Temples can be dangerous places

This blog is in danger of becoming a travel review - although I'm in no danger of emulating Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson in the writing stakes anytime soon.

After our recent trip to the Normandy Beaches (see below) Jean and I have just returned from a rather more substantial trip, to Cambodia. We went with my cousin Marie Oldham and her husband Andrew (themselves both UK media bigwigs of course). Marie and Andrew are both celebrating their 50th this year, and wanted to do something special to round off the anniversary. They suggested backpacking & cycling in Cambodia, and we jumped at the chance to join them.

We flew into Phnom Penh via Bangkok, and spent a night in the Cambodian capital feeling a bit jet-lagged, so not able to fully absorb its style.

We were up the following morning to continue our journey to Siem Reap, where our cycling was to take place. The amazing thing about the trip, of around 200 miles, is that by road it takes 12-13 hours. So no-one goes by road, and everyone travels by boat, up the river and then through the giant lake Tonle Sap which sits in the centre of the country. 5 hours on a boat did nothing for the jet lag! 

We arrived at Siem Reap mid-afternoon on day 2, and were welcomed at the hotel by BoBo and his team from Ankgor Wat cycling tours. You might just be able to tell in the picture below that BoBo's most noticeable feature was a set of teeth that would put Ken Dodd to shame. He also had a natty line of TdF cycling tops, including a polka dot "king of the mountains" jersey he wore on day 2, when the ride was as flat as a pancake!

Anyway, on that first day we did a sunset tour ride, finishing up a hill as the sun went down, looking out through an ancient temple - and very nice it was too. On the way up the hill we did question BoBo as to how we would cope returning to the hotel after dark with no lights on our bikes. "Don't worry", he replied, "I have a front light, and my assistant," who was also riding with us, "will have a back light and will stick at the rear of the peloton." No health and safety police were on hand to question this apparent breach!

Day 2 riding started at 4am! not a problem for those of us struggling with jet lag, but still bloody early to be getting on a bike. Again pitch black, as we headed off for Angkor Wat, about 10km away from Siem Reap. The reason for the early start was so we could get to Angkor Wat temple itself for sunrise. Which we did, and quite spectacular it looked.

Angkor Wat is one of the seven wonders of the Ancient world - and deservedly so. The whole area is studded with giant temples built almost 1,000 years ago, with the main temple itself truly magnificent and awe-inspiring. it's a must-see.

The plan was to go see as many temples as we could during the day, with a next stop at the temple of Bayon before breakfast, in order to beat the Chinese tourists, who Bobo assured us didn't normally turn up until after 9. Well he was wrong - they were thronging around this temple by 8.30 when we got there. I headed up to the top for a quick look around the area, and then descended to find disaster had struck. Jean, wandering inside one of the darker recesses of the lower parts of the temple, had fallen and twisted her left ankle very badly. She had also damaged her right knee in the process. Cycling was over for the day for the Rileys, and we were forced to abandon the tour in order to get treatment for Jean at the Siem Reap International hospital. Thank goodness for travel insurance. We racked up a $1,000 bill in less than two hours with the number of X-Rays taken and drugs prescribed!

I got back on the bike for day three - which was more temples, even older than those at Angkor Wat, but we finished early and went back to pick up Jean, and spent the afternoon in a tuk tuk (ubiquitous motor-bikes with a passenger carriage attached at the back) revisiting the temples we both missed the previous day.

The whole area is a world heritage site, and is extremely well preserved. the reason it is so spectacular is that this was the Capital of the Khmer empire 1,000 years ago, when the empire stretched across modern-day Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and into Vietnam.

Riding over, and templed out, we flew to the coast for some R&R. Jean's continuing ankle injury meant the R&R was somewhat limited, but we did manage to chill out in Kep, which is part of a burgeoning holiday coast with a number of nice hotels (although the infrastructure there is some way behind Siem Reap and the capital itself). The highlight for us was spending a morning with vibol, the sous chef at The Strand, Kep's top restaurant, where he gave us a Khmer cookery lesson - and we shall be attempting it again at home as soon as we've sourced all the ingredients!

