We have made some changes to our Music, Programmes and Production teams.
In the past 15 months James Curran’s Music team have secured some amazing live performances from Chris Martin, Florence & The Machine, Doves, Madness, Biffy Clyro, Keane, Tori Amos, as well as interviews with U2, Green Day and Elbow. Between them they have also radically deepened our playlist, implemented the No Repeat Guarantee and been the creators and custodians of music catalogues for four radio services including Absolute Classic Rock, Absolute 80s and dabbl. To recognise this amazing effort and impact it has on the product Tim Vernon becomes Deputy Head of Music and David Lambert becomes Music Producer, Digital.
Our Executive Producer, Paul Sylvester, now takes on the responsibility for leading the Programmes team. Paul continues to run the programme schedule and spearhead the Absolute Radio branded podcast strategy which delivered us 5.8 million downloads in 2009.
Brian Murphy becomes Head of Production. In this new role he will lead our Sony Award winning team in producing finely crafted audio for the Content and Branded Content departments. Brian also retains responsibilities for scouting and developing new broadcasting talent and will work closely with the Promotions and Sponsorship teams on revenue generating programming.
Finally, to acknowledge the great work Vince Lynch has done in the past year in setting up our music publishing deal with EMI and leading the new One Golden Square Creative initiative, he becomes Creative & Publishing Director.
Over the next few days we I look forward to announcing more details of our new Interactive teams, but for now, please join me in congratulating the above members of Music, Programmes and Production.
Tony
Categories: People
Posted by adam on January 29, 2010
Congratulations to Frank Skinner who was named Comedy Legend at this year’s Loaded Lafta Awards. The annual ceremony celebrates people who have kept the country smiling over the past year and it’s all voted for by the public so there’s every reason to feel proud as punch that ‘one of our own’ is officially one of the UK’s greatest ever comedians.
The Legend Award is the highest accolade of the entire event and in the past year alone Frank has launched the sell-out Credit Crunch Cabaret, interviewed Russell Brand for a fly-on-the-wall documentary, presented a Panorama special and even found the time to front a certain radio Breakfast Show every Saturday morning.
He was joined at the showbiz bash by Geoff Lloyd and Rhiannon Clarke who were also toasting Brian Murphy’s nomination in the category for Radio’s Funniest Sidekick.
Now it’s all eyes on the World Cup when Frank will be joined by partner in crime David Baddiel for a series of exclusive Absolute Radio podcasts… and possibly a new football anthem if newspaper reports are to believed! Speaking on the red carpet at London’s swish Cuckoo Club, Frank said “I think I might have a go at writing a new one with the other guys” so watch this space.
The playlist is out now.
Goldfrapp – Rocket (8th March)
In their career to date Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory have built a reputation as real musical pioneers. The duo’s 5th album together ‘Head First’ is released on 22nd of March – and the lead track from it, bubbling with ‘80s synths, is perhaps their catchiest single yet.
Scouting For Girls – This Ain’t A Love Song (29th March)
The 3-piece return with the 1st single from new album ‘Everybody Wants To Be On TV’ (14th of April); the follow-up to their number 1, Brit-nominated, double-platinum debut album.
Gorillaz – Stylo (available now)
The new album from Damon Albarn’s animated band is ‘Plastic Beach’ (March 8th), the successor to 2005’s multi-million selling ‘Demon Days’. The new album features appearances by Lou Reed, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of The Clash, soul legend Bobby Womack (on ‘Stylo’), plus Mark E Smith – of our own Frank Skinner’s favourite band, The Fall.
Mumford & Sons – The Cave (1st March)
Mumford & Sons’ fearsome live reputation has been the foundation of their recent success. ‘The Cave’ is the latest single from the West London band’s Top 10 album ‘Sigh No More’ – and the follow-up to recent unofficial-British-winter-anthem ‘Winter Winds’
Apple is expected to unveil the long awaited tablet computer at 10am Pacific Time (6pm GMT) on Wednesday, January 27th at an invitation-only event. But what might it mean for radio?
The likely target for the Apple tablet will be the living room, with families using it for gaming and entertainment instead of the family computer or TV. It’s almost certain to use the iPhone operating system, with a higher resolution screen, more powerful hardware and a 10 inch screen.
The opportunity is for radio businesses to build on their experience with already successful smartphone applications – to create an even more engaging and interactive experience which makes the most of the larger screen. The Pure Sensia has already provided examples of how this could function, with the added features complimenting the audio content, rather than detracting from it.
In terms of audio features, the most-educated guess is that it will have the same connectivity as the current iPhone 3GS with a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, built-in speaker grills, and a microphone. This allows radio to provide some personal space, even in a family room full of distractions, or allows greater input with user-created audio.
The initial focus of press attention has been around the possibilities for gaming, and for print media. But importantly this is another device which brings radio into the middle of living room conversations.
Dan
The Killers – Mr Brightside reigned supreme at the top of our recent Song of the Decade (SOTD) vote. SOTD attracted an amazing 78,000 votes, making it by far the highest audience participation Absolute Radio has ever achieved in an on line promotion or event. Closer analysis reveals however that Mr Brightside was just one of the 3,694 tracks that received at least one vote. And the breadth and variety of voting in SOTD was further demonstrated by the 1,318 different artists who received votes.
‘The Long Tail‘ is a term borrowed from retail to describe when a large number of items sell in fairly small quantities.
Applied to the SOTD it means that many, many songs received at least one vote producing a ‘long tail’ as can be seen from the graph. If anything it shows that music (like one’s politics or religion) remains something people are passionately opinionated about. 3,694 songs from one decade testify to that .
So Mr Brightside might have been Top Dog on this occasion but he sure had one mighty impressive long tail!
[Click on the chart above to read the song titles better, but of course, only a fraction of the 3,694 song names are being displayed]
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