[LenGroat]

MB

“The revenue from the jingles on countywide FM is peanuts but once they air on BBC London they start earning some sizable dosh – That BBC Worldwide want! ” That sums it up, it’s all moneymoneymoney to go back into the BBC coffers… and another nail in the coffin of the radio jingle industry.

I ‘monitored’ BBC Radio Nottingham’s breakfast show recently. A 22 year old ‘woman’ ‘journalist’ interviewing a very elderly lady, live, who moaned at great length;it almost made the McCasso idents sound lively. The all-speech breakfast shows deserve these awful idents…

I made the point elsewhere, that the ‘older listeners’ these stations focus on were (for example) GEM-AM or Trent FM listeners 20 years ago, so WHY do they produce such DRY brittle, boring, music-less programming for them now?

60 is then FIFTY!!

[nickmozz]

BBC LONDON HAS RECIEVED THE MCASSO TREATMENT!

Thought I would bring you the breaking news. The new jingles kicked in this morning.

I thought they were on the way as they ran a trail yesterday for the Eddie Nestor programme and I thought “mmm that production bed sounds distinctly Mcasso”. But it’s all change this morning.

They’ve gone with the “BBC Lon…Don” – sonic ending.

Can’t wait to hear of Danny Baker’s take on things during his show from 3. No doubt it will take him forever to get his head around them… for the last few years he managed to play the travel jingle when it’s supposed to be the news and vice-versa!

Nick

[local_12]

I wanted to break the news! Anyway, the BBC London sound is different with a new travel bed but it seems Mcasso tried to replicate Music4 as the news jingle sounds quite similar. One of the hour openers sound like a remix of the BBC Surrey news build and I suppose there’ll still be some new cuts during the week on BBC London.

[simon_t123Member]

Ahh about time, nothing on the Mcasso website has changed in terms of a demo, it’s still “Coming Soon” for BBC London but here’s the travel sequence into a Vanessa Feltz ID, I’ll try & grab the news & hour opener later Not bad so far but lacking in terms of the power the Music4 imaging gave to the station sound …

Travel sounds like a custom jobby as local_12 points out, but Vanessa’s ID sounds very similar to existing themes.

BBC London Travel & Vanessa Feltz ID (Mcasso April 2012) by flamingoodmedia

[tom_h]

Vanessa’s ID is a short version of one of the news themes. Not sure if I like this batch of cuts for London, they seem to be lacking – possibly because the sonic logo is just so short unlike the rest of them.

[simon_t123Member]

WOW, what nickmozz was saying about the BBC Lon – Don sonic ending is not something that disappoints ! it’s the first time a real custom sonic logo has been used I think (?) certainly as the main station logo … most of the others of course have the 3 note B-B-C then their simpler local logo rounded off by another B-B-C logo … here’s travel, news in & hour open from mid-day on April 2nd 2012

Actually it would seem a number of the cuts have had the BBC Lon – Don logo worked in rather than using the 3 note B-B-C style

BBC London Travel, News & Robert Elms Opener (Mcasso April 2012) by flamingoodmedia

[fredgreek]

A couple of presenters mistiming their links in to the news at the top of the hour – both Vanessa Feltz just before 9 and Eddie Nestor a few minutes ago spoke right over the voiceover!

[mbMember]

It just sounds so feeble compared to the powerful Music 4 package. Taking a big city station to sound like yokel FM is some doing but Mcasso have managed to make it sound small time and dated at the same time. if someone told you this was from the Mid-eighties I wouldn’t have been surprised. I think this is a reall low point for BBC local radio imaging and for BBC London to replace a s trong identity with this dreadful product.

[thelistener]

A sad day. mb is right. To lose Music 4 in London, IQB in Manchester, and some good Steve England work in places like Humberside is a real shame. London in particular sounds like a dog’s breakfast. Some parts of the old LR package showing through some London additions like the brass. And wtf is going on off the vo ‘2012’?! There appears to be some kind of spurious 5 note logo, with different notation and time to the proper one.

[danwx]

I have to say I quite like the new jingles used across BBC Local Radio, but then again I end up hearing them everyday so it becomes habit I guess.

I feel quite lucky to be able to talk over some of the jingles and beds being a weather presenter for the BBC Local Radio stations in the ‘Eastern Counties’ (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Northampton and Three Counties).
Only Northampton and Three Counties have a ‘bed’ that they use while we present the weather, Cambridgeshire keep the travel bed going into the weather during their breakfast show, but all the other stations don’t have a bed for the weather.

I think out of all 6 of these stations, I prefer Northampton’s package as it seems to work quite well.

[mbMember]

How many logos has BBC London got ? It’s all over the place presenters crashing the beds, beds just trailing off different logos on diferent cuts and a beep through the news build that sounds like an alarm has gone off. What sounded tight and big now has the imaging of a community station.

[ShaunMoore]

Mcasso Demo is now up!

[mbMember]

hy does the news have a different logo for everything else, why the beeps!! Still at least this brings thier contract to a close and all production is complete. Hopefully BBC LR at some point can move on from this dreadful imaging and process and get a company who know about radio branding other than instrumental stabs to do the job. Trouble is you pay a pittance and what do you get…mcasso imaging.

[timbo]

Just added a BBC London News build to the soundcloud (not entirely sure how to link it into this page.

