[rakMember]

Thanks to David H and Jonno for a great day in Portsmouth. Good to meet new Jingle Fans, and see people I’ve met at previous events. Well done to Simon H as well for the coverage, and for streaming against the coverage odds. I’ve been involved in Live radio broadcasts that have relied on public Internet, and it’s never predictably reliable, even with a recce. One one occasion someone had to drive an IP Satellite van overnight to rescue a live Breakfast Show TX that was to be broadcaast via 3G/wifi, and we didn’t have that luxury on Saturday. Looking forward to watching the presentations back later in the week.

A few photos here… I’ll leave these files here for a week or so…

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zl1l4w13bws9npi/AAD4nRdWNFRBSG9K3VvDmrFIa

[gameswizardMember]

Iain and Linden and Mike, I think I promised you CDs if you want them? and it just so happens I have 3 copies remaining. If you do, please can you PM me your addresses?

PM Sent.

Many thanks

[IainJohnston]

Jonno – emailing now – thanks!
IJ

[Rik Scott]

What a great day! Lovely to see everyone

[mbMember]

Well I was there in spirit I saw most on the feeds and tried to participate with the odd twitter comment. would have loved to have been there but it was amazing to be in Brussels and watching it all – great production.

[Bigdave]

Video now up…

Chris Stevens Presentation – http://www.southdown.tv/jingle-day-2014-radio-production-seminar-chris-stevens-from-ignite-jingles_b2ee38be3.html

Simon and Rob from S2Blue/AudioSweets Presentation – http://www.southdown.tv/jingle-day-2014-radio-production-seminar-simon-prentice-from-s2blue-rob-wills-from-audiosweets_085198b8a.html

[Prometheus]

ARE YOU A RADIO ANORAK? YOU SHOULD BE.

To many people working in the radio industry, the idea of a room full of greasy, spotty, bright orange anorak-wearing individuals enthusing in squeaky monotones about the merits of JAM’s ‘Breakthru’ jingle package and its various UK re-sings might seem like Dante’s second circle of hell.

However Saturday’s Jinglemad Jingle Day in the sunshine on Portsmouth’s historic waterfront was far from the stereotype. 25 jingle fans from all over the UK gathered to discuss their hobby, but the attendees may surprise.

The event was broadcast live on Southdown.TV and had a surprising 180 unique viewers, including John Myers.

If you appreciate that some of the UK’s biggest names in commercial radio, from Tony Blackburn to Simon Hirst and Howard Hughes to Chris Moyles are all avid collectors of those little ‘seven seconds of musical magic’ and for many decades jingles had radio listeners subconsciously buying into the brand sound of their radio station of choice, it shouldn’t be too difficult to understand why an appreciation for a radio station’s brand identity is so alluring to so many.

Radio breeds fans. It is – or rather, it should be – engaging, personal and intimate. For many years, the personalities on radio were more famous than the artists whose records they were playing. In a similar vein, the Seattle-based singers of the lyric, “This is Heart” are the most frequently heard artists on the UK’s largest radio brand.

Collecting jingles has been a staple past-time of a great many UK radio fans since the offshore ‘pirate’ stations of the mid-1960s, when the perfect harmony audio identities of stations like Wonderful Radio London and Swinging Radio England would easily and melodically differentiate each station from another.

With so many stations playing so many jingles over so many years, it should hardly be a surprise that there is plenty to talk about among a mix of people who range from Interior Designers to former Programme Directors. Newcomers to the radio industry may be excused from thinking that these nostalgic attendees can be simply cast asunder as ‘anoraks’, but as the day’s first guest speaker pointed out: radio has changed.

Chris Stevens’ young looks belie his fulsome career in radio (from Sun FM, through BBC Radio Two to Real Radio), but he has a genuine appreciation for radio stations as a brand and why it’s important to not to lose sight of what works in a world clamouring for constant change to compete. Chris highlighted that in the US, some stations place such importance on the power of the jingle that they regularly buy entire packages – simply to prevent their competitors from being able to use them on-air. He also explained the sheer versatility of jingles and shared his experience with the BBC’s tendering process for its local radio brand.

Today, Chris who has had the pleasure of working with some of the world’s most talented songwriters, musicians and singers is confident in a robust radio industry which understands its product as a brand and is committed to producing jingles under his Ignite Jingles brand.

Chris’s experience was echoed by Rob Wills and Simon Prentice from Audio Sweets and S2Blue, both radio identification producers. Their presentation to the room showed that there are a significant amount of challenges facing jingle production companies – and they almost all amount to radio stations’ lack of understanding of the importance of brand to the listener, or even the listener themselves.

