BIG! Mama Radio

ON HOLD

2005-03-10T00:34:00.000-08:00

Postings are on hold.
Deadlines are on a roll...

Radio Drama & Talkshow Tips

2005-02-25T02:51:00.000-08:00

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

2005-02-21T02:42:00.000-08:00

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

2005-02-16T01:51:00.000-08:00

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?

2005-02-11T03:11:00.000-08:00

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

2005-02-04T02:30:00.000-08:00

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

2005-02-01T01:03:00.000-08:00

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.

Audience Research Surveys & Local Accents

2005-01-28T02:53:00.000-08:00

Audience Research – Surveys
This is the second week a speaker has bailed out, so we were set an exercise to explore various methodologies for gathering relevant information for radio stations. We were divided into 5 groups exploring the following methods - written suggestions, vox pops, questionnaires and interviews. Then we went out to try it out on campus.

An invigorating exercise compared to the usual class discussions. I suppose NP students do a lot of this, but doing it within the specific context of radio is useful for people who want to specialize.

What did I learn? People are more willing to bitch than to give compliments! I think this is a universal phenomenon.

Research Project Presentations
This is a unit that involves looking into an area we’re most interested in. We’re all required to do 15-20 minute presentations followed by Q&A. Powerpoints and other visual aids are discouraged because this is radio. Much as I think audio illustrations are essential, I think there is a place for visual aids because we are in a public speaking setting. I suppose there must be another reason for this practice – at least there’s no additional pressure.

The first presentation was on BBC Five Live (digital, available on-line). Its football phone-in programme is highly successful and reinforces one theory – men are from Mars, women are from Venus. The girls in my class were just shaking our heads over how worked up men get over the most trivial (*judgemental*) football-related subject. And never the twain shall meet?

One point about local accents was raised. Our lecturer Hugh seems to think that local accents could be the draw of the station. A local accent would never work in Singapore though, because it would be associated with bad English. If presenters sound “local”, I’m pretty sure the stations would be flooded with complaints. Such a pity really. As I always tell my students, we want it as it is. Soundbites should reflect the reality of the situation. If that’s the typical speech pattern and fully comprehensible, there should be no reason why we should window dress it.

Digital Radio Developments & ENCO dad

2005-01-25T03:34:00.000-08:00

Simon Cooper of GWR Group on Digital Radio
An excellent session on the latest development in digital radio. Simon is a prime example of what a good Director of PR should be – completely knowledgeable about the company’s product and able to communicate it to his audience. He is obviously in touch with industry developments and his answers exceeded our expectations.

The cume for the UK is similar to that of Singapore – 90% of the population tune in at least 5 minutes per week (I believe Singapore has 95% cume). Currently broadband penetration is 17% of UK households. The projection is for 99.6% by end of 2005 – incredible! That is why there is so much emphasis on developing digital radio in the UK. Singapore should really give a lot more attention to the new multimedia and interactive services as well, seeing how wired up our nation is. There has been a huge investment in DAB on our stations but scant attention is given to the creation of a stronger web presence. To capture a younger audience, the web is certainly the way to go. In fact the The Straits Times featured an article on January 9 about how podcasting will replace FM radio.

Interestingly the rationale for multimedia and interactive services is it should be "better radio and not worse TV". This is certainly one consideration we should have when experimenting with PADs.

The sales of digital radio sets have skyrocketed here, especially during the Christmas season. The cheapest sets are retailing for about £50. Apparently there are about 1.2 million digital sets in homes now. According to yesterday’s The Independent digital radios are the iPods for the over 50s – the cost is still beyond reach of the young and the designs have so far been more retro* than sleek.
* the story here is the prototype (Pure Evoke) was built in a garden shed, and the only available material was wood. Hence the wooden box retro look. Manufacturers just assumed people wanted this sort of design. The Bug was the first model to break out of this mould. From my observation there are a lot more modern designs now including my fave – powder pink.

The worry for advertisers is that listeners are skipping ads, a capability afforded by digital radio. How advertisers respond for the future will be interesting. Already satellite radio provides commercial-free subscriptions – is this the future of radio? One station in Australia has tried to circumvent this problem by offering 4 minutes of commercials an hour, with one commercial played each time. Wonder what their rate card looks like.

As for classical music, I hadn’t realized that the #1 favourite is solo piano, followed by baroque music.

Here’s an interesting site to check out http://www.soundtoys.net/

ENCO dad
The is a digital play-out system we use here at BU, similar to the Selector and Dalet we have at Ngee Ann. Quite user-friendly and I’ve been told after-sales service is good. I was amused to find out that this system was bought because they offered a good deal to the university. Budgets – always a problem for educational institutions.

Who is the Radio Customer and Radio Consumer?

2005-01-21T06:52:00.000-08:00

Marketing and Branding is a unit this term. Having had absolutely no marketing background, the thinking and theory (e.g. the 4P’s and the 4C’s, transactional and relationship marketing, PEST or STEEP, perceptual maps) are proving to be quite useful.

How does it relate to radio? We could begin by asking this question - is there a difference between the radio “customer” (an exchange relationship which adds value) and the radio consumer” (who uses the services but does not add value)? Or is there a continuum?

The problem with marketing strategies is they rely so much on audience research figures. Statistics do not equate unique, individual, human beings. Who decides if you’re upper middle class, skilled working class, middle class, etc.? The range runs from A-E. (I know I’m currently at level E: lowest level of subsistence). In any case the notion of social classes is a sensitive issue. It seems like this business of marketing is like playing God…which is why we frail human creatures have no hope of getting it right all the time.

What we discovered was we were talking about our emotional responses. We were dissing mobile phone companies and broadband providers, which never point you to the fine print, and so you end up paying additional charges which you never signed up for in the first place. I suppose we could be cynical and say that even the best customer service (relationship marketing) is window-dressing to make a sale (transactional marketing). Well, capitalism rules.

Caroline Raphael of BBC Radio 4 on Commissioning
The matter of Commissioning is of utmost importance for the serious radio practitioner in the UK, and Radio 4 has the most stringent requirements. Singapore, of course, does not have such a system in place because commissions are more the exception than the rule.

Radio 4 has 3 Commissioning Editors who oversee 13,000 programmes (!). What Caroline pointed out was Scheduling skills should be cultivated first. The aim is to construct a schedule to hold your audience. So it goes back to knowing your audience.

It’s amazing how much research has gone into scheduling. For example, they know that the average listener is 53 years old. They know the daily habits of the listeners, down to the quarter hour. The lowest listening point is 3pm, and this holds true for any station worldwide. Because Radio 4 listeners do most of their listening in the bathroom and kitchen, they could trace the drop in listenership to the advent of the microwave and the rise in the number of people taking showers instead of baths. Whiff of Big Brother here?

