RTE Lyric FM: a genius radio station under threat?

Well hello there... my, it's been a long, long time.

How'm I doing? Well, I guess I'm doing fine.

Willie Nelson wrote that song, Funny How Time Slips Away. There are dozens of fine versions. It's a simple, truthful song of enormous quality. Songs like that get better with age. So do some radio stations, when they get the chance to grow into themselves. And so do some people, who blossom over the years. I'll come back to that. I'm working up a podcast series; I'll go into great detail in the next post.

I've used that couplet because I have been quiet of late on this blog. I've been not so much under the weather as comprehensively flattened. It's taken me a while to wrestle myself back upright. So, my apologies if you've been missing any, er, shining thoughts. Now, to the meat of this post...

  Classical Music and the arts on the Radio. Under threat. Again.

Photo: Peter Hopper http://tinyurl.com/y2xupyjo

I wrapped up a six month consult gig in April this year. The job was to set up the initial library and scheduling database for Bauer Media's new Classical music station, Scala Radio. It was enormous fun; it's work I love to do. What you heard at launch date was pretty much what I had been beavering away on since September 2018.

I would not have got that gig without experience gained twenty years ago with the team at RTE Lyric FM. I worked with them, on and off, for five years from 1998. Now, Scala's project was top secret when I joined. So that made me a good fit, being the only person they could find in the UK with Classical programming chops who wasn't at Radio 3 or Classic FM. I had also worked in New York on the RCS gSelector scheduling engine, and that came in useful too. I wrote the online help there. Since then, of course, it's been much expanded to go with the program's development. And it was a strange thing to look afresh at the work I did in 2009.

Lyric FM 

Of course I didn't know it back in 1998, but the Lyric work opened the Scala door for me. Lyric was the most fun place I ever worked for. There were, and I'm sure there still are, some brilliant, articulate, eloquent broadcasters. The Irish can put their English colleagues to shame with their use of language when so minded. Lyric was bursting with talent and enthusiasm. It's the only music station I worked at where the majority of the staff actually made music. Over its twenty years, Lyric has been garlanded with awards at home and abroad. They run on a shoestring budget. Lyric's funding to awards ratio must be one the most respectable in Europe. But now for the bad news.

A casual remark on an RTE TV show last week suggests that RTE are considering 'cutting' Lyric FM. It's all about costs: RTE are in even deeper financial difficulties than the BBC.

It must have been sickening to learn this information at third hand. There's a part of me that wonders if the mooted decision to 'cut' Lyric FM was helped by geography. Lyric is based in Limerick; Most of RTE in based in Dublin. I know, to my cost, how capital city workers frequently regard work done outside the capital with contempt. In the UK, it happened at Pebble Mill in Birmingham time and time again. In fact, this week, In the Radio Times, John Sergeant bemoaned the fact that sometimes he was forced to travel outside London to do his BBC work. The poor lamb. It must have been frightful. The provinces! I shudder for him.

Time for action?

Be that as it may, the bald fact is that Lyric is under threat. And I encourage you, wherever you are, to sign petitions, tweet and email your support.

Lyric is bold and adventurous. It is also a nursery slope, a training ground and a solid platform for broadcast talent that is out of the ordinary. Lyric champions a wonderful range of music. It is the home for much of RTE's Arts coverage. And it is astonishingly good value. If you haven't done so yet, take a listen here. 

Here are some links to follow and addresses to contact: both the basic facts and the people who make the decisions. They need to hear from you if you care about adventurous radio.

This link takes you to the facts as reported

CONTACTS

Dee Forbes (Director General, RTE) Dee.Forbes@rte.ie
Richard Bruton (Minister for Communications) richard.bruton@oireachtas.ie 

SOCIAL MEDIA
On Twitter there is a group voicing their opinion: go to @RTÉlyricfm 

And use the hashtags: #lyricfmpublicservicebroadcasting #savelyricfm

CAMPAIGNING
And sign this petition 

See more radio and broadcasting posts on Radio To Go

________________________________________________________________________

Subscribe to the mailing list!

* required field

Email Address * 

First Name 

Last Name 

Email Format

• html
• text
• mobile

BBC DG Tony Hall detonates a small but positive earthquake at Local Radio. Good man!

At last, a solid and sensible move at Local Radio level!

                         Are the clouds about to lift? Very possibly...                Photo Ariane Hackbert

Last Wednesday, I was with some terrifyingly excellent Institute of Professional Sound peeps. They handle all forms of audio: film, TV, recording, live, and radio. A pet peeve was sloppy audio standards at TV (David Attenborough's Blue Planet 2 voice track got a mention...). 

