Radio At The Edge has become one of the Academy's brightest stars. Thanks to Matt Honey and his energetic committee we were treated to a demonstration of how to stage a compelling conference. The speakers were concise and to the point. They avoided the jargon, they brought plenty of clips for us to listen to and they brought new perspectives for us all to consider. The stand out performer as ever was Fru Hazlitt who f'ked and bollocked her way through a bravura demolition of medium wave. Richard Maddock from Radio City had put up a sterling defence of AM citing the bouyant audience figures of Magic 828 in Leeds and the success of KFI 640AM becoming no.1 in Los Angeles. But he was blown away by Hurricane Fru. I wonder if she's ever had an argument with Emap's Dee Ford - some of us would pay good money to see that!
The theme of the confererence for me was money. Speaker after speaker showed us evidence of a demand for 'visual radio' and interactive services and all kinds of textual healing, but no-one had much idea how to fund it all. Of course the BBC can do it, but in commercial radio, where even producers are as rare as Spurs fans at the Emirates, who's going to source all these pictures and create all this extra content? And who will pay for it? I was pleased that LBC picked up the Innovation Award for their premium podcast service. Finding a way to persuade consumers to pay for radio is truly innovative.
Our good friends at blue barracuda are making a podcast from Radio At The Edge as I write. So if you didn't mange to get there you can hear a flavour of the discussions at
http://www.radioattheedgepodcast.co.ukAnd do have a look at John Plunkett’s entertaining live blog from the conference at
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2006/11/radio_at_the_edge.htmlThank you to the committee of the Radio Academy's Scottish branch who have withdrawn their threat of UDI. I spent a lovely evening with them in Glasgow which was further enhanced by the news that the Bhoys had dispatched the Mancs despite the traditional provision of a last minute penalty to even things up. My how we laughed!. It turns out that Radio Scotland head honcho Jeff Zycinski is a reader of this blog. But he's critical of its frequency - he manages to write his every day! (Check it out at http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/radioscotland/jzdiary) I'm ashamed of myself Jeff and promise to do better in future.
