That nice radio interview? Upcycle it to video

Platforms for your audio, everywhere

I've had a little play with some new software. I took some audio from a radio show I did a few months ago, and added images and captions. Now I've got a nice video clip. 

The audio is excerpted from a lovely long interview I did with the great guitarist Gordon Giltrap, now based in the West Midlands. The full show is on Brum Radio's listen again page. 

Gordon tells a terrific story early in the interview; I found myself telling and re-telling it to friends. Gordon tells lots of stories, often in very compelling ways: take in a live show and you'll see what I mean. So I don't want to use too many of them up. But this was an lovely little tale, a nice candidate to embellish. I've put it up in this post, as a YouTube clip, after the jump.

Have we lost much? Oh, yes we have.

Ugly thinking; changing tech

Missing you already....

Things change. Last month, United, successors to Continental airlines, cancelled daily New York flights from Birmingham as of October. It’s a Brexit thing; also a consolidation thing. We're promised a new airline on the route from May 2018; it's looking pretty expensive for a low-fares operation. 

I used that flight a lot in the noughties - four hops yearly to the New York hq of RCS, the radio software people. I went over, two weeks at a time, to work with the RCS development teams on several projects. 

Looking back, now that United are closing my old route to New York, it was clearly a decade when things really changed at radio. Big forces bore down on the sector, kicking the industry into the 21st century. 

Did we lose anything? Oh, I think we did. 

The Noughties, Radio and an unforgiving business climate

At the turn of the century, RCS was at the top of its game. It had a powerful, exciting mix of radio veterans and brilliant developers, hand-picked by the extraordinary Andrew Economos. It was Andrew who first thought up software to schedule music at radio. For those who rage about Robot Radio, I would say that wasn't what drove Andrew’s concept. His idea was simple: get the best out of your music library. To do that takes knowledge, skill, humility, and a willingness to engage in dialogue and take different views on board.

Andrew had all that; his company reflected his thinking.

But that idealistic, individual approach would not survive more rigorous commercial competition, nor the corporate thinking that emerged as computing power increased. By the time I arrived, RCS’s unique market advantage was under attack, after two astonishing decades of dominance. At radio, as scheduling spread across networks, with multiple rival systems coming in to play, elegant programming was increasingly devalued. Automation became the norm; presenter input was devalued. When research software was grafted on to the system, risk-averse programming gained the upper hand for good. 

It's one thing to work from a paper print-out - effectively that's theory. It's quite another when music is set up for the presenter on a play-out system from which there is no deviation. That's practice.

I'm not saying that structure isn't a bad thing. 20th century radio allowed an awful lot of 'creative' behaviour. But for every maverick genius radio presenter, there were at least twenty self-indulgent idiots. Both ends of that spectrum gave management headaches; both were dealt with the same way. There were, and are, of course, decent managers who could handle great talent. But they were, and are, thin on the ground. 

Changing times on the tech front too: computer networks finally grew strong enough to carry the data needed to run multiple stations from distance. So there was massive consolidation: station after station went dark, replaced by remote, centralised programming. The road to consolidation was clear and wide open. Advertising revenue stayed relatively constant; staff costs were slashed.  

The web, consolidation and a takeover 

All this was in the noughties, before the web muscled in on music distribution, undermining radio’s ground and sucking up revenue. Things couldn’t last. Towards the end of that decade, feisty, creative RCS was bought up by Clear Channel. 

Culturally, the two companies could not have been more different. One was a blue-state East Coast operation, eccentric at times, yes, but home to creative oddballs and blue sky thinkers. The other operated out of San Antonio, Texas, deep in the heart of red-state Trump territory, where the art of the deal is: I’m right, and your opinions don’t matter anyway. Of course the incoming company brought their own, highly developed business systems in. RCS became a managed division of a large media empire.  

Interestingly, Clear Channel’s parent company, after gutting maybe a thousand stations and throwing the bitty remains back, is now struggling with an awful lot of debt. That's a change they didn’t see coming.