My Campus Radio Station BIRSt - LOG ON

2005-01-21T03:31:00.000-08:00

BIRSt - Bournemouth Internet Radio Station - was officially launched at 11am on 17 January 2004. The works of MA Radio Production students 2004/5 can now be heard on http://www.birst.co.uk

Intro to Term 2, RAJAR, Radio Academy, SADIE

2005-01-21T03:11:00.000-08:00

*Christmas break: 10 December 04 – 10 January 05 (not quite a break with a 3750 word essay due on the first week back)*

Term 2…
…will be characterized by industry speakers each week. We are free to produce as many programmes as we want, and these will be graded as a 20 minute showreel. There are also class presentations, a research project and several essays, some set by the speakers. *Pengsan* *Faint*

RAJAR
(Radio Joint Audience Research Limited at http://www.rajar.co.uk/, Speaker: Sally De La Beyoyere)
RAJAR is the equivalent of AC Nielsen in Singapore. The difference is RAJAR is a company wholly owned by commercial radio and the BBC whereas AC Nielsen is an independent contractor. The usual grouses persist – smaller stations remain marginalized.

Because of the sheer size of the UK, there are 700 unique sampling areas. A 7-day diary is used, with 2600 diaries being issued every week (how many trees gave up their lives for this noble cause?!). What I found interesting were the new electronic meters currently being tested by RAJAR. Seems that action is finally being taken to tackle the limitations of the diary system; 2007 is the target date for switchover.

We were shown 2 models – a pager (Italian) and a watch (Swiss). Quite clever technology involving the reading unique codes of each station. But with the increase in Internet radio listening, technology will have to move swiftly enough to include measurement of this.

Radio Academy
(http://www.radioacademy.org/, Speaker: John Bradford)
This is a professional body for people working in industry. It organizes conferences and seminars to raise industry standards.

John basically took us through the development of radio in the UK, then raised a debate – ever increasing empowerment of the listener to exercise individual choice will lead to a diminishing range of options from which to choose.

I remember coming across some readings which make the same point. The more stations are made available, the more they will gravitate towards homogeneity. It certainly seems to be the experience so far.

SADIE
This is proprietary editing software that BBC uses - the primary reason why we have to learn it. Personally I think a PC-based software like Adobe Audition is good enough for basic radio work. It is more widely used internationally, therefore making it easier for radio professionals to work across borders.

Bridget Jones does not look like that! Are you reverential or emotive?

2004-11-26T03:04:00.000-08:00

Adaptation – to break something, take it apart (deconstruct) and reassemble it, all the while maintaining the essence of the original work. Easier said than done, surely, but we did listen to some amazing stuff like:

The Lord of the Rings (imagine adapting it into 26 half hour episodes!)
Hound of the Baskervilles (vague memories from my childhood; more recent memories of my husband insisting we drive through Dartmoor – Sherlock Holmes country – in summer 2004.)
Bomber, based on a novel by Len Deighton (another author my husband reads: hey, he should be doing this course!), where real interviews were intercut with dramatization. The radio schedule was changed to accommodate the “real time” of the adaptation i.e. it was Saturday 2pm in the docudrama and it was broadcast Saturday 2pm. The events unfolded through the day in 3 parts.

It’s certainly true that watching a movie all too often wrecks an image we have crafted in our minds after reading the book. About a month back, some friends were commenting that their image of fictional character Bridget Jones (from the book) was not one of an overweight, frumpy woman. In other words , “why did they make her so fat in the movie?”. During my radio days, I used to hear a lot of “Oh, I didn’t realize you were so tall”. Actually this went on through my TV days too because the TV image can be misleading (well, it made me look a lot fatter for one).

Back to the point – radio preserves the image. Then again, if not for films, a lot of classic stuff will go unappreciated by this generation’s young. And I daresay book sales wouldn’t be as brisk.

This creature, the documentary drama (drama documentary? Docudrama?) needs a lot of thinking through. When is it ethical to blend fact and fiction? Where is the line drawn? What music is appropriate (e.g. charged or elegiac for war)? But listening to the programmes, you realize that it’s an effective form. And Sean’s suggestion is helpful. Think “what if…”, “suppose that…”.

The reading this week delved into Talk and Music Radio. It’s difficult to imagine there was initial resistance to records. “Live” music was a staple (1945) and it wasn’t till the 1950s / 60s, that it became widely accepted.

Here’s the academic treatment. Andrew Crisell argues that the pop record was revolutionary in that it allowed the creation of acoustic beads. Each bead represents either a song, a commercial break, a talkset, etc. They fit seamlessly because the duration is about equal. Even classical music stations have adopted this model with drive time programming made up of shorter pieces, to accommodate advertising beads.
Another argument is: records are a form of advertisements. Of course this gives rise to the age old industry argument– who should be paying whom for services: record companies or radio stations? The UK and US model are diametrically opposed.

Are you reverential or emotive? Let me rephrase that: are you a low profile presenter or a personality jock? Just a regular academic trying to make simple things sound more complicated.

Community Radio & Hope FM, who’s PAM?

2004-11-25T01:37:00.000-08:00

Hope FM (http://www.hopefm.com) is a Community Christian Radio station broadcasting from Bournemouth’s YMCA. What a fantastic way of reaching the community! There is little chance of getting such a station, or even similar programming onto Singapore radio due to our Religious Harmony Bill.

The more I learn about community radio, the more I find myself drawn to it. (Maybe this is what I’ve been searching for all this time, but never realized it). My initial basic notion of radio was that it IS community, reaching all segments of the population through format radio. But increasingly the commercial bent is rendering radio bland and pointless. Surely radio can, and should, be subjected to more worthy causes, bringing meaning to living.

The concept of community radio as RSLs (Restricted Service Licences) is foreign to Singapore, of course. The closest to it is the campus station Radio Heatwave in Ngee Ann (I’m proud to say). RSL licences in the UK allow them to broadcast twice a year, two months at a time. In 2001 / 2002, there began a pilot project of 16 RSLs broadcasting full time. This Access Radio experiment was to see if not-for-profit stations were sustainable. Being considered a successful trial, OFCOM (Office of Communications which has subsumed the Radio Authority) is starting to issue permanent licences to such “community” stations. Applications have just closed and results are not expected until Summer 2005. Historically and academically, this is significant because, until now there has been no new platform for radio in the UK since commercial radio was launched in 1973.

