Callum said at September 9th, 2009 at 2:11pm

(NB – I feeel compelled to say that all this is my own private ‘n personal viewpoint)

Oh dear. I’d better declare myself to be of the BBC staffers who re-tweeted Nicky Campbell’s musings yesterday. Not “blindly” as you suggest, though: cos I agree with him.

I worked as a commercial radio journalist for the best part of three years in the early part of this decade before joining the Beeb, where I’ve existed, mostly happily, ever since.

A few memories from my time in ILR stick out: the main one being the constant cost-cutting. Colleagues lost their jobs, or had to work harder, all the time. Every few weeks, the air became thick with rumours that my employers (I worked for one big group, one medium-sized group, and freelanced for another small group, none of them in London) were about to be bought out.

What was cut was the investment in creative stuff. Station sound producers, idea-filled breakfast types, news reporters all went. (I pre-date news hubs, but that’s another example)

My favourite story involves the death of the dear old Queen Mum one Saturday night, and my dash to the station to provide late-night, and then early-morning, news coverage. Having comprehensively hit the phones and recorded several interviews, I popped out to the local garage and bought a set of Sunday papers, so that I could include a review of the press as part of the station’s hastily-altered coverage. When I came to put in the £6 expenses claim for these papers, it was refused. “We didn’t actually ask you to buy the papers,” said the boss.

Of course, I also had brilliant fun as a breakfast news presenter on another station, and was wrenched away only by the offer of a significantly bigger salary and the start of a career path at the Beeb.

In my experience when commercial radio does something well, it’s brilliant. But you rarely hear about it: why, when a Commercial Radio boss is invited onto Five Live does he not give some examples of how brilliant his output is? I’m sure the manufacturer of Acme Widgets, given the same chance, would do this, rather than lay into his competitors.

In a sense there’s dual paranoia at work here. Commercial radio types fear for their jobs, their ad revenues, and for the diminishing number of outlets for their creative juices; BBC types fear judgement in the court of public opinion, mainly in the form of another tongue-lashing from James Murdoch or the Daily Mail.

Maybe a bit of positivity from both parties might make the world a happier place — who knows?

Callum said at September 9th, 2009 at 2:43pm

Having thought some more about what I’ve just posted I’d like to row back a bit on the statement that I “agree” with Nicky Campbell’s accusation of bleating against commercial radio bosses. Perhaps saying that “I understand his position” is a more sensible and accurate thing for me to say.

Ah, the internet. Great for instant opinion, isn’t it?

Steve Martin said at September 13th, 2009 at 9:08pm

…and tv people care even less what radio people think. Their loss of course.

“Bleating” is a great post for the reasons you’ve identified but also because you bravely challenged someone who has made himself comfortable on the moral high ground.

Several years of Watchdog righteousness rubs off on your brand equity. You took a pop at that, and that’s healthy for your blog and probably for Nicky too.

This comment was originally posted on Matt Deegan Writes