The Original Sims

No promises; this will my first live programme in several years and it’s a strange studio, but I’m thinking about Live Blogging tonight when I’m presenter on Belfast radio station U105.  Maurice Jay has been doing the induction, showing me how to work the desk and the Selector.  I’ve been sitting in with Ivan Martin and John Rosborough.  The running order for tonight is done - and trashed.  Do it again before going on air.

So - I’ll attempt to Blog here - or Twitter here - or Flickr from here.

So if join me from 9.00 pm on 105.8FM, or http://www2.u105.com/ (you’ll be asked for a UK Post Code.  (If you don’t have on try BT7 1EB.)

And email me - studio@u105.com from 9.00pm

EB

This is going to be fun.  I’m going to be a DJ on the radio once again.  It’s a guest spot, one week only (well four nights) and I’m really looking forward to it.  Radio is where I started out 29 years and eight months ago at Downtown Radio. This time I’m going to be on U105.  But it’s little like going back to an old mates reunion. Almost all the presenters are old friends and colleagues from Downtown, BBC and UTV.  Maurice Jay - the head of programmes used to live 100 yards from me.

So I don’t feel like a stranger, and that makes a big difference.  But studios have changed.  The old desk I used to drive in Downtown has been offered to a museum.  Vinyl out - CDs pretty rare and there are three or four screens instead of turn-tables.

Naturally, you can listen online - but you need to use a Northern Ireland post code - something like BT28HQ.

This week’s interview on Learning Tea-Break was about Digital Photography.

To the Radio Academy in Belfast last night. Host, UTV’s John Rosborough, introduced the man, once described by a UK tabloid as "Dann, Dann, the Hatchet man".  Trevor Dann is possibly the man who saved Radio 1 to become what it is today, cutting back the "old guard" (who I once worked with) and starting anew as a radio station for people younger than 25.

Radio 1 had become an institution (parts of which the inmates had assumed control) and like an institution it had it’s own set of mores and traditions, it’s own passwords and secret handshakes.  And it was very, very old.  In what was seen in very negitive terms at the time, Dann and his colleague Matthew Bannister made the significant changes which probably stopped Radio 1 becoming privatised and rejuvenated the station to develop into a creative force that it is now.

Digital radio stations try broadcasting sound with pictures in a bid to make radio a visual experience.

Taken from Paul Robinson’s Media Guardian feature 29 October 2007

The continuing build-up of listeners to DAB digital radio services - both commercial and BBC - is also impressive, with the weekly reach (proportion of the population) who now listen to digital radio up to a new record high of 28.4%. The largest growth is coming from DAB digital radio which has shown a 15% increase in the past 12 months.
The total number of hours of listening each week by UK radio listeners is now 153m, which represents nearly one sixth of all weekly listening. We are a long way from approaching analogue switch-off, and unlike with television there is no date or timetable for the transition to digital. There is also, in an analogous way to TV, the challenge of multiple radio sets - the average UK household has five each - and there is no converter "set-top box" that will make an analogue radio capable of receiving DAB digital radio.
But the audience growth of many of the digital networks is a cause for optimism. BBC 6Music and BBC7 have achieved record audiences this quarter (of 485,000 and 795,000 respectively), and more than half the commercial national digital networks have also hit new record Rajar audience numbers.
The biggest gains year-on-year are by the Magic Network, up 395,000, The Hits 312,000, Kiss UK 207, 000, Choice UK 186,000, and Planet Rock 126,000.
Other smaller gains and new all-time records have been notched up by Sunrise, Virgin Radio Classic Rock, Real Radio UK, Galaxy and Heat.

The quarterly radio listening results were revealed yeaterday - and I’m more than happy to note, we all love radio more and more.  This from media Guardian:

But the latest audience figures published yesterday reveal that we are more in love with the radio than ever before. It is just that we are not listening to it in quite the same way as we used to.

