Shout Out

Yesterday I talked to a real #radio #listener about #LBC973.  It was another day of @Greateranglia delays and my fellow commuters started to talk to each other as we waited 20 mins for a train to arrive. The guy who always stands next to my for the last two-years asked what I did? When I told him, he said I love the radio, I listen more than I watch TV.

When I said I had been working for LBC 97.3 the last couple of weeks he replied much as he loved the format he "didn't want people shouting him at the breakfast table in the morning."  At first I thought he was picking on the big man - Nick Ferrari, but what he actually meant were the shout with too many words commercials that still populate the radio airwaves here in the UK.

I have just read a very good book by Tony (Radio Operators) Hertz "The 7 Secrets of Creative Radio Advertising."  He agrees with me that shouting radio ads with too much copy squeezed in to 30 seconds never worked and as each day passes sound out of tune with the way we consume advertising now.

So how pleasing it was to hear The Lloyds Bank commercial this morning, no shouting just a narrative about a man who started a winery in Kent, that was followed by equally natural and understated ad for Waitrose unfortunately on the heels of Waitrose was a commercial for a secretarial service with a woman screaming the many and complex benefits - edited so there was not a single breath in her delivery.  The industry is getting better at making commercials but we are not quite there yet.

Bum Deal

How to do charitable appeals on the radio.  Bob Monkhouse died of @ProstateUK Cancer in 2003. I was asked to help create the radio version of Bob's very clever posthumous appeal for funds for Prostate Research Foundation - Some of the audio was pucker Bob and some was a very good vocal impressionist.

I had the pleasure to work with Bob's wife - Jacqui who thought humour would be a very good way to broach the delicate subject of prostate cancer - something that 40,000 UK men get diagnosed with every year.

The appeal worked very well and gave us an accessible platform to discuss the subject.  Despite getting a good response there were some calls to the radio station saying they didn't want to hear about middle age men and their bums.  When I replied that we openly talk about breast cancer you would usually get the answer that talking about breast cancer was OK.

In 1969 my grandmother died of breast cancer.  She was ashamed when she found a lump in her breast and did not want to 'bother' the Doctor.  When the lump was finally diagnosed as cancer it was too late and my Nan died.

Now it's OK to talk about breast cancer - and thousands of women's lives have been saved by a change in attitude .  I hope we can soon say the same of men who have prostate cancer.

FREE Radio Imaging

There's loads of #free #radioimaging stuff out there.  Companies hungry for your business will tempt you with all sorts of downloadable goodies.  Here are just three offering production beds, SFX elements and more.
Air Media
A small company in Halifax (UK) that offers production music, news beds, travel and SFX elements. They currently allow you to download their SFX elements for FREE.  You can buy their whole library in January for just £85.00  If you ignore the rather irritating sales voice across the demos, the actual musical compositions are pretty good.  Find out more click here  
Radio Jingles VIP
No contact info base for this company, but again they offer some useful free elements, some quite bad celeb drops where the station endorsed by the star is, er chopped off. They also quite like the word awesome. Find out more click here
Music Radio Creative
A company run by Mike Russell - you can't get to hear what you are going to get without liking MRC on Facebook or Google+ or subscribe to Mike's Newsletter - that's good marketing, and again MRC offers a number of 'jingles' rather than production elements, so if you are still after the singing jingle, Mike would be your first port of call. (He also does some nifty Audition Training on You Tube, see my Blog Page for more) Find out more about Music Radio Creative click here

Going For Gold

without the aid of drugs Lance Armstrong style!  It's getting close to the Sony Award entry date, here are a few top tips for your winning entry.
1) Make sure you get the right category of award for your entry, or the entry that fits your audio the closest.
2) Stick your best material first, judges might only listen for the first few minutes - so grab their attention.
3) Do something unexpected, include something that contains insight, humour and pathos, your audio should be extraordinary not ordinary.
4) You don't have to stick to the maximum time for the entry, if they ask for 30 mins and you've got 21 mins of great material DO NOT PAD IT OUT to 30mins with crap.
5) No introductions or other cheesy links, judges aren't stupid - just use strong audio to grab attention and lead the narrative.
6) Speaking of narrative - tell a story with your audio. Have a beginning, middle and end.
7) Use the write up to add supporting evidence - RAJAR figures etc.  DO NOT use the write up to spout a load of superlatives about your show/talent- that's one big turn-off.
8) Get others, non-radio people, to listen to your entry.  Avoid letting the talent listen unless they really want to, also avoid their contributions to the process.
9) Then you MUST self-edit 'chuck out the chintz' - the audio that does not drive the narrative along - OK you can't always edit unless you telescope - but telescope - do not be afraid to be bold.  If in doubt call the Academy - we have done on many occasions and they are very helpful.
10) Check everything - has the audio uploaded? Are there any spelling mistakes in the submission? Is there anything else I can cut out of the write-up or audio that is not needed?