Falling standards was a big topic. The web came in for a pasting. Realistically, clickbait-driven web practice is bad news for old-school craft skills, in radio as elsewhere. Ten years of web audio shout-outs have drowned out a century of good practice, and twenty years of broadcast networking has shrunk learning opportunities.

So it was an absolute joy to learn, that same night, that the Director General of the BBC, Tony Hall, has announced he is putting a stop to the ghastly decades-long policy of cuts at BBC Local Radio. It is hugely promising on many levels. 

Whittingdale's little list: The White Paper and the BBC

Clowns to the left of them. Jokers to the right...

At the BBC: Ariel between Wisdom and Gaiety. Mike Knell, Flickr

I've got two pages open on my screen as I write this. Both make my blood boil. The first is yet another anti-BBC piece from Rupert Murdoch's Times, where Culture Secretary John Whittingdale is reported to have joked to a bunch of Tory Students that the end of the BBC might be 'a tempting prospect'. The article goes on to list Gary Lineker as the first to spring to the Beeb's defence. Go Gary, I say; power to you in your underpants.  

Item number two is just as jarring: a strident attack on the BBC from new boys Evolve Politics, who emerged after the Labour Leadership election, along with The Canary and Momentum. They're all over my Facebook feed. Depending on your politics and/or your Facebook 'friends', they may well be all over your Facebook too. That's the creepy way the thing works. Ironically, it's great for marketing...

Evolve Politics and pals are solidly, uncritically, behind Jeremy Corbyn; Jezza can do no wrong, ever ever ever. Evolve are never less than outraged. Here, they slam the BBC for being disgusting Tory stooges.  

Poor old Beeb, eh? Attacked on all sides, while the troops on the ground have to soldier on. It's reminding me of Tennyson's poem...

The BBC's future (well, maybe) and the Beeb right now

Time spent this week with both the high and mighty and the grafters

A weekend back, I was bantering on air with Les Ross on BBC WM, doing the Sunday newspapers. Les had returned to his first station for their 45^th anniversary celebrations. 

It ran very smoothly. Les was on top of his game, chatting with the newsreader, trailing down the day. It sounded great. We didn't exactly cover a lot of news; that's how it is with a presenter like Les. The vibe in the studio was terrific. A team of pros delivering effortlessly good local radio to a committed audience. It worked, really worked. 

Two days later I went to a meeting run by powers rather higher up in the BBC. This was much more buttoned up, and, dare I say it, a little tortured and convoluted.

Auntie, It's Time To Do The Right Thing.

This time, we didn't say it. Our MPs did.

Lots of discussion, since I last posted on the BBC's continued and very deliberate under-funding of broadcasting in the Midlands; not a lot of action. Well, not if you ignore what Cameron and Milliband both said at election time.

There's few signs that BBC powers that be are thinking of changing. But the issue won't go away. It's another elephant in the BBC room, lurking darkly, ignored in the hope that it might quietly leave. But this week, there's been a major development. MPs have stepped forward. Parliament has debated the issue. 

This was prompted by the Birmingham Post campaign, led by the extraordinary Graeme Brown, who picked up on the work done by the Campaign For Regional Broadcasting.

I went to the debate. It was fascinating.

The great BBC Midlands underspend: the Birmingham Post and Mail wade in

Wow. FINALLY.

On Birmingham streets this week

I've written about this before. You may have already seen the posts; if so, I thank you. There are links to my main blog outpourings on this at the bottom of this post. 

Some background: the Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands have been lobbying hard about this for some time now; they are absolutely right. But there has been little or no serious response, let alone attempts to address the issues raised. 

I'll sum it up: The BBC Midlands region sends more money down to headquarters in London that any other region, and gets an insultingly small amount spent back locally, way less than any other region. 

This has led to a collapse in the regional broadcast sector. It has done damage. It has stunted careers and jobs growth. 

Frustrating. How do you reverse arrogant and remote corporate mindsets and actions which have, very deliberately, crippled job prospects and hobbled creativity in the region?

A new, local, ultra-specialised record label, Sam? Quite sure about that?

Record labels are risky ventures... but this one has an impressive ace up its sleeve

So here we are, well into the internet age, with all the upheavals that the web has meant for recorded music. This has been picked over and dissected on this blog several times. 

The general consensus? The web has returned music makers to a state of penury and servitude not known for over a century. Music flows everywhere, regardless of who has the rights to it. This is nothing new: when Mozart staged his own concerts – he was a star pianist, the best in Vienna at the time – people in the audience transcribed every note. His work was available on the street the next day. And Mozart, in turn, was not above lifting other people's ideas without credit. 

So my general reaction, when I hear of a new record label, especially a label that deals with specialist, adventurous and demanding music, at a time when returns from recordings have hit an all time low, is to wish the people behind it well... and then ask if they are quite in their right minds. 

