Digital filled the radio bar

Greg Grimmer continues to mix in celebrity circles as he joins a double gold medalist, national radio presenter, the editor of BBC 6 Music and several less-feted advertising folk to discuss radio’s place in today’s media mix…

So last week off I trotted to the top of the BT Tower to hear radio’s good and great celebrate the boosted London digital radio signal.

Among the clinking of glasses of chilled Chardonnay the superb radio presenter Colin Murray adroitly interviewed double Olympian Champion Dame Kelly Holmes, while simultaneously biting the hand that fed him with piss-takes of the BBC’s Tim Davie and GMG’s Stuart Taylor – and any other glad handers that came within microphone range.

Then in a uncharacteristic serious moment, Mr Murray caught my ear.

“I love radio,” he said. “Always have done always will do. Whether it is BBC or commercial. I love good radio. ”

The inference being there is a lot of bad radio out there.

Now for any of us working in advertising, bad radio normally means commercial radio and specifically bad adverts, but for the moment let’s ponder on the fact that radio can be good – and powerful – and, despite Buggles’ prophecy continues to grow even in the 21st century.

The ever-affable Stuart Taylor when given the chance to speak by young Colin nailed it:

“Digital is just part of the growth story for radio – it allows the expansion of current listening – for instance Smooth all over the UK – but also creation of new communities. It is great to see Planet Rock in between Polish Radio and Panjab Radio. And fun kids in between French Radio and Gaydar Radio.” (Our celebrated columnist wants to point out that he did of course clock that there were several jokes to be had with this last “triple-play”, but he is far too PC to waste his wordage allocation with cheap jibes… Ed. Readers may wish to discuss this assertion with him one to one).

In short, popular brands being expanded from their analog heartland, and specialist stations brands given space to grow.

One of the most interesting people I met while 34 floors up was Paul Rodgers, the editor of BBC 6 Music.  Now, I confess to being a fan of this digital-only station, but I was drawn into an intense conversation with Paul, about the ‘saving’ of 6 Music by its listeners just over year ago.

We both felt that this was a radio effect rather than a music type or BBC effect and could equally have happened to a local commercial station. The ‘closest to me – media’ research study so beloved of the RAB back in the day would seem to be holding strong, and this is an effect not seemingly replicated by other media.

In fact while the media world was eating itself at the Leveson enquiry it struck me that the News of the World didn’t have a 6 Music type bandwagon. Now obviously they were threatened with closure for very different reasons but generally newspapers, magazines and even TV channels (let only websites) seem to come and go without seemingly the same effect that even the changing or re-naming of radio stations has on consumers.

After returning to my work station I found myself discussing this with Ed Chalmers the out-going sales director of Global Radio. Often under-rated – despite his erudite views on the wider aspects of advertising – Ed gave me some worldly advice on why he believes radio is continuing to grow revenue and attract new advertisers some sixteen years after he joined a then booming sector.

“Every new platform has radio on it.”

I thought about this for a while and of course Edward is right – from the WWW, to the smart phone, Sky TV to iTunes  – radio lives.

While Ed is leaving radio to ply his trade in that other ‘dying medium’ television, we at HMDG recently lost one of our brightest members of account management, Clare Bowen, who has joined the Radio Advertising Bureau as head of creative. This as you probably can imagine was greeted by incredulity among some of her erstwhile advertising agency colleagues. Radio? Creative? Are you having a laugh?

The incorrigible Ms Bowen calmly claimed that this wasn’t a late April Fools prank inspired by long afternoons listening to Krazy radio prankster Steve Penk but was in fact a forward thinking career move inspired by the multi-platform presence inferred by Ed Chalmers in the previous paragraph.

Clare, with her traditional agency training (including the Ministry of Advertising, Ogilvy and Mather) purports to be excited by the opportunity created for clients, advertising agencies and media agencies by the multitude of advancements in the radio sector and the almost unique ability for advertisers to become “part of the fabric of the editorial”.

This, in old money, used to mean having a local radio DJ read out some badly written S+P trails. But in the new world Clare envisages a myriad extravaganza of video, graphics, tweets, texts and timely titillating messages delivered for brands by the radio raconteurs.

Actually, maybe these should be called ‘sponsored stories’?

Now I don’t want to watch video feeds of unshaven DJ’s talking to bedhead guests, but a Zeebox type second screen experience for those (the car passenger, the iPhone listener, the commuter) that have the desire to access… possibly providing the background on a guest, the tour dates of a band , the event schedule of a station… Surely this would be welcomed?

I shall leave my uplifting parting thought to Stuart Taylor; “The listener demand is there and commercial radio has demonstrated its ability to develop and sustain innovative new services. The continued social power of radio means a genuine digital future.”