Finally a word from my dear friend Paul Sylvester who has won Absolute Radio  plenty of awards. "Sony's are for the full year not just for January."  You can listen to more of his advice at The Radio Academy - click here to listen

Chocs Away

@Selfridges supplied the best freebie ever.  It was during their 1990s refurbishment, they had opened a chocolate department and invited a handful of journalists to an evening event where we discovered that they were spending millions on turning, what in the 1980s was a rather tired department store, into a cutting-edge retail emporium.

Best of all we were allowed to visit the new Chocolate and Candy department and help ourselves to anything we wanted.  WOW! It was like an episode of Willy Wonka with greedy journos gorging themselves and filling their baskets up with sweet treats.

I have to hand it to Selfridges they really know how to make publicity work for them - how many other department stores have a Masterpiece Theatre drama made about their shops? 

Attention To Detail

Busy making Professor Hallux's Map Of Medicine a new series for Fun Kids and The Wellcome Trust, I'm in the middle of an episode called 'Concussion and the Paramedic' each episode although only 5-6 mins long takes me about two hours to put together.

First I edit the voice artist performances then place them on my multi-track template, then I add the sound design - music and effects and other elements - like Professor Hallux's 'body' (A kind of monster he built in a previous series) The body is asking for his teddy and having a cry about it at the end - I provide that voice and the imaging voices around the series.

On the script is an FX direction that reads "SFX AMBULANCE SIREN (MAKE SURE MODERN SORT NOT NEE NAW) as you can tell Fun Kids have high production values.  I know exactly what they mean, about ten years ago I worked on a project with the London Ambulance Service and the NHS - highlighting fake 999 calls - the budget was about threepence but the production value had to be of a very high quality. (It won a health award - which was nice)

Challenge number one - find an authentic London Ambulance siren - Solution - I got the guys in the LAS press office to 'borrow' a siren from the maintenance department, we hooked it up to one of their company cars and then drove it (rather naughtily) at speed with the siren on, up and down the little road behind ITN TV studios - where LBC was based.  I recorded the whole thing using a stereo mic to get that passing left to right sound.

Challenge number two - find 'callers' to copy the authentic calls that the service gave me that I had turned into dramatised scripts.  Solution people from the office to whom I gave a mobile phone and told them to run around the atrium (the posh name for the ITN basement) until they were out of breath then read the script.

The result was such an authentic sounding call that the BBC inadvertently stock filed in their archives as authentic and a couple of years later I was horrified to hear it used on BBC Breakfast News as authentic.  Luckily I knew the Editor at the time and a quick Email made sure that mistake wasn't made again.

So its amazing what a little thought and application can create, right back to Prof Hallux, in the next episode he is off to see a speech therapist, u u u uh oh!

What makes a great radio commercial?

There are a lot of crap radio ads, the ones where they shout at you, the ones that try and use humour (unsuccessfully) and the ones that irritate and bore you in equal measures.

So what makes a great radio ad.  Martin Sims who is the Creative Director of Eardrum and former Creative Director of LBC Radio: 

"For me, a good radio ad has to tick three boxes. One: engage or entertain the listener. Two: link it to the brand. Three: effectively communicate some sort of commercial message. If you tick all three of these boxes, then you're on to a winner. If you only tick two, then you'll generally have a very funny ad that's unrelated to the product or an ad that's very product-focused but as dull as dishwater to listen to.

"Creatives are getting more excited by radio. With reduced ad budgets and the proliferation of TV channels, creative teams are realising they can get noticed by doing two or three radio ads. It's an opportunity to shine."

(Originally from email comments in Campaign 2006)

Mneomic Plague

A whole bunch of little acronym's to make great radio.

The first is NIT - nit is all about news BUT it can be applied to everything you do on the radio, whether you are a host, DJ or Journalist.  When you decide whether to put a story in your bulletin or run a studio line in your show try Nit which stands for:

New - is this something that has just happened? Is this new information?

Interesting this is the tough bit of nit, is a story interesting to your listeners, does it apply to their geographical location? Does it appeal to their demographic?  Is it interesting to them?

Finally and importantly is it True?  And can you talk about it? That the story is not an active court case or might defame someone.

The second is Tell Em.  Radio is the blind intimate medium you have to help your listener, guide them through a story or a promo.  Tell you are going to tell em' - warn your listener that they are about to hear something of interest.  Tell them - tell the story and finally Tell em again - recap on the story.

Kiss is whatever you do on radio Keep It Simple Stupid.  Complex stuff, promos or lots of numbers or rules just fall flat on their arse (ass) so keep the ideas simple, one at a time and clear and easy but compelling.

