Commercial radio in most cases has always been a bit of a mess. And right now it's in an even bigger mess. Why? It has a clear problem with its own identity. I started off in BBC local radio and progressed to producing the breakfast show on the UK's largest national commercial radio station so I have always had more than a strong interest in this area.
In the late 1980's and 90's local radio largely was filled with below-par nasal DJ's who weren't too far removed from Alan Partridge. Cheesy, deeply unfunny, and cringeworthy. However back then there was lots of local content in the form of roadshows getting involved with the community, commentaries from the sporting scene, travel-spotting planes (yes really!) and lots and lots of local news. In fact, it was only until recently that Radio City in Liverpool, my local station when growing up, stopped manning a local newsroom with bulletins 24 hours a day. Even stations in London took IRN at 3AM - it was a real landmark when they stopped this.
Move forward to present day and things are very different. There are lots of small community stations and all the other stations have either changed name, changed format, or gone bust. There are a few exceptions but it is not a good future for the industry when it is already fighting against the uber-cool ipod generation.
But the big problem I have with local commercial radio is with the moronic (there, I've said it) Programme Directors. Go and pick a local station and then tell me where the local content is? I was in the car with Heart playing with the local drive programme on when we had a link which went along the lines of "More music non-stop on a Friday afternoon here on Heart". End of.
My massive issue with such links and presenters using them are thus. You are a local station. Don't pretend you are something you are not. Why do these tinpot local stations insist of wanting to playing lots of songs back to back? Why? You are supposed to be giving us local news, what's on and general community issues. Play music non-stop? Nah, my iPod does that nicely and has a far better choice of music than you guys for sure.
The problem is if you want to be a dynamite music machine you can't honestly claim to be local too. You could be coming from London, Los Angeles, or Leningrad. There was a national Top 40 radio station broadcasting from Ireland in the 90's called Atlantic 252 which played the hits and nothing else 24/7. Fine, it wasn't local and therefore covered a niche in the UK which didn't have any other national Top 40 station other than BBC Radio 1 - which was decidedly cheesy at the time you must remember.
We lost dozens and dozens of local stations instantly when the Heart network was introduced across the UK. I should feel sorry for these stations which have been consigned to the history books but in reality I feel they actually have got their comeuppance at last. For years all the stations have been playing "the most music", "more music less talk", "the best music mix", "the most music", "today's best music" and so many more pathetic attempts of Programme Directors 'playing' radio.
The idea of cutting all these small local stations and creating national brands is just common sense to me. The local stations were so keen to be music machines that they lost track of their major USP - their locality. Any presenter who says to me "more music less talk" to me is basically saying to me "I'm a rent-a-gob DJ and don't give two hoots about losing my job 'cos I'm too darn lazy to create local content. All I care about it pretending I work for a big national station and tell you how much music we play." I mean, never mind networking from Leicester Square why not network from New York? Tell me about having fewer interruptions for commercials but fill the time with proper local info.You don't deserve to have that presenting job you have. You can still mix in Top 40 music if your format dictates but please don't neglect your key selling point. In the early 1990's Capital FM was the most dynamic radio station in Europe which screamed "London" so much you almost felt they went overboard. They dominated the airwaves completely and were doing a fantastic job in the community. It wasn't rocket science, they just did their job. It ain't that hard.
Now we have these local stations creating national brands and you read plenty about people complaining about job losses, station's closing down etc. Seriously guys, as soon as these stations started sounding exactly the same then the need for anything other than a national station was never in doubt.
At least the BBC local radio stations continue to offer a fantastic service but these local commercial radio stations are self-destructing all by themselves. Pointless links, a tiny playlist, and local content at an absolute fraction of what it was originally. I mean, who in a million years would willingly choose to listen to this station? Tell me please. I'm going back to my iPod personally... At least there will be more music and no talk. Thankfully.