Having seen off the rise of television music channels such as MTV in the 1980s, radio is now piggy backing on the digital revolution, with nearly 12 million people - 26% of the adult population - tuning in via digital radio, digital TV and the internet.

Around 4.4 million listen on their mobile phone, up more than 25% on last year, with 1.8 million of them aged between 15 and 24. "In this multiplatform environment it’s absolutely vital for radio stations to make content as accessible on as many platforms as possible," said Paul Jackson, chief executive of Virgin Radio, which became the first to launch on 3G mobile phones in 2005.

Once it was an unimportant local TV station which appeared to make no impression on the (then) media panorama.  Now UTV’s impact on TV, Radio and New Media defies any possible prediction.  The latest coup is as part of a consortium led by Channel 4.

“UTV plc will launch a new digital all talk radio station next summer featuring opinionated presentation and lively debate.

Talk Radio, which will be 100% owned by UTV plc, will be available on the new UK digital multiplex which Ofcom awarded to 4 Digital Group today (6 July), of which UTV is a 10% shareholder.” 

UTV Radio is now UTV plc’s largest division with 24 radio stations. It runs the national radio station talkSPORT, 17 local radio stations including talk107 in Edinburgh as well as stakes in 5 of the UK’s digital radio multiplexes. UTV is also the largest radio player in Ireland with stations broadcasting in Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Dublin, Drogheda and Dundalk.

Ofcom says that 4 Digital will offer:

Youthful interactive entertainment (E4 Radio)
Contemporary public service speech (Channel 4 Radio)
Intelligent contemporary adult (Pure4)
News, views and entertainment (Talk Radio)
Female AC, celebrity and lifestyle (Closer)
Rolling news (Sky News Radio)
Asian ( Sunrise Radio UK)
Female-friendly pop with attitude (Virgin Radio Viva)
Adult album alternative (Original)
Children’s service (Radio Disney)

I’m a big radio fan – and as digital media has expanded, I’m getting more of what I like (especially BBC7 and BBC World Service – clearly and easily).  What I find particularly encouraging here is the amount of speech radio.  Although I suspect if UTV’s Talk Radio is anything like the predecessor to TalkSPORT  (also called Talk Radio but tried too hard to be “shock jock”ish), I won’t be listening too much.  But I’m glad it will be there.

For a long time people said that when a new medium emerges, it submerges older media. It was always a nonsense argument (“Oh, the Internet will replace books”,   “Amazon?” was the only reply to that.

As digital media progresses, we get more and more (and usually crappier and crappier) TV.  But we are getting more and better Radio.

Ye Olde Interweb is giving newspapers a difficult time.  But Radio was once delivered to our trannies and the availability was limited even on the cluttered AM (medium wave we called it in those days.  Newspapers will adopt and survive and I expect flourish in the developing digital media.  To paraphrase someone I read last week they will need digital ambitions and digital (not analogue) leadership. 

Clearly this is happening here on 4 Digital and that quiet almost irrelevant little TV station is part of that revolution.

As Van Morrision sang

Turn it up, turn it up, little bit higher, radio
Turn it up, thats enough, so you know its got soul
Radio, radio turn it up

The radio bit is easy - making sure it has soul is a different matter.

Reported in Broadcast:

The RadioCentre is preparing to launch a commercial rival to the BBC’s internet radio player.

Andrew Harrison, RadioCentre chief executive, said yesterday (Thursday) at the Radio 3.0 conference: "The RadioCentre will start to showcase, commercial radio online with the launch of an online radio player that will stream all of UK commercial radio - to our stakeholders: advertisers, media agencies and the radio industry."

It is hoped that the service will boost listening figures in the same way the BBC’s player has done, since launching in 2002.

Further details of the player will be unveiled in the next few weeks.

This is fun.

When I joined the BBC I wasn’t even allowed to lean against a tape (yup; quarter inch tape) recorder let alone cut the tape.  Now as a member of the public I can mess about with start times, stop times tag and make notes.