I can understand somebody being interested in historical radio broadcasting. I used to be. Somebody with a hobby that includes trawling the past for recordings and memories of radio stations long gone is fine. It's geeky but no different to those interested in old buses or trains.
I guess there are reasonable numbers of old steam train anoraks, in a parallel way to radio broadcasting anoraks, interested in the engines and rolling stock of yesteryear. Nothing wrong with that.
Well, nothing wrong until steam train anoraks start on with their slagging off of the current engines and rolling stock and make pronouncements about how it's all gone wrong and it would be a lot better if steam engines ruled the railways again.
Indeed, there are probably some who are convinced that it won't be long until those running the railway companies have seen the error of their ways and steam trains once again run on every line now annoyingly configured for diesel or electric rolling stock. These minority steam train anoraks sit there awaiting the 'second coming' of the steam train.
Back at radio, there do seem to be a large number sitting awaiting the 'second coming' of old fashioned radio. I don't know if their spitting venom about modern radio is an exclusive of the 'second comers', because I feel it is shared by the radio anoraks who aren't awaiting the 'second coming'.
One thing is for sure, and I'm not just talking about the original radio anoraks, with their legs cemented in the offshore radio era, but also the radio anoraks from the late 1980s and 1990s when we used to have a lot more radio programmes being broadcast than now. Today, fewer radio programmes are needed since the same programmes are broadcast over the many different transmitters that once upon a time each had their own dedicated programming.
The revolution away from plenty of jobs in 'radio' has left a lot of them unemployed and sitting and spitting from the sidelines.
Add all these radio anoraks together and you have a fair old force of bodies. Bodies that are without exception completely out of touch with modern audience needs and radio trends.
Yet, despite being so out of touch, they will make the most ridiculous and loud pronouncements about radio today.
One of my favourite 'radio anorak fails' was when Terry Wogan retired from Radio 2 breakfasts to be replaced by millionaire socialist Chris Evans. The radio anoraks wheeled out their dire predictions for the complete audience failure of Radio 2. It was the end. The BBC had made an awful mistake. Nobody would listen to Chris Evans.
As the first highly increased audience figures were revealed, I laughed out loud at all the excuses and protestations from the radio anoraks. They just didn't 'get' how this was happening. They were so sure that 'everybody' hated Chris Evans.
It is a fact that the more radio anoraks 'hate' something, the more the ordinary listeners like it. Equally, the more radio anoraks 'love' something, the less ordinary listeners will like it, or even bother to listen.
Radio anoraks will proudly listen to radio streams named after long dead real radio stations, but no ordinary listeners bother. Nearly all radio anoraks will try their hand at 'doing radio' and will establish a radio stream that nobody listens to. They will love and cherish their radio stream that nobody listens to and do their best to sound like a real radio station might have sounded many decades ago.
Radio anoraks have this uncanny ability to not be able to predict what real audiences want or will be attracted to. Their finger is never on the pulse, despite their preoccupation with saying what's wrong with 'radio today' and how if they were in charge billions of listeners would be hanging on their every word.
Indeed, the beauty of radio anoraks is that they can be used as barometers by looking at the inverse of everything they say. If they like something, normal people won't. If they dislike something, normal people won't. That's how to accurately predict 'good radio'.
Radio anoraks will spout their venom about DAB ('Digital Radio') as a delivery platform. They much prefer the hiss and flutter of listening via FM, or the muffled audio and high pitched whines of AM. Bizarrely the 'AM radio anoraks' will moan about the bandwidth limitations or mono broadcasts on DAB as if it is in some way inferior to AM broadcasting.
As usual, the radio anoraks are completely out of touch with reality since latest audience research shows that over a third of radio listeners are tuning in via DAB. Naturally, of course, they are disputing the figures and making pronouncements just as they did about Chris Evans.
Another broadcaster that radio anoraks doomed to failure was Mark Forrest, the guy who provides the networked early evening show across all BBC local radio. Radio anoraks told us that nobody would listen, and lamented the loss of the likes of Roger Day in the South East.
Roger Day gets radio anorak adulation just for breathing because he once worked on a pirate radio ship, so therefore he can do nothing wrong. Oh how the radio anoraks screamed, wailed and wept when he was replaced by Mark Forrest.
