects: scripting, editing, voicing, music selection to meet editorial priorities, debates, interview techniques, talking to time, reaching new audiences. These are all skills that could be useful in a number of fields besides radio. We're having fun, and there is some talent to work on. 

But none of those smart young people listen to the radio – unless they're in a car with their parents. Then, it's Radio 2 or Radio 4. 

Why? Because they have their own things; they don't need old stuff. My generation had FM stereo; these kids have smartphones, gaming and torrent sites. It's the same process that ultimately took audiences away from George; just different gewgaws and baubles to entice fickle customers. Easier access, right for the new breed, a universe away from the old. 

Things get old fast at Radio, especially when owners panic over shifting markets. Consider the speed with which formats change. And consider, too, how BBC Radio 1 switches and ditches, faster and faster, in an attempt to hold on to its increasingly vaporous audience. 

Reasons to be cheerful

The cruelty of change won't stop hitting, of course. It's already changed today's radio far more than ever it did George's. I'd love to think Radio could survive and prosper, and I actually think it will. After all, one of the strongest human instincts is to communicate, person to person. Radio can meet that need better than almost any other medium. 

Well, it can, when it is allowed to. I look forward to changes in technology which will enhance communication, not drown it in a welter of chatter. That may well happen, surprisingly, with podcasts and mould-breaking new independent works which are at last getting some traction. 

In the meantime, here's an affectionate and rueful tip of the hat to George Lorenz. I loved the pictures he painted, and it was a privilege to have been able to listen to him. 

I just wish that damn news stand man had introduced me... 


Links:
George Hound Dog Lorenz tribute site. Packed with audio clips.
Forgotten Buffalo's George Lorenz section: more clips and YouTube videos

See further in memoriam posts on Radio To Go

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BRMB Radio. Free to go... into the history books

BRMB’s owners are re-branding the station. Does it matter? Probably not. Does the fact that it probably doesn’t matter… matter? Yes, I think it does. 

Logos courtesy of Orion Media

Things change

KSAN-FM was a legendary late 60s West Coast Rock station. They rewrote the rules.  They defined the template for rock radio worldwide, and I wouldn’t be in a position to write this now if they hadn’t. 

KSAN flipped to Country in 1980. 

In the UK, the Home Service lasted 28 years before becoming Radio 4. The Light Programme ran for 22 before morphing into Radio 2.   

So is it really worth getting all worked up because Orion Media, BRMB’s owners, are dumping the BRMB name after 38 years? Well, yes... and no. 


No, because things come and go. Think 70s stuff: Walkmen. Video Discs. Think 70s and 80s music: can you really get excited about the Rubettes, cheesy Disco or Olivia Newton-John? Or, for that matter, the Bee Gees, the Eagles, or even the Rolling Stones? If you’re under 35, almost certainly not. 

Orion are repositioning BRMB (and sister stations Mercia, Beacon and Wyvern) into one new brand, Free, with central output and limited local programming from each town – no change from what they are doing now. It’s a business decision. They’re being heavily outgunned by national brands Capital and Heart, who have huge budgets and megastar TV campaigns to pump up their stations. The Orion boys can’t fight on that front.  If I was in their shoes, under the exact same conditions, I might do the same thing.    

There is of course, a debate to be had about how things got to this position, and I’ll come back to that. First, though, take a look at this gruesome audience graph, which you can find on the fascinating and useful Media UK site: 

This charts the station’s share of the local market from Late 1999 to end 2011. Like I say, gruesome. From 17% of the market to 4.7% in 12 years. Ouch. 

But let’s dig a bit deeper. I’m going to draw a line at around July 2009, when the current owners took over. And I'll also plot the previous owners over the period. Now look at where the damage took place. 

Frankly, the new owners haven’t done all that badly, relatively speaking. All the serious damage was done by the previous owners, firstly the then Capital Radio Group... who were swallowed up by a merger into GCap... who in turn were swallowed by Global Media. 

As concrete evidence of savvy management skills, it lacks a certain something. As evidence of sensitivity to regional markets when viewed from a metropolitan base, it's pretty typical.