Aida is a way of writing promos and to some extent bully pieces.  Aida stands for  A - attention = "win a holiday"  I - Interest = "In the Caribbean."  D - Desire = "The golden sand, azure blue sky." A - action = "Call us now on 12345."  You can use this structure to fashion promos, trails and bulletins.

Smacked on the bum by Marks and Spencer

Parody can be fun but only if you are taking the mickey out of the original subject.  Straight copies of a good idea is, er, well stealing an idea.  I remember a few years ago when Marks and Spencer first brought out their food porn ads I wrote and gathered clips for a Sandi Toksvig version.


 Well within in a couple of hours of it going to air the M&S PR department gave us a call to say they were 'very cross' and would like us to pull the promo, which we, er, didn't. I guess the fact it hit a raw note at M&S head office meant it worked? Judge for yourself with the SoundCloud clip above on www.creativeradio.com.

Level Headed

Crap speakers are the answer and the questions is .....? How do I know what I am recording for the radio (and TV and Podcasting etc) will sound ok and will cut through?  Last night we were watching 'Museum of Life' on BBC HD nice pictures but the sound was tragic. The mix was wrong even in surround sound and the voice over work that had been done back at base was off mic and did not match (level-wise) the location audio. (It's why my mum moans she can't hear anything.)  Here is my top tip for getting it right.

If you visit some of the finest recording studios in the country amongst  the automated faders and whacking great studio monitors are usually a pair of crap speakers often the ones that come with p.c.'s. 

Once they have finished mastering Kylie's greatest hits or whatever they will then listen to how it sounds on a pair of crap speakers - your typical way of listening at home.  This is the acid test - does it sound as great and does it 'cut through' on a pair of average speakers?  If the answer is no, then its back to the mix to make it sound better.

Goldfish

Your average listener has the attention span of a gnat and the mind of a goldfish.  Never think they are hanging on every word, do not believe they have remembered the last time you told them about a story.  True you should refresh stuff but don't worry about some repetition.  With trails and promotions repetition is actually very important. 

I have already discussed using different ways of imparting a message combining live studio reads with recorded produced promos with, if your broadcast guidelines allow, editorial which is produced for the promo/trail.

My old boss Steve Orchard once said to me that once you are so sick of hearing a promo go out you are actually ill in the waste paper basket - only then are your audience starting to absorb the message you want them to hear.  He had a point.  Carry on broadcasting!

The 30 second sell

Spot advertising is dead it's just an excuse for your listener to retune.  The same on TV FFWD on Sky+ and V+ and TiVo kills the ads.

So if you do have only thirty seconds to sell that amazing product that your client wants to have six mentions of his phone number and complicated web address including all those wretched www's here are a few tips:

KISS - Keep it simple stupid.  Choose one great thing the advertiser is selling, avoid those long lists with 'plus' punctuated every few seconds - lists make stinky ads.

DIRECT - make sure you are pro-active with the voice over, direct them, listen to their read, make sure they give a performance not a shouty thirty seconds of noise.  Use dramatic pauses and don't overwrite the script - how many ads have you heard where without judicious editing the voice over would have expired through lack of breath?

A NICE TUNE - Music is soo important, I used to spend hours listening through the production discs (It's better now they are online) but getting the right track to suit the advertiser lifts the whole ad and never be afraid to use more than one track of music.

IN HOUSE I remember many years ago we were making an ad for an Italian restaurant and we had an odd-job man who was Italian (Armando r.i.p.)  - and the CP department dragged him into the booth and for a few quid cash they got an authentic Italian doing the ad and the client loved it.  So look and listen around you for the talent on your own doorstep.

LEGAL SH*T It has to be there - just run a neutral voice at the end, better if you are allowed to stick it at the front.  Remember the ad is a performance - most people want to leave the theatre uplifted and singing the last song (possible exception is Cabaret)

YOU'RE HAVING A LAUGH If you can make the ad funny, don't force it or make it labour a point but if you entertain the listener they will stick with you and listen.  Simples (By the way there is now a lobby to have that word added to the Oxford Dictionary)

Different Strokes

Different Strokes was possibly one of the worst vomit-inducing TV shows that came over from the US during the eighties.

It starred Gary Coleman as Arnold Jackson.  Coleman famous for being small (due to kidney disease) suing his parents and trying to save his marriage on a TV show called Divorce Court and finally punching a woman who asked for his autograph.  Anyway what the hell does this have to do with making great radio?

The title of the show is your clue - 'Different Strokes' doing something that's different from others.  Standing out in a crowd without being as the Americans would call it - 'A complete jerk.' Here is one example.

I was one of the Producer's of The Sandi Toksvig Show and we had a menu at the front of the show which Sandi read out - but it was boring had too many items and we decided to drop the whole thing in favour of something else.