Back to Phnom Penh by taxi for a final day of sightseeing. We stopped at Choeung Ek, the genocidal centre, more commonly known in the west as one of the "killing fields" of the Pol Pot khmer rouge regime of the mid 1970s.  As just one example, the picture of the "killing tree" below, and the caption next to the tree, simply takes your breath away.

This is a truly amazing place. Up to 3 million Cambodians were killed out of a total population of 8 million in an act of genocidal madness which lasted almost half a decade. The memorial centre does as good a job as is humanly possible of explaining how this tragedy occurred and what life was like under the Pol Pot regime. There are few places in the world that will leave you speechless. This is one of them.

Phnom Penh itself is a wonderful, vibrant, crazy city. Everyone rides a motorbike or scooter, and the roads are orchestrated chaos. A tuk tuk tour on a our final day showed us round the city, including the royal Palace, and some exquisite buddhist temples.

There must be many hundreds of cities like Phnom Penh all over Asia, and it's easy to see from the vibrancy of the culture there why many people think the next century belongs to that continent.

I know Thailand is on many people's bucket list - but I'd urge you to think about Cambodia as well as (or even instead of) Thailand - it really is a remarkable country, and given the trauma it went through only 40 years ago, its ability to thrive and prosper today ought to give us hope for other parts of the world too.

I was moved

Apologies for not having blogged for a good 9 months or so. I've been writing a book (hopefully to be published in 2016) and having a bit of a mid-life shake up (new role at Orion, taking up new non-exec roles elsewhere, kids leaving home and becoming empty-nesters; attempting to sell the house and downsize etc) which meant that blog thoughts kept being put to on side.

However, I had one of those weekends last week that I thought was worth sharing.

A bunch of old friends invited Jean and me to join them on a trip to the Normandy beaches. We are all of the age where, although we were too young to be involved in World War 2, our parents were, so seeing a bit of our history felt like a good thing to do.

A quick bit of background if you are unfamiliar with what was known as "Operation Overlord" - the Normandy beaches were where the Allies (UK, US etc) landed on French soil on June 6th 1944 to begin the land invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe, in order to end World War 2. The landings were the largest military operation ever devised, and whilst successful, resulted in many, many thousands of allied casualties. The average age of those troops who died (many of whom are buried in the area) was around 21/22. The invasion and its immediate aftermath has been the subject of numerous films and TV series, given how dramatic it became, and how important its success was.

We travelled by Ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. A 6 hour crossing but very comfortable. There isn't really another easy way of getting to the Normandy beaches, but the crossing really wasn't a problem as long as you have something to entertain you on the trip (and I'd recommend booking some decent seats for the journey).

We stayed in Bayeux, about 40 minutes away from the ferry terminal in Caen, and it is a really pretty small French town with lovely restaurants. There are lots of other places you can stay of course, including some pretty reasonable stays in very nice big French Country Houses (you wouldn't really call them Chateaux in that part of the country I think).

On the Thursday afternoon when we arrived the first thing we did was visit the tapestry. Actually it's really good - a well thought out 20 minute guided viewing with audio accompaniment, followed by a 12 minute film. And of course it's the last time the French really got one over on us militarily on home soil so they are rightly proud of it, even if it was almost 1,000 years ago!

On Friday we hired a truly excellent tour guide, Sean Claxton, whose website you can find here, to take us round the major sites. I'd say a tour guide is a must - and not very expensive if you are going as a group. Sean really was knowledgable and certainly added to our enjoyment of the trip. 

We started with a look at some of the Major German fortifications on the Atlantic Sea Wall, and then moved on to Omaha Beach, which is now memorialised in the film "Saving Private Ryan". There aren't many places you can go on earth where you can be lost for words, but this is one of them.