Much of this is ancient history: consolidation first, followed by the power of the web, has left radio much altered, for better and for worse; there's no going back. There is still a place for great radio if you want it. Podcasts and web radio prove it. It’s cheap to get on air; powerful tools are there at the click of a mouse. So if you believe in it, do it. Nobody's going to stop you. But there's an awfully big distance to cover from wanting to do something different... to actually making a mark.  

Newer, uglier, thinking

So what else has the web given us? Well... distraction and trivia for a start. Cheap and easy thinking. The web magnifies and distorts. Complex concepts are drowned in shouting, trivia and click bait. That brutish business stance of Clear Channel I mentioned above - by no means unique to that company, of course - has been ramped up to damaging levels.

That's the huge 21st century change: who shouts loudest wins. You don't like it? Well, here's a basket of adorable puppies on Facebook.  

Taking stock...

'bye...

So let’s look at those noughties United flights. They carried, overwhelmingly, Brits. Maybe 80% on each flight. All on shopping sprees with the dollar at 2 for a pound. 

Now you get $1.10 for your post-referendum pound. Aviation fuel is paid for in dollars. The US is costly to reach, and bloody expensive once you land. We’re heading elsewhere for our holidays. That's one main reason for the end of those daily BHX-EWR hops. 

Thanks, Brexit. 
Thanks, ugly thinking. 
Thanks, 'I'm right and your opinions don't matter'...

Things are different now, all over. I'm not sorry I got the chance to bounce around New York for a decade. It's, however, somewhat arresting to look back and see what was going on after a few years. 

Yup, we've gained a lot. But I think we've lost a lot more. 

See more radio and broadcasting posts on Radio To Go

__________________________________________________________________________

I still do stuff on Brum Radio, a volunteer-run internet station. It's online here; download the Brum Radio app here. My Brum Radio page is here; scroll down for all the shows. 

__________________________________________________________________________

I'd love it if you signed up!

The Mailing List is the best way to follow topics on this blog. You get a short Monday email with each post, with the big recent topics, and once in a blue moon, an offer or an exclusive freebie. I won't pass your address on, promise. 

Pop your email in the box below, and you're all set.

From Rave promoting to e-marketing 101. An object lesson from TicketSellers

Rave promoters then; impressively legit now. Who knew?

Slick and online. Times have changed....

You've almost certainly bought gigs tickets online. Leaving aside scam sites who will relieve you of £2.5k for an Adele ticket, there are dozens of straightforward operations, whose business is simply to ease the transaction process for operations both small and large. Links for gigs pop up on band sites, face book and twitter. Click and you land on the site. Pay and you get a code number which you present at the gig, on paper or on your phone. You're name's on the list, you go in. Voila. Life was never simpler for small acts and promoters.  Um. Maybe. 

Four lessons learned in 2014

Part 1 of the Radio to Go 2014 retrospective: more next week

We're heading out of 2014 at speed. As usual, it's been an eventful year. Lots of changes, and tons of great stuff to celebrate. I'm saving most of that for next week's review - some of the high and low points of the year and a look forward to 2015.  

Before that, a word of thanks to you for reading the blog in increasing numbers. As of publishing date, total page views were well over 237,000 - nearly double last year's total. Three years ago, when I shifted the focus more onto music, I'd hit 10,000 over four years. Writing the blog has led me to an awful lot of interesting topics, and hooked me up with some fantastic people. 

This week's post, also a yearly blog feature, is a lot more personal. Here are a few lessons that I learned - or, relearned - this year. They may be a bit counter-cultural, but, hey, that's how it looks from here. It's all about:

1. Webanomics, winners and losers, 
2. Things changing at media - slowly, slowly...
3. Yet another way the beeb is losing out
4. And...Albums. 

1: e-slavery...? 

The internet may be good for big business, and those who catch a wave, but for the rest of us? I'm not so sure. I feel like I'm there so someone else can make money, off me or from me, no matter what I do, or where I go. That's webanomics. 

