WORK: Bath FM - Day 5

I sat in on Paul’s show again, this time I spent more time analysing the show and it’s running order and asked a few more questions. He obviously really enjoys presenting the show and when the question came up of whether he would ever leave the show to focus on managing the stations he said it was unlikely, unless of course Pat Sharp offered to take over!

At around 6:30 Paul reads the headlines of national papers. Luckily there is a website that has this information for him to read out which saves him from having to buy ten newspapers every morning and leaf through them.

Every hour of his show he reads the local news, a traffic update and reads from the local diary, which are some local events that have been emailed to the station. I think the local diary is vital for the stations community-friendly image.

The national news is read during peak hours like 8am-9am where the listenership is highest because of people driving to work or dropping their kids to school.

As part of their programming policy Paul’s show contains a local themed feature every hour. These features are:-

Where am I? – A location in Bath is described and the listeners have to guess where the location is.

Bath’s Big Vote – A topic that affects the local community is open for listeners to call in and share their thoughts. An example of this was when there was a possibility of the Bath rugby grounds to relocate; there was a huge response to this.

Bath FM Coffee Break – 15 minutes of back-to-back music with features from local sponsors.

Paul also uploaded the Marmaduke’s track onto the companies’ FTP site so that the track could be added to the companies playlist. While uploading the song he had to quickly run from Studio 2 to Studio 1 as the song playing on air was finishing.

After that I spent time watching Paul record the Vinyl Countdown idents by editing the background song with the pre-record presenter voice over. This was done so that it was available in time for the Vinyl Countdown show on the weekend.

I was extremely happy with my experience at Bath FM, the work environment is good, everyone who works there is very friendly and I would love if I had the chance to work with any of the people I met there again. I am now more interested in management either in a business setting or potentially utilising the skills I have observed and using them as a producer for television or film, which is another role I'm interested in. I think it's a shame I'm not more interested in actually managing for radio. I am very passionate about music however I listen to wealth of different styles of music and bands that usually aren't commercially successful. I think from this experience I have learnt that Radio is a business and having commercially listenable music that appeals to people is what drives the business. I think that there isn't really a place for more underground types of music to be as successful as a company like Bath FM, however I would be very interested in the programming and content management side of a radio station that caters to a more niche market, if this oppurtunity ever arises I think what I've learnt from Paul will definitely come in handy.

WORK: Bath FM - Day 4

Today Paul and I drove up to Swindon as there was a problem with the offices broadband connection which needed to get fixed, mainly because the presenters needed the internet for aid them with their shows. This was especially important with the Bank Holiday weekend approaching where there would be no office staff at all apart from the presenters and therefore no-one to help if they had any problems.

Paul issued the studios with broadband dongles, which worked fine (eventually) and will hopefully hold out till the end of the bank holiday at least. The next task on the agenda was to visit the new Swindon offices with builders to arrange soundproofing the offices to move the studios into. The empty studio space looked good and both office spaces seemed big enough for two studios.

I think one of the best experiences of the day was meeting the builders who knew exactly what they were doing and were completely up for the job even though the work had to be done really soon. The builder Paul originally consulted gave him a high price quote and so he consulted his Uncle and Cousin to do the job, which they seemed more than happy to help with. Paul obviously knew a great deal about construction and I’m not sure if this came form working with his Uncle previously or perhaps his farming background but I thought it was extremely helpful for him to understand the in’s and out’s of construction and I wondered if I was ever to be a manager if I would need to have similar knowledge as construction is something I know absolutely nothing about. Paul seemed sceptical about whether it was possible to get the studios built in time before their eviction date from the current Swindon office. Both his uncle and cousin replied at numerous times “nothing’s impossible” which such certainty that I now consider it fact.

Paul's job seems extremely hectic, he could have a day planned but have to drop it at a moments notice to tend to emergencies like the Broadband incident today. I think one of Paul's best qualities is his ability to remain calm in highly stressful times. I think his job is exciting as he always has something to do which is the kind of job that suits me. I think that if I had the kind of knowledge and experience that Paul has with Radio for Television or Film Production that I myself would be interested in setting up a production company as it seems to be very fulfilling to work on a project like Southwest Radio and watching your own company grow and flourish seems exciting. I can tell Paul does this job for his love of Radio and I think his passion for the medium is what makes him a good manager.

WORK: Bath FM - Day 3

Today Paul was preparing for a board meeting so couldn’t do his morning show again. Once again Oliver filled in for him. Our day was cut short because of the meeting however Paul managed to fit in an informative talk as we looked over the groups programming policy. As the document is confidential and contains information sensitive to the company I will not be reprinting any of the contents.

WORK: Bath FM - Day 2

I had an early start with Paul today and sat it on the breakfast show, which he presents, I also got to meet Steve who does the early morning breakfast show.

