A New King & a New Audio Era?
If reports are to be believed, King Charles is looking at a slimmed down monarchy. A new era for a new King, after the passing of, let’s be honest, the greatest ever British person, the late Her Majesty The Queen. But is it now time for the audioworld, and radio in particular, to also consider what’s next? As we have seen over the last 70 years, things move on. Radio has multiplied. The music played was a lot less sombre than in 1952 (I’m told!). But what happens next time?
Commercial Radio, like the royal family itself, the government etc, has always had an ‘obit’ plan for the death of the Queen but until now it never had to put it into action. As part of my job for a decade and more, it was my responsibility to be briefed on royal protocols by the Palace, update our plan accordingly and pass it on. I can still remember the shocked faces of presenters when studios were revamped in Leicester Square when we removed the ‘Obit’ button and light, as that system wasn’t needed anymore! So from the initial announcement to the funeral 10 days later, every single one of my friends, former colleagues and any other person lucky enough to be working in the industry, put the well rehearsed plans into place and did a great job, respectfully reflecting the life of a Queen who reigned for an unprecedented 70 years.
But like the studios, commercial radio has also changed, incredibly, since its inception in the 70s. There’s stations playing just old songs, 90s songs, noughties, radio stations for children, for boomers, jazz, classic and even football! And then there’s specific stations for talking, talking about life, talking about the news, and in some cases even creating the news. Radio used to serve everyone on one station, now it serves everyone by offering ‘brand extensions’. Therefore is it right that every station changes the format for nearly 10 days?
I’m sure when the last monarch died, and the one before that etc, it took days, even weeks for some people in the country to find out about it. But this isn’t the case in 2022. Once the initial announcement has been marked appropriately, could promos or v/o’s point to ‘extended coverage on our sister station….’ News jingles are a way of saying here’s the news, again post announcement, why drop that signal to listeners, who we know are often doing lots of different things at the time, that the latest update is coming up?
Most of my radio life, I had the pleasure of working with OFCOM and discussing the Broadcasting code a lot. Front and centre of it is being fair and balanced. Again according to latest reports, it seems up to half the population watched the funeral. Don’t get me wrong, that’s massive, but it’s not everyone. Were the ten days before it a switch off? Where was the service for the millions who were just getting on with their lives? Just a little perspective, in our small Hertfordshire town on Monday, when ‘everyone’ was forced to have a day off, people still queued for coffee, families went to park, laughed and joked, football was played, the park was being cleared by council workers, drivers were delivering to local restaurants. Life carried on. Where was the reflection of that?
I will say well done and thank goodness for ‘Fun Kids’ which reverted to normal playing the Disney classics, Dua Lipa and Sam Ryder by the first Saturday morning after the Thursday night announcement! Children really don’t need sombre songs. It stayed on our radios for much of the next few days!
The world of audio and radio has expanded massively. There’s alternatives, there’s choice, there’s options - it’s not one size fits all anymore. As one of the industry’s greatest ever programmers always told me, listeners always have an expectation of what they’ll hear on their radio, their station, and if it’s not what they want they’ll switch off. Respect has to be shown, reflect what’s happened initially, but then offer the listener what they want. We won’t have another monarch reign for 70 years again and instant news is around us all the time. As even the words in the national anthem suggests, life goes on #GodSaveTheKing
by John Cushing, Sept 2022