Take voiceover work. I've been voicing (commercial and training videos, museum guides, that kind of thing) all my working life. It's a useful way to make a bit on the side. Here's my demo page if you're interested. Five years ago, I went online to reach new markets. I didn't really have a choice: most of the small indie producers I'd worked for had been squeezed out by web operations. And for a while things were OK. I paid a yearly fee to get job leads; I pitched a demo each time; I got some work; I came out ahead. 

The job lead agencies I used aren't fussy - they'll take anyone's money, and they'll post anyone's job spec. Now, anyone can set up as a voice guy. Kit is cheap; you don't really need a studio. So as the recession bit, more and more people came on board. Fees got smaller and jobs got harder to land. Clients failed to pay up. When you're stiffed by someone three thousand miles away, you're just not going to get paid. The job lead agencies wash their hands of the problem - all they do is introduce, you see. 

It's that famous web-powered level playing field again: a field so big you can't see the end of it. Great for producers; crap for talent. Now, people watch the job sites like hawks, and bash out a demo the moment a gig comes up. That works for some, but not me, not at least if I want to have a life. Spending my days welded to a computer screen for a chance to get work is not my idea of scraping a living. I met an ex-radio guy last year who told me he spent an hour cutting a demo for a ten quid gig. He didn't get it. Someone undercut him, by five quid. 

This doesn't just apply to my little market. There are sites like fiverr: places where you pitch for five buck jobs - or four bucks after commission. This is, effectively, e-slavery. A studio owner friend told me his market now splits between bedroom laptop warriors, a shrinking middle ground, and a top end in London where the big money goes. It's the same with voicing. Fine for the girl who voices for all the supermarket check-out machines - and good luck to her - not so fine if you're not in that market.

So I've bailed out of that way of working. Spending hundreds of hours a year chasing dwindling job prospects, while laying out over £200 per site for the privilege, just doesn't add up any more. I have some regular trusted clients who call on me to do work, and that's fine. I'm better off, I've got more time, less stress and I'm not funding companies - there's lots of them, and I've tried most - who make empty promises and then throw you sales pitches promising to help you get more business for yet another fee.   

Still, it could be worse. I could be a small business pitching through Amazon.

2: At LAST! signs of evolution at radio/broadcast media/video

But if webanomics are screwing you, there are upsides. Tech is allowing more flexible creativity. I've done a lot of really interesting and enjoyable radio and audio work this year. It's all been for the love of it, working with some astonishing people. And it's absolutely not conventional music radio. There are people who think differently, and some of them are starting to get traction. 

Change is coming, well away from 'conventional' radio. It's not just pert vloggers like Zoella rewriting the media landscape – there are now addictively good podcasts out there, and they're starting to find the means to pay their way.

I think the key is focus and direction. The big BBC and commercial radio platforms know exactly what they are doing. Whether you like them or not, they have a clear and solid idea of where they are going, and how they want to work with their audiences. The most successful of the new players do that too. That's something that small-scale radio often lacks.

It's also obvious that radio, the web and tv are converging. Formats and concepts dating back fifty years are being outpaced. Consider: dirt-cheap production software allows streaming of radio and video on the same channel. That opens up a ton of possibilities.

This converging broadcast/streaming world is going to continue to change. I can't wait to see what comes up - as long as it has focus, it stands a chance. Most of the time the web throws mind-rotting trivia at us: cute kittens, baby pandas and buzzfeed. That tide of trivia has a purpose: it's click-bait, it makes money. But a lot of radio has simply followed along, lapping it all up. Mistake. 

There's much more than that in play. If long-form television series, with demanding, intelligent plot lines and terrific characterisation, manage to punch through, breaking existing moulds, why not take that idea on to radio, and do it really well? That what Serial has done, with huge success.  

3: The BBC continues to cut its nose off to spite its face in the Midlands. 

Auntie, Auntie, Auntie! There's a screamingly obvious step you could take, right now, that would cost peanuts and boost your reputation no end. 

I've had long chats with the affable Tommy Nagra this year. He's Head of Business Development for BBC Birmingham. Part of his pitch is to sell Birmingham. No argument from me – I've been here since the early 70s. Tommy also praises the city's diversity. That's familiar ground as well. I was the first radio guy anywhere to put UB40 on air. Oh, and Ruby Turner, The Specials, Steel Pulse and The Selecter, too - all of whom wrote the book on Midlands multi-cultural creativity in the late 70s.

