[LenGroat]

I quote from a story on 'Radio today'

'BBC Radio 1… The man in charge, Andy Parfitt, is having a whale of a time spending the licence fee on pizza, champagne and more…. Andy takes the likes of Colin Murray and Zane Lowe out for lunch at a cost of almost £150…. Andy spent £1,517 on external entertainment communicating the Radio 1 strategy to its specialist presenters in April 2007. A month later he spent another £1,186 doing the same thing…'

We discussed in an earlier topic the COST of the BBC Local radio to Licence payers (only 1 in 5 people listen to it) and now the indulgent WASTE of the BBC Licence money is officially declared (at last) through the new 'transparency' policy.

Let the 'clear up' begin .. BUT it would be MOST interesting to see the same 'expenses' for BBC Radio 2!

More importantly, maybe Andy Parfitt needs to take some of the regulars from jinglemad.com out to (a cheap) lunch and get advice on making DECENT jingles for Radio 1? The station is now a ghost of what it was in the 80s and 90s.

Or if there is no one there with the imagination and vision to create a great new package, £2853 would go a LONG way to re-licencing some of those classic JAM jingles that helped make it… 'Britain's Favourite ~ Radio One'

[Barras]

I can only say it with a jingle…

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1248166156_3680_FT73277_jam_britains_favourite_radio_one.mp3 filename:jam_britains_favourite_radio_one.mp3

[IainJohnstonMember]

Len, Radio One CANNOT ever again be the popular mass-appeal broad-audience station it once was, regardless of what jingles it might use now or in the future…it won't be ALLOWED to be!…

…it was “castrated” deliberately under the pressure of the “commercial radio lobby” to allow the 1990s ILRs to expand & prosper – something which they could not do if Radio One retained such a huge slice of the potential UK daytime audience (Ref: the famous Dave Lee Travis “leaving speech”!)

Ironically, as its now Radio Two that pulls in huge numbers of adult (and we'll carefully say “intelligent” listeners) its the post-ILR “corporate commercial radio” that cannot compete despite their consolidation, cost-cutting, networking, and sheer dumbing-down & “narrow-casting”.

These conglomerates have borrowed so much money to buy each other up that they're now finding it difficult to even service their loans' interest never mind generate enough advertising sales income to pay back their loans – and thats exactly whats happening in the USA too (Ref: New York Radio Message Board”) – e.g. Clear Channel could shortly go into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection – so why the UK “regulators” have deemed it fit for the UK commercial radio industry to ape the US model in our much smaller country to me defies description!

Er, yes, Radio Two should definately get even £2k's worth of new jingles, preferably JAM please! Would be much better spent than yet another bosses' “power lunch”!

PS – Licence Fee versus BBC Locals – despite the fact that at literally the price of a Mars Bar per day the BBC is still (IMPO) about the only thing of value one gets in the UK today for pennies, as a Scottish listener I do feel a bit peeved that I have to pay for loads of English BBC county/city “locals” yet the whole of Scotland gets merely one “local” which is really “national”.

Overall, I fail to understand those who moan about the Licence Fee being “so expensive” – commercial radio is “paid for” by product/service advertising budgets which come out of the “factory door price” of the item advertised, so commercial radio/TV is not free. No doubt some of the moaners will have had their eyes glued to the BBC tennis/golf/cricket/etc coverage lately, while ITV pumped out endless “groundhog day” soaps, cop shows, celebrity p*ish, meerkat/tiger/zoo etc, and commercial radio did its analogue of that with same “songs you love” (Van Morrison “Brown Eyed Girl” anyone?)

(Sorry! End of “soapbox rant”! – must be because its never stopped bl&&dy raining here in this “barbeque summer”)

[LenGroat]

Iain

THANKS for putting a diverse, sometimes opposite but well argued response on….

And I do think Radio 2 would be a MOST interesting organisation to examine – WHEN its staff 'expenses' are published …

My understanding of the 'slaughter' of Radio One… was that it was done because it was so popular the Labour goverment threatened to make it take commercials to reduce the 'Licence Fee'.

As regards the weather…. my last year in England my 'prize' Sweetpeas ROTTED on the plant it was so WET…..

But, we had THIRTY FIVE DAYS OF SUN WITH NO RAIN here… in January & February

'the Weather in a Word is Groovy!!

Sorry!

[enerjee]

LenGroat wrote:
My understanding of the 'slaughter' of Radio One… was that it was done because it was so popular the Labour goverment threatened to make it take commercials to reduce the 'Licence Fee'.

I tend to agree with Wixy regarding the value of the BBC.

But Len, do you mean that a FUTURE Labour government threatened to make Radio 1 take commercials. The R1 changes took place in 1994 under a Conservative government.

Of course the BBC isn't untouchable, but we do need to be careful about how we attack it because the alternative, I believe, would be terrible.

Jingles for Radio 1 are not as appropriate as they were when it was relic of the pop pirates.

[Admin]

LenGroat wrote:
But, we had THIRTY FIVE DAYS OF SUN WITH NO RAIN here… in January & February

Here in Dubai we get NINE MONTHS of HOT sun and no rain.

Sorry!

[Author]

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