The business model for charity-linked stations is rather complicated. But what really excites me is how the community can have such an active part in moulding the station. Hope FM draws upon volunteers and basically anyone can “apply within”. In any case commercial radio stations do not perceive community stations as a threat since the target audience is considered different. I wonder if this will change in time to come?

Had a mind-boggling session on “Internet for Broadcasting”. Last week we were given html basics, and I thought that was bad enough! This week it was a workshop on tools for compression, psycho acoustic model (PAM), runlength encoding, variable entropy coding, quatization, ASX files…HELP!

Binaural Stereo, Playlisting, “I Get A Kick Out of You”

2004-11-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

The Advanced Microphone Workshop exposed us to different kinds of microphones used by producers. It’s a pity there’s no similar demand for such expertise in Singapore’s radio scene – we could certainly do with more exciting audio projects!

An interesting mic I saw for the first time was a lip mic which rests on the lip (duh!). It’s a ribbon, bi-directional mic used in commentaries. Fantastic: one side for commentary, the other for background.

A novel way of using clip mics is to attach two of them, each one around one ear (or clip them to the spectacles) to create something called “binaural stereo”. This replicates what the ear hears. Apparently it’s great hearing it with headphones on.

Now, I didn’t know that clip mics are designed to capture sounds from the chest cavity. If someone had explained this to me earlier, I wouldn’t have bothered projecting my voice for TV.

Since radio drama is such an institution here, it’s not surprising that specialized drama studios have been built to recreate effects like church and living room. They also have a “dead” room.

Playlisting was the subject that was covered by someone from Power FM, a CHR commercial radio station. There’s big time music research done here, with Power calling up 120-200 people every week to test 30 songs. Age-old problem of accepting business deals – do you agree to play a lousy song more often just because the record company is willing to sponsor a huge prize?

How many songs should you have on the playlist? Apparently 70 – 80 songs could work quite well for a CHR station. I remember the time when we had this number on Radio 1, 90.5FM, and it was painful. It just doesn’t work for a classic/oldies format!

I was very surprised that these 3 movies are banned in Bournemouth – The Last Temptation of Christ, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and Crash. Must be due to the high proportion of senior citizens living here. This was a prelude to a lecture on media ethics. I hadn’t realized it before, but radio and TV have the greatest responsibility because of its ad-libs. A slip of the tongue could prove fatal.

Know Frank Sinatra’s song “I Get A Kick Out of You”? It’s a song about sniffing cocaine. Now that you know this, would you play it?

Question was raised as to whether it’s acceptable to manipulate pictures, no matter how minor. Tough one. But if anyone wants to give me Nicole Kidman’s body, I’d say go ahead!

Some interesting points I gleaned from my readings this week:
• Many of the differences between stations are exaggerated. Think soft rock, soft AC.
• In the US, Adult Contemporary, Country & Talk account for about half of all stations.
• In the US, the most popular format is News/Talk. Will we ever see this happening in Singapore?
• The more freedom given for diversity, the more homogenization there will be. Everyone crowds around the same markets and formats.
• Radio formats are really a way of packaging audiences in a comprehensible way to advertisers.
• Where previously other media companies bought into the radio business, radio companies have grown big enough to reverse the trend and become active buyers in the marketplace.
• It’s the large national public service broadcasters that have been central to the early development of DAB. Cost is prohibitive.
• Digitilization embeds radio more firmly within the multimedia world, but simultaneously reduces its status as a medium and as an industry in its own right. Definition of radio changing?

A KISS is not just a KISS, Radio is God? Women Rock!

2004-11-16T07:36:00.000-08:00

I’ve been teaching the KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) and “personal” principles for so long that I didn’t think there was anything more than this for conversational writing. So it was rather mind-blowing to read Shingler & Wieringa establishing a model of radio speech. They define it as:
· Prepared, which means it’s scripted but improvisation during presentation is allowed
· Intermediate, rather than institutional (thoroughly scripted) or mundane (inconsequential DJ talk)
· Personal
· Simple, rather than complex in nature
· Highly connotative (the way we say the words is important)

In the same chapter, they discuss the idea that editing results in perfect speech, therefore giving the radio voice “an almost God-like authority” (although I’d hate hearing my students say “Oh god, here she comes!”).

One of the best things to have happened recently (my opinion) in the UK is the reduced emphasis on “Received Pronunciation” or “Standard English” for broadcasting, precisely because there’s no such standard. When I first joined radio, we were told to use RP but no one actually told us what RP was. Now I find out that this practice dates back to the late 1920s! Of course any change will take time, and one of the problems we have in Singapore is those who do speak well are those who have been educated abroad, and inevitably have what is called (almost derogatively) “an accent”.

Another nugget information is the fact that microphones were originally designed for the male voice. Apparently in the early days of broadcasting there were few women on radio because they were associated with gossip, and therefore deemed an unsuitable image. Studies as recent as 1988 show that the ideal voice has more male characteristics. In fact the radio voice is defined as being refined, masculine and authoritative. What are so many women doing on Singapore radio?

Last week we heard lots about money and how one has to have no morals in the media business. So it was lovely to hear 2 lady entrepreneurs (from Nameless UK – not quite my choice of name, I must say - and Big Wave Productions) who are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Nothing we’ve not heard before though – “it’s about making friends, not selling your product first” (message: networking’s important). Anyhow my point is it’s comforting that not everyone in the media business is corrupt. There’s hope yet. See, women rock!

Had an Associated Press representative come in to do a session on ENPS (Electronic News Processing System), the wonderful system that I thought MediaCorp wanted to get rid off at some stage. The AP guy says MediaWorks is using it as well. Reason we’re having this session is BBC is using ENPS. Rather nostalgic looking at the screen again. Gone are the days when we used ENPS’ message function to update one another on the latest office gossip. Yes, gossipy women rock…

Raw & Cooked, Jerry Springer: Contextually Analysed

2004-11-08T07:05:00.000-08:00

Piers Plowright’s second session with us today, with more examples of creative radio. By his definition, “cooked” means elaborately produced programmes. So conversely “raw” means having a rougher edge to it.

An aside - I didn’t realize Piers had a Malaysian connection. Apparently he served with the British Army there, and just last year he was in Cameron Highlands to record a programme. Well, the conversation really started when he asked me what my first language was. And when I said “Malay”, he responded at once, “Cakap Melayu?”