We saw the hill-top spot where the Germans defended the beach, before descending to the beach itself to walk onto the sand. The description of the sea being crimson with the blood of the Allied troops who died there is something that will live on in my mind. From there we headed off to Pointe Du Hoc, where the US Rangers scaled the cliffs to destroy German defences. They are so steep I'm not sure how anyone could have scaled the cliffs, even without someone shooting at them! 

There are vivid memorials everywhere you go in Normandy. This one struck a chord with me.

On Friday and again on Saturday we visited many of the cemeteries - American, Canadian, British and even the German cemetery. All were sombre, but extremely well done, and were fitting resting places for our fallen troops, who laid down their lives so we could be free. The US cemetery has the most striking sculpture, entitled "The spirit of American youth, rising from the waves".

On Saturday we visited three of the other beaches (Gold, Juno and Sword) as well as visiting one of the tour highlights - taking the Pegasus Bridge, which was one of the key engagements on D-Day, and was so vividly re-created in the film "The Longest Day".

There are a number of excellent museums dotted about the countryside too. I'd recommend the one in Bayeux, The Pegasus museum, and the 360 degree cinema high on the ridge overlooking Arromanche. I did like the heading over the door of the Bayeux museum

We arrived back late on Sunday exhausted, but truly glad we made the trip. The French in Normandy are rightly proud of their country, and grateful they were chosen as the site for the allied invasion, and to this day reflect that with a warmth of welcome which was great to experience. 

Truly something to put on your bucket list. 

I'll leave you with an image from the British/Commonwealth museum in Bayeux.

It's been a long week

I haven't blogged for 6 months - which is of course shameful when many colleagues are doing it on an almost daily basis. But I have an excuse! I have been secretly working on a bid for the 2nd national DAB multiplex for the last year or so - and almost every time I thought about expressing an opinion on something I wondered if the words might come back to haunt me, especially as so much going on in the industry has a "digital" element to it. So I've kept my head down - unusual for me I know.

I don't want to particularly eulogise our bid (although I'm pretty proud of the work the team have put into it, and you can read all about it here). What is in is in, and OFCOM will make their judgement - and like most external commentators I think the other group have also put in what appears a very respectable offer - so may the best man win, etc etc. And I'm sure Dee and I will continue to enjoy our occasional drunken dinners once the dust has settled, no matter who comes out on top.

I did want, however, to give you a flavour of just how exhausting a process it is to apply for these things. Many people in the radio industry at a senior level will have done deals from time to time to buy or sell businesses, and they will confirm that trying to deal with lawyers pulling the various agreements together can be extremely stressful. In fact when I bought Orion I genuinely lost a stone in weight in the last month because of the stress. Well, dealing with other potential consortium partners, pulling a shareholders’ agreement together, is exactly the same. No matter how nice your partners are (and Babcock, Folder and Sabras are all extremely nice) the sheer act of getting everyone to agree on the structure of a company is a truly challenging process, involving late nights, lots of reading endless drafts of long legal documents, and stressful calls and meetings negotiating over complex deal points.

But, of course, that's just the half of it. As many readers will also know, writing an application for an OFCOM licence is also a hugely difficult process, involving many, many fine judgements on approach,  structure and tone. I've been bidding for licences since 1994, when we got Heart 106.2 over the line at the same time as launching 100.7 Heart FM. I reckon I've headed up 15 bids altogether for major regional FM or DAB multiplex licences over the years, and I can assure you it's not got any easier.

So trying to bid for a licence as big and important as this, whilst at the same time pulling a consortium together to back it...well, what on earth was I thinking of when I first suggested it to LDC and the Orion Board back in Spring last year!

But, but, but.....I've loved it. There’s probably no better feeling for me than successfully completing a mammoth, complex project. I've especially liked doing it "under cover". I think most folk at Orion were really shocked when we announced it on Thursday (Mind you, I don't think Dee, Scott and the folks in their bid were surprised! We are an incredibly leaky industry at times).

