Jeremy Hunt, shadow DCMS representative, was first up today, and talked about the uniqueness of radio and his radio history. He’s certain that radio has a good future, although he knows how badly commercial radio is faring. He notes that the BBC is spending more on radio than the entire commercial radio sector is earning.

Hunt quoted quite a lot of facts in his speech, but he spoke without notes which means he’s really learnt his stuff.

Things like the internet have damaged commercial radio, but he also thinks that the regulatory regime has not helped. He talked about the three key acts surrounding radio in 1972, 1996 and 2003. He thinks that it’s failed overall and we can see this by the number of licences that have been handed back to Ofcom (again, off the top of his head, he can quote the numbers handed back for the last three years).

The Birmingham, Alabama comparison is brought up: the US version has much more local television than the similarly named UK city. With newspapers closing down, he sees struggling local coverage. He also bemoans the fact that there’s only one local TV station in a city – Channel M in Manchester.

He says that the reason he’s against top slicing the licence fee for regional ITV because he thinks it should be going local.

A future Conservative government is wholeheartedly behind digital radio. DAB is part of this and he sees a future that might involve many technologies. He namechecked “WorldDMB Digital Profile 1” as what should be placed in all devices.

£150m is the amount he says is what he’s been told needs to be spent to bring coverage up. In Surrey, where he lives, DAB coverage is patchy.

He’s not happy about the idea that in 2015, we have to thrown away millions of radios. He also thinks that this could make people very angry and we really need to think about that.

Cars are also critical and he’s not sure that Digital Britain went far enough. He thinks that what the French did is bold and we should look at it. But we should look at incentives for car manufacturers.

Hunt says that we also need to think very carefully about the listener and asks whether we really want to get everyone to throw away 100m radios in 2015.

If the market hasn’t got to where it needs to be, should Ofcom delay switchoff, he wonders. He also thinks we might want to consider swap schemes.

But people also need to see some tangible benefits. Currently they’re small, and people complain that they’re hungry on batteries. He talked about surround sound, listening to full concerts or football matches, EPGs and the opportunity to download songs. He talks about Shazam and its popularity on iPhones, and wonders if that kind of functionality should be built into radios.

We need to make sure that we don’t have angry listeners – something that won’t be good for the industry.

He concludes that when we’re mandating new technologies we don’t have chaos as a result. He concludes that he hopes that’s the leadership that a future Conservative government.

Nicky Campbell then interviews Hunt, and he begins by saying that it’s a dream job for him and he wants it if and when the Tories get into power.

On the BBC licence fee, Hunt says that in a zero inflation world, the fee should be fixed at the moment. But they don’t have any current plans for a future licence fee period since he current one runs until 2013. But a future one should include elements that take account of the economic situation.

He says that if the BBC doesn’t need the digital switchover money then perhaps it should be handed back to the licence fee payer.

Hunt believes that the BBC sometimes gets into areas it perhaps shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to talk specifically about areas despite Campbell pushing him.

He says that we should look at the money used for imported programming: £108m. Curiously he uses the example of The Wire as a programme the BBC bid up the price for. It was broadcast on commercial TV in the UK first of course, on FX.

He also thinks the BBC needs a “reality check” on executive salaries.

Campbell points out that analogue radios will still be useful because of the tier of ultra-local services, but Hunt says that the bigger services will have moved to digital and be lost to some consumers.

On presenter salaries at the BBC, Hunt would like them transparent but Tim Davie in the audience believes that revealing them would present legal issues and would also lead to salary inflation. However he believes that there’ll be a level of transparency that hasn’t been available in the past. Hunt doesn’t buy it and says that a top BBC presenter is building his or her brand when their in primetime. Davie says that since they don’t have editorial control it’s not fair on them – instead you should look at

On the question of 2015 he says that we should have a switchover date but not necessarily a switchoff date. There’s a lot of work to get to a place where it’s publicly acceptable. He doesn’t think we’re at a place where this could happen currently.

Someone asks what Hunt would do if he was running an analogue radio service that was also on digital and was losing money – what would he do? His answer would be to consider the business model and look at methods of reaching people through a multiplicity of media.

Tim Blackmore presents a session on how to win a radio award. Lorna Clarke from the BBC and Mark Story (now from RadioStory) joined him on the panel. We heard a Feargal Keane interview, some Kiss promos, some of Absolute Coldplay, and a couple of “sound fixes” from Electric Prison Radio Brixton, along with extracts of what the judges said about the awards.

An award winning entry will engage and grab you from the outset. A lot of award entries are very good, but they need to be beyond the norm.

Clarke says that the worst thing you can do is put an entry into the wrong category. Story says that you should start with something that will amaze the judges and “get the hell out of there.” So don’t put a full hour in, if you can get it done in twenty minutes.