But here's the point I made to Tommy: it's even better now, and you're not doing anything about it. We're living though a new golden age of musical and literary creativity of all types. And where do we see this represented on our national broadcaster? Um...

If Auntie really gave a damn about the Midlands, rather than trousering the license fees we send down to London, while continuing to cut jobs up here, they would be all over this talent like a rash. It wouldn't cost much: this is a radio thing and radio is cheap. The BBC just needs an effort of will to lose its bunker mentality and actually connect with this market. Done right, this would be hugely powerful. All Auntie has to do is reach out for the low-hanging fruit, and find ways to celebrate it. 

It's deeply ironic: in 1927 the BBC had the biggest music studio in the whole country, right here in Birmingham. Even fifteen years ago they still had a gorgeous 16-track facility you could put a seventy piece band into. Now, that's a distant memory. There has never been any explanation for how and why the BBC came to so disrespect its largest region - the one which contributes a quarter of total license fee revenue. 

That hot talent isn't just in the Midlands, in fairness; it's all over the country... but this is my patch, and I am massively frustrated for all the local talent we have in our region, constantly passed over because the networks don't even bother to look. I'll come back to this, and what the beeb has done - or not - in 2014, in a few weeks. But remember: I still love and admire you, Auntie, and I always will. Right now, you're our best hope.

4: Albums matter. Oh no, they don't. Oh yes, they do.

Next week I'll list some of the corking albums that we've seen in 2014. This week I just want to flag up a question: why do we stick to the album format? I wrote about this a while back, and all the arguments are still valid. And here's a pertinent music industry blog piece from July this year.

Songs travel singly, especially when the web and mainstream broadcasters carry them, one at a time, on iTunes, Spotify and YouTube. So why do we stay loyal to a dated concept of a parcel of songs, originally physically gathered together around one concept, or one period of time? Well, we're not, really. Just ask Bono. As a mainstream business proposition, it's odd. Musicians lose out by handing their album over to streaming services. You have to pay, remember, to get your stuff up on Spotify. They make money, you don't - more e-slavery. 

Ah, but as an artistic proposition, it makes sense. Dated concept or not, an album is something that artists still buy into as part of their creative process. In some cases, it's pure vanity. In other cases, it represents a body of work, a milestone, a statement of intent. Musicians still plan out sets of songs for live work. So its logical that they would embody those sets on CD or Bandcamp downloads. 

The distinction is that the musician trades on a relationship with his or her audience, while the music industry trades on saleability of product. And at cottage industry level, the album stacks up. You go to a live gig and the artist blows you away; you take away a memory; the artist gets his or her due. In fact, it seems to me that, at local level, where so many excellent artists ply their trade, the ability to sell your own work directly has given local music-making a massive shot in the arm.

The paths that music and musicians take to reach listeners are many and varied. The only time that fashion comes into the equation is when you're being sold something. 

Bottom line? Creativity is in rude health. But many creators are not - yet - getting their rewards. Again. Still.

Have a peaceful Christmas. 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Sign up to the mailing list for weekly updates

Hang the DJ? Not much point any more.

It's a dog's life behind the decks these days...   

A radio pal - a complete hero, she programmed the best US gold station I've ever heard, back in the day - tipped me off about a fascinating blog post from a club DJ a few days back. Published last year, it's a scorching condemnation of new club DJ conservatism, written by a guy who uses deep repertoire to work the crowd. His beef? Less risk-taking, cynical venues, crowds who are into selfies, and globalised dance-pop have all brewed up a perfect storm of demand. The call is, increasingly, for surefire floor fillers. That's it.  

This is richly ironic to radio guys; they've already got that particular t-shirt. Mostly, radio doesn't allow any choice at all. Jocks wind up blanking out the music they play, which is deeply unhealthy. You would too if you had to play the same stuff every day for months on end.