The last change of ownership came about because Global had to divest themselves of some surplus properties; at one point they owned nearly all the stations in the market. So they flogged off BRMB, Mercia, Beacon and Wyvern to the new owners, re-tooled Heart as a national brand, and morphed the old Galaxy into the newly national Capital FM brand. 

This will have been some time in the planning… plenty of time, quite conceivably, to decide that if you were going to have to lose stations to local competition, you might as well let them flounder first. 

So, that, partly, is why I think it no longer really matters that Orion Media are now reworking their old properties. It doesn’t matter now, because the old BRMB, about which a lot of sentimental guff has been spouted, has long since gone. 

Now, here’s why it does matter. 

Sentimental guff notwithstanding, BRMB was an eccentric and very local operation which had its moments. Those moments may have been accidental, infuriating to some, and pure radio gold to others, but moments there were. It was a rough-edged station with oddball mixes of programming, built out of old-school ex-BBC and British Forces thinking, with passionate specialist DJs pinballing around in off-peak hours. A lot of stations operated the same way. Weird specialist programmes at night. Lots of local content. Local music.

That oddball mixture struck a lot of chords. There's a timely reminder of just how many from a podcast published last week by The Word Magazine, and I'm very grateful to them for letting me reproduce the clip here. 

Mark Billingham is a very popular and successful crime writer. He grew up in Birmingham. In this interview with the Word's Mark Ellen, he reminisces about growing up in Birmingham, its local scene, and the role that BRMB played. The whole thing is worth a listen, but his comments about BRMB - and me - start at about 10.30" 


On a personal note, it's a hell of a thing for a DJ to be remembered after over thirty years. DJs are the very essence of ephemeral... From BRMB's perspective, that deep and warm acceptance, evidence of just one listener's trust and affection, is something stations would kill for. And stations only get it by reaching out and engaging, on all sorts of fronts.

But, to today’s sharp-eared radio executive, that sort of operation was ripe for polishing and slicking up. And there’s no question, BRMB sounds really polished and smooth compared to some of the more eccentric personality-led programming of its heyday. The music is researched to the nth degree, there’s not a nanosecond of dead air, not a single commercial opportunity is missed. There's no rough edges. 

Here’s the thing. If you get too smooth and polished, things tend to slip past you. Rough edges are there for a reason. It’s like grit in an oyster.

Once stations started the inevitable move towards becoming corporate and branded, those rough edges were systematically filed away and smoothed down. Sadly, along with that smoothing went a whole lot of relevant content. But the big problem today’s commercial operations face is that there is always something bigger, flashier, and better promoted that’s going to park its tanks on your lawns. For BRMB/Free, that’s Capital and Heart. 

Ironically, the self-indulgent, wobbly, ego-driven and inconsistent station that BRMB used to be – of which I was a part – pulled in listening figures that the current operation would kill for.

Equally ironically, the biggest station in the country, the unmoveable beast that today’s commercial networks wish to kill off (and will not be able to unless the government helps them) keeps on growing. Slowly, steadily, inexorably. That’s BBC Radio 2. They have a LOT in common with the old commercial model. They just do it all a lot better, and with bigger budgets, deploying multi-formatted specialised evening shows, big personalities, and music-driven programming. 

The past four years have seen much of commercial radio move to a new corporate, branded approach, with national brands, regional conglomerates, and an awful lot of job losses. And in that time the BBC has marginally increased its overall share of the market.

Here's another graph. This is telling. It is, again, derived from data published on the Rajar (Radio Joint Audience Research) website. The top line shows figures for All BBC Radio listening; the bottom, all Commercial Radio. The time span covers the last four years of  mergers, branding and and re-positioning, during which time all the consolidation and and consequent job losses has taken place. 

The absolute best you can say about the work of the past four years, and then only if you give Commercial Radio the benefit of the doubt by applying the usual margins of statistical error, is that all this re-branding activity has achieved... precisely nothing.  

I wish the team at Free all the success in the world. I really do. They’re going to need it, in a brutally competitive environment. At least they're broadcasting from the area they're meant to serve. I know this has been said before… but in the search for a USP to make their station stand out, I wonder, just wonder, if ticking a few old-style radio boxes might be worth a try?  

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