Judges are not all from London we’re assured, and paper parts of entries should be relevant and back up the award’s audio. Other things we learnt are that judges can spot edits (if you’re being naughty and making in categories where you shouldn’t), and some of the details of the judging process. One final point: don’t assume that the judges to your programme are familiar with it or have ever heard it before!

You Ask The Questions with Torin Douglas is the session where Festival attendees ask questions of a panel, who were Alison Hastings (BBC Trust), Stewart Purvis (Ofcom), Bob Shennan (BBC Radio 2 & 6Music) and Phil Riley (Now running LDC).

They began saying a little about what they’d heard from Jeremy Hunt earlier on. Purvis said that it is down to politicians to make regulation and that power rests with them, and not the regulators themselves. Hastings said what he’d mentioned about switchover and switchoff was inteersting, and that what he said about the public.

Shennan was concerned that equivocation that he detected might lead to slippage. And he was concerned about damaging the BBC to plaster over the troubles of commercial radio. Riley thought it was good that he has business experience, and like Hunt he was worried about some of the issues surrounding switchover.

The whole panel was impressed with his presentational style and knowledge.

The first question proper was about John Myers blistering attack on Ofcom the previous day. Purvis says that his response is more in sorrow than anger at what he heard. He says that there’s far too much regulation in commercial radio, and he thinks that he has good relationships with the business. He also thinks that the Broadcasting Code review is a very positive step forward.

Riley thinks it’s sometimes healthy to hear things like Myers said the previous day. Myers has considered it much more than probably anyone else in the indsutry; he wanted to express some home truths.

Next up is the question of top-slicing the BBC licence fee. Purvis said that Ofcom had identified where there was a lack of competition – particularly in local news on ITV, but that they’d not specified where the money would come from, that had been a government decision. Hastings is unsurprisingly against it, and is very uncomfortable about the process of giving licence fee money to private companies. “You mess about that at your peril.”

Douglas suggests perhaps that the BBC Trust should distribute that money, but Hastings says that this isn’t what the Trust was set up for. The licence fee is not a slush fund for whatever the government of the day wants.

Shennan says that it changes fundamentally the relationship between the public and the licence payer. Riley thinks that we have too much public service broadcasting in this country and that it should be just handed back to the public.

Douglas asks Bob Shennan whether it matters that he has no music radio background. Shennan says that he’s had similar accusation put to him in all his previous roles and while he might not be a music expert, he knows good radio.

Asked about what he’ll be doing in the role he says that there’s no major issues that need addressing, and there’s no underlying strategic intent.

Why isn’t Jonathan Ross live now, is the next question. Shennan things the programme is very important for Radio 2 and he wants it to be watertight. Half the programmes he’s done since he came back were recorded as live and commentators hadn’t noticed. He says that they can get a higher calibre of guest with the new timing.

The discussion moved to taste and “standards” (no longer “decency”) and we learnt that since Radio 1’s remit starts at 15 the regulation for that service is different to how it might otherwise be.

Then it was on to the question about the publication of expenses and talent fees. Hastings basically reiterated what Tim Davie had said earlier in the day. Riley believes that at the top the BBC outbids commercial radio, but lower down the chain publishing all fees would allow cherry picking.

Finally the panel stopped talking about executive pay and what the panel do about BBC talent costs, and the panel was asked about what they’d do if they created a new station.

Phil Riley wanted Nick Ferrari and The Arrow, the latter of which he thinks will sadly be going. Shennan would still have liked to launch E4 radio. Hastings wants a children’s radio station (Fun Kids anyone?). Finally Purvis (jokingly) said bring back birdsong.

Before the break we saw a tribute reel remembering those who’ve died in radio over the last year.

Paul Gambaccini gave us a brief history of popular radio from its creation until the present day. I can’t even begin to summarise it I’m afraid, but perhaps it’ll show up as a Radio 4 Archive Hour soon…

Finally, The Media Show was recorded for broadcast as live from the Festival with Steve Hewlitt. You can listen to it later today, or via the iPlayer.

The new playlist is now out.

Simple Minds – Star Will Lead The Way (20th July)
The 2nd single from Simple Minds’ Top 10 album ‘Graffiti Soul. Their recent performance at the Isle of Wight Festival reminded all who saw and heard it why Simple Minds were one of the biggest bands of the ‘80s. Jim Kerr and co. have a whole summer of live dates set up, including a homecoming show at Edinburgh Castle on the 18th of July, where they will perform their landmark album ‘New Gold Dream’ in full. Hear Free Live Music from Simple Minds and watch the band chat to Ben Jones

Madness – Sugar And Spice (3rd August)
Madness’s new album ‘The Liberty of Norton Folgate’, their first in 10 years, has been one of the most well-received of their career – especially the 10 minute title track. ‘Sugar And Spice’ is another album highlight – and sounds like classic Madness. Following their brilliant Glastonbury performance, the Nutty Boys host another huge ‘Madstock’ event on the 17th of July in Victoria Park, London.

