Same, same, but different: Virgin Radio Thailand

When I was at Virgin Radio in London, we did some analysis to discover who was the biggest music radio brand on the web. And I discovered that I was working for it. Today, a visit to virginradio.com gives you radio stations worldwide. It’s available in France, Italy, Dubai, Canada – but the longest operating Virgin Radio station, with the exception of the now-closed Virgin Radio in London, is Virgin Radio in Thailand.

I spent seven years of my life working for the Virgin Radio brand. So it was with some delight that I was able to, once more, walk through the doors of Virgin Radio, 23 floors up in a large tower off Rama IV Road in Bangkok. It’s an impressive building: unlike any other station I’ve been in, reception (in dark Virgin red and blue) has one curved glass wall, behind which, moodily lit in red, are all the complicated pieces of equipment that make the radio stations go on air, known in the trade as the ‘racks room’. A fairly dark space with lots of blinking lights is highly impressive to anyone, and making it public has the byproduct of forcing the engineers to keep the place tidy.

Lina Damon, the programme director, showed me round. I walked into the 95.5 Virgin Hitz studio; a large familiar Klotz desk with large familiar logos around it. Next door was their sister station, Eazy 105. And then I go into the boardroom and sit with the internet team, headed up by Getsara Tianchai, discovering later that Wichit Sitthisom had been excitedly tweeting (in Thai) during the meeting. They took down pages of notes from what I told them, which was gratifying, and they told me what works for them on their own websites.

As with Hot 91.5 yesterday, the most popular thing on the Virgin Radio (and Eazy) websites is the place allowing you to listen-live. But here, they do something interesting. First, they’re streaming live video on the web, as well as the audio. Secondly, the live stream is also accompanied with live chat with the DJs.

Live chat is something I once tried to do in London. The theory behind it was to encourage people to keep the radio player open (since we put the chat in there). It was a bit of a mistake, I can probably now admit. At first unmoderated, then moderated by trusted VIP members, it was supposed to be a chat with the presenters about the radio show. As with any poorly run discussion area or chat, it ended up being wildly off-topic, moderators began to be more concerned about their own friends and power rather than facilitating a good discussion, and we quietly closed it (to a few howls of protest) after we realised it was probably too late to save it.

At Eazy 105, however, it works well. The presenters take part while on-air; the producers moderate the discussions and don’t allow any profanity; and there’s a good community feel. It’s live chat, but because it has the full blessing of all the programming team, it’s done right. Indeed, standing in the studio, the morning presenter tells me why they do it – so that people get closer to the radio station and tell their friends.

The Virgin Radio website has one section on it which allows you to listen to selected tracks on-demand (and yes, they pay the royalties to do so). This, along with their charts, has been very popular. It’s expensive to do this, but if you’re a music station, it’s an interesting thing to consider. (Worth noting that charts are popular for Hot 91.5FM as well, and the official chart drives most of the traffic to BBC Radio 1 in the UK).

And here’s something interesting; since the speech is in Thai while the music is English/American, there can sometimes be an understanding gap about what the songs are about. So, every week, Virgin puts up the lyrics for one of the big songs of the moment, translates them into Thai, and even explains some of the phrases being used. Neat idea – indeed, I wonder how many people in the UK know that Britney Spears’ “Hit me baby one more time” is about sending pager messages, rather than violence?

True to form for an open, young, Virgin Radio website team, they even told me what didn’t work. They tried a feature once where listeners could choose their top ten different songs on the website, and a Virgin presenter – or even the listener – would present it on the air each week. Did it work? No. Why didn’t it work? Because it was too much hard work, and because the very point of radio is that you turn it on and it effortlessly entertains you until you turn it off again. We forget that bit at our peril. Indeed, as much of this does, it comes back to user interface, and keeping things simple. Choosing ten great songs? I think I’d find that quite difficult to do as well.

I found my visit very interesting: not just for the industry knowledge I gained, but also to discover that the same ‘can-do’ spirit and ‘colleagues-as-friends’ feeling that oozed out of Golden Square also oozes out of Virgin Radio in Thailand. There are some of the same people involved, but however they do it, I find it incredibly motivating. When it was time to go, I must confess that I didn’t want to leave.

I’m grateful to John Pearson for setting up my meeting, and Lina, Rob and Getsara’s team for their time. And for Lina for laughing politely when I pointed out somewhere in their building where their logo wasn’t to the correct guidelines. Old habits, etc.
On Monday, I move on to Australia: and discover that this industry works closer together than the UK.