Sam Slater, on tour with TG Collective

Sam Slater, of TG collective and Stoney Lane, was remarkably cheerful when I threw this question at him.

"I think it's a natural progression for the scene here, almost what the area needs, in the genres that we're working in: Jazz, Classical and various 'World'-related music.  If you look at several major cities around the country: Manchester have one or two artist-led jazz-based labels that have done really well, and really pushed some of their artists internationally; Edition Records grew out of Cardiff and has a great vibe and quality of output; in London there's two or three...... "

...which doesn't surprise me. I'm not disputing the range of talent that you can draw on. We know that there's brilliant talent in the Midlands. The question I really need to ask you is – can this enterprise wash its face? It has to be daunting.

"Absolutely! But not so much daunting as exciting - we've been successful in releasing TG Collective recordings in the past, so I think when the music and personalities are interesting enough, the live side of things is original, dynamic and varied, and the promotion intelligent, people will still listen and buy an awful lot of music. Just that now it is consumed and sold over many more types of media and formats, and you have to be on top of them all, consistently.  Everything has to be of a very high quality, so the music, production, artwork and physical product of everything we release will be just that!  Silly as it sounds, 'success' will not necessarily be solely about financial gain, as a label or as an artist - if it helps to push careers, new artistic directions, opportunities and projects, great happenings, more national and international prominence for the musicians and scene here, and not losing much money in the process, then we're on the right track."

So Sam's not daunted. The label has sprung from the fact that there are maybe half a dozen people thinking of releasing, or ready to release, albums in the region. Kindred souls, ready to go. So why not create a focal point for all this?. 

"There's us – TG Collective, Percy Pursglove who has a fantastic project, there's Lluis Mather with an album done and ready; there's the Mike Fletcher Trio who are putting an album out in January. Chris Mapp's Gambol has recorded too."

"What happens in the Jazz world is – you release an album, you don't really tell anybody, you're a little bit embarrassed. You've made some wonderful music, and you occasionally sell a copy or two for whatever somebody will give you at a gig, in a pub, twice a year.... "

Sam's got a point. Musicians are not necessarily the best at self-promotion. The more involved, the more demanding the music, the more business issues can retreat to the background – often with disastrous long-term financial consequences. 

Jazz record labels have never existed as serious money-making enterprises – but they can be very effective career platforms and reputation-builders. Blue Note, which is celebrating 75 years of often precarious, hand to mouth existence, helped dozens of great musos get stated: Jimmy Smith, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Miles Davis... the list goes on for pages. But it's worth noting, too, that in their early days, before they were absorbed into a conglomerate, that their sessions were recorded live, improvised, and straight to stereo: one take stuff, with no corrections. And that's about as cheap as you can make it when recording Jazz. 

That sort of approach isn't how Stoney Lane will do things in the 21st century. 

"It's more of a collective support thing for everyone on the label. We're all doing this, so let's use this to point to the collective talent here."

You guys can take months, years to get the result you want. Are we talking about Stoney Lane picking up on finished works, acting as a distributor rather than a commissioning label?

"Initially, mostly yes, although the time it takes to record will really vary depending on the band, orchestration, complexity and their ideas for the vibe of the recording. We've got no serious money, as is always the way.  Most of the projects are recorded. Mike's had already been recorded. Lluis – I think he did a couple of days live studio recording, and a live performance recording with that band, and Chris did something similar.  So in some shape or form, all of the albums have been funded – self-funded in many cases; a bit of sponsorship and artist grant support here and there.." 

So far so good. But that doesn't allow for really big, ambitious projects. Listen to this early sketch of an extraordinary work from Percy Pursglove. I think it is amazing, fresh and ambitious. You can find it on the Stoney Lane Soundcloud page:

"When I first heard this, I found it really, really exciting. But that's a big, big project of you want to do it right. The album we will hopefully do, if ECM doesn't pick it up first, which would be wonderful, by the way... will be one from Percy Pursglove. He came to the end of a fellowship project which produced a piece, about a month ago, called 'Far Reaching Dreams Of Mortal Souls'... which was pretty heavy." 

I think it's breathtaking; absolutely wonderful. I wouldn't call it Jazz, though.

"No! This the exciting thing that I like about the label. I'm not shy to have it as a Jazz-based label, because that's what's here. But in time it would be great to branch out. Percy's is a mix of jazz and classical contemporary composition. It's composed for a choir and a seven or eight piece jazz band with space for improvisation within the work. It's all written around famous speeches and quotations from historical figures. We've got a nice live recording, but that's the first outing of the work. They had one day to rehearse it. The reviews are wonderful."

If that's a first recording, then the piece is very likely going to evolve and shake down.