The Original Sinners – One Last Dream (out now)
The Original Sinners were the winners of this year’s ‘One Last Dream’ competition on Christian O’Connell’s Breakfast Show. As part of their prize the band got to play on the main stage at the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park last weekend. They nailed it of course! The band have now made their song ‘One Last Dream’ available to buy from iTunes – its only 79p – and all proceeds go to Teenage Cancer Trust

The Gaslight Anthem move up to daytime after their fine performance with Bruce Springsteen at the weekend

[Note that these are rough notes and might need a little tidying up later on, so apologies for typos and bad English.]

Nicky Campbell kicked off proceedings as host with a few stories about his life in radio before introducing a very nice summary of radio in the last 12 months.

The first panel has Tim Davie (BBC), Andrew Harrison (RadioCentre), Stuart Taylor (GMG) and Simon Cole (UBC). Tim Davie believes that 2015 is a challenging timeframe, while Stuart Taylor highlighted the in-car issue.

Campbell wants to know what’s in it for the listener, Simon Cole says that the savings from dual transmission must be reinvested in content.

Tim Davie doesn’t seem himself “strapped to DAB” but he wants to see a credible portable medium aside from DAB. But he says that IP doesn’t do the job yet. The last year has seen some good progress in radio. We need to be able to buy a decent digital radio for £15 and not £50.

On the question of whether the BBC should be funding the transition to digital, Davie thinks that there’s some element that the BBC should pay for. He questions how much of local rollout should be paid for though!

Campbell asks about the potential of a new administration, and Davie pointed out that we’ll be hearing the Tory point of view at this Festival.

Stuart Taylor points out that it’s not certain that every station wants to go national. He argues for freedom in format change – radio is competing with unfettered competitors.

Davie is asked about how a post digital switchover landscape might look and Davie talks about share of listening – not share of radio. The future will have, by one means or another, almost infinite choice. Taylor thinks that a lot will change in five years with signal strengths increased and radios in cars. But the key thing is that radio is up against so many other things these days – people continue to find time to listen to radio.

Nicky Campbell draws attention to the very obvious issue that Global Radio, the UK’s largest commercial radio operator, appears to have sent nobody to the Radio Festival, the UK’s biggest radio conference (In fact there are one or two people here – but they’re keeping quiet).

A question from the audience asks about Libby Purvess’s recent Times column questioning the green credentials of digital radios. Harrison and Davie are in agreement that it’s certainly something to be addressed. Harrison says that we now have a brief to take to manufacturers about precisely what kind of radios need to be brought to the market.

Glynn Jones from Digital One wants to know why advertising on digital radio services is being sold as a discount rather than a premium. Taylor agrees and says that it’s been sold wrongly – as a cheap bolt on. Buyers obviously look to undermine a sales offering, but he believes it’s an issue that’s being addressed.

Campbell asks about the recently announced Radio Council which Harrison believes is a good thing and will allow everyone to work on the industry’s issues. The joint radio player is a good example, he says.

Simon Cole says that the industry is too small to have lots of internal fighting.

Tim Davie says that we all have to huddle together for scale. He says that lots of people want to join the Radio Council, but he won’t say who.

A questioner from Wales points out that it’ll take six DAB transmitters to cover his single current FM transmitter in mid-Wales. He says that he turns over £18,000 per month, and it’s unaffordable.

Davie says that this is why there’s public money involved. Harrison suspects that in some of the nations there’ll be additional help.

Torin Douglas of the BBC reports that the RNIB suggests that there needs to be a help scheme for blind people. Harrison believes that it’s a bit too early to consider this. New digital sets, however, should be much easier for blind and disabled to use than analogue dial sets.

Davie points out that we’re at much lower levels than television, so comparisons with the digital television switchover fund are too early.

Someone from Norway asks about getting radios, in car in particularly, in line across Euirope. Cole says that we now have the industry engaged and it’s a question of getting new functionality like traffic cameras built in. Cole believes that we’re at the tipping point across Europe now.

The first Spotify question comes up from somebody who makes commercials for them. Taylor says that they’re not radio but they’re a competitor for listening share. He suggests we question them about their pricing and sales.

–

Teenage Wasteland – Engaging with a Youth Audience is the title of the next session presented by Dr Anthony Cox of Sparkler.

Campbell introduced the session saying that youth audiences have declined, despite overall audiences reaching a record level. Cox points out that while reach has remained stable, listening hours have declined by 36m hours over the last five years.