Will also pop a Danny Baker bed as I suspect this could be the only place it’ll be heard!

[timbo]

LDN News by Timbo_bbc

Baker Bed by Timbo_bbc

[LenGroat]

These BBC Mcasso ‘themes’ (or whatever they call them) sound straight out of the 70s, the kind of safe instrumental packages various UK companies made .. and SO easy to do.

In contrast most commercial stations are using synthetic Kylie Minogue-style rhythms with screechy solo vocals.

British Radio ID’s have gone to two EXTREMES with these, leaving a demographicVOID in the centre.

Between them BBC local and most commercials stations only cover under 30s and over 55s.. WHY ON EARTH are they ignoring the 30-55s !?

[mbMember]

What I think makes it worse for BBC London is that ( although I don’t lilke it ) The LBC Package was made by a proper Orchestera and at least has a degree of gravitas and authority ( oddly as the output does not ) so comparing the two station sounds the flimsey commerceial rival sounds better in terms of production than the BBC.

BBC Local radio has no talk rival ( outside of London and possibly Liverpool ) so it has no competition to sound poor against but this imaging on BBC London would not sound out of place in the early eighties. Some of te themes would not sound out of place as break bumpers on some middle of the road afternoon TV show on five.
And is the logo BBC, BBC London, BBC, or BBC Radio Blah blah they don’t seem to have made thier mind up.

And those bloody awful beeps in the news Jingles – If you are David Lowe you can make beeps an integral part of a theme it seems when Mcasso do it it sounds like a submarine radar. And why do the beeps continue when the newsreader is talking its distracting.

[mbMember]

If ever there was a track that didn’t suit Danny or his show it’s that one – Remember the fantastic Iiam Lee LBC track a few years ago – But I can’t see Mcasso being able to produce something like that.

[simon_t123Member]

lols @ the comments about Danny Baker I was listening to Baker for jingles that day I upped the airchecks on my way down to jollys on the South Coast, not only was a I treated to a very surreal show but jingles were not part of said show ! apart from the fact he took the mick out of the new sound “they’ve brought in a new travel jingle just to confuse London’s over 50’s, the old logo we sung ‘he’s fell on his head’ too & the new logo (plays the travel in many times, each time singing) ‘this isn’t working’ …” which I thought summed up his views on the new BBC London sound I have to say I agree with many of the comments here, some awful segs & bed tag plays on day 1 & I too thoughr that ‘beep’ on the news was bloody annoying ! the fact it goes on at full volume as news does the read, it’s not right at all, expect a remix of the package before too long methinks it’s the same old Mcasso but with a quick ‘special’ logo for BBC London tagged on, so weak in places (Vanessas cut) that I missed the notes of London althogether ! only in cans did I hear anything extra to the usual “BBC” logo … This has not been a great move for BBC London, tho’ overall I can live with the Mcasso sound, it is just lacking something, well lacking a lot ! and the BBC refused to disclose under freedom of information any package specifics, as BBC Worldwide as a commercial entity is not bound by the same rules of disclosure as the BBC ‘proper’ …

welcome to ‘danwx’ it’s always good to have a user of said product with us, and from my patch also (Essex) I think there’s only one weather bed in any case that I’ve heard, but with a little creative thinking any of these beds could be used for any purpose …

that being the problem tho’ BBC locals are news & journo focused, there’s a lack of creative thinking when it comes to station imaging & trails in some areas !!! to economise … CENTRALISE … at least in the field of station sound, now everyone’s on Mcasso, let a team do everyone from BBC Locals HQ ?!!

[simon_t123Member]

Thanks to ShaunMoore for the Mcasso demo heads up … here it is

BBC London 2012 Demo (Mcasso) by flamingoodmedia

[local_12]

On a slightly different note, voiceover James Knight has mentioned that he will be the new male v/o for BBC Three Counties after Easter and was recorded on 21 Feb this year according to his website.

Also, I was wondering why a lot of stations have taken the ‘a passion for countyshire life’ slogan as well…

[simon_t123Member]

yeah local_12 I can’t remember where but Kent had “a passion for Kent” for a while now but I do recall hearing other stations beginning to have a passion about their own areas, but that can only be a good thing lols nice to think stations can change the VO’s to bring in a little refresh, I’m still listening to a very bland BBC Essex mix of imaging & thinking, well you aired these 1st, along with York & Lincs so these stations should really be thinking about a refresh ? get some of the more recent (and much improved) news & travel builds into use, that should surely be the benefit of a group package ?

checking on Mcasso’s demo cuts mind, the numbers don’t go very high there, you’ve got a news v5 I think and production v3 but there’s nothing to suggest there’s 100’s of cuts to choose from, does anyone in the locals know if there is a kit to select from ? or the cuts were ‘dished out’ or any policy on updates or refreshes ?

oh for the a copy of the ‘kit’ … just for anorak value of course

[mbMember]

As far as I understand the contract and production is now complete, there is no continuious update al la reelworld one

[IainJohnstonMember]

So do we think that Mccasso will be “invited” to “pitch” for the follow-on package in 15 years time then, when the existing “package” will have surely become “tired”?

#84128

[local_12]

After 2 years of Mcasso, BBC Lincolnshire have gone back to BBC Radio Lincolnshire with a refreshed Mcasso package from Merseyside as well as new station voices.

[Author]

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