Back to the business of radio – there’s an interesting quote by Virginia Madsen of the University of New South Wales:
“The studio was not jettisoned (in the 1970s) but…became more akin to the photographer’s darkroom where some almost magical transformation was required to occur in the mix between reality and fiction. The artisan of radio could no longer work only with a fantasy world conjured in the studio, using all the old radio trick; one had to get out of the padded cell that the radio had become, meet the world, find oneself not so much reporting on it anymore, from the outside, but rather, and more profoundly, become deeply immersed and engaged in its interior life.”
Therein lies one of the shortcomings of Singapore radio. We do not get out there enough. And even when we do, most of it becomes interview-based rather than exploring raw actuality. I’ve long told students to get out there, feel the ground and bring it back to the listener. Now I realize it is difficult when there is no such listening culture. It would be interesting to take note of just how many programmes on Singapore radio actually get out of the “padded cell”.

Some interesting programmes:

Example 1 “Von trapped”
The presenter was telling her own story about being besotted with Austria, and she cleverly linked excerpts from “The Sound of Music”, soundbites from an Austrian woman who lived through the war, news broadcasts, etc. Would you believe that about a quarter of my classmates have never watched “The Sound of Music”? Horrors!

Example 2 Lance Corporal Baranowski’s Vietnam
The subject was a soldier during the Vietnam War. He had a battered cassette recorder on which he recorded his letters home. The archived material was very poignantly interlaced with actuality of his brother speaking in present times. Dominic, my classmate, says he has recordings of himself as a baby gurgling to his grandma, who by that time had contracted throat cancer and therefore had a raspy voice. That’s so meaningful. I should start recording something for the family archives. There’s just something magical about hearing something so intimately, rather than watching it on a videocam recording. Well, they do say that hearing is the first sense to be developed, and the last sense to go (what would proponents of “your life flashes before you in an instant” say?).

Springing to Jerry now, he was the subject of a lecture on Contextual Analysis. CA is a big word, and it was one those lectures without any visuals (never do that to students), but I gather it assumes that artefacts (this includes media output) promote values, ideas and beliefs. For example, the Jerry Springer show reinforces the normal code of social behaviour by demonstrating abnormal behaviour.

But we have to ask ourselves what is deemed acceptable. The example used - a Jerry Springer episode which featured a man who married his pony (only in America!). In the end, the actual episode was not aired because it was considered indecent. However the “making of” science documentary on the same subject was permitted. Moral of the story – don’t horse around too much :)

Surreptitious Recording, Surreptitious Pitching and more Surreptitious Broadcasts

2004-11-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

Surreptitiousness seems to be the flavour of the week as I go through my notes.

Surreptitious recording – well, this was only one aspect of our session on Producers’ Guidelines. These guidelines are issued by the BBC for their staff and are available on-line if you type in “Producers’ Guidelines” in the Search box. The class was assigned one section each, and we presented our summaries in class.

It was a nightmare reading the chapters. For one, I had to to read it on-line which meant having to scroll constantly. Secondly, it’s organized very badly i.e. not meant for web publishing. Thirdly, the redundancy due to wordiness and repetition is utterly frustrating. (In Singapore we would call it “kiasuism” or “cover your backside”).

Aside from that, I think it’s an excellent idea to have guidelines listed out so clearly. We should issue similar guidelines and give junior broadcasters a crash course at the start of their career. I would have found it useful to have been given directions on reconstruction of events, anonymous sources, sensitivity to offence and outrage, where the broadcaster is the story, programme repeats.

Surreptitious recording cannot be broadcast without consent from those recorded. There was one case where a couple was seen on TV in the background, and that was the first time the husband realized his wife was having an affair. It was just unfortunate for the people involved, but they weren’t the focus of that shot, so no case.

There are other areas – impartiality, accuracy, fair and straight dealings, interviewing, use of children in programmes, social action, defamation, contempt, copyright, truth and decency, etc. Most of it is common sense really, but there were some interesting bits:
● Journalism is the DNA of the BBC.
● A reporter may express a professional, journalistic judgement but not a personal opinion (one could surely argue that all opinions are clouded by personal judgement, but the lecturer did not seem to understand that point).
● Series that present a particular perspective are acceptable, as long as in the year preceding / following, there must be broad range of views and perspectives of similar type and weight.
● For anonymity, it’s better to use someone else’s voice because pixillation and voice effects can be reversed.
● Radio’s core audience is deemed younger, so taste and decency must be maintained all times. TV’s watershed is 9pm. Innuendo is acceptable on speech radio.
● Blasphemy is a criminal offence.
● A child is defined as anyone under the age of 16. In an interview setting, interviewers are specifically told to avoid leading questions.
● There’s a special phone catalogue used for drama purposes to avoid innocent people being bombarded by calls.
● Advertising is taboo, so you would have to eat multi-coloured chocolate buttons with a dark-coloured fizzy drink that contains caffeine.
● Care has to be taken when recording incidental sound. A band which was heard in the background sued, successfully for performers’ fees.

Surreptitious pitching - we had a representative of Endemol (one of UK’s largest independent production houses) come in for a guest lecture. It reaffirmed what we suspected all along – it’s all about money and sleaze.
· “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” was pitched to the broadcaster by having the game played with real money, which the players kept of course.
· A programme about the negative effect of sex was pitched by insisting that the sex bits be shown first – this is one technique of getting X-rated material on air, when it would otherwise have been rejected.
· “You don’t have to tell the truth” – for a reality show, a Shaolin martial arts expert wasn’t actually one.
· Get sloshed to generate ideas.

Surreptitious broadcasts. Now this issue, raised in David Hendy’s book, is the most interesting. In the past radio was used to get crude propaganda across to a war-torn audience. But because radio now largely involves passive listening, the “impact on the audience is less dramatic and more insidious: it no longer shouts at us, but it does gently massage away the pains and confusions of modern living, drawing us into a passive acceptance of the world”. Whoa, think of all the untapped power here! Watch out Hitler.

Piers Plowright, Adorno vs Fiske

2004-11-07T01:08:00.000-08:00

Piers Plowright is world famous features producer and he’ll be inspiring us for the next 3 weeks. To him radio is an art, not so much a craft. He also reinforced the concept that all radio features should employ a mix of drama techniques and actuality, which is what we in NP have advocated all along. Except my style is – “Radio is Sound”. We begin it the other way round i.e. with the capsule / feature / commercial, culminating with the third year drama / documentary. I still think this is the right way to approach it.

We listened to some fabulous world features. I found these fascinating because in my entire radio career, I’ve not come across anything close. The only way I can describe them is “poetic”. Certainly not the run-of-the-mill stuff we so often get. Piers had gotten these when he attended several International Features Conferences (sadly not much information on the web) for serious documentary producers to critique one another. Here are some descriptions below.