"Probably, But now we've got the small tasks of raising funds to record it properly. With that many people and that level of musician involved, we're talking a fair amount to record it." 

Ouch, You'll have to bring in a lot of kit – a decent digital desk, a lot of mics, and a seriously good engineer. And you'll need a place with great acoustics, to house maybe forty or fifty musicians and singers. I can see why money is an issue. 

"We may have the venue, and we have the engineer. The guy who recorded the last TG Collective CD – Alejandro Merola – he's done a lot of work with us already. He recorded Percy live, and his attention to detail is way above and beyond." 

So it's really down to finance

"Yes. We're looking at a mixture of crowdfunding, and maybe grant bodies. Three or four different pots of funds."

The label has grown from the existing Stoney Lane operation. TG Collective's last album, 'Release The Penguins' came out on a Stoney Lane 'label' because it made sense. But now it's rather more ambitious. Distribution is sorted; promotion, where funds allow, is in place. But the big ambitious project is Percy Pursglove's. That's at least a year away, but what a goal to shoot for! I wish them all the success in the world. 

And if it does pay off, they there's a new Birmingham focal point for some very adventurous music-making.

Links
Stoney Lane Records website

The roster
TG Collective
Lluis Mather  Chris Mapp  Mike Fletcher
Percy Pursglove

See more posts on music business and infrastructure on Radio To Go

_________________________________________________________________________________

Sign up to the mailing list for weekly updates

Peaky Blinders: Birmingham grabs a slice of the London pie, with extreme violence. Oh, wait, that's fiction...

Concerned Birmingham License Fee payers arrive at Broadcasting House
in London for a friendly chat about the way their money is being spent

Red carpet capers

The BBC very nicely invited me to a Peaky Blinders preview last Sunday. It starts on BBC2 this week. Ripsnorting fun it was, too. The acting's top-notch; series 2 is a lot more violent and sweary than series 1. Even the Brummy accents are more accurate – they're not quite there, but they're better. 

Author Steven Knight has delivered a great story. It looks like he's given a lot of thought to the Birmingham-London relationship - never exactly a two-way affair of mutual love and respect. The show's going to make money for the Corporation and the London production company that made it, Tiger Aspect.

But, but, but...when the BBC and Tiger Aspect decided to make Peaky Blinders, I wonder - did they even think to base production offices in Birmingham? I could run through a list of invigorating BBC dramas all set in, and featuring, the regions. They were all made in the towns they portrayed. But not Peaky Blinders.

Plot spoiler alert

But the show itself is a winner. Posters are up to sell the series. Look, here's Cillian Murphy looking ominous and meaningful – and what a caption! 'London's For The Taking'. It doesn't take much to work out that his character, the unstoppable Thomas Shelby, is going to head down to the decadent fleshpots of the Smoke to mete out spectacular balletic violence and claim his slice of the pie. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I really like that idea. You may well agree once you've seen the first episode.

The BBC loves loves loves Birmingham, honest

Before the preview screened, we had speeches. You know, the Corporation really, really, honestly, really, does totally love Birmingham. What's more, jobs really, honestly, really, are coming back: 200 training jobs; a mysterious team of six digital hipsters somewhere down Fazeley Street cooking up unspecified brilliance; a 600-parter World War 1 radio drama series. And the usual reminders of existing output: the Drama Village, The Archers, Radio WM. 

All good, of course. Except that that modest output was in place two years ago, Home Front excepted. And most of the promised new teams have yet to arrive. What wasn't mentioned was that existing BBC teams in Birmingham are still facing further cuts. These may run up to 25% in some departments. One step forward, two steps back...

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm very happy that jobs, even if only vaguely connected with broadcasting, are on their way. It's not before time. But, in truth, not a lot has changed. So why is the region producing so little? I'll come to that. It's grim stuff. 

They do make tiny bits of Peaky Blinders in the region. Our hero was led through a warren of back streets by a local urchin in the very identifiable Black Country Museum. But even then, they didn't use any local talent. Instead, they brought in a freelance make-up team from Manchester instead of using local freelances. So the total spend was probably a few quid on meals and petrol to get people back home to Leeds or London.

So where is the work? And where is the money?

I learned this week that Birmingham based actors are now using friends' addresses in Manchester when applying for work at the the BBC in the North. It seems casting directors and producers are bypassing the Midlands in favour of talent closer to where they are based. This is all about the perceived viability of local talent pools, and I'll come back to that. 

2013 proportion of BBC license fees spent in region.
Figures from Campaign For Regional Broadcasting

The grisly core of it all is this: there is a vast and disproportionate amount of license fee funding flowing out from our region, the largest in terms of license fees paid, to be spent in London. Since I first wrote about this two years ago, the slice of license fees retained to be spent in the Midlands has shrunk, again, to less than nine percent. That's right, less than nine percent. This is far, far less that any of the other BBC Regions: it is derisively, contemptuously, insultingly small. 

