WORK: Bath FM - Day 1

When I first got to Bath FM and met Paul Roberts it’s striking how energetic he is, which I think is vital for a 28yr old who is busy running 5 different radio stations; Bath FM, Brunel FM, 3TR FM and 2 other stations both called Quaywest FM.

Paul worked with the previous owners of the stations, Laser, and when the company dissolved this gave him the oppurtunity to make bids for the companies. Since October 2008 he has been managing these stations and attempting to improve on how they were run previously and from what I can tell he’s doing a good job of it.

He gave me a tour of Bath FM, which is a smallish building, but bigger than the previous stations I’ve visited (BBC Bristol and Bath University Radio). The staff consisted of a small Sales team and a few presenters. One of the big changes that Paul pointed out was having more shows throughout the day. Bath FM had previously been mainly automated music with a maximum of two shows per day.

Since Paul was raving to Prodigy live at Cardiff the previous night he was off for his usual morning show from 6:30-10:00, which was filled in by Oliver Head who usually works at Brunel FM in Swindon. After a brief chat with Paul we decided the best thing for me to do was to work shadow him as he does his job, as I have no experience or knowledge of management or business, let alone the management side of Radio. I feel like I’m lucky that Paul’s belief is that business is business. I was glad he wasn’t offended that I’m not primarily interested in radio station management, just management as a whole. I imagine other people being quite sensitive about this and thinkning that taking me on for work experience would be a waste of time.

We spent the day touring two of the five radio stations, Brunel FM and 3TR FM which gave me an oppurtunity to shoot some material for the video profile we need to make.

We arrived at Brunel FM where the front of the building is under construction. The studios were a lot nicer than Bath FM and once again I met a team of great people. The general work atmosphere throughout is great and everyone I met seemed very easy going and positive, it seems like a great environment to work in apart from the construction going on at the front. Paul spent some time sorting out the upcoming Bank Holiday, making sure there were staff and presenters on hand since it seemed to take him by surprise.

We visited 3TR FM next which has the biggest office space out of all three of the stations, the team once again were nice to talk to, one of the things that seemed to crop up at both Brunel and 3TR was the stations’ use of Twitter to post news updates.

A lot of Paul’s day seems to be dealing with problems that crop up, which range from things like dealing with BT after being sent a bill for a phone they don’t use to dealing with the press about a court case that had previously ended. He seems like a compassionate manager who places great importance in his staff and seems to get along with all of them well.

I feel like I’m learning a lot from him about how to effectively run radio stations, as he seems to be saving money, bringing in advertisers, and producing great radio all by keeping a local community-friendly image which the surrounding areas lack from radio.