Cox explored some of the other things that youths are doing (!) these days, and presented some video diaries. Radio’s in there, but so is MySpace, YouTube and many other things.

He says that big brands stand out for this audience and platforms are very important for this age group. But this demographic is the least likely to buy a DAB radio – they want it online.

–

Richard Sambrook (sambrook.typepad.com) is the director of BBC Global News – which as he points out, is significantly, the BBC World Service.

He notes that the World Service is the biggest digital only radio service in the UK, although I should point out that you can receive it on AM in London, and it’s still just about listenable on shortwave even if many European focused transmitters are turned off.

Sambrook talks about the various challenges the WS has faced over recent years changing from a didactic voice to an inclusive attitude. FM is important, especially in major cities around the world, often working with partners. The World Service is available in 154 capital cities – and have to deal with 154 regulators. There are also about 200 partners.
He says that sometimes partnerships don’t work. They had to pull a service in Sri Lanka for example. But a US partnership is very successful as is one in India (although they’re not allowed to broadcast news there).

In India, the audience is perceiving to be less stuffy than it once was, and is now more modern.

There’ve been changes with some language services increasing massively – sometimes on FM often via mobile, and sometimes online. Video streaming has also increased substantially he says.

Sambrook showed off the impressive BBC Bus for the US Election and the even more impressive BBC WS Train for the recent Indian elections. It was multi-platform and multi-lingual (and very cost efficient – everyone slept on the train).

Save Our Sounds is great new initiative that lets listeners upload audio to a map – a sonic archive.

The BBC Persian TV service launched recently and has quickly become very popular. The flagship programme runs across the web and TV – and has been well received in Iran. Recent weeks have obviously seen a huge surge in traffic with up to five video clips a minute coming into the service. It’s not especially popular with the Iranian government however.

Prison Radio did staggeringly well at the recent Sony Radio Academy Awards – in particular Electric Radio Brixton. Steve Orchard began with an anecdote about being mugged en route to a Prison Radio committee meeting.

Prison Radio first launched in the US in 1938, but in the UK it really started with Feltham in 1994 following a series of teenage suicides. The Prison Radio Association was soon launched as a charity to back the service. Mick Jones and Billy Bragg were two of the first guests on the first broadcast at Brixton.

Orchard explains how low literary skills can be in prison and how the radio improves confidence and more importantly is the main source of information in the prison. Tough subjects are tackled head on – drugs, self-harm, etc.

Overall Orchard played a lot of fantastic radio segments illustrating many aspects of the service offered by the Prison Radio Association, all of it fantastic and thoroughly compelling.

This was followed by a session chaied by Richard Bacon about the power of prison radio. On stage was the governor of Brixton prison, Paul McDowell and Tis, who won a Sony Radio Academy Award for his interview with Jonathan Aitkin and is still a prisoner. He was given special dispensation to attend the Festival today.

Bacon and Tis discussed what it brings to the prisoners, and responded when challenged about why money should be spent on this ahead of other courses.

Bacon wondered about who gets on air, especially as there are plans to roll this out to all prisons across the country. McDowell said that of course he chooses who is allowed on air and who isn’t. Notorious serial killers, for example, are not going to get on air.

The sessions where Governor is asked questions, he says is really no different to what the prisoners ask when he walks around the wings.

Overall a fantastic session.

Mark Oliver and Godfrey McFall from Oliver & Ohlbaum came on to deliver a presentation entitled Radio – The Fight Back Begins.

They opened with the various challenges facing the industry.

In the advertising market, the internet has obviously come along, although its still not made massive headway in display. McFall talked about London where he said that there was a four horse race in London – that puts pressure on yields. In TV there’s been a 50% decline in prices in real terms over recent years meaning that it’s become a threat to radio with the growth of multichannel.

Fragmentation affects the ways of reaching the most valued audiences.

In radio terms regional and digital services, according to McFall, are getting lower yields than

Disintermediation is a fantastic word if you’re playing scrabble. But it’s also looking at ways of connecting with an “audio consumer” in a multiplicity of ways cutting out the middle man.

O&O don’t have great news for those hoping for a quick recovery from the recession.

Having seen some quite daunting challenges, Oliver addresses what the industry can do about all this. He suggests that a two year digital warning might be a little ambition given that TV got six years. Legislative changes are all encouraging however.

There are also plenty of opportunities for the consumer in terms of technology. And the new landscape can become attractive to advertisers.

Beyond spot advertising then show and station sponsorship becomes more important as well as merchandise, events, coupon schemes and competitions. Coupons are particularly good ways to show the impact of advertising on sales.

But in summary – radio needs to help itself and look beyond the well developed world of spot advertising.