It was clear that both Rob (who also runs the KMFM network of radio stations in Kent) and Simon are experts in radio branding, saw their job as trying to overcome the most ludicrous of objections to ensuring a clear audio brand for radio stations. Unless you are the originator of the comment, I rather hope you’ll laugh at some of Rob and Simon’s experience with radio stations who want a jingle package where “Z100 meets Magic”, two radio stations at opposing ends of the format range. The desires of the station owner, rather than the business benefits from audience engagement, were also an objection to overcome. Some knowing glances were thrown across the room when such comments were made.

During the 80s and early 90s, one UK company dominated the UK jingle scene. Alfasound was co-founded by former Piccadilly Commercial Producer, Steve England. Over this time, his Alfasound jingles have been heard on more than half of the UK’s independent radio licences. Steve’s presentation via Skype had attendees enthralled and ultimately filled with questions. One question directly asked Steve whether he thought that the radio anorak was more of a nuisance than anything else, he politely answered that his entire career was built on an appreciation for radio jingles and alluded to the great many people in our industry that are successful because they understand the importance of every-tiny-second of their station’s output.

Jingles have multiple purposes that achieve one aim: more listeners. Jingles create an audio brand; jingles reinforce a station name in a way that a disembodied voice never can; jingles are functional; jingles differentiate your station from everything else in the market and jingles assist with unaided recall of your station name in a relevant, engaging and memorable way.

Today, if nothing else, the audience research body RAJAR proves that radio is going to have an increasingly difficult time as fewer and fewer 15-24 year olds listen to ‘radio’; this diminishing demographic will very soon become commercial radio’s core audience as they grow to be purchase decision making consumers.

Younger people are latching onto the ‘new’, so how does ‘old radio’ compete in a technologically challenging market? Radio stations will increasingly need to differentiate themselves from other digital music services by their content and individual stations need to differentiate themselves from competitors by creating and enhancing their brand. Whatever your personal views, Ashley Tabor understands this intimately.

Programme Directors want more prospective audience to listen more often and listen longer and that means creating fans. I currently have the pleasure of presenting on Global Radio in Spain and am frequently filled with pride when a listener responds; they emote with what I have played, what I have said or how I have said it. I see these listeners as fans of the medium and any Programme Director should feel proud that his or her station creates fans.

The deeper a listeners’ feeling for the station, the better the Programme Director is at their job… and if that means that their scheduling skills (and the rest) create anoraks from their audience, they should feel extremely proud of their achievement.

Radio has been creating ‘fans’ for many decades and if that means that a group of unrelated people who gather in a room in Portsmouth are able to discuss in intricate detail the development of a radio station’s audio brand, maybe… just maybe, these jingle-collecting anoraks who by day are interior designers, classroom assistants and call centre managers understand the importance of radio as brand better than many who are running stations today.

Written by David Harber, this article appears in full, with photos and audio at Earshot Creative.

Watch the event online at Southdown.TV

[Prometheus]

As a follow-up, members might want to see the great debate being had at John Myers’ website; fascinating discourse:

http://myersmedia.co.uk/2014/are-radio-anoraks-killing-the-future-of-radio

David

[RobinBlamires]

Hoping the Steve England presentation will get uploaded soon, even if it wasn’t in the flesh in Portsmouth! There were some good ALFA anecdotes mind…

[gameswizardMember]

I’m sure I caught the back end of some footage of a jingle singing session (JAM?) – I hope that part is uploaded.

[jonnoMember]

For those who don’t have a CD, here’s my JD2014 jingle mix

Embedded at home.recnet.com/soundcloud

Enjoy

[tyty21]

i had forgotten all about this, plus, it conflicted with a rehearsal I had forgotten about, I just kicked myself for forgetting that! however, I’d like to see how the jam song sing-along went. I’m pretty sure we got a lot of feedback, of course on the logo parts.

[UKJinglesMember]

Hi,

Has the Steve England Interview and The JAM Song “Live” been posted anywhere yet?

Pete

[Sean MartinMember]

Any news on The JAM Song and the Steve England interview?

[jonnoMember]

We didn’t record a video for The Jam Song in the end, although we did have a good sing along to it, which DH recorded IIRC.

As for the Steve’s bit, I’ll follow up on that.

[radio_blokeMember]

I was there from noon till 7:30pm no sign of any jam song while I was there

[Spoons]

Do we know if the Steve England bit is going to be uploaded? I saw a bit of it live but would like to see it all if poss.

[Prometheus]

Spoons, I’ll check and report back…

[Spoons]

Star man! Cheers.

[Author]

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