It's great to get out of your comfort zone, and pulling this together, dealing with new people, certainly did that for me. I'm especially pleased we hooked up with Babcock International, who are a huge company, and who do things in the way huge companies normally do - with detail, thoroughness and discipline - attitudes sometimes missing from the fast-moving free and easy world we work in in radio!

It's also led me to the decision to move out of my comfort zone in a more permanent way, by stepping up to the role of Chairman of Orion Media Ltd, our main trading company. I'm no longer the owner of the corner office and the car parking spot nearest the lift - those perks go to Adrian Serle, the new CEO, who will do a great job I know. I'm still going to be heavily involved in Orion (I am still the largest individual shareholder after LDC) but will have more time to do other things that interest me.

I really hope one of them is leading Listen2Digital for many years, as it is an exciting venture to have embarked upon.

I'd always had 2015 down as the year I would "change gear", and I'm looking forward to doing some other new things as well. However, having a comparatively empty diary is both exhilarating and frightening. I'm clearly a deal junkie, and in another life could have easily ended up in the Square Mile or Wall Street, so I'm going to continue to look at the Private Equity world for new things to do. 

I'm also under a little bit of literary pressure. Two of my closest friends in Radio, John Myers and David Lloyd, are both now published writers. I think Team's book has now been remaindered (OK - no it hasn't, here's the link!) but David's book is out shortly, and you can pre-order it here .

Not sure I can match them on stories - sadly too many of my best tales have got legal non-disclosure agreements still in place! I'll guess I'll have to find another topic and get cracking later in the year no doubt.

It all worked out OK

I'm extremely fortunate to have been in a position to attend the Radio Academy Awards most years over the past 25 or so I've been running radio stations, and it was another great night last night.

What was touching for me was that in the room, along with some of the current guys hosting on stations I'm involved with,  Free Radio's Roisin, JD, & Hursty and of course the now "Double Academy Award winning" Sam & Amy from Gem 106, there was also my first ever Breakfast DJ, the inimitable Les Ross.

Sometimes you inherit breakfast shows when you take over a station or group, sometimes you have to go out and talent-scout, and sometimes shows just fall into your lap. That was the case with Les and me. Back in 1988 I'd been asked to set up the new AM service for Birmingham and Coventry - my first PD gig. At the same time, brmb's then PC had been told to boost the popularity of the station (15 years after launch it had been flagging for some time) and in particular make it younger. Les, the then brmb breakfast host, was a casualty of that (I have to say in hindsight flawed) thinking, and I can remember a long conversation with Les in the brmb car park (well, no conversation with Les is short) the upshot of which was me marching into the MDs office to say "....if FM don't want him, I do". I've just noticed on Adam Bowie's excellent blog, here, that Les actually won the first ever Sony for Best Breakfast, just as he was being manoeuvred off (typical) and that brmb won station of the year, just as the breakfast show host had left.

Xtra went on to be a huge success, and my career prospered as a result, so I owe Les a lot for that. We had an Xtra AM 25th anniversary celebration the other week in Brum, and none of us had aged a day!

Had we treated radio personalities then with the care we do now, I suspect Les would have been even more laden with awards that he is (and he does have a bulging mantelpiece!). As an industry I do think we work harder now to properly reflect and acknowledge that it's the talent that gets us the success, and the RAAs, Arqivas, IRNs, along with all the other gongs we hand out, give folk scope to get deserved pats on the back. Back in the days when Les was in his pomp, had they been around he would have been picking up multiple RAAs/Arqivas every year - he genuinely was that good. Thinking back, I'm actually amazed at how talented he was, making you laugh out loud every day, in total command of the station and the city. Quite how he never got to be on R1 or R2 I don't know, but I suspect it was to do with a perceived bias against those with Brummie accents being taken seriously on a national station. If proof were needed of his talent and standing, the fact that Les was given the final word in the excellent video tribute to 40 years of commercial radio, shown last night, which you can see here, tells you what the industry thinks of him.

