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Radio Drama & Talkshow Tips

Radio Drama
Paul Dodgson (Session 3)
Whether or not the listener stays tuned to your programe largely depends on the first 3 minutes; well, actually the first 30 seconds. A good reminder - sometimes as presenters, we tend to lose focus of the listener's point of view. So hook 'em and you'll have 'em.

Casting - sometimes physical resemblance to the character helps. I'm not surprised - is it because writers create pieces with characters in mind, and even the sound of these characters can be captured? Leads are often confirmed only one month before. The reason - if a more lucrative offer comes along (read: TV!) radio offers are turned down. The perpetual problem of radio being the poor cousin. Paul has an effective method of aiding the recording process - bring actors in for a rehearsal the day before. This helps the bonding process. I say, throw some drinks and snacks in as well :)

Don't over-act on radio. I thought some of the TV soap opera acting was bad. But the same can be said of radio drama. Radio is more suited for understated, quiet emotions. Maybe a subconscious aversion which had its roots in the days of hearing Mum's screams of frustrations "Don't touch the wall with your grubby fingers!", "Why can't be behave!", "Eat up that broccoli!".

Must get hold of some good innovative radio drama for NP students. We are still very old school because radio drama is a dead art in S'pore.

Charlie Wolf
Talksport Presenter
His approach is diametrically opposed to BBC's traditional "presenters have no opinion" approach. In fact a lot of textbooks advocate this neutral standpoint, and it took the Americans to break the mould. (Yes, Charlie's a Yank). In fact, I read somewhere they they did away with the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, which means you can have a very biased talkshow - yikes! I completely identify with Charlie's desire to have had some grounding in more intellectual subjects (e.g. political science, philosophy) in order to have more substance for talkshow discussions. I always had to do that much more reading when I was doing breakfast TV. Nothing wrong with the traditional approach though - I still teach it! I think THAT should be the starting point, at least. Know the rules first but have a valid reason for breaking them (think John Peel, Kenny Everitt).

Charlie's golden rules:
- Be yourself on air
- Have an interesting life outside of work

Forward progression - Charlie's term for continuity. I agree with not talking over vocals, but I don't agree with the talking over the instrumental music bed without bringing down the fader. The clash in audio is just too painful.

The Fifth Element of Branding, Radio Touching Lives

Branding and Tactical Campaigns for Radio
Simon Verrall, MD Scarlet Tiger
The visual elements of a brand id are obvious – logo, typeface etc. But the fifth element? Intriguing. Very effective though. UK examples are Bradford and Bingley (clowns) and Britannia (cake). Singapore examples would be M1 (umbrella) and Singapore Management University (student in mid-air).

And did you realize that there’s an arrow in the FedEx logo? On the one hand, it’s powerful because once you see it, you won’t ever forget it. On the other hand, how many people would spot it without any prompting? Is it a case of the industry humouring itself?

4 points that were highlighted:
Good ideas don’t mind who have them
Consistency, consistency, consistency…
It typically takes 5-8 brand messages to create a new customer
Knowledge. Log on to http://www.brandchannel.com

BBC Local Radio
Mia Costello, Managing Editor, BBC Radio Solent
The thing that struck me about Mia was just how much she enjoyed her job and how much she was thinking radio all the time. This is the best advertisement a radio establishment can have.

So far this is the clearest listener profile I have come across : Dave (plumber) and Sue (medical secretary), 55+, remarried, stepchildren, adventurous holidays, concerned about community, parents still alive, etc. This is the age group Singapore radio loathes to cater to because of its perceived reduced spending power. But if the UK model is replicated in S’pore, it might be worth the while to pay attention to them (80% own mobile phones, 40% use the text messaging function, 93% want to lean new things). Then again BBC is public service.

Good practice of thinking through programming. What do these people want to hear? The morning show is the strongest (any surprise here?) and the elements that have been identified are time checks, reassurance (the world’s OK, I’m OK), weather (not for S’pore though, “yes, it’s hot again today”) and travel.

