James Cridland

A tale of two sets of radio closures

Closed - a Heart branded shop sign

Last Friday was the turn of a number of radio presenters to do what may well be their last radio show, as Global ended a number of regional shows on Heart, Capital and Smooth (which I blogged about earlier this year). As expected, the London people got the national shows. It also means the physical closure of many studios, too; gone are the studio facilities in Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, Nottingham, Wrexham, Milton Keynes, and Fareham.

Global look after their people well, as I understand it, and part of that contract is repaid by the affected presenters who have been measured and polite on social media. A few pictures of studios, a few wistful memories of the start of their careers, but no angry words.

I felt for one, who posted a poignant picture of their studio with a carefully crafted message paying tribute to all the big names who have broadcast from there. The first comment - “are they giving you a new one?” - must have been hard to respond to after just coming off-air for the final time.

But, all these fine broadcasters got the chance to say goodbye to their audience. Some of them had been on-air for thirty years in their local area; and they had about six weeks to continue broadcasting to their audience and prepare them for change.

A different world in Australia, where significant redundancies have taken place at broadcaster SCA, just before the company’s half yearly results. It means the closure of some regional breakfast shows and many management roles - SCA isn’t saying how many - but also the closure of Triple M’s Australia-wide night show, The Night Shift. The host, Luke Bona, did get to say goodbye; but only just - he was given one final show. There will be thousands of listeners who will not have heard the news, and will be wondering where an iconic Australian radio show, and their night-time companions, have gone.

There’s really no excuse for junking a ten-year show with 24 hours notice. It saves you no money (these people are on a contract), and it upsets listeners. Give experienced broadcasters time to do their goodbyes. If you don’t trust your presenter to say the right thing, why the hell did you employ them anyway?

While I don’t like what Global is doing, at least they are doing it right.

The future of radio is a human connection and a shared experience. Companies that simply cut shows within 24 hours demonstrate that they do not understand the radio business; that they despise their audience; and worse of all, are actively accelerating radio’s decline. Shame on SCA.

RCS

  • Talking about despising their audience: ARN’s KISS 97.3 in Brisbane and SCA’s B105 in Brisbane are both still claiming that they are Brisbane’s #1 Hit Music Station. Audiences know that they can’t both be right.

  • Some great research from Radiomonitor which I linked to last week, suggesting that radio is much, much bigger than Spotify. What struck me when looking at their research again this week is the comparison between a track by Benson Boone - which received 15 times more listeners on UK radio than globally on Spotify. But - interesting how much quicker Benson Boone was to pick up on Spotify, and how much slower radio was to react to it: the peak of airplay on UK radio was more than 50 days after the peak of streams on Spotify. Huh.

  • Lots of positive data from Westwood One and Cumulus Media, about US radio’s effectiveness as an advertising tool.

Thank you to Phil Haggar from Jukwa, a broadcast consulting firm with clients in Europe and Africa, for becoming my latest supporter for this newsletter. It’s pronounced Joo-kwah, by the way. I’m grateful to you for your support!

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