What’s notable about watching someone on the air on the radio is the need for some precise timing as Paul had to often backtime what songs were being played before certain segments like the news, which starts one second after the hour. Paul stays true to his companies catchphrase "keeping it local" by hosting a competition, "Where am I?" Where he describes a nearby location and the listeners have to call in to guess the location. There is a definite sense of community in the station as most of their competitions have prizes to local shows like the Drive-Thru screening of Grease and the Katy Setterfield concert who is a Dusty Springfield tribute act. Paul also supports the Bath Comedy Festival by giving information on the upcoming gigs and plugs the upcoming Joke-off between himself and fellow presenter Kate Constance.

After the show Paul dealt with invoices for a while and answered some emails before launching my favourite part of the day: Listening to new music. I learnt that invoices usually need to be checked by Paul before going to Head Office to get processed.


We listened to new singles to see which he would choose to potentially get played on air. The artists included U2, EG, Daniel Merriweather, Kelly Clarkson and Marmaduke Duke and I found it pretty exciting as he was getting early listens to new singles.

He decided which songs would go on his A or B list for this week and possibly the following week and which songs would not be played at all.

He had to update the playlist for the other station programmers to see as well as the band's publishers.

We spoke about the PRS, I was curious to find out how artists got paid for their music being played on air. He explained that PRS take a percentage of the companies’ annual gross for playing copyright music.

Paul took calls from the manager/promoter of a band who had sent him a promo CD for the band Grasshouse (or something like that). He listened to it while still on the phone to the manager, which I thought was extremely courteous, he even admitted there was a chance of the band getting some airtime since he liked the song. A lot of the choices Paul makes regarding the music depend solely on the song and whether its good or not, it seems that even being a big name doesn’t secure you airtime as we discussed with Steve that some of the songs by artists like Pink and Justin Timberlake weren’t suitable for the stations image, however they do have some songs that they will play because the audience like it like Justin Timberlake's "Senorita".

Most of what he did today was regarding the radio side of things; he also spoke with his sales department about looking for weather sponsorship. It's a shame I couldn't spend more time with the Sales team as they seemed like nice guys and I think that knowing about Sales and having some experience with it would be vital for business management.

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.

WORK: "I'm Mr Manager"

I have arranged a 5 day work shadowing oppurtunity with Bath FM's Paul Roberts. Lesley did quite a lot in setting it up and when I gave him a call he seemed very enthusiastic about it.

I am quite nervous about it as I'm not too sure what to expect but since I've had some sort of experience with managing the event, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how someone can manage not one but several different companies. I talked with him about filming a short piece about his job and he sounded absolutely fine with it.

So, watch this space as I keep up-to-date with this work experience and I assume this blog will take on more of a reflective diary format now.

WORK: An update

In the last lesson we did a really cool task to get us prepared for group interviews. A group interview usually happens when there is a large amount of applicants for a job, the applicants are given group tasks to do and if you perform well you advance to the next stage and the others get voted off the island. It all seems a bit like reality TV but instead of winning a cash prize and 15 minutes of infamy you get a job instead. The exercise involved us trying to pitch our project in groups to a group of investors, it was basically us doing Dragon's Den and getting a chance to be the dragons as well the people pitching.

I have emailed Paul Roberts of Southwest Radio and am anxiously awaiting a reply regarding doing job shadowing focusing on the management side of Radio. I am yet to get into contact with Future Publishing or Jamie Woorsford but should have done so by the end of this week and will get posting on the outcomes of these.

WORK

For this semester we need to get 15 days worth of work experience. From the beginning I had some ideas of what I wanted to do for work experience and the options available to me.

I have a friend who digitises tapes and approached him about shadowing him. At first he was a bit reluctant mainly because he thought I would get bored with the work, however I assured him that any work I could do would be helpful, at such short notice I think we’ll all experience difficulty finding work experience before the end of May.

I remember speaking with Mike Johnston about doing colour correction with a friend of his who graded the first year films within a day with some great results. I’ve always been interested in colour correction, since I’m interested in editing I think having skills linked to the editing process like grading and creating graphics and captions are important skills to learn. I was given the contact information but have yet to phone him…

We have been offered a number of supplementary projects and one-offs to make up the 15 days. Mike, Lance and myself have volunteered to do a short feature on Bath Film Office. I will be acting as producer with Lance as Cameraman and Mike as Journalist. Since being on this course I feel most comfortable doing producer roles since I think I’m well organised and mostly good in delegating tasks and overseeing the production process. I’m also pretty bad with technical equipment and feel that other people are better suited to these roles.

The other opportunities we have are working with Bath FM doing shadowing in three different areas; Presenting, Management and Sales. (Balve wanted to do all three). And there are two work opportunities with Future Publishing who are well known in the class for making a lot of Computer Game and Biking magazines.