What I found most inspiring was how radio can continue to be an intimate part of people’s lives. A particularly poignant example is the Leigh Park (apparently a troubled part of the UK) project in Havant, where a school was given radio training (and a stock of MD recorders). Problematic students found a creative outlet. I’m all for radio touching lives and serving the community. It’s reassuring, among those who bemoan commercial radio’s meaninglessness, to hear that softer skills can extend the scope of radio. Being an educator, I find myself constantly thinking about how radio can be brought to life in schools. This project has certainly given me more food for thought.

Another noteworthy project worth checking out is BBC’s Capture Wales project, run along similar community lines. The concern, I suppose, is just where public radio ends and where community radio begins. There seems to be some overlap with one major difference – community radio does not have the same financial resources.

Music for features and drama

Paul Dodgson (Session 2)
This must be one of the hardest things to get right. How important is music? Here are some of Paul’s thoughts.
-It’s like another character in your piece
-Expresses what you want to say
-Gives the audience time to think or breathe
-It’s like glue, holding the piece together
-Sets the tone of the programme
-Be careful it doesn’t cheapen the programme

One consideration we do not take into account enough is – what is your audience likely to be doing when listening to your programme? It always comes back to “knowing thy audience”.

Apparently the Radio 4 (“intelligent speech”) audience does not appreciate music talkovers, preferring instead the cold voice. There seems to be a cultural divide here. From my experience of programme making in S’pore (alas a far cry from the abundant offering in the UK), every other young person insists on having a music bed for fear of his/her programme sounding boring. Listen to a Perfect 10, Class 95 and Power 98 sequence for example and detect how often the hum of a music bed appears, and how unconscious we are of it. Take the music bed away and we start to feel that something’s missing. We should learn to appreciate our speech a little more.

Shh, it’s top secret & The Death of Analogue?

Top secret commercial information
Amanda Benson, Capital Radio Group
This info is confidential - that’s what we were told anyway, at the beginning of the session, so I’d better be careful about not getting sued! The way Capital is structured, they have 2 divisions for research: consumer insight and commercial. The former is really a researcher’s dream job because they look into any area they feel is of interest.

I saw bubble maps for the first time – quite a useful tool for analyzing results. Then there are ethnographic based studies which means “extended involvement of the researcher in the social life of those he/she studies”. This could mean doing a 30 minute video of “a day in the life of the average listener”.

Something new that’s crept into the horizon is in the area of lingustics. Is there a connection between words (wordiness, uniqueness, phraseology) and the popularity of a presenter/station? Lots of data here but no useful interpretation as yet. NLP is a fascinating subject but no one has done any in-depth radio-related study. Other areas which should be researched further are precisely the ones I have a lot of questions about e.g. ads and websites, radio and MP3 technology, hot CDs (audio compression).

The Death of Analogue?
Tim Blackmore, UBC Media
It’s always fascinating listening to people who grew up in the early days of radio - oral history at its best. Fancy not having pop music on the radio. We take so many things for granted. British radio history is so well documented that a foreigner like me is more familiar with it than I am with my Singapore/Malaya radio history.

Anyway, Tim’s prediction is that in ten years’ time, analogue radio will be less listened to, and then only by the aged. This does not mean less radio. Everybody is acknowledging the digital revolution, so these are really exciting days. More data services are envisaged; sadly porn and gambling will be bigger money spinners. Btw, there’s already a porn service on satellite radio.

The big question – who will be the survivors? Tim’s answer lies with presenters and content. Radio must offer added value, more than what record companies offer. iPods are making a Programme Controller’s job redundant. So on-air talent will be the differentiating factor. The formula seems to be working here on BBC Radio 2 where the famous presenters – Terry Wogan, Jonathan Ross – are pushing up ratings like never before. But how does one create such talent?

"Hear it Buy it Burn it", "Yo, here's the news", Radio for Dogs and Cats

Music and Downloads
Following on last week’s audience research session, we worked in pairs to finetune our survey. My partner Kate and I decided on our statement of intent: to find out the type of music 2CR (a local radio station, as opposed to a national one) listeners liked most according to age group, and whether they used the “music download” function. We then had to hit the streets to survey 20 people.

