I’ve been waiting for someone to post about the new Free radio jingles – as they haven’t I thought I’d start.
I have a bit of a beef with Orion I think they threw away the heritage names for no good reason and get away with having Beacon broadcasting from Birmingham
That said they still do some great stuff like the documentary on the Birmingham bombings. But back to the jingles.
The Wise Buddha jingles for BRMB, Beacon, Mercia etc were amazing I think more stations could have picked them up and used them as they had some really nice cuts.
The 2015 Free package is quite nifty. Firstly the tracks are really upbeat and fun and the vocals / Effects play really nicely.
I also like the flourishes like the big band at the end of one of the mixes.
It is also interesting that the transitions are not just short version od the ramps but they’ve put the station name at the front and slogan at the end ( a la Hot FM ).
It’s hard to judge overall as last time there were lots of variants produced that are not on the website which added to the variety – I don’t know if they have done hat this time.
The more you listen the more they grow on you – a sign of a really good jingle.
The mix of voices and singing may not be to everyone’s tastes but it gives a unique /flavour to the package and point of differentiation from the last one.
Now for the negatives – A gospel breakfast song – I’m just over them.
The news jingle is very uninspiring and lacks va-va-voom unless they are doing anything different imaging wise with it on air it has no build. I like a news jingles to tell me its the top of the hour.
Everyone seems to be going for 7 or 8 cuts recently I think a good package with heavy rotation needs to be about double that.
Alongside the we are GEM jingles the packages these are two of my favourite new jingle packages released in the last 12 months.
I think they make the station sound fun, fresh and upbeat.
http://www.wisebuddah.com/jingles/radio#/date/1425168000/show/396
mb
IanF
IanF