So the remit was a menu but it should have comedic value and still do the job of telling listeners what was on the radio. I came up with the idea of a clairvoyant who would 'predict' the show ahead.  'She' (it was Mr Lowrie and his 'voices') would give clues as to who might be appearing and there would be a lucky number and colour as a piece of random daftness at the end.  Go to www.creativeradio.com and play Part 1 of The CAMPen Players on the left. (Pic credit Creative Commons Gary Coleman 2007)

Three is a magic number

Beginnings, middles and ends form the foundation of successful writing. The holy trinity of fictional structure in most books, films and TV and they can be applied equally to radio.


Everything you do whether it’s a news bulletin, whole radio show, ad or promo should have a beginning middle and end. Sounds simple and obvious but its easy to forget.

All of life is a story and whether it is a news bulletin or a radio show you need to tell your story. That means structure – for example; Insert numbered bullets on the page 1, 2 and 3. Then write your beginning, at 3 write your end and in the middle at 2 think of a new direction your show can go.

Message Understood

In earlier posts I have said that it takes a long time for a listener to actually understand what you want them to hear.  It really is a slow burn.  They don't hang on your every word.  (Some very famous DJ's and Presenters don't seem to realise this)  So when you plan a promo or show trail campaign you need to come at it from three angles:
1.  The recorded trail - never more than 30 seconds better at 20 or a simple 10 second message.
2.  Live reads straight off the back of the trail with the current presenter saying why you should listen. Or what's happening on the trailed show or how the car can be won.
3. Drive to web, get them to find out more by visiting your website where you can give your listener precise details about the show or promo.

And do these three things over and over and over and over and over and over again.  Until, as Mr Steve Orchard (Ex GCap Director) would say - you are physically sick on the floor.

Attack the senses

Here is an extreme example of copy that uses all the ways we interpret the world. 

VO1 Mmm the fresh smell of coffee


VO2 That always makes me feel so hungry

VO1 Oh and those cakes – don’t you just want to reach out and grab one.

VO1 Can you hear something?

FX Sizzling bacon

VO1 Oh no more temptation - fresh sizzling local bacon.

VO2 I can see free range eggs frying on the griddle as well

VO1 It’s no good I’m going to have to do it

VO2 Do what?

VO1 Open the door to Joes Café the most delicious breakfast in Manchesterford of course.

FX Shop door bell and open

VO2 I’m right behind you

VO3 Joes Café – the most delicious breakfast in Manchesterford.

Tomorrow some ways to use those senses tricks and grab the attention of your listener and tell them what you want them to hear.

Radio Advertising

FVO1 Hi Pam

FVO2 Hi Jane, what's wrong?

FVO1 Well Pam I just don't know what to do about bad radio advertising?

FVO2 Oh yes I had the same problem, bad copy, unbelivable scenarios, cluttered messages.

FVO1 Yes Pam half the time I don't know what's been sold?  Who they are? And what they want me to do to buy their products? AND  all I really want is for them to end so I can listen to more music.

FVO2 Well Jane I have just the answer.

FVO1 Whatever is that Pam?

FVO2 Get an Ipod.

FVO1 What a brilliant idea Pam.

A Good Promo Should Be ...

A good promo should be:

“What’s in it for me?” (The listener)

· Be a foreground listen not a background noise.
· Move an emotion – make you laugh, make you angry, make you sad, make you excited.
· Touch the listener; speak to them in their language.
· The message should not get lost in the production. (Too many effects)

Be a foreground listen
Use AIDA to help structure a promo.
A = Attention – Win a million pound holiday.
I = Interest – At a top hotel in the Caribbean
D = Desire – Sun kissed beach, warm blue sea.
A = Action – Call now.

Move an emotion
Also helps to make this a foreground listen. If you can make your listener laugh, get excited. Angry or sad (if it is a serious trail/promo say for a charity.) Note of warning – don’t force the humour.

Touch the listener
Speak their language. Depends on your format. A promo or trail written in language would not work on Heart FM.

Lost in production
Just because it is easy to add loads of effects does not mean you should. Don’t lose the message in sound effects that sound great in the studio and rubbish on the radio.

Always remember ‘What’s in it for me?’ (The listener)

George Orwell's rules of writing

You could do worse than to follow George Orwell's rules for writing. Using an active voice is very important when writing copy.
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive voice where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Plus is never positive

Oh how we hate those ghastly joining words. You don't need them, they are a lazy way of writing. You know the words we mean 'Plus,' and that other chestnut 'Meanwhile.' Here's a sad example: 'Plus we'll be taking a look at soot juggling, meanwhile here's a story I know you will love' Better to use the cadence of your voice to change the topic and gear.