So we Midlanders send around £830 million a year south. Interestingly, London license fee payers kick in about half of that. Once in London, Midlands money helps fund trifles like New Broadcasting House, expensive and failed IT systems, huge payoffs to sacked senior execs – thankfully now mainly in the past – and London-based companies who make shows like Peaky Blinders. 

This horrible funding imbalance was wrong when it was first flagged up. It's wrong now. It rankles. The BBC serves the nation, but dismisses and patronises its largest region while helping itself to that region's funding. And over the past twenty years, we have seen a hideous contraction in facilities and jobs across the whole of the Midlands, while every other BBC region has enjoyed significant investment.   

A problem that needs fixing

At least the BBC now grudgingly admits that broadcast centres across the Midlands have been woefully treated, Birmingham worst of all. That's good news. But there's a big problem: the damage has been done. It's seen as a done deal. Fixing it will be difficult. 

We all know that the BBC is under attack from an unsympathetic government and much of the London based UK press, which has much to gain. They will fill voids left by a diminished BBC with their own commercial activities.

But that doesn't absolve the BBC of responsibility to our region. Midlands talent and Midlands license fee payers deserve a steady, solid, well-planned resurgence in broadcast and production activity. That's the foundation. That's what's needed. 

How to set about it? Well, an affordable and realistic set of steps tied to a long-term plan would be good. Transparency would be good, too, but I think we can dream on there. It's worth noting that other people are stepping up the plate: here's Steven Knight talking about some exciting plans for production in the city. I can't tell you how refreshing this news is, after years and years of prevarication, dismissals, and bumbling incompetence elsewhere. Someone with industry nous has, at last. worked out that Birmingham is really well located, full of talent, and incredibly convenient to get to and from. 

What have we got to shout about? Talent. LOTS of it. 

We know that:

1       The West Midlands has a LOT going for it. To our shame, we don't shout about it. 
2       The West Midlands benefits from a young and inventive population. 
3       That population – I can't speak for the East Midlands or East Anglia – is pretty much the most diverse in the UK. 

I hear all this regularly from BBC executives when they do big up the region. There's much to celebrate. But, hey, I knew all that already. I've lived and worked in and from this region for most of my working life.

So let me add some more facts:

1       Our young and not so young population produces some of the most thrilling and refreshing music, dance, writing, video, indie film and theatre in the UK. It's never, ever, been better than right now. 
2       That output deserves to be supported and celebrated. 
3       We need those talent pools to ferment and grow across all sectors. The BBC can do this brilliantly when it wants to. It's at its best when multiple diverse talents inter-react and create. 

A wild and crazy idea: let's celebrate that talent 

If we take that as a starting point, an easy way - not the only way - to get the ball rolling would be to use radio. It's affordable and flexible. And the most popular and cost effective form of radio is music radio.

So here's a wild and crazy idea: why not place some nationally networked music shows in the region? I can't see any reason why not.

In Manchester, Marc Riley, Craig Charles, Radcliffe and Maconie and Mary Anne Hobbs deliver 31 hours a week for 6 music, as best as I can work out. There may be more, but the station is a trifle coy about telling us where the shows come from.

I'm not complaining about this. It's great. It means that presenters and production teams are based in that city, perfectly placed to spot new talent from the city; that's just what they do. Marc Riley does Manchester proud. And I'll bet you a pound to a penny that that local awareness at network level in Manchester leads to conversations with the local BBCLR Introducing teams. With that bridge built, career possibilities open right up. And the talent pool – remember that idea? - grows and develops.

None of that happens in the Midlands. Why not? There are brand-spanking new radio studios gathering dust in the Mailbox. There is raw material aplenty and presenting talent to burn across the region. Current and prospective staff are itching to develop their careers in their own region.

And, let me, once again, remind you: this region collects more money for the BBC than any other – 25% of all BBC licence fee income - and is by far the worst represented region in terms of broadcast output. It's time to start redressing the balance. It's not just fair, it's also the right thing to do.

Baby steps, huge rewards

So that's my modest, preliminary, just for starters proposal. I'm not even going to begin suggesting how this will be achieved; I expect the very idea will lead to howls of outrage and derision from Broadcasting House - the very people who should be implementing this kind of change. 

But if that nettle can be grasped, wouldn't it be good to see daytime weekday shows, in prime time, on both 6music and 1Xtra, and, hey, how about one edition of a week of Radio 3's Late Junction, all coming from the Mailbox? And can the Asian Network be encouraged to look beyond Bollywood and start championing some local creativity? While all that cooks up, it would be the right time for those Digbeth digital guerillas to surface with their hot new apps. I hope and pray they've got some stuff ready for music and video. 