Sample 1 Cockroach (Finland) 1988
A documentary musical (!). The mechanics of power often seen through the mind of a child and based on a poem by Korney Chukovsky. A flamboyant trip through a large variety of musical styles, starring wolves and rabbits, rhinos and sharks, crocodiles and…the giant cockroach, as well as Fidel Castro and Ronald Reagan.

Sample 2 Everyday Something Disappears (Berlin) 1993
Few questions, but troubling answers in this portrait of a home for Alzheimer patients. There is a great deal of singing in this last haven before death. While patients often don’t recognize their own children, they remember every word of songs from their own childhood. Music seems to be the ultimate defence against a merciless decline. All this is juxtaposed with the diary of a pianist stricken with the disease who nonetheless tried to sight-read a Mozart score. And despite everything, there is the relief of sometimes irreverent humour.

Sample 3 Chan-Wool’s Christmas (Korea) 2000
Although he is blind, Kom Kwang-suk skillfully operates the recorder to capture the precious moments of his son’s growing years. Chan-Wool is in the first grade and beginning to doubt the existence of Santa Claus. He whispers in is father’s ear: “Aren’t you the one who secretly buys me Christmas gifts?” Father: “No, ha-ha”. Son: “You’re lying. That’s why you’re laughing. This is serious, very serious”.

The thread that runs through these features – they touch the heart.

In Media Theory, we looked at analyzing audiences. David Gauntlett was the speaker, and at Blackwell’s bookshop in Oxford some days later, I discovered he had written some books on this subject. (In fact, quite a few lecturers at BU are authors of media books). Nothing really new, except for a video of focus groups among housewives back in the 60s and 70s. Absolutely hilarious! The women had to role play, so the moderator’s instructions went something like this:
“Now you’re the kitchen sink. What would you say to the housewife (note: not homemaker)?”
“Housewife, have the kitchen sink around you (the kitchen sink sits on top of the housewife). What do you feel when you’re scrubbing?”
And so on…

Adorno is (was?) a Marxist who believes in the power of the media. Basically thinks people are stupid. Believes media creates false needs which capitalism can satisfy.

Fiske, on the other extreme, believes in the power of the people. So he says pop culture is made by the people. The culture industry delivers what the people want.

Gauntlett has developed other creative methods of analyzing audiences, using tools like video, photos, artwork, etc.

Reading Chapter 1 of Andrew Crisell’s new book “More than a Music Box”, I now understand why BBC Radio 4 is so hung up on “intelligent speech”. Historically it recruited highly educated staff from the public schools and Oxbridge. To “be educated meant, above all, to be literate, to be versed in the world of books” and so “radio word could, and often did, assume a para-literary function”.

There’s also an argument about whether internet radio (I would include DAB) is enhanced radio or reduced radio. Do visuals really enhance or do they reduce the effectiveness of radio as a blind medium? My classmates (remember: impassioned radio people) buy the reduction idea. I’d like to mull on it more.

Interview Techniques (again!), Audience Research and who cares about the Beckhams?

2004-10-29T03:02:00.000-07:00

I really don't know how much more there is to learn about interview techniques. Some of my classmates complained that it was going over old ground (I can just hear some of our third year students saying that) like open-ended questions and follow-ups. The lecturer didn't buy my opinion that close-ended questions can be used to pin down an evasive interviewee, notoriously politicians who always have something to hide. Still, I found the audio examples fun.

Examples 1 - The interviewer introduced his guest - a Minister - as transient, here today gone tomorrow, thereby reducing the gravity of his appointment. The Minister pulled off his mic and walked out!
Example 2 - The interviewer introduced his guest and went on to ask him a question on politics. The guest had been invited to talk about part-time education. Rather miffed, he responded by saying, sure he could talk about politics but it was rather daft since he was an expert in education and had expected to be interviewed on the subject but if his opinion was sought on politics there was no reason why he could not have a say on national radio, and on and on...
Example 3 - The sports journalist was very insensitive. The football (does any other sport exist in the UK?) team had just been thrashed and was obviously thoroughly demoralized. The journalist asked sometimes irrelevant questions like the finances of the club, what were the plans for the next season, did they expect to win, how the other team performed *cringe*. Apparently it's not unknown for such insensitive twits to be physically bashed!

Since the lecturer Julia Brooke was previously a trainer with BBC, she had access to some high profile interviewers. I forget the name of the person, but he did make a lot of sense. Here are his points, tougue in cheek of course:
1) Write down the interviewee's name so you don't forget. He even writes down the Prime Minsiter's name.
2) Remember the topic. If your attention strays and you forget what your interviewee just said, it's a nightmare if you can't even remember the topic to continue the questioning.
3) Don't fall asleep (!). Apparently he did once during a late night programme when interviewing someone on a topic he found boring - women's rights.

The Radio Audience Survey results were released last week and were splashed across the front pages of most national papers. Shows how big radio is in this country! No surprise that BBC came tops with more than 50% listenership. All commercial stations combined amounted to only 43.7% of listenership. Radio 3 (classical) has 1.1% so actually Singapore's Symphony isn't doing too badly at all.

Media Law and Copyright -imagine 14 weeks of Yi Ling's lectures compressed into 1.5 hours! I can only remember the juicy bits, the parts on privacy. And celebs of course.

In the UK it's more difficult now to have a fair trial where celebrities are concerned because there's so much media attention. The issue has arisen as to whether the press should be policed.

And because there's too much attention on celebs, genuine cases of privacy have been thrown along the wayside. Take the example of this depressed man who was wielding a knife with the intention of committing suicide. He was caught on a newly-installed police close circuit camera by an observant officer. The officer radioed for help, and the man was apprehended. Later on, his image was used by the police and various media, basically villifying him. His image eventually went on national TV. He lodged a complaint but was told "too bad". Now, who wouldn't be driven to suicide?

Anyway there's still much inconsistency and ridiculous reasoning. In the case of Naomi Campbell, she was photographed coming out of Narcotics Anonymous (all along she had been insisting on her drug-free status). It was ruled that her privacy was infringed and she was awarded damages. Why? Well, she's entitled to privacy in private spaces like her home, etc. The NA premises were considered "private". But if she had been photographed 50 metres away from the door, it would have been considered public space. High Court judges are paid exorbitant sums to deliver these nonsensical judgements?! It's even funnier when you read about these heavily-wigged relics trying to decipher what rap lyrics mean, using the dictionary ("mish mash man", and the like).