The next session was Radio at the Edge (get your tickets now for the full conference in November as it’ll be excellent) – with Mark Friend (BBC Audio & Music), Hugh Garry (BBC Radio 1) and Chris Lawson from Absolute Radio.

Friend started with a presentation which had some interesting facts:

75% of listening is to live radio and 25% is to on demand
94% of iPlayer time is with a listener’s favourite network.
5+ m claim to download regularly
35% now listening to different radio programmes
c 90% are listening to as much or more live radio
Younger listeners prefer highlight packages

Friend explained the constraints under which the BBC was allowed to use podcasts. He also said that the iPlayer has a very long tail of listening.

For a Monday episode of The Archers people catch up very quickly – mostly witin a couple of days. The same was true of last year’s Glastonbury coverage.

A chart comparing TV and radio shows very complimentary ussage of the two media via the iPlayer. Interestingly visualisation figures from Radio 1’s Big Weekend mimics TV viewing in patterns rather than radio with a mid-evening peak.

Chris Lawson then talked about the Absolute Radio story so far. He said that there were 53 ways to listen to Absolute Radio, with 49% of listening being via a digital platform already outside of London. This is something that Absolute is pushing aggressively and the station is going where the audience wants us – highlighting the 120,000 YouTube plays of a Bruno video recently uploaded as well as the success of the recent Dave Gorman podcast, currently at number one in the iTunes charts.

The launch of the iAmp had 8 days of promotion on-air to drive take up. 100,000 installs were achieved over that early period. Now around 24,000 people launch the application on a weekly basis. He compared the Absolute Radio hours with BBC hours and challenged others to do the same.

Lawson noted that the default rating for iTunes is one star so don’t be put off.

He also previewed the LiveAmp which will retail for 59p soon.

Gerry then came on to talk about what Radio 1 has been doing including their Shoot The Summer video. After a clip he explained that using phones was what their audience was doing already.

He also demonstrated Band In Your Hand – the clever augmented reality technology used by Radio 1. We got a live demo… And the live demo worked. Many impressed sounds came from around the audience near me.

Matt Deegan wanted to know if Absolute Radio was missing a section of the audience who weren’t so digitally enabled. Lawson said that people were upgrading if not everyone was at the cutting edge. Absolute Radio wants to pull people forward. Friend said that some things were less mainstream but that’s what Radio 1 audiences expected.

The first session of the afternoon was a choice of four, so I went to The Recession That Rocked Radio.

David Meliveo from Autoglass was first off. He explained how one day in 2005 Aviva bought his main competitor and they lost 25% of their business four weeks later. Their advertising was failing and they weren’t getting return on investment, so they turned to radio in desperation! Radio lets you listen and talking to people about windscreens is intrinsically boring.

Radio also lets you test regionally and it’s cheaper to produce. Their ads were conversational, were 60 seconds and were more friendly.

The results showed a 24% year on year on by nearly a third growth within the previous few weeks. By the end of that campaign they’d achieved 77% increases.

He has showed us a remarkable chart comparing radio investment with demand. The two were in sync and as a result they use radio all the time. Autoglass isnow the biggest brand in radio and the second biggest advertiser.

Autoglass brand awareness has increased 19% in four years.

“Radio advertising has completely changed the way we run our business.”

Demand for replaement windows is seasonal so they advertised in downtimes to flatten out shifts. They have to use fully trained technicians so they can’t use casual labour.

On top of all this, customer satisfaction is at an all time high.

The same formula is being used in another 18 countries. We heard some multi-lingual versions of the ads.

Meliveo in summary says “Keep the faith” - radio is in everybody’s life. He says radio needs to keep investing in programming. He wants to carry on reaching even more people.

Radio is fantastic for brands driving sales and building brands – it needs to sell itself better.

Mark Middlemas from UM spoke about the importance of radio in peoples’ lives yet the small amount of spend. It’s been there a long time. Radio just isn’t sexy but it can still drive sales.

Middlemas thinks that the brands are strong but it needs to be about more than CPTs; value is more than just price. Making more of the talent is also important – using it off-air too. And differentiation and investment in programming is vital he said.

He spoke about a deal UM did with Intel changed the way that everybody thinks about it – silos were broken down. And there are lots of accountability case studies. But there’s more to be done he says. Improvements to audience measurement and RAJAR are key to the future he says.

The PR volume of radfio needs “turning up” says Middlemas – and that can leave radio behind. He highlighted a Microsoft campaign on Global using the band, The Saturdays.

He thinks that it’s a challenging future which makes them very nervous – he mentioned recent pieces by both Libby Purves and Kelvin MacKenzie recently.

