I
recently came across some background notes I was putting together as part of a
report I was preparing to give to one of the local radio stations I was working
for at the time. Among them were these
quotations taken from books about and by Sir Terry Wogan and Sir Jimmy Young –
two of the real Guvnors of British broadcasting history.
Their
words and observations are just as relevant today as the day they were written
and encompass many of my own beliefs on how to be successful in radio.
We talk of a radio audience as if it were a
group, as if it moved on blocks. There
are a million people out there – but they’re all individuals. When people are listening to the radio, a
ripple of laughter does not run around the stalls. Nobody chortles in Chorleywood because
somebody chuckled in Cleakheaton. Every
single radio listener makes up their own mind.
Radio is the most individual, the most
personal medium. Which is why it’s a
terrible mistake for broadcasters to categorise their listeners. “Radio 2 is for the fifties and over”
ignores the basic precept of radio listening.
It’s personal. What pleases one
fifty-year old won’t please another, but may delight a forty-year old.
So, I take it, when you claim to broadcast
to 50 year olds and over, you mean you’re going to play music to suit that one
group. Music from 50 to fade out. I’ve news for you. It’s impossible!
I’m sorry – you cannot heap your grown up
listeners into age groups. God Almighty
himself could not devise a music policy to satisfy a national age group as
broad as 50 to Curtain Time! But at
Radio 2, you don’t have to………
Because, and let me break this to you gently,
Radio 2 is not a music network. It
never has been. The vast majority of
people who listen to Radio 2 – that is, the people who tune in every weekday
from, say 7 in the morning until 7 in the evening, the most loyal, the most
consistent group of any in the country, do NOT listen for the music. I realise this will cause confusion, nay,
panic, amongst songwriters, musicians, producers, middle management and even at
controller level.
Radio 2 weekdays is a ‘personality’
network. People don’t listen to Sarah
Kennedy, Jimmy Young or even me for the music.
They listen because they’ve become attached to the person presenting the
programme – and, because of the personal, very intimate nature of the radio,
for more deeply attached than they would ever become to any presenter on
television. An indication of this is
the listeners’ need to fax, to email, to write, to their radio favourite to
contribute, to establish a dialogue. So
where does the music come in? The music
matters only when it’s wrong. When it
jars, when it’s inappropriate, when it sits uneasily with the personality of
the presenter.
Radio 2 music should be selected to
complement the personality of the presenter and the content of the
programme. My programme differs from
Sarah Kennedy’s as much as hers differs from Jimmy Young’s, and his from Ken
Bruce’s. Self-evidently the music
should reflect that difference.
A draconian music policy is a mistake for a
national radio station. Opt for a
specific type of music, and you are opting for a ‘niche’ audience. Now a ‘niche’ audience is fine for a
commercial radio station that doesn’t want to compete on the mass market place
and attract advertisers to a specific audience.
Sir Terry Wogan – Musn’t
Grumble (2006)
Jimmy
Young wrote in his book ‘Forever Young’ about popularity of presenters, on his
role in the early days of Radio 1 and on the news that his listening figures
had gone through the roof.
Back in 1967, the BBC was taken aback by
what was happening to the JY Prog that they commissioned a survey to find out
where I was getting my extra millions of listeners from at the unfashionable
time of 10am. What the survey
discovered was almost incredible. It
reported that I had changed the routine in countless homes. It reported people saying that, whereas they
used to listen to Housewives Choice and then go out shopping, they were now
doing their shopping before or after my programme so they wouldn’t miss
me. I had actually changed their
shopping habits. This was something
that neither I nor the BBC had envisaged happening. If it came as a shock to me, I wondered what
the news was doing to Robin Scott.
Robin had been given the job of creating a
Radio 1 that was so hip, with it, so sharp that it could successfully replace
the pirates. But his star had turned
out to be a forty-six year old guy playing middle-of-the-road music and reading
recipes. I knew I wouldn’t turn Robin’s
hair white because it was famously white already, but I could imagine him
tearing out handfuls of it in sheer frustration. He had wanted to create an overall youthful
image for the station and had installed a host of young DJ’s to create it for
him. The trouble was that the public
didn’t want them – they wanted me. I
was very much an anachronism. I was the
tail wagging the dog. But I was the
success story that Robin couldn’t ignore.
The
BBC didn’t like JY’s success and tried to stop the rot by forcing him to take a
holiday. He continues………..
Working on the principle that if at first
you don’t succeed, try, try again, the BBC wondered if they could stop me in my
tracks by making me switch channels.
Accordingly it was decreed that I should broadcast on Radio 1 on
Christmas Day and Radio 2 on Boxing Day.
On Christmas Day I got twice the audience as
the person opposite on Radio 2. And on
Boxing Day I got two and a half times the audience of the person opposite me on
Radio 1.
There is no such thing as network
loyalty. Look what happened to Radio 1
when it dramatically changed its policy.
It lost half its listeners.
Network loyalty is just another planners fantasy. People don’t have network loyalty. They have broadcaster loyalty. I can guarantee that if Terry Wogan left
Radio 2 and went to another radio station which had the same signal strength
and coverage as Radio 2 he would take most of his audience with him. Planners hate to admit these kind of things,
of course, because by doing so they would be admitting their own weaknesses and
the strength of popular broadcasters.
But they all know it to be true.
And
finally, Jimmy Young shares another of his broadcasting principles dear to my
own heart…
What is the point of broadcasting if
nobody’s listening to you? Putting bums
on seats to listen to, and to take part, is the name of my game.
Some
of my final quotes come from a biography ‘Arise Sir Terry Wogan’ by Emily
Herbert who again puts across many of my long held views......
He is aware that his general method of
broadcasting is a world away from some of the more vulgar element of today’s
media, and that his popularity has soared as a result. “The generation which I belong to grew up on
a diet of radio and television that was universally acceptable”, he says, “But
over the past ten years, there has been a complete breakdown into niche
broadcasting. Youth has become more
assertive.”
And, as culture generally has become more
youth orientated, so has the media that serves it. But there’s a very good argument for saying
the media is wrong. Youth-orientated shows, on TV and radio, gain
absolutely nothing like the audiences they used to and, while that is partly
because there are now so many different channels to watch, it is also because
the population is ageing and is simply not interested in what is being
broadcast.
The misapprehension about what people really
want stretches right across the media and so it is hardly surprising that one
of the few presenters actually coming up with what the public wants should find
himself in such huge demand.