On the issue of copyright, interestingly some people mail their creative work to themselves, keep the letter sealed and locked away in a safe place in case there's any contention. Good old hard copies.

Creative Radio & Analysing Histories

2004-10-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

Not having a rich radio history is often a drawback for young radio practitioners in Singapore. I listened to excerpts of several programmes today and was totally awed to realize how much creativity in structure can be achieved.

The classic of course is "Under Milkwood" by Dyan Thomas. It's a play for voices, first recorded by Richard Burton (pre Lizzie Taylor, I think) in 1952. Very rich language. Although the play won't be appreciated by NP radio students, we can still highlight some of the signposting there - "you can hear", "only you can see", "look", "listen".

There's a wonderful feature on Ravel's Bolero. It's a 3o minute feature of musicians talking about what it's like performing a piece that has the signature "thump thumpity thump" rhythm going for 169 bars. The actual piece was used as a bed interspersed with actuality. Here the music dictated the duration and mood of the programme. The presenter dropped out after a while, leaving only a montage of interviewees. Very effective.

A feature on the River Trent began with a drop of water, then more drops until they transformed into a river. The structure of the programme took on the form of the river with actuality in between.

A programme on an imaginary Radio station involved using the duty announcer to read scripted bits where it seemed like this make-believe station had infiltrated BBC Radio 3 (with hiss, crackles and all), on which this programme was being broadcast.

I thought it was interesting that silence was being used a great deal. In fact we were encouraged to begin every programme by thinking "silence" so that we can hear how the programme can develop. "Silence on radio is like darkness in theatre before the curtain lifts". Never thought about silence in this way before, though I had realized a few years ago that silence is effective because of the wall-to-wall sound of commercial music radio.

For a longer piece of radio, the audience needs time for the ear to rest. So there should be juxtaposition between violence and stasis, between loud and soft.

We're just too afraid of dead air on radio, aren't we? We've come a long way from the time when DAs (UK) had to allow for ten seconds of silence when changing transmission from stereo to mono and vice versa. And this happened between individual programmes. Don't know if this actually happened in Singapore.

Saw some extremely old footage dating back to the nineteenth century. What the course is trying to do is to give us a glimpse of history in order for us to plan the future. The films all look so comical now. Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer" goes down in history as the first "sound" film. Vitaphone technology was used and it could only record audio was 8 minutes at a stretch. So it was really watching a film with bits of audio, then back to silent film mode, then audio, and so on it went.

Vaudeville acts were already in existence (in fact, the vitaphone was invented so that vaudeville acts could be transmitted electronically, hence the 8 minute limit). It was fascinating to listen and watch how an entire performance would comprise of several "live" acts, and several recorded (filmed) acts. And the actors in the recorded portions would bow as well, since the intention was for it to be shown in an audience.

And it is here I take my bow and exit gracefully (I hope).

Microphone Magic, the evil world of radio and British Bengs

2004-10-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

Sean Street shared his experiences about using microphones in different situations. He says it is sometimes necessary to "cheat" in order to get the best sound to listeners - this really puts my mind at ease, because for the longest time I assumed we had to replicate actuality without any tweaking. So it is perfectly acceptable to record the voice separately (say on narrow stereo) and then layer ambience (recorded on wide stereo) under.

The anecdotes and examples Sean used really gave me a good insight into British history. He had interviewed a man who was a young boy when his village was flooded to accommodate a dam. When Sean did the interview, the dam happened to be drained revealing the submerged village. Taking the interviewee to the site really worked wonders because his reminiscing came alive. I was fascinated because I thought only places like China (Three Gorges) and Malaysia (Bakun) went to extremes to submerge dwellings.

There was also a gruesome radio drama where the murderer described the act of dissecting a corpse. Minimal sound effects were used. Very clever and based on a real character too, a Dr Crippin who was the first murderer to be caught using wireless radio technology (now, this is historical fact).

I realise that radio actors are in demand here due to the massive output on radio, especially BBC 4 ("intelligent speech"). It's a profession that's unknown in Singapore (commercials don't count). An actor could be asked to do the voiceover for a programme that someone else scripted, and in fact is often asked to do so.

Semiotics - this is the first time I've come across this word in an academic context. As part of Media Theory we were introduced to the language of film, which is great for me being in FMS. We looked at Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny cartoons to analyse the concepts of formal expectation, convention and experience, form and feeling, form and meaning. And we were told to evaluate films according to coherence, intensity of effect, orginality and complexity. How does this tie in with radio? The speaker didn't say. My guess is radio uses semiotics (signs) too e.g. signature tunes to signify beginning of a new segment, the archaic beeps preceding a BBC news bulletin, idents throughout the day, the hourly or half-hourly newscasts. Radio has developed a unique code and often we take it for granted because it's become so much a part of everyday listening. So how can we develop this code further and more creatively? Hmm.

Read David Hendy's interpretation of radio meanings. He makes radio sound very conniving and manipulative in that programmers control the talk and type of music. Even actualities are manipulated because irrelevant sounds are dispensed with, leaving only important sounds, which means broadcasters are doing the interpretation rather than allowing listeners to sift through the information. Apparently radio teaches addiction and forgetfulness: it induces passive listening which is accepting and hence vulnerable to persuasion. Hendy says radio is gratifying needs which it has in some sense helped to create. The conclusion seems to be commercial radio can only damage radio as a system of communication. Hence our discerning Singapore listening public. (In cue: "sinister music").

An experienced producer, Julia Brooke is taking us for Programme Research for the next 3 weeks. Singapore has more or less done away with the producer role, but I can understand now how a separate producer (as opposed to "producer-presenter" that's specified in the employment contract) can enhance programme quality. This was the model Singapore began with, but since it was phased out we have not produced high quality programmes. Of course I'm comparing this with what's available on public service radio in the UK. Maybe there really isn't any demand in Singapore, or are we creating and perpetuating a myth (remember radio is manipulative...)?

It's been only 3 weeks, but we've had the privilege of having industry speakers and consultants. I realise that our students really mean it when they say they appreciate FMS lecturers being from industry. The wonderful thing is there's such a culture of sharing knowledge in the UK. Industry practitioners are so aware of the objective of education; if only it were easier to get more local speakers on our Singapore lecture circuit. Not that we have that many radio speakers to choose from though.

