Trevor Dann

Production 08 takes place in just over a fortnight’s time at the fabulous IndigO_2. It’s a great line-up which we don’t think you can afford to miss if you’re at the sharp end of making radio. There’ll be no talk of digital strategies and multiplex consolidation. This is about the art and craft of radio production – choosing the music, reporting the news, talking to listeners, working with talent, telling people about your programmes and negotiating a path through the new minefield of compliance. I wish we could announce the name of our guest celebrity interviewee but we can’t. Suffice to say he’s a member of one of the best-known groups in the world and he can tell us all a thing or two about dealing with DJs from the other side of the mic. It takes a lot of …….er, patience.  One or two people have raised concerns about the location of the O₂ which is still cursed by the reputation of the Millennium Dome. Well believe me it really does take less than half an hour via tube from Paddington, Euston, King’s Cross or any other London terminus. And we’ve made the conference opening 11am to help people who are travelling from out of London.  Veterans of the Celebration of Music Radio won’t need any persuading how enjoyable the evening event can be and this year it too will be extra special. The IndigO₂ gives us great sound and the line-up of both bands and award recipients should ensure that the title of the event has real meaning.   

I look forward to seeing you at our London event on Tuesday. Keith Pringle will be hosting a workshop on station imaging. Some of the most talent soundscape artists will be on hand with their advice and there’ll be plenty of examples to inspire your own creative juices. Trevor Dann 
Director 

If you want to have a bigger say in the Academy, now’s your chance! Our Trustees are our board of directors. They set the strategy for the Academy and make sure we deliver on our promises to members and patrons. You can see their names here. At last week’s Trustees meeting 5 of them resigned, having served their three years. Two have indicated that they’d like to stand again but that leaves us with three vacancies. So if you’re interested in serving as a Trustee or simply want to find out more please contact me. The closing date for applications will be April 4th and an election will be held from April 7th if necessary. Spaces are still available for Production 08 and the Celebration of Music Radio at the IndigO₂. Please see below. Registration is also open for our next London event. Keith Pringle hosts a discussion about the sound of UK radio - sweepers, jingles, idents and all the paraphernalia we call station imaging. It features some of the finest practitioners of the art and should be a fascinating event.  

Good news from Manchester too. A North-West branch meeting is pencilled in for late April. More details soonest.  

Trevor Dann 
Director 

More than one person commiserated with me this week when I said I was attending the BBC World Service Awards at BAFTA. Surely the old boys at Bush with their cardigans and chinagraphs would have nothing to interest our thrusting new multi-platform world ….. WRONG!  It turns out that the World Service is at the cutting edge of new media. Several of the winning entries cleverly blended radio techniques with other resources. The Bangladesh By River project, for instance,  (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/bangladeshboat/) was built on google maps, twitter, flickr, handheld webcams, laptops, blogs and flashmics in a truly inspiring way. A brilliant evening and a wake-up call. Of course I’m writing this as though I’m a techno-geek with his finger on the pulse of the digital future. Whereas in fact I’m staring at the screen of my new laptop (the old one expired last week) wondering why I can’t use my old printer with MS Vista, why I can’t see my old emails any more, why the hyperlinks don’t work, and most importantly, why this newsletter looks like it was typed by a bloke with no hands. Aaaaaaaaargh!  Meanwhile plans for a celebration of the life of Kevin Greeening are coming together. I’ll let you know as soon as something’s confirmed. In the meantime here’s a reminder of happier days at Smooth: http://digitalurban.blogspot.com/2006/07/smooth-fm-studios-london-life-panorama.html. You’ll have to cut and paste it I’m afraid.  

Please book now for Production 08 if you haven’t done already. Jonathan Arendt told me we should say “at last a conference where you can actually learn something useful” so that’ll do for me.   

Trevor Dann 
Director

Tuesday evening’s London event ‘We Ask The Questions’ promises to be a real treat. Mark Lawson, who’s recently made some trenchant comments about radio interviewing, will be sharing his observations with another doyen of the art of conversation, Simon Mayo. We’ll be asking them to share their experiences and demonstrate their techniques by interviewing each other. Book through the link below. Our podcasts are now available via iTunes. Search for ‘radio academy’ in the iTunes store.  

Trevor Dann 
Director 

Let no-one tell you that radio isn’t an exciting and relevant modern medium. It’s clearly what people want to talk about: Broadcast are staging their Radio 3.0 conference again in May, the MediaGuardian are offering a new event called Radio Reborn in April and even the Royal Society of Arts are getting in the act with Future Radio next week. You’ll find details of all of them below, plus the first announcement of the event which we would beg to argue is still the most important in the UK radio year, our own Radio Festival. Sessions are still being added to Production 08 and we’re confident that it too will be the best ever. Congratulations and thanks to everyone involved in two very well attended branch events last week. Real Radio Yorkshire won the 4th annual Radio Academy Yorkshire Music & Radio Quiz at The Village Hotel, Hull with commercial, BBC, student, hospital and commercial stations all represented. Galaxy’s Simon Hirst hosted the contest, which saw reigning champions, the Magic Vikings, beaten on home turf. The London session on creativity also had a Yorkshire flavour with Stuart Baldwin from Radio Aire sharing his powerful vision of how to stimulate the creative process by setting achievable goals. There are still a few places left for our Cardiff Masterclass next weekend. Contact Abi for details. And stand by for the launch this week of our Course Recognition Scheme designed to help students find the best places to study radio. Our latest podcast features BBC Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer in conversation. Good to hear the radio business getting a mention in the Oscar winning There Will Be Blood – anyone spot it? 