Moving forward a generation or two, what a delight it was to be sitting next to Sam & Amy again, as they won Gold for the second year in a row. two Golds in two years for a local radio breakfast show is going some - and this years award, for music radio personality, saw them beat some of the biggest names in the business - another reason why these awards are so coveted - anyone can win on the night. The Independent gave the award some great coverage here. Sam & Amy are a double act, so I couldn't compare them directly to Les (although Les did have his fair share of co-hosts over the years), but in their own way I rate them as highly. They've been on 106 for a decade now, and that level of longevity is a pre-requisite for a truly great breakfast show. [As a side-bar, Hirsty, from Capital Yorkshire, along with Danny & Jo Jo, were also nominated last night, and we did go out and "talent scout" them 15 odd years ago for Galaxy. They fit the mould too, and those guys should get their own Gold award at some point for sure.]

As well as length of service, knowing the patch is important. Sam's from the south of the region, and Amy is a Leicester lass, and their local knowledge and affinity shines through in all they do.

But most importantly, for a breakfast show to be special, you have to get up every morning and want to spend time with them. And that's what these guys make you want to do. On my normal drive into work, from Leamington to Birmingham, I get about 5 miles/5 minutes on the M6 where Gem comes in loud and clear - and this is normally around 6.20 in the morning. The fact these guys are already on top form then makes my brief opportunity to hear them always a pleasure.

Breakfast these days is much more complex than it used to be. Everyone has to play their part. Sam's on-air character is the arrogant, selfish, big-headed dominant man on the show. How he pulls it off every day is a wonder. Amy has to play the part of the commitment-phobic, feisty, single girl-about-town. Again a wonderful performance every morning. And then there's the third wheel, "Dangerous Dave", who actually personifies the term "sidekick" since he gets beaten up by them so much. They are fabulous, and deserving of their accolades, and like Les, Hirsty, and all the many, many breakfast shows I've had the pleasure of being involved with, they are truly gifted people.

What better job could one have in life than to be allowed to spend one's days with special folk like them.

Who else is fed up talking about digital switch-over?

Phil Riley

CEO Orion Media

Speech to the Westminster Media Forum Seminar

UK Radio – innovation, competition and switchover

I think we need to reappraise our policy on the UKs digital radio future, and I’d like to propose a new approach:

It seems to me two irreconcilable facts mean our current policy is flawed.

Those facts are;

1 – DAB is here to stay. With a 23% share of all radio consumption it’s inconceivable that we won’t be using DAB as a significant platform for listening for the foreseeable future, and any major radio station that can access DAB (either locally or nationally) will suffer significant economic damage if it fails to make use of the platform.

2- Many listeners still love FM, and it isn’t going away anytime soon. 90% of the UK population listen to the radio each week. Of those weekly listeners, 85% do so on AM/FM for at least half of their total listening – mainly FM. Let me repeat that number – 5 out of 6 regular radio listeners still use analogue platforms for the majority of their listening.

Given those two facts, along with the now accepted view that the FM spectrum is of no use handed back to the government, and that we will always need a broadcast backbone, shouldn’t we just accept that we live in a multi-platform world, urge the Government to stop planning for switchover for the foreseeable future, and just get on with running the industry as it is.

TV stations, mobile networks, apps developers all now have to live in, and cope with, a multi-platform world, and when consumers simply expect content to be delivered whenever, wherever, in the most convenient manner possible, why have we in radio come to the conclusion that we can simply impose a diminution of platform availability on people, simply because it’s currently costing us more money. I’m not sure it’s a defendable position.

Clearly nothing lasts forever, but I would propose for now that we simply place a moratorium on even discussing formally the closedown of FM for, say a decade. And if we did this, I think there are three major policy implications:

1 - We should pause and re-evaluate the local layer density improvement work. Plans as they currently stand are likely to see DAB TX costs rise significantly over the next couple of years for local service providers, in part because of the now delayed requirements for FM switch-off.