I could go on, because it really shouldn't stop there. We need more than tinkering around the edges. A serious and proportionate share of Midlands license fee money spent back in the region would amount to north of £500 million a year. Think of the jobs and creativity that might unleash.

But kicking off with digital network radio shows and new digital creativity would be a terrific and cost-effective first step, and something to showcase. A start, a picking of low-hanging fruit. Set this up, and the door opens to the creative critical mass that makes the BBC so great. With it, the first tiny opportunities are opened to the next generation of broadcasters. And the BBC reaches out in a fresh way to its worst supported and most exploited region.

The possibilities are limitless, but it calls for a lot of goodwill and imagination from the powers that be. I remain to be convinced that that goodwill and imagination exists. 

But think about it, Auntie, please. There are riches for the taking. It would be nice to have an answer, too. Or do I have to send Mister Shelby and the boys round?


See also
I choose Birmingham interviews Steve Knight

See more posts on broadcasting on Radio To Go

_________________________________________________________________________________

Sign up to the mailing list for weekly updates

Arts Funding: it's DIFFERENT in Germany. A chat with Simon Halsey, CBSO Chorus Master

I first met Simon Halsey 32 years ago, when he joined the team at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Now, he is the CBSO Chorus Master. This summer, he leads an extravagant public participation project, Crowd Out, taking over Millennium Point with a thousand, count 'em, a thousand, singers. I'm in: there's a blog post to come on this later this year. 

Halsey at TEDx, Berlin 2010. Photo Sebastian Gabsch

At rehearsals, he flipped from English to German with ease, the result of working in Berlin for the past 15 years. He is ferociously busy, about to swap the Berlin Philharmonic Chorus, Germany's top choir, for the London Symphony equivalent. His job is Chorus Master, but in reality it's a lot more. He has deep knowledge of funding, and, critically, of how organisations can survive and prosper, re-inventing themselves, burrowing deep into in the communities they serve, with humility and practical intent. 

So, he is an interesting and political man, as well as a committed musician with a unique perspective.UK Arts and Media institutions could do well to study how the CBSO, with his help, has played its hand over the past three decades. There are profound lessons to learn. 

The Dumb team: One Beat at a time

There's a sweet meeting of worlds coming up in two weeks. At the Birmingham Institute, new boys Jaws, Dumb and The Magic Gang do 2014 Indie. In the main room, UB40 are on, for several nights. The old and the new; a nice coincidence. One Beat's Ian Light agrees.

One Beat? Most people know the name from the very successful One Beat Saturday and Sunday day-long gigs they've run summer times in Birmingham, focusing on new local talent. The next One Beat is in July, expanded to a two day bash, this year working with urgently cool on-trend promoters This Is Tmrw. The complete bill is yet to be released, but I expect a speedy sell-out: the mac arena venue is fabulous, if a bit small.

One Beat has a longer history than open air gigs. It's a record company and a management outfit, with one band on the books: Dumb. One Beat's Ian Light has a lot on his hands.

The Desolation Of Smug: The BBC in the Midlands

I love the BBC. I really do. But it’s hard sometimes. 

Gilded London palace...          Abandoned Midlands halls

I’m a big BBC fan. I see and hear inspiring stuff on the Beeb. More often than not, I give up in boredom, despair or disbelief watching and listening to anyone else. I use the BBC website every day. I respect Reithian principles. 

And I don’t side with those who want rid of the BBC; I disagree with beeb-haters. Last week, the Daily Mail cheerily relayed commercial radio's monotonously regular gripe that, as Radio 1 and 2 beats them hands down for listeners, those stations should be shut down, hobbled or sold, because... it's just not fair, and, besides, it means they're not making enough money. Hey, I thought it was all about competition, right? So, go compete, commercial radio. Get listeners, don't bitch about moving the goalposts. You could try putting more profit back into output for a start.

So I hope I’ve made this crystal clear. I believe in the Beeb, and I support them. 

But, and it’s a big but, this is an organisation that really does not make itself easy to love.

Regional bias? Perish forbid! How could anyone even think it?

There are many reasons to bemoan the huge loss of broadcasting jobs in the Midlands. The best is simple economics, but a bit of fair play wouldn't hurt. The Midlands region pays more license fees, but sees less BBC spending, than any other region.  

2011/12 BBC regional spend by license fee payer

As far as the Midlands media industry is concerned, it’s not even a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. You can’t shut a door that’s been smashed to pieces and left hanging off its hinges. 