Btw, the Brits have their version of "ah lians" and "ah bengs". They're called "chavs" and "chav" is set to be this year's buzzword. According to David Ward of the Guardian, its "the noun which describes young men who wear cheap gold jewellery and baseball caps and hang around in shopping centres all over Britain". When I asked my coursemates, their description included the female gender and definitely corresponded to our Singapore version. Well, we beat the Brits to it ;D

It's Tough To Get Your Work on Radio

2004-10-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

This seems to be the message that's coming through. One does not just sell a programme to a radio station. It's a hugely complicated process especially where BBC Radio 4 (which touts itself as providing intelligent speech) is concerned. Apparently it does not even accept pitches from individuals. You'd have to approach an independent producer who must already be on BBC's list of approved producers. All this means is if you have no track record, you have no hope!

The Commissioning Guidelines document for this autumn is 142 pages long (available on-line, twice a year presumably since commissioning is done twice a year - autumn and spring). Very comprehensive with details of the proposed type of programme, slot, target audience, etc. As an exercise, we have been asked to write a programme proposal which is very comprehensive. Scary. Nevertheless a good exercise in discipline.

Each BBC station has its own set of guidelines, and programmes are planned 1.5 years in advance. Since BBC is public service radio, the more public benefit the programme has, the more likely it is to be accepted. Interestingly, there is a television licence fee (GBP120) to be paid by anyone who has a TV at home. But if you have a radio and no TV, you don't have to pay anything, which essentially means BBC Radio is a free service. Anyway I get the impression that people here try not to pay this fee anyway, so you get people hiding their TV sets if the officers come to check.

The whole commissioning procedure is all very cumbersome and rigid, no doubt an inheritance from the past. But perhaps this is what is needed to ensure a consistently high standard of production. I hadn't actually valued the fact that I've come from a radio background. With this background it really is so much easier to get programmes commissioned, and I should really do more about getting more quality programmes on local radio. Cut down my office admin work I say ;D

The future of radio - a mission to the USA

2004-10-15T01:36:00.000-07:00

The above is the title of the UK government's Department of Trade and Industry's Global Watch Mission Report, released in September 2004. The Global Watch Service "provides funds to assist small groups of technical experts from UK companies and academia to visit other countries for short, fact finding missions".

My professor Sean Street chaired this mission and because he wrote the report, we're in a position of privilege to get a copy hot off the press.

This is by far the clearest report I have read detailing the differences in approach between UK and USA, especially when it comes to DAB. These are some of the points which interested me, and I've included my thoughts.

1) The Eureka 147 spectrum is already occupied by the US military, so that's why it was not adopted in the US.
2) Digital radio in the US is also known as High Definition Radio (HD Radio). This is the IBOC (in-band, on-channel) system that's been bandied around at conferences. AM and FM analogue signals can be transmitted simultaneously with digital signals, which means listeners do not have to buy specific digital receivers to receive the improved signals. This is different from Eureka 147 where listeners have to buy separate digital receivers.
3) Satellite digital audio radio services with subscription are taking off in a big way in the US with 2 authorised companies - XM and Sirius. (Can we receive these in Singapore? If anything, probably WorldSpace which broadcasts to Asia). They offer greater choice in an age where traditional analogue radio is perceived as bland and formulaic. This is ironic in that DAB in Europe (therefore by similar reasoning, HD Radio) offers greater choice with no subscription cost. Digital radio systems are developing in different directions culturally.
4) So far DAB is still about near CD quality, which is not good enough for marketing purposes. A killer application must be found for DAB to really explode.
5) In the UK, internet radio is regulated by OFCOM. I'm sure this is only an academic exercise because it's impossible to police the web surely. (Does MDA have jurisdiction over internet radio stations originating in Singapore?)
6) Apparently there are new 'radio' devices making use of wireless internet to enable internet radio listening throughout the house. Access with a PC is not needed for preset internet radio stations. Although this is the US scenario, if it's made available in UK and Europe how will sales of DAB sets be affected? Should we also think about developing the internet radio scene in Singapore?
7) In the UK, radio is available on TV. Over ten million people listen through this mode (in class one day, someone mentioned that a lot of people keep their eyes on a blank TV screen whilst listening).
8) The conclusion of the mission: IP-based services will lead the next wave. Since Singapore is such a huge consumer of mobile and broadband technology, we can certainly observe the development of the UK model. But because our consumer base is tiny, we really need to think about targetting a broader audience - at least Southeast Asia for the immediate future.

2CR FM Visit - the world is so small

2004-10-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

This week started off with a visit to 2CR FM which is a commercial radio station in Bournemouth, pretty much like Perfect 10. It's part of a bigger radio group (GWR, I believe) which has just in the past month consolidated with another major player, Capital to now capture 40% listenership. This merger is significant as it's the first time it's been allowed by Ofcom (Office of Communications), UK's equivalent of MDA.

Anyway the guy in charge (Programme Controller cum morning show guy) is Graham Mack. Why small world? He started by asking us all to introduce ourselves, and I happened to be the first one he pointed to. So I said I was from Singapore, to which he exclaimed "Oh, I've met some people from Singapore! They were doing the morning show there - one big guy and 2 small guys. " Right...I'm still trying to work out who these people are. To make things more difficult, he met them 3 years ago at PD Grad School in the US run by Dan O'Day.

Graham has a colourful history indeed. Started out as a builder in New Zealand, then conned his way into an air-con job in Australia, then decided he wanted to do radio because he heard crap on Australian radio, then conned his way into the Australian Film TV & Radio School. Here's another reason why the world is so small - he remembers Bryon Quigley who used to teach radio in NP! (Thankfully I remembered the connection between Bryon & AFTRS to ask Graham).

The term Evil Empire came up a fair bit. In Graham's vocabulary it refers to the BBC aka Auntie aka Beeb. His opinion is that BBC is killing local enterprise and therefore should not be supported. 2CR strongly supports local companies and in fact has quite a lot of advertising revenue from this sector. How the recent merger will affect this localness is yet to be seen.

2CR's studios are pretty similar to the ones in Singapore. In fact they're not able to automate yet because their newly acquired system Genesis will only be making an appearance next week. Records are still used (!). DAB is available but limited to basic PAD. Editing software is CoolEdit now known as Adobe Edition, which we will begin learning in uni next week.

I quite enjoy the morning show because Graham works well with his sidekick Richie. It's obvious Graham is the more dominant of the two so there's no clash that sometimes happens with more than one strong personality. At the moment Richie is subjected to a diet - he's supposed to hit 90kgs from his current 100kg, so there's a weigh-in every Wednesday. Quite entertaining because they keep trailing it and keeps you wondering if it will go up (it has been going up instead of down). One thing that works very well and I think is definitely lacking in Singapore radio - the informality of the whole show that makes you feel that you're popping by their living room. There's no sense of "putting on a show" which our guys tend to do. These 2 guys are just having a good time talking about everyday things like parking problems at specific locations (20 minute limit which is rather short for lunchtime). Singapore needs to be less American, less formulaic. There's nothing really that distinguishes us from any other station in the US...well, maybe our wonderfully creative traffic and weather reports.