Julian Carter said that we had to “get real” about the current situation. More people in programming need to be clearer about the correlation between audience and cash. He talked about networking, and said that hours have increased so far as the Heart network. He questions whether networking in Scotland will work though. LDC, on the otherhand, is trying something different with Phil Riley.

Has consolidation helped? It’s not clear because cannibalisation has happened and too much focus has been on share rather than competing with other industries. Global needs to be strong and profitable as the number one player.

The advertising medium needs to grow – in other countries it takes 10% not 5%. Digital and mobile need to be used more – digital should be pushed on-air. Creativity is important and the RAB is doing something. But he says that you don’t hear as good ads as you used to.

Radio needs to have world class customer service, but many big clients say it’s awful – RAJAR figures get spun.

Finally he says that calls to action are still most important. Branding’s important, but calls to action can drive results like those of Auotglass.

Carter gave an example of B&Q advertised a one-day sale on radio but should have used different copy throughout the day.

Sue Timson, a consultant talked more about what local clients want. She said that local advertisers want many of the same things as national advertisers – they want to know about digital but not yet understand it. Your local station is showbiz however much networking it carries.

But it’s not just a sales problem – that team is almost the last place it impacts on. But everyone has to play a part in commercial success.

John Myers is next up, author of the Myers Review following his three month trip around the world. Myers noted that he was in Canada when Michael Jackson died recently. In Canada they have a 40% Canadian music rule so they couldn’t go to a non-stop Jackson format. In the US it was worse in many stations that are just fully voice tracked for most of the day.

Myers points out that he’s speaking in a personal capacity.

Sometimes Ofcom “has about as much vision as Stevie Wonder.”

Myers explained that he had six weeks to put together his review across all “stakeholders.” He says that a common viewpoint of the regulator among some industry people was that respect for it was as bad as it has ever been.

Myers went back and asked some of the big questions from the start – why was local radio created the way it has been?

Revenue kept up with the number of stations through the 90s until 2004. But growth in listening stopped and declined as station numbers continued to grow. And on top of this share against the BBC fell from the mid nineties. At a point new stations were canibalising existing stations; the cake was being sliced smaller. What’s more, lots of small stations were launching from the beginning of the nineties.

Myers thinks that the problem, which was clear early on, was demand led. Local MPs petitioning for a station would mean one came about. Economic surveys weren’t completed to see if one could be supported. Even though people bid for them, many never would make money, and in some cases they were traded as commodities.

“Licences were awarded to the wrong people… [They] lost out to gold-diggers.”

There are now too many stations in too many markets and he stated that 50 stations would go bust – he believes he’s on track.

“Four reviews in four years does not mean we’re good at this.” Ofcom needs to think bolder and bigger than it has ever done before. Myers thinks that the industry needs to take giant leaps forward.

He said that there isn’t enough local news on the radio and that it needs to be written into licences.

Ofcom: “The milk tooth regulator – where the milky bar kid’s bite isn’t too bad”

Myers says that local radio needs to broadcast local information. He also thinks that it’s really not too hard to measure local appreciation.

Myers was vitriolic on Ofcom’s regulation of local radio. Local radio is about what comes out of the speakers and not where it comes from – so co-location is a sensible way forward. Listener satisfaction can and should be measured.

Myers believes that the regulator doesn’t want to do it and doesn’t like it; so it wants to kill it.

He than ran through the options recently put forward by Ofcom and in summary – he didn’t like them.

“I’ve heard of a local station recording one local bulletin in the morning and putting it out ever hour through the day.”

Each of the three ideas that Ofcom proffered were rejected, often scathingly, and always with good humour.

Myers claims that he can’t find proof that Ofcom monitored more than 10 stations in 2008. And not one yellow card, he thinks, has been handed out without a listener or competitor complaining.

Myers suggests we all go home tonight and complain about five different radio stations. Then do the same the next month! Complaint led regulation simply isn’t good enough in his view.

If a local station is not valued by the community, then it’s not a local station, he says.

“Virgin is now Absolutely gone…”: Myers on the changing face of commercial radio.

Myers believes that the industry’s changed and the regulator also needs to change. He stresses that this isn’t a slight on the people there, but new people bring new ideas.

“Local radio is not dead – it’s just been re-engineerd.”

In summary then – a fantastically clear minded view of what local commercial radio is, what it could – and in his opinion – should be, and what we want from a regulator.

Nicky Campbell, doing sterling hosting duties, asked Martin Campbell from Ofcom to respond, which he did. He said that he didn’t recognise what Myers reported. Myers said that this was the case and that perhaps they wouldn’t necessarily feed that back to Ofcom.

On formats, Myers believes that the days of regulating on music are gone and that we should regulate on content.

Joan Warner, CEO of Commercial Radio Australia, spoke next about the launch of digital radio in Australia. In Australia, the rollout was simultaneously carried out by public and commercial operators.

