Content is King

Any old crap will do; there was a time when the poor old British public had just three TV channels, four national radio stations and if you were lucky or unlucky a BBC local radio station, then along came a handful of commercial radio stations.  But let's face it if you didn't like what was on those handful of TV and radio stations the only alternative was to go down the pub or read a book.

The programme makers of that time knew that fact, I think it made them a bit lazy, sure there were some great shows but there was also a lot of dross - it didn't matter though because the audience figures were never that bad, because there wasn't any choice.

Now all that has changed and content is king, there are now 100s of TV and radio channels all competing with each other to get your attention.  It's the same if you are presenting a radio show.  Life used to be easy - grab a few records,  the what's on file and shove together some half arsed competition like 'Beat the bleedin intro' and the hoards were listening avidly.  Truth was they had no choice and put up with your crummy competition with a book token as a prize.

So what to do? How do you make your show shine? How do you make it different?  The key is engaging and thoughtful and compelling content.  You need to put effort in, do the research, do some decent pre-production, because slowly, slowly your audience is leaving you. 

The old ones who can't work a computer are dying, the young ones are off with their iPods and the ones in between have started downloading audio books to play in their car, now they've realised what that plug thing is by the cigarette lighter socket does.

So think a little more about what you do and what you say.  Put a bit of added value into your show and it will pay off in the long run.