Another thing I notice is the always-ready-to-move culture. People here (maybe just media people?) are willing to uproot geographically wherever a new job takes them, whether or not there are savings. I can certainly learn from this - sometimes we tend to worry too much, get strangulated and may miss opportunities. My classmates have certainly uprooted from all over the country.

Ah, my classmates...12 of us in all. The maximum the course can take is 15 (sounds like our radio workshops!). The missing ones are one Ghanaian who pulled out at the last minute and one Indian who's still trying to get a visa. Presently only 2 of us are internationals, the other one being a Spanish girl who has just completed her Journalism degree. Most of them are really young. Only 3 of us are more matured. One is a guy about my age from London who has 2 kids, and the other is a girl who worked in New Zealand & Australia for a while. Some of them have really got financial problems so coming to do this course is a really major decision (read: passion). I really do take my hat off to them. Oh, there's also a Vietnamese girl who's doing her phD on Internet Radio Stations in Vietnam. She has to take some MA subjects, which explains why she joins my class sometimes. When I asked her about the radio industry in Vietnam, she says there's only one national broadcaster which also runs the internet radio station. You mean, you can do a phD on one station?

The rest of Monday (back at uni) was spent listening to a guy drone on postmodernity and postmodernism and how they are different. Well, to be honest I'd rather be prehistoric if there are going to be any more of these incomprehensible lectures. I know these sessions must be there for a reason - help!

The easiest bit for me was the workshop which involved working the console. No sweat when it came to reading and recording a one minute news bulletin, much to the surprise of my classmates. They reckon I should be the class newsreader. Anyhow, they work the console slightly differently here. (The next few lines will only be appreciated by my radio colleagues so skip it if it gets too boring.) Instead of adjusting the levels via the fader for braodcast, the demonstrator told us to adjust it by using the Gain knob. The fader is automatically pushed to its maximum (which is the zero position) during broadcast. Learnt how to do effects and EQ as well, something which was the hallowed realm of audio engineers only, when I was still working in radio. Looking forward to the Internet component at the end of this term.

Week One

2004-10-10T13:14:00.000-07:00

It's been a hectic week, compared to the introductory sessions of last week. Organisationally, it could have been better with clearer instructions as to what modules we're actually taking this term (note: not semester, like Singapore's system). Finally worked out that we're doing 4 modules, excluding workshops. I actually missed one lecture (and quite a crucial one) on Thursday morning!

Actually tutorials here mean making time to consult the lecturers - they're not timetabled. And workshops mean working on your production project. The first few weeks involve being shown equipment and software, of course.

So far, it's been a most gratifying experience. The Programme Leader (equivalent of NP's Course Manager) is Sean Street, who is wonderfully eloquent and knowleageable. It was a high point for me to hear him utter the same words I do to my radio students - how radio is all about sound and how we need to learn to use it creatively, etc. Even his call for us to introduce ourselves - "share whatever you want about yourself, the meaning of life" - was so similar.

The history of radio session was very similar to what I do in Radio Production One, except this was even more interesting. Sean has researched the subject so thoroughly, he rattles off the dates effortlessly. When I asked him about the Radio Times publication (our 8 Days), he began "...it was first published in 1922"(!).

Anyway, now I begin to see how one event led to another. Interesting things to note:
- Marconi moved to Bournemouth, and stayed in a house next to the Bournemouth International Conference Centre (BIC). It was here he first sent signals to the Isle of Wight.
- He later moved to Poole (several miles from Bournemouth) where he stayed at the Haven Hotel. It was here he invented "tuning".
- Early recording machines were huge things (pretty much like the first computers, I suppose) and used steel tape. You can appreciate how dangerous this must have been at high speeds. And what a hassle it was to edit by cutting the steel tape, then welding it together.
- Orson Welles' War of the Worlds was a key moment in the development of fact blurring into fiction. It created such a stir because Welles understood consumer patterns of that time. Listeners to the more popular The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show (Edgar Bergen, Candice's dad doing his ventriloquist act - on radio?) on the rival CBS network tuned over during the commercial break, and wouldn't have caught the beginning of the War of the Worlds, which would have clearly indicated that it was a radio drama. Now this makes me understand why it caused a near stampede in those days!
- The first portable recording equipment on disc was used by a reporter who was sent to cover the Hindenburg event. Little did he expect an explosion, and the reporter's frantic sobbing was to be immortalised in that historic recording.
- Features in the early days involved recording and transcribing interviews, then scripting the lines for an actor (or the interviewee, if he were lucky) to read. These were done "live".
- When radio sets became portable, the DJs were often from the then existing pirate radio stations. These were people like Kenny Everitt, Tony Blackburn. (Similar to Rediffusion presenters being poached in the old days?)
- After WWII, Radio Luxembourg became very popular with British listeners due to its pop music offering. This prompted British radio (boring those days) to react. (Similar to Singapore's reaction to Batam's Zoo).

Saw some interesting radio sets as well. In addition to one DAB set, there was a wind-up radio set which could also work on solar power (must see if it's available in the shops). The next big thing here seems to be portable satellite radio, picking up from the US example.

In terms of audio material, there's a really good archive here. Seems to be the pet project, conserving all this material - which is really an excellent move. Wonder how much stuff Singapore has in its National Archives?

From my readings so far (so much to read, so little time), it sounds like radio was constantly fashioned by rebels who didn't want bland stuff and who challenged programming. Which begs the question - what's the next frontier? Pity so many networks are toiling at the bottom line and give little time for experimentation.

Gender-based studies are also very interesting. I didn't realised that there are studies referring to the radio as being something liberating for men and boys, who might like tinkering with machines and therefore enjoy the connectivity of this activity. Or how men are are able to become more like women without appearing to do so. Check out Susan Douglas and her book Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination.

"Learnt" how to use MD recorder this week - wow, right. It was quite interesting that the automatic recording (what, not manual recording?) came out quite well. The MD recorder (Sony, like ours - yay!) is housed in a casing (the size of our old DAT recorders) and is actually better to use for vox pops. Plus the battery capacity is immense. Can't imagine having to lug that elephant out though...must take a photo to send back to the Radio team.

Library-wise, pretty similar with the availability of EBSCOHOST, OPAC and the like. Not that everyone know how to use it though. Better not mention names. Nice computers for open access - flat screens.

It has been a good week. Should get even better.