It's taken years, decades. Thousands of jobs have gone. So it was interesting to attend the freshly-formed Campaign For Regional Broadcasting Midlands' first meeting. New to me and probably you, but with a formidable array of mainly BBC Drama and TV contacts, this took place on Thursday 21st February. During the meeting, some breathtaking statistics were reeled out, which you really should know about. 

The fact is, things are bad - really bad. If we ever want to see a proper grown-up media sector in the Midlands region again, there’s a lot of ground to cover, a lot of assumptions to challenge, and a lot of attitudes to confront. Locally, a toxic combination of laziness, arrogance, bad thinking and poor decisions has sped the process along. More after the jump.  

Don't You Point That Thing At Me Pal! #3: Ian Dunn talks music photography

Erica Knockalls, Wonderstuff, 2012

In the third of this blog's snappers stories, Ian Dunn talks about the ins and outs of kit, his love of music, moshpit etiquette, favourite venues and more.

Ian Dunn runs Principle Photography. He's one of maybe half a dozen local snappers you'll see regularly hoovering up images at venues around the Midlands and beyond. And like many of his peers, he has a passion for music and the scene that supports it, as you'll see if you read down the page.

But you may not see him at all. Ian works very unobtrusively. Gets in, gets the shots, gets out. He's a stickler for that definite and precise code of collaboration that he and others observe as they go about their business.

Even if you haven't seen him at work, you'll most likely have seen the results of his work. If you're at all interested in local music, his site is worth a visit.

We met up for this blog piece a few weeks back. And, as you'd expect from a rock snapper, we kicked off talking about... Opera.

Videos: get the concept right, then worry about the budget

When radio stations check out new acts, they often use YouTube to see what sort of numbers a song is scoring. It’s a very rough guide to interest in an act – useful, but tricky. 

Here’s why. Firstly, with much-loved bands, fans can and will post hand-held clips, and this can dilute the impact of a key video. It’s not all bad though, if you see it as evidence of a band’s following. Bands also post multiple mixes – if you search on  YouTube  for Poppy and The Jezebels 'Sign In Dream On Drop Out', you'll find 6 clips, including this one, breezily shot in Spring 2012 on the streets of Birmingham:

But in addition there are five other videos of the same song: three are inventive and nicely produced variations on a theme. But the other two are live, and one does the band no favours at all. 

Secondly, YouTube (and Vimeo) numbers can be just as easily manipulated as the charts were back in the day. Then, having a chart return shop that contributed to sales totals for the weekly charts was the key to a never-ending flow of ‘favours’ from record companies tying to fiddle the chart numbers. Now, there are companies who will hype your YouTube numbers - for a price. 

And different genres get different responses. So - not perfect. But that's just one side of it. The video makers I talked to said something completely different again. 


Just as new tools have empowered musicians, so their equivalents have done so for video makers. Affordable digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) can double as surprisingly cheap and effective video cameras, for example. 

Click around to check out local vids; you’ll find a dizzying range. But what interested me most in researching this piece was the question of cost. I talked to lots of local video makers and bands… but at no point could I extract precise fee information paid by the band to the video maker. From anyone. I did get the impression that everyone worked themselves into the ground to deliver for their clients. But - people are really rather cagey. It’s understandable. 

Here’s Matt Watkins of Beat 13, who has done some great work for Evil Alien.

"Evil Alien came to me as I'm in the same studio as them and I had previously done a video for a mutual friend.  I was offered a small budget and attempted to produce something in as little time as possible. In the end the budget didn't reflect anywhere near the effort that went into the production! Of course, the Youtube/DSLR combo is great for new bands - the quality of work achievable is way beyond what was expected 10 years ago. However, I have been doing this sort of thing professionally for a long time now and I still struggle to complete something 'cheaply'. 

 It’s a continual challenge. If the bands are cash-strapped – and of course they are, it’s a given – then how do they scrape together a video for a budget?  Caroline Bottomley at Radar Music Videos, where bands can look for video makers, sets a basement entry-level price of £500, and posts this note of instruction 

"Some people are unsure why the minimum budget that can be posted on Radar is set at £500 / c$750 / c€600. We think it is important Radar helps labels and artists (to) generate good and great music videos. We encourage labels and artists to post briefs with higher budgets, as in our experience budgets below the minimum amount don't tend to attract many talented and experienced directors. If your video budget is below the minimum allowed on Radar, you need to find another place to commission your video.

"Some ideas:ask friends or fans via Twitter, Facebook, your mailing list, google film student websites and headhunt directors, make a slideshow from stills (where you own copyright), make live or rehearsal room videos. Good luck and we hope you'll use Radar when you've got more funds.

How many videos were commissioned, say in the last six months, in each price bracket? 