I hope to see you on Tuesday evening for our East Anglia Event in Norwich. 

Trevor Dann
Director

A late but very welcome addition to the panel for this week’s London event is Dixi Stewart, a veteran of GLR and now a stalwart of Radio 4 production. She’ll be joining Jez Nelson and the rest of the team (see below) on Thursday evening to discuss creativity on and off-air, where you find it, how to nurture it and how to sustain it.
 
I hope you managed to hear our latest podcast featuring our new Diversity Project Officer, Elaine Williams, and the secretary of the Radio Industry Diversity Group, Janice Turner. If you missed it click here and our smart new player will swing into action. All comments on the views expressed by our ‘podcastees’ are very welcome. Later this week we’ll be loading up an interview with Mark Damazer, controller of BBC Radio 4 and BBC7. Fascinating stuff.
 
We held a planning meeting last week at the Indig02 in Greenwich where Production 08 and the Celebration of Music Radio are due to take place in April. It really is an amazing venue and it’s just 20 minutes by tube from central London. If you’re coming to London from any distance you’ll be pleased to know that the conference kicks off at 11am so you’ll have plenty of time to get there. Early bird rate for registrations ends this week so if you want to ensure your place and save money please click here or go to our website as soon as you can. One of the latest sessions to be confirmed is a conversation between Christian O’Connell, our host, and one of the biggest stars of UK music about the perils and pitfalls of the celebrity radio interview. We’ll be able to reveal his identity in a week or so.
 
Yorkshire readers please remember Hirsty’s Radio & Music Quiz which is on TONIGHT. I hope to see you this week at the creativity event, at Bournemouth University on Thursday or at talkSport on Friday. 
 
Trevor Dann
Director

Our latest podcast, which will go up later today (Monday), features our new Diversity Project Officer, Elaine Williams, and the secretary of the Radio Industry Diversity Group, Janice Turner, discussing the issue of ethnic representation on and off air. I think you’ll find it interesting and stimulating. All comments very welcome. Previous podcasts with Mark Story, Phil Riley and Tim Blackmore are still available for download and can now be enjoyed online via our new player. Forthcoming podcasts will feature two BBC network controllers, Mark Damazer from Radio 4 and Lesley Douglas from Radio 2. Do let me know if you have any questions for them or if you’d like to suggest guests for future podcasts. There are only a few days left to secure tickets for Production 08 at the early bird rate. Newly added to the programme are a session with the top guys from Facebook and a Playlist Clinic with some of the best UK music programmers. Christian O’Connell will be hosting. Mark Radcliffe, Jay Crawford, Scott Solder, David Lloyd, Karen Pearson, Mike Walsh, Martyn Ware, Matt Wells and many others will be helping you to make your station and programmes better. We’ve managed to secure the wonderful IndigO2 venue inside the former Millennium Dome as our location. So this is a great opportunity for everyone based outside London to see one of the world’s most impressive music venues. And don’t forget it’s just 20 minutes by tube from central London.

Trevor Dann
Director

Congratulations to everyone involved in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. I enjoyed it hugely - hey, it’s not every evening you get to sit next to a member of Led Zeppelin! – but more importantly, it was a celebration of a vibrant UK musical scene. Anyone who thinks ‘folk’ in the 21st century is all about fingers in the ear and hush puppies, would be thrilled by the range of music on show from UK artists who don’t always feature in mainstream radio. I especially loved the Imagined Village featuring folk stalwart Martin Carthy, his equally celebrated daughter Eliza and a group of British Asian musicians.

Trevor Dann
Director

In light of the Blue Peter revelations I feel I should admit to my part in the great Radio Nottingham phone-in scandal of 1974. It was like this, your honour. I was producing ‘All Sides of the Question’, an evening phone-in which was stubbornly untroubled by callers. As the panel trudged gamefully into the second half hour with a reminder of ‘the issue that’s got Nottingham talking tonight’ I left the ops room, found a phone in the production office and called in as Ian from St Anne’s. They kept me on for 15 minutes. They had to because there was no producer to tell them to wind up. Eventually I put the phone down and dashed back to hear a plaintiff “well it seems as though Ian hasn’t paid his bill.” When the panel had left the building, the presenter turned to me. I knew I was in for a bollocking. “Well done,” he said,” you’ll go far in this business.”

Of course it wouldn’t happen today would it?

Apologies for the hiatus. I was told that the only way to stop the spammers invading this blogsite with messages about useless stocks and unfeasibly large plonkers was to launch a spam catcher and shut down for a fortnight. While I’ve been away I’ve worked out how to turn the BBC ‘listen again’ feature into my own private radio station (yes I know I’m the last kid on the block to do this, but it’s REALLY liberating). In the last few days I’ve enjoyed Clive James’s brilliant essay on martial arts, Feargal Keane’s moving dispatch from Dublin in From Our Own Correspondent and some fabulous wriggles from BBC producers on Feedback. All were broadcast at times I couldn’t have listened to them live, but in this on demand world there they are on the iPod alongside the Guardian’s weekly football podcast, Fighting Talk, Nick Barraclough’s country show and all my other favourites.

Talking of BBC wriggles I enjoyed the internal sour grape emails about the RTS Awards. Do they really think these things can be manipulated? God knows I’ve tried. But apart from wangling Nick Drake into the Times’ list of the 100 Greatest Albums, I’ve never had any joy. I’m busy judging a category of the Sony Radio Academy Awards at the moment and I have no idea who’s going to win. Long may that be the case.