Snowbusiness

There's no business like snowbusiness.  In the face of doorstep adversity listeners turn to local radio and it was your chance to shine.  Did you thrill or did you bore with one thousand school closures and network shows?

It's interesting to look back on the last few days in the UK where we have had some bad weather.  TV news went snowtastic -  I have to say I never want to see the inside of a grit storage silo ever again or hear the line, 'these kids are enjoying a day off school and the snow.'

When the weather disrupts your listeners life it's still worth remembering that great long lists of things don't work.  Nothing is more boring than a list of 50 schools that are closed.  But they do want to know if it will continue to snow and they love to hear peoples stories.  Also they want their local radio station to have some fun - let them interact with photos and the like.

I wonder who will win the Snowbusiness award for local radio coverage? Will it be your BBC local station? Or commercial radio.  Some sensibly chose to cut their network programming (well done) while others were happy to let you tune in to programming generated from one regional point with network news at a time when listeners really needed local information.

So when the weather outside is frightful there's nothing more delightful than proper locally generated local radio.