[LenGroat]

There is a team of people ‘tamping at the bit’ to tell you about “Solid Gold GEM.AM” ~ but being the ‘regular’ on jinglemad I am the lucky one to do it here!

To start at the beginning, when ILR was allowed by the IBA to separate the services on FM and AM I was in the fortunate position to dream up the name ‘GEM-AM’, which stood for ‘Great East Midlands’, and at the same time the ‘rules’ about WHO you could use to produce jingles for UK radio were (very belatedly) changed so we could go to the the jingle capital of the World.

To now cut a long story short, within 6 years ‘GEM-AM’ had a reach of 23-24%, a talented team of presenters and some superb PAMS and JAM jingles. Many of you also know that the following 6 years were not as illustrious, as syndicated programming was brought in, the station name changed, and the ratings…. well I don’t need to cover that.

Yet today I am able to say we have a ‘new’ oldies station, because from 5th November “Solid Gold Gem.am” will be back, but not for the ‘Great East Midlands’, but for the World. We need to make clear that our name includes the .am ending which is the Armenian registration for URL’s, and we ONLY use the full name “Solid Gold Gem.am” in order to make it clear we are not connected with the East Midland’s GEM106. That station that owns the registered trademark for the ‘GEM’ name. As I created that name in 1988 I’m delighted it’s been revived for a contemporary station, and that they are amicable about us using our (clearly different) version of the name, for a station not related to the original ‘GEM-AM’, but which was inspired by, and carries on, its spirit.

I hope this does not sound like an advert for our station, in fact we will carry NO commercials, but be on-line 24 hours a day, with up to 18 Solid Gold Hits from the 40s to 80s every hour. That is one reason we believe we ‘fill a gap’ in the current world radio market, and more importantly, our line-up of presenters shows we have put a lot of thought and effort into this…

Those who worked on the original ‘GEM-AM’ include Andy Marriott (our headmaster), Krissi Carpenter, Paul Burbank, Brian Tansley, Craig Strong and Danny Cox. We also have long-term BRMB presenter Brian Savin, Radio Aire’s Andy Siddell (now on 95.5FM Toronto Canada) and many other voices you will have heard on the radio and tv in years gone by.

Of course the main reason I am posting here is to open a topic where we can play you some of our NEW jingles for “Solid Gold Gem.am”. Not surprisingly they are from JAM and PAMS, and will be augmented with some of the original jingles which we have re-licenced, including some of the Alfasound material thanks to our friends at S2Blue. The presenters are buying their own namechecks as we run as a ‘co-operative’, so I think that shows how KEEN we all are for 5th November to arrive.

Before that , stand by to hear the first “Solid Gold Gem.am” jingles made in over 15 years….

Soon !

Len & the “Solid Gold Gem.am” Co-operative

[bobgreenradioMember]

well; good for you! >

[teachercreature]

Sounds great Len. Without getting into the weeds, could you explain how an internet station with no commercials can afford Dallas jingles and pay ASCAP and BMI fees.

[LenGroat]

Thank you Bob!

No ‘weeds’ Teacher Creature! Our Co-operative includes many ‘mature’ presenters and so the passing of years means many of us ‘sit’ on our pension wondering how it might be fun to spend it! As regards the jingles, being internet only and non-commercial, the good folks at JAM/PAMS kindly provide the jingles at ‘personal cut’ rate.

We hope you will enjoy our station!

[simon_t123Member]

Nice one with the project Len, can’t wait to hear the jingles

PRS / PPL are far too prohibitive for small UK webcasters, the small deal they offer has a cap of XYZ song performances a year per listener, something like 200,000 which when you drill down is like 1 listener an hour hearing 15 songs x 24 hours x 365 days a year, I’m not 100% on the figures it’s just an example, my own research for a ‘small’ non-commercial webcaster with 50 average listeners peak and 30 off-peak (which I consider reasonably successful in this day & age) sums up at like 6,000,000 individual song performances a year a UK orientated small webcaster can’t use the small webcaster licence with listenership like that … out of interest the bill for that based on the performance rate (which you have to pay in cases where you have such listenership) would be about £3,600 for the PPL alone ! Then there’s PRS / MCPS to add in, another quite hefty expense …

As I say however that is for a UK ‘originated’ webcaster … If for instance the streaming server is automated at the server end (with or without fresh uploaded content) and the server is say in Croatia, providing the service is stable (which I can assure you it is for a station I advise) then the service is not UK originated, and some might fly their own Jolly Roger in such circumstances (for non-commercial webcasters I take no issue with this) or … they would technically pay royalites to the country of origin … If, the country of origin had such a scheme or even seemed to care about such activites, chances are if they did, the local currency would be far cheaper in fees than the UK would ever be …

The other more legitimate option is to launch stations thru the US (use a US based stream server) and run with full royalties payments to ASCAP & BMI via ‘LoudCity’ or ‘Live 365’ of which LoudCity appears the least intrusive, you must only launch your stream from their page but are free to create & content that page, host your stream wherever etc, and pay against a sliding scale of TLH / hours for your service … For the non-commercial station I mentioned previously that £3,600 of PPL alone would be a mere $50 (approx) a month to be full legal via the US & available to a world-wide audience …

It’s fair to say the more popular you are the more you will have to pay, which is the way the world works …

As for jingles, well we LOVE jingles right ? So as with myself THAT is how we afford Dallas sung jingles … We buy them ourselves from the money we make whilst hard at work on real jobs, or as Len says there from our pensions & savings, it’s a love & a passion, internet radio can be just so good & fill nichés & provide programming you just don’t get in the UK on the commercial or BBC scene …

That’s my two penneth (or 50 penneth worth – I apologise !) on the royalties subject.