It’s quite interesting to see the characters out and about town on a Wednesday afternoon. Quite a few teenagers (why aren’t they in school?). Surprisingly (or not?) I found the men more approachable. Must say I’ve been guilty myself of ignoring people doing surveys (although I spent 15 minutes last night doing a phone survey conducted by someone with a thick accent; my son fell asleep waiting for me to finish).

I found the exercise useful because I discovered what a music download business model operates. You could do one of three things with a song you hear on 2CR:
Stream – you hear it once for 1p
Rent – you have access to the song for a month for 10p
Buy – burn it onto a CD for anything from 99p - £1.99
Don’t know who actually uses the function, because none of the people we surveyed knew about it. (Sounds like me & the DVD player – I only know the Play, Rewind, Forward and Stop functions.) So is it something listeners want or can they already get it elsewhere?

Yo, here’s the news
We had two speakers from another local radio station FIRE. What I found surprising was the way the news is written – very colloquial e.g. “bigwig” is a word they would use. I don’t think we would go that far (dare I say descend so low?) even with our CHR stations. FIRE has its typical listener: 29-year-old fairly affluent Jane (I remember those days when I had a cardboard figure of my typical listener in the studio – spooky during night shifts).

World Radio Network (http://www.wrn.org/)
A former student at BU is now working at WRN and came in to talk about this rebroadcaster and content aggregator. It doesn’t have a presence in Southeast Asia, only reaching as far as Japan where apparently there is even a station for dogs and cats when their owners are at work.

The challenge for WRN is to be relevant in an age where rebroadcasting is possible through the audio on demand. Definitely the mind boggles as to the possibilities accorded by technology (Sean says it’s like chasing a bus that’s always just around the corner). The more I listen to the speakers, the more inclined I am to do a dissertation on this area of the evolving state of radio (yes, despite being technophone!).

Voice Workshop

In NP radio students always enjoy voice sessions. It’s no different here. Somehow there’s a fascination with hearing how we sound and getting someone to comment on it, especially our recorded voice. “Do I really sound like THAT?” is often the exclamation, followed by “I don’t like my voice”. I suppose the voice is part of our being – just as we want people to comment on how we look, we radio people take pride in and/or are more critical about our voices.

Today’s workshop was with Jo Street, the lovely wife of Sean. (What a pleasure it must be to be married to someone in a related field.) She definitely knows her stuff! It’s a lot easier to have the techniques demonstrated than having to read it up in books. To list all the exercises here would be too time-consuming, especially when there are so many books on the subject.

What I was rather amused about is, how as trainers, we have our pet peeves. Jo’s examples were more British and some specific to Dorset (this area). I’ve noticed some of these peculiarities myself and thought them acceptable, but apparently they’re wrong. These are some common ones:
-The intrusive “r” e.g. “drawing” becomes “draw-ring” (I was surprised how many of my classmates could not actually get this right)
-The extra “k” sound at the end of an “ing” sound e.g. “something” becomes “somethink”. I find that this is peculiar to New Zealanders as well.
-Missing out the “t” sound. Try sounding all the “t”s in this sentence “That is not what I want”.

Language peculiarities seem to be such a major subject here. (Think Lynne Truss and her best-selling Eats, Shoots and Leaves). Similarly in Singapore, the obsession with Singlish gets revived every few years (not to mention the Malaysian Manglish).

Another development Jo pointed out, which I first noticed while back in Singapore, is the phrasing which leaves out important words. This is especially torturous when newscasters lapse into the habit. I call it reading news DJ-style. I find that DJs who spend their time spinning music and talking “cool” usually adopt the same phrasing when reading the news. So they end up emphasizing insignificant words like “and”, “or”, “the” instead of the newspoints. I’m glad I introduced a session on marking scripts in our Radio 1 curriculum. Taking shortcuts don’t work if professionalism is to be maintained.

Something I hadn’t realized was that the use of “the” and “an” is not so much based on vowels as on vowel “sounds”. For the longest time I was wondering why it was a university rather than an university since the word is spelt with a “u”. There exists a vowel sound register (think there are 28 sounds in all). Now I know.

Now I don’t feel as bad about the Chinese not being able to pronounce the “l” and “r” properly. We’re not any worse than anyone else in the world, though this is no excuse for not trying to improve.