Meanwhile - yes, you guessed it - the audience of real listeners increased. Mark Forrest was being listened to by real people even if radio anoraks would rather eat their own toasted ferrite rods than listen.
History is littered with radio anoraks demonstrating how out of touch with reality they are. Isn't it about time they stopped pontificating and making judgement calls about modern things they clearly know nothing about?
What is the point of a radio anorak?
Follow @christopher_eng
They are completely out of touch with modern audience needs and radio trends
This article was originally published on England's England and is reprinted here with permission.
Christopher England has been involved in the British radio industry since the 1970s. He has an obsession with 'media' that stems from radio anoraksia, loves gadgets and gizmos and is excited by new music trends.
Visit Christopher England's website
8 comments
Christopher England posted on Thursday 30th May at 11:36
Hi Art,
I accidentally ‘own’ an internet radio service that for some reason some people not connected to me keep transmitting across London (despite a warning on the website not to do this). We have young people come in and, whilst there are ‘jingles’ and ‘sweepers’, the most commonly used are sound effects (bloody air horns), and there’s no interest in talking up to vocals, or respecting vocals, but in almost all cases, and regardless of the music style being played, the DJ (or MC) will keep a constant patter going, a conversation, with the audience. Some are talking via BBM, some via Twitter, some via WhatsApp, and lesser so these days, some via old fashioned text. When ‘testing’ for a choon’s popularity, add in the ‘missed calls’ they can solicit.
My point is that this appears to be what da yoof want, whilst all of it goes against common training and thought with how a radio station should ‘sound’. That ‘thought’, almost a faith, a religion, is held by radio anoraks as being gospel and not do be deviated from. It is also out of touch.
As for the bloke who does the shouty stuff over all the old jingles, I dared ask the anoraks why he never spoke up to the vocals of the tired old songs he played. Was he scared of the songs, I asked. As usual I was given those evil looks and threats as if I’d challenged the pope over the existence of God.
Anyway, I am writing this from my secret hideout just in case anoraks try to find me and play me all the PAMS series of jingles ever published.
Ash Elford posted on Thursday 30th May at 11:52
How does the number of unique interactions with your station compare with the number of unique listeners overall?
Martin Phillp posted on Thursday 30th May at 16:25
I’m an anorak who also likes internet radio with a constant electronic beat in the background with no structure to the programme.
Stereotypes?
Enda Caldwell posted on Thursday 30th May at 17:24
What a pointless article. Move on people. Stop living in the past. Leave those who live in the past right where they are happy… in the past! I see no conflict between being “overly eager in the eyes of employers and potential employers” and actually being a Media Professional who is good at their job and professional to a T. Chris Moyles is a wonderful example of an “anorak’s anorak” who was and IS great at his JOB and is also a lover of playing cut 3 off the Warp Factor package from 1985/6. There are those who CAN, there are those who DO, there are those who DID, there are those who DIDN’T and there are those who TEACH! Then there are those who stand on the sidelines. Please be aware of how negative you are looking on one hand slagging the enthusiasm that actually built the industry and then on the other saying that those who replaced the “anoraks” like Chris Evans and Mark Forrest were not themselves at one point or another in their long and varied careers not actual certified anoraks themselves at one point or another. This “them v. US” attitude is what has gotten radio to the pathetic number crunching situation it is in today. I am purported myself to be the world’s biggest anorak – that is itself debatable. At some point you have to stop listening to jingles and actually get up off your arse and do a little work. The whole thing makes me sick and I wish it would all just go away.
Art Grainger posted on Friday 31st May at 06:15
Chris Moyles eh? Didn’t he used to get slated on radio forums by anoraks who thought he was the worst broadcaster ever, despite having many millions more listeners on his real radio show than they could ever rustle up in their bedrooms?
You need to differentiate those who are enthusiastic about a subject and maybe want to learn the craft as well as opposed to those whose obsessively strong interest makes their views so tainted that it makes them the polar opposite of what the public likes.
I hate jingles (I definitely don’t collect them) but I like radio and realise that they are necessary on occasions. I like radio much more than I like TV. I find programs on TV to be quite infantile much of the time. I’m also an eccentric with OCD and a memory of an elephant and as a consequence I’m able to recite historic information and quirky facts about radio stations, just like I can about wildlife, music, my home county and a few other subjects simply because it’s all been stored in the back of my brain for reasons I can’t fathom.