"Ooh, difficult to be precise on that as there are some videos commissioned a long time ago which still aren't released. And some we just don't know about. But if it helps, there were about 130 briefs posted in the last 6 months. About 2/3rds generally go to commission. About 4/5ths are for minimum budget, ie £500. The biggest budget in the last 6 months was for £10k. 

How realistic do you think video makers are on cost, and does this change as you go from the £500 mark up to the premium market? 

"Hmm, also a bit difficult as I'm involved at the introduction end and only get to hear about whether directors are unrealistic about costs if things have gone wrong. I have to say this is not very often. Some bands/labels are very unrealistic on cost. They're disappointed when they don't get a world class video for a £500 budget. The irony is that for not much more - say £4k, they're very much in with a chance of getting a world class video. 

Am I right in thinking that the main promotional area for band videos right now is YouTube, and does this have a bearing on production values? 

"Yes, and will continue to be for a long time I think, as long as bands can make money from having their videos there. YouTube are extremely keen to encourage more bands to use YouTube for monetisation. Does it have a bearing on production values? Simple and clever videos trump expensive production values on the whole, so yes I guess so. But only in so far as small screen/internet videos are shareable, so shareable is the holy grail now, rather than being playlisted by TV schedulers. 

How would you feel about the assertion – frequently made in an area I work in (voiceovers) - that web sites that offer work can lead to a downward pressure on price? I personally don’t think it’s a major factor at the top end, and that cheaper and more accessible tools can be a significant factor across the board? 

"Yes. I think there is a downward pressure on price. In fact we introduced minimum budgets to stop the worst examples. Some bands really can't afford much, and they have great music, and there's no doubt directors who'd love to make the video anyway. But if you allow one person to post a brief with a budget of £100, then another person with maybe £1000 to spend, thinks 'Oh, I could get a video for £100'. A big challenge for us is making a clear connection between budget and quality. The main issue is not production values so much, as directors have pride. Under £10k, directors are going to be pulling in favours anyway. But it's easier to pull in favours on a £2k video than it is on a £500 video. 

 Back in Brum, David Cawley produced this fantastic video for ADO…. 

...and he's got some thoughts

"The current landscape is: there’s still the big budget projects, but they are few and far between. I think where a lot of video makers get scared is (because) there’s a lot of video material out there, and it’s often bands with me and friends – a bit like me and the ADO.You do things for people – but that undercuts where you used to make your money. There are also vanity projects, which can be quite lucrative. A friend of mine runs a Grime YouTube Channel…

 …where just conceivably there’s might be quite a lot of ego floating about….? 

"You said it… but there are people monetising that. People paying just to get their face on YouTube. But that has led to bigger deals in some cases, where people have built a channel around a brand, with videos and content, and record companies getting involved. If, say, thirty thousand 16 to 20 years olds who all like Grime music, are logging in every day, with a stream on twitter, people who see themselves as wanting music careers try to fast-track that process by buying into that particular channel. 

Which, of course means work comes back to you. But they are buying a reach – but that doesn’t mean they’re any good. 

"Yes, but that doesn’t matter to them! It’s ego. 

Most bands feel they have to have a video 

"But they don’t know why, though. 

And some of the numbers just don’t match the quality. How does that work, what is the payoff? 
Let’s say a cheaply done vid that still costs a substantial sum – say £1500 - but only scores 1500 views over a year, for example, is that cost-effective? Might they be better off shooting themselves on a smartphone and calling people up…? 

"Maybe they should have spent their time making better music, or promoting themselves first. When I work with a band – ADO were a great example – the main thing that I look for is that they have a plan. I believe in their project, and I get exposure. So it was a no-brainer. 

So sometimes it’s a co-operative thing 

"Yes. But with compensations. I got to go to (shoot at) Shambhala for free, which was nice. I don’t like to undercut the profession, but with things like ADO, there were payoffs. And my email’s on the video, and it’s now been seen by 6000 people. 

The bar is being raised all time. What would you suggest? 

"The most common mistake people make is to put the camera first. If an idea is a good idea, if a story is a good story, then it can be shot on anything. If the concept is strong, it will succeed. A video only builds on what you’ve already got. I had a friendly altercation with someone on Facebook who posted a great video, but then mentioned that they did this for £500. Over the conversation they did mention that the person who made the video put hundreds of hours in. 

So, no facts, except that nobody's getting rich here.  Here's the last video clip for this blog,  just out and shot at Highbury Studio in King's Heath, South Birmingham, featuring Hannah and The Gentlemen. Fresh, clever, fun, directed by Merlyn Rice and produced by John Mostyn. 

And when I talked to Hannah, on the night of ADO's 2nd birthday gig, guess what? She wasn't giving any fiscal secrets away either.

Links
Radar Music Videos