She said that they learnt much from the UK like forcing stations onto low bit-rates. Receivers had to affordable from day one. She says that they sold out quickly. Instead of copying the UK model of multiplex ownership, stations get direct access to the airwaves via consortia.

In Australia in building coverage was planned for as many stations can’t be heard in tower blocks. That means higher powers – 50 kW.

She noted that when FM launched in Australia in 1980 spectrum was given away free because there was a belief that nobody would buy new devices to listen to the radio…

Warner says that radio is the only industry in Australia that’s promoting, on-air, the fact that advertising through a recession is a smart thing to do.

Australia, of course, has adopted DAB+ for their launch earlier this year. This means it’s 2-3 times more efficient. That means everyone can get on to digital radio. Community stations will get on digital, although narrowcasters won’t.

She says we can’t just sit where we are and assume we’ll keep the healthy audiences they currently have.

Each broadcaster is allocated space and they’re free to do with it what they want – they can split it into smaller lower quality services, or offer higher bit-rate single services. Broadcasters can do what they like with the bit-rate apart from video. She says that radio is considered a free to air platform; people will buy new devices, but they won’t pay for subscriptions.

The May launch saw five major markets but there’s another 100 areas to go covering 40% of the Australian population. And in Australia radio wants some of the vacant TV bandwidth when TV goes digital.

She spoke about how internet radio is not the answer, being very spectrum inefficient and unable to scale easily or cheaply. The usual, very valid, issues were brought up, but she admits that it’s a hobbyhorse.

New radio services have been introduced including “Pink Radio” which is a commercial offering based around a new Pink album. It’ll soon be renamed Britney Radio.

So some interesting ideas to learn from.

Shelagh Fogarty joined Nicky Campbell on stage to talk about how their Sony Award winning work together. It turns out that Fogarty thinks it’s useful to like your co-presenter on-air.

However, Fogarty thinks Campbell can be a “strange fish”, saying that he can sometimes her what the interview’s “about” at the last minute! She also talked about how they do sometimes carry out two-headed interviews where the other one will pitch in with a question.

Campbell says that Fogarty sometimes does personal emails while he’s carrying out an interview! She said that they’re messages to the producer.

Torin Douglas asked how they choose who does the “big interview.” Over time, Fogarty says they’ve worked out their strengths, weaknesses and favourite areas.

A question from John Mottram was about how a damaged partnership might work. Campbell says that it’s harder for them than say The Today Programme where everything’s more compartmentalised. He also said that TV is very different because it’s more scripted – although

Fogarty says that she doesn’t like the simpering looks co-presenters give one another on breakfast television in particular.

James Cridland asked about how text messages that are read out on air are chosen. In a compliant BBC there are producers read through texts in advance. There are good reasons at times for doing this he says, when it’s a particularly controversial subject. Occasionally people would smuggle things into texts that they didn’t realise – Fogarty remembers the use of the word ‘roasting’ on one occasion.

Campbell says moving to Manchester is a fantastic opportunity, and if you say you can’t go anywhere you sound dreadful. The words “down there” and “up here” when talking about somewhere like Edinburgh. Campbell reiterates that he is moving there. It’s not like he’s moving to Canada! Fogarty hasn’t decided however… She says it’s actually more about

Campbell suggests giving Fogarty an 18m pound three year contract…

That concludes day one (or two if you were here yesterday) of Radio Festival!

The brand new single from this year’s winners of ‘One Last Dream’ is available for download right now at i-Tunes.

The Original Sinners got together with Henry Priestman (formerly of The Christians) to write a brand new song in the space of just two days.  Guy Pratt of Pink Floyd fame also popped down to the Abbey Road studios to cast a watchful eye over the recording. 

The result is a song actually called “One Last Dream.” It’s a three and a half minute rock ditty that doubles in catchiness every time you hear it. If you could spare 79p to download it sometime this week it’s possible it could make the top 40.

You’ll make five guys from Amersham who never hit the big time and, put all their heart into winning “One Last Dream” realise a lifetime ambition.  Plus, all of Absolute Radio’s profits are going to the Teenage Cancer Trust.

As I type, it’s sitting at No.62 in the i-Tunes Rock Chart.  Let’s get it higher!

ITV’s coverage of the festival reached a peak of 358,000 people on the Friday night. That made it the second best viewing EVER for coverage of this festival. So, if 7% of the UK population watched some of the coverage, that means that 7% of you also saw our Idents! But for those of you that were there, you’ll know that we had more than just Idents on site; we were also helping get your photos up on the big screens too. And any of those that didn’t quite make it up there can be found up on our site anyway.