Whilst I occasionally take issue with the lazy programming we seem to have on commercial radio now (for which repeatedly saying the name of the station seems to be far more important than putting out programming elements that might be interesting and compelling to listen to), I try not to let my enthusiasm taint my views on what the public like – and I think I have demonstrated that in the past when I actually had a shot of running a station. I did create a format but it was one that put listeners first, rather than what I personally ultimately like, even right down to playlisting songs that I absolutely detest – but I know the majority of listeners like a lot. The same format prevented the “anorak” radio presenters getting carried away with themselves and if they didn’t like it, they could go elsewhere, whilst the format itself still left oodles of room for creativity. I just wouldn’t allow them to talk up to the vocals of songs to the micro-second (in 2013, presenters talking over songs is one of the biggest irritants for listeners) or fire jingle after jingle after jingle because they wanted to wet their pants over them.
Art Grainger posted on Friday 31st May at 06:20
Further to my post above, unfortunately, on some occasions, anoraks get let loose to practice their ideals on real radio stations – and it can fail miserably. There was one station where I protested very loudly about its direction during that time – only to be repeatedly shot down on Planet Radio Forum. Needless to say, during the station’s jingle-tastic umpteen songs in a row phase, with very little relevance to it’s locality even though it was supposed to be uber-local, the anoraks and jingle collectors thought that the station was sounding greater than ever, it was the bees knees and that Arthur Grainger bloke was just talking shit.
Then the RAJAR figures came out!
In just 6 months, the station lost almost half of its audience reach and those that were still listening were only listening for half of the time that they used to.
Someone got sacked, the station changed direction. The output became super-local in the way that I had been preaching it should have been (even to the point of the station playing recordings of local school choirs singing Christmas carols). The RAJARs came out 6 months later and showed that the station had just scored its biggest audiences since it came on air.
This perhaps demonstrates the difference between what the public wanted as opposed to how a radio enthusiast liked radio to sound to his ears. And a few humble pies were eaten by the forurmites, whilst I wagged my told-you-so finger.
Peter Symonds posted on Monday 3rd June at 23:35
The annoying thing is when people get confused between a radio anorak and a radio amateur. Two different things but you can get people who are both. It would recommend to study for a radio amateurs licence if you are into RF side of electronic engineering. It doe’s give you a good foundation of knowledge to build upon.
That’s even how I got first interested in the technical side of radio when I first got my novice licence at 13 (then full at 16).
This is more about an article on people who are very narrow minded not on anoraks. They exist in every industry in this planet. Give them a forum and an internet connection you will bound to find them popping up now and then.
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Oh now you’ve done it.
Christopher, you’re a marked man. You’ll need to contact the police and get additional security. You’ll probably have to move to a safe house.
I once remember posting on that kiddies radio forum full of anonymous clueless wonders and berating Radio Caroline supporters, especially the ones that speak so highly of that named-after-a-60’s-pirate station that could do no wrong, yet other stations have tried to put out similar programs to it and nobody noticed or cared. Without word of a lie, two of the kiddies forum posters were PM-ing me with death threats.
On Planet Radio Forum, thins can certainly go off kilter and I’m quite glad that the views expressed by many are not necessarily the views shared by the public at large.
I’ve also had experience of running an online community radio station and seeing younger volunteers (definitely not radio anoraks, I wouldn’t allow it) come in and do radio shows (after a bit of training). It gave me an insight into how members of the public perceive radio. The one huge difference I noticed between them and some of our other volunteers (that had considerable radio experience and were …erm, “radio people”) was how jingles didn’t matter to them all that much, talking up to vocals to the microsecond meant nothing and was not a pants-wetting ambition and that basing their shows almost entirely on trends on the internet and social networking seemed to be the thing.
There’s YouTube footage of some american radio presenter who plays many more jingles than songs in quick succession. The radio anoraks on Planet Radio Forum occasionally come on and give it high praise and say how much “fun” it sounds. Whenever I hear it, it is just a noise and a turn-off. I know that I couldn’t tune into it and listen for very long.
By the way, I really like Chris Evans and Mark Forrest. I am a DAB end consumer and love it. Mono broadcasts on DAB or FM don’t bother me and I do get irritated at poor signal quality on FM and AM. I might have to lock my doors and seal my windows now that I’ve said that.