I wish Len & the Gem.AM service the very best of luck

As a final thought, I personally feel the internet should be used for very localised community radio much more than it is, with good promotion in a town say like where I live, an internet delivered radio service just for that area, if programmed well could work very well indeed, it’s the medium of the future …

[mjb1124Member]

Good luck, Len! I’ll be looking forward to listening.

[ratnobMember]

Sounds great. Well done, Len and Co, and I look forward to listening.

[teachercreature]

Thanks to Len and Simon for bringing all of us novices the whys and wherefores on expenses (and interesting tricks) involved in internet broadcasting.

[professor1036]

From one webcaster to another…Good luck to Len & everyone else regarding the new Gem! Hope it’s a success!

Fully agree with what Simon has said in relation to PPL…lets just say I could be looking at alternative options in the future.

[Barras]

All the best Len and Co…sounds like a winner to me.

[SeanMartin]

Bringing back the good times! Can’t wait.

Will we be treated to test transmissions and some kind of ILR-styled opening ceremony?

Also, any info on the GMT start time? Will it be noon and will it be you?

[LenGroat]

We’d like to thank all of you for your good wishes ~ and very soon I’ll unveil the first of a few cuts I think you’ll enjoy and find interesting !

The TEAM behind the SolidGoldGEM.AM Co-operative all LOVE radio, and we think that’s 90% of the battle. There is a HUGE (and growing) choice of internet stations now, more and more we can CHOOSE a variety of music, not listen to a music philosophy dictated by a 23 year old ‘head of music’ 100s of miles away (or in the US, 1000s).

We hope that as well as (for example) SkyLabRadio and JingleMadRadio you’ll also find some times each day to enjoy OUR station!

If you are on Facebook, please say ‘hi’ and maybe add us, and you’ll also find some of our presenters on there too!

Len & the TEAM

[SeanMartin]

We’re all ears, Len!!

[LenGroat]

Okay.. for those who are ‘all ears’.. as promised..

Here is an ‘earful’ of what I think is THE best News jingle to come out of America for over 20 years; cut 1 from JAM’s ‘Top News’. You probably know that Jon Wolfert created it along with the late Tom Merriman to orchestrate it. With THAT pedigree and around 60 musicians playing, it could not fail…

The SolidGoldGem.am Co-operative were delighted when Jon agreed we could buy this incredible cut.

Enjoy.. and hear it LIVE from 5th November when we carry FSN news on the station every hour.

SOLID GOLD GEM.AM ~ World Wide News by Len Groat

[SeanMartin]

That’s cool.

[bossjockMember]

Excellent > > > Looking forward to hearing it live!!

[Duncan]

Wow, I’d have chosen the same cut. Really nice Len, good luck

[rakMember]

Nice cut, Len. Would have worked perfectly with Great East Midlands sung at the end, had GEM still been on medium wave in the East Mids.

[rakMember]

Is GEM going to be available on the tunein platform? [iPhone/Android app]

[LenGroat]

Thanks for the kind comments ~ I’m just the one who ‘cherry picks’ great jingles which is what I was doing for the original GEM-AM 20 years ago.

Rak: yes ‘Great East Midlands’ would have fitted As you know our station is not geographically tied-down, and is primarily about great oldies played in a nostalgic format we know that generation enjoy. As regards the ‘Tune In Platform’ those younger and more digitally-minded than me explain:

‘Thanks to TuneIn radio you can listen to Solid Gold Gem.AM not only on your phone but also on Apple iTouch and iPad devices. The TuneIn Radio APP comes in two versions. There is a free version and a PRO version The only difference is that the PRO version allows you to record radio programmes as well as listen to them’

I’ll add another new JAM jingle ‘gem’ soon !

[dianablanton1984Member]

That jingle sounded great!

[bobgreenradioMember]

nice pep in the bed.
sooooo?? youre gonna do news? in real time? thats going to take a bit of work.

[LenGroat]

Thank Diana & Bob.

Our news service is syndicated – remember we are non-commercial so have to start carefully….. and see how we grow

As it’s Friday evening, let’s do a ‘Ready Steady Go’ (as they did in the 1960s) and unveil another NEW cut for Solid Gold GEM.AM. The original was made for WJR Detroit, and the lyric was ‘The Great Voice of the Great Lakes’. An inside story here is that this was one of my inspirations to describe the East Midlands as ‘Great’ hence the name!

For our new station we needed a melodic, soft ID and this cut from JAM’s ‘Spirit of ’76’ is perfect. I love the clear, rich 7 voice vocals, gentle instrumentation and subtle electronic fx. Lastly I must thank SkyLabRadio who bought this cut a while back as their example was so well sung it reminded me what a great cut it IS!

I beleive it’s a truly timeless jingle for AC radio….. and for a radio station playing timeless music.. ‘Radio Like It Used To Be’

Radio ~ Like It Used To Be ~ Solid Gold GEM.AM by Len Groat

[dianablanton1984Member]

Another great jingle!

[muffy]

No wall of ILR style jingle reverb or poor solo voice ….
If only todays UK radio knew how to make and and use quality jingles

Len that Just sounds great … counting the days to the start of the station.. All the best of luck

[Author]

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