General feedback here for all our activity was really positive. So positive, in fact, that we’ve decided to show our ads up on the screens at Hard Rock Calling this weekend. AND you can text us your photos again to compete for a spot on screen. If you can’t make it though, then listen in Sunday for highlights from the Killers, The Kooks, Fleet Foxes, Pretenders, James Morrison, Seasick Steve, and more…

The new playlist is now out.

The Killers – A Dustland Fairytale (27th July)
Las Vegas’ finest headline Hard Rock Calling in London’s Hyde Park this Friday night, and headline the V Festival in August. This will be the next single from their ‘Day and Age’ album.

Oasis – I Believe In All (available now)
Another track written by Liam Gallagher, that we’re featuring from the ‘Dig Out Your Soul’ album sessions
Oasis’ stadium tour continues with dates at Coventry in July and 3 nights at Wembley Stadium on the 9th, 11th and 12th of July.

Geoff Lloyd’s Hometime: Fresh Track Record of the Week - The Duckworth Lewis Method - The Age Of Revolution.

Coldplay – Strawberry Swing (14th September)
Coldplay release Strawberry Swing from their Viva La Vida album, to coincide with their stadium dates at Manchester Old Trafford Cricket Ground, Glasgow Hampden Park and London Wembley Stadium in September.

Adrian Hieatt hasn’t been the same since he was called ‘cute’ by Bruno at last week’s red carpet premiere…..he now has an agent, eyeliner and dubious modelling deal. Another interesting thing to come out of this meeting of minds is that it has given us our most watched video on youtube.

More than Fifty thousand people have watched the encounter on the site in less than a week. A fifth of these views have been in the last 24 hours and it’s only going to soar from here. What’s interesting is who is watching and where they’re watching: 73% of viewers are male and they’re mainly 35-44. More than 80% of people watch the clip to the bitter end and almost two thirds found the video through a youtube search for ‘Bruno’.

We already know that our red carpet material is popular on youtube, increases our hits (This clip’s taken over from Brad Pitt at the BAFTAs as most popular) and boosts awareness of the radio station. That’s why we’re going to be covering increasing our movie coverage over the coming months.

The Absolute Radio supported Tube Exits iPhone application is now available to download. The Lite version is free (Link opens in iTunes).

Congratulations to the boys.  They’ll be worthy winners and will be no disgrace to the Hard Rock Calling Stage when they play with Neil Young next Saturday night.  It’ll be the end of a busy week for them as on Tuesday the band will be performing at their own winners celebration party at the Hard Rock Cafe. 

Wednesday meanwhile will see them at the world famous Abbey Road Studios.  They’ll be recording a new single they’ll have written with Henry Priestman who played with The Christian’s in the 80’s.  Guy Pratt will also be lending his expertise to the project too.  His experiences with Pink Floyd who also recorded famously at Abbey Road will be invaluable to our novices!

Twelve months ago, if you’d mentioned the Kings of Leon within the confides of One Golden Square you’d have heard mutterings of “why don’t we ever play them?” or “we should be hammering Molly’s Chambers and The Bucket.”

Perhaps the murmurings of discontent held some validity but then hindsight is a wonderful thing. However, from a programming perspective, we were looking at a niche, specialist band who, three albums down the line, were showing no signs of crossing over into the mainstream. Very much an Absolute Xtreme band at this point, we struggled to find more than two singles on the band’s third album “Because Of the Times”. In terms of profile, the band had a hardcore indie following in the UK with minimal impact on the US market – and with the positioning of the last radio station, the feeling was that a lot of work needed to be done before there was a shot at getting on the playlist.

As we will all recall, in the early stages of Absolute Radio and the infancy of this blog, the hot topic of debate was the music policy that the new station would adopt. Everyone had an opinion, the knives were out and the musos within One Golden Square began salivating at the prospect of a much wider playlist. The idea that Absolute Radio was looking to claim ownership on previously overlooked guitar bands to create its own identity meant that perhaps the Kings of Leon, still relatively unknown to the mainstream audience, could in the future appear on our playlist.

Fast forward to June 2009 and the Kings of Leon are now a core Absolute Radio band. They have sold an astonishing 2 million copies of “Only By The Night” and have found themselves as one of the most popular bands in the UK. A regular lone champion of guitar rock in an otherwise pop swamped itunes chart, Sex on Fire, Notion, Revelry, and Use Somebody have done and continue to do the business for all concerned in a hugely depressed market. And each week in the music strategy meeting, we pour over statistics and research that you the listener have provided for us. The incredible results (on the presentation below) demonstrate how the Kings of Leon have crossed over.

A combination of great songs and a passionate response from you the listener has meant that the Kings of Leon are now firmly established as the Absolute Radio band whose time is now- we know because you’ve told us.

David