Vlad the Programmer: radio from the other side of the Iron Curtain, then and now

Ever caught up with people you used to work with? Laughed about the old days? Bet you didn't have days like these. 

Twenty two years ago, I was in Sofia, Bulgaria training a young radio guy in Selector, then the leading - pretty much the only - music scheduling software for radio. Pertinently, we also spent a lot of time on Western radio programming styles.

Vladimir Daynov is a big wheel in Bulgarian radio these days. Back then, he was the head of music at the fledgling FM Plus; I'd been sent out there by the then GWR group. Typically for the time, GWR had moved into Europe as the UK market matured. 

Eastern European radio was not exactly regulated; after the Iron Curtain fell, expectations were wildly optimistic. Now, it's a lot closer to the Western model. That may or not be a good thing, depending on your point of view. We'll come back to that, Vladimir and me. We've been swapping notes for weeks... 

So what does YOUR station think you should be hearing?

Music tastes change. So should station libraries. 

More friendly advice for the Beeb from the Times    Flickr - Shawn Kincade

I'm getting tired of the endless government and rival media onslaught on the BBC. Pretty much every day, the Times or the Mail run smugly venomous pieces on the Corporation's failings. I hate this. The Beeb is not perfect. I'm one of many who want to see serious BBC production at all levels back in the Midlands. But as I've said before, the Beeb is unique; it delivers brilliant programmes; we need it.   

BBC Local Radio is in the frame now. An announcement that BBCLR might be a bit more personality driven met yet more carping: the BBC is reneging on its journalistic brief; more jobs to go; the beginning of the end. All that. Hard on the carping came strenuous denials that the Beeb was doing anything of the kind. And so on.

But much of this was about music on the radio. That's a wholly different debate.