I’m not saying we should stop the rollout of the local layer to significant white space. Of course we should. Gem, our regional East Midlands service, is on DAB in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire – but not Derbyshire. That makes it difficult for us to promote on FM the fact we are also available on DAB – which some listeners prefer. So let’s get Derby on – cost effectively – as quickly as possible. But I’m not sure all the new transmitters planned are needed right now, in a multiplatform future, and certainly some of them might be harder to commercially justify, especially on muxes where only one or two local service providers are effectively carrying all of the costs. I’m just saying let’s pause, check and perhaps not be quite so ambitious in the short term if we have a bit more time.

2 – If we placed a moratorium on switchover, we should deal with the aggravation currently being caused by shortened FM Licensing renewal. It seems to me to be almost perverse to be issuing 7 year FM licences if we are unsure about stopping future FM availability, and in an era when radio choice is deeper, richer and more easily accessible than ever. Let’s give every FM licencee, local and national, the same proposal that has been made for all Muxco holders, a new 15 year term from now to 2030, and be done with it. We can review everything in 2024/25 – 10 years or so from now - if needs be. DAB as a platform is essentially built and established now. New entrants will be able to join D2 for example, secure in the knowledge that good, inventive, programming can find a profitable audience. Given that, those of us who have toiled in the industry for the past 15 years and have paid for that platform development out of our FM revenues, when it was utterly uneconomic to do so ought to be given some support here – so let’s agree a 12-15 year extension/rollover and review everything in 10 years time.

3 – Finally, we should finally bite the bullet and abandon most content/format regulation. With National DAB 2 on the horizon, smartphone proliferation and wifi/4G penetration booming, we simply don’t need the gatekeeper approach that OFCOM have supplied for so long. The market is now big enough to supply the rich, varied content OFCOM require, without formal intervention.

There is one exception. I think we ought to retain, for every town/city, at least one FM licence with a requirement to be local, via news, information, general content etc. Everyone else should be able to do what they want – if they do it badly the market will take care of it by having them bought out and the programming replaced. Perhaps there should be a population based fee for format/localness freedom – a few pence per potential listener perhaps - with those carrying localness requirements exempt from the charge?

So – let’s end the uncertainty of switchover by scrapping it for now. Relieve existing local layer DAB service providers of the threat of increased costs right now, and free the industry from the stranglehold of licensing/formats in this new world of plenty. Radio is in great shape right now – let’s keep it that way.

Life begins at 40, so they say.....

In 1974 Brmb launched in a different media landscape to the one we find ourselves in today. Radio 40 years on is dramatically different, with significant local and regional competition, and dozens of national stations available on DAB and other digital platforms. Local radio stations have had to change and adapt or they will wither and die – hence our decision two years ago to create one single brand for the local stations we own across the West Midlands. But changing the name to Free from brmb was just that, a name change not a product change. And just like marathon changed to snickers, or opal fruit to starbursts, the product inside the wrapper is as good as it ever was.  

So as we celebrate 40 years of local commercial radio in Birmingham, on behalf of Orion Media I’d like to make two points.

The first is that I hope you can all see, by the very fact we are here tonight, and have invested so much time and effort in putting this civic reception and tonight’s party together, how much we appreciate the heritage of brmb, and the history of local radio in this great city, and that we are only too happy to commemorate it. We even have a room in our offices in Broad Street named “The Les Ross room” in honour of past glories, and Les of course was a debut guest DJ on Free Radio today – thanks Les for bringing your old record collection in. We’ll call your agent.

But the second thing I want to say is we are equally as proud of what we are doing today, and how we passionately believe that Free Radio in 2014 is carrying on the great work started by brmb back in 1974.

When I was a presenter on brmb, back in the halcyon early 1980s, our music policy, as dictated by then head of music Robin Valk, was “pick a current from the front of the top 40 box of singles, play it, and then put it at the back of the box – then you can play an oldie. Then pick another top 40 single etc etc” today, on Free Radio, despite all the computer technology, and the many £1000s spent on music research, our philosophy is still “play a top 40 single, then play an oldie, then go back to the top 40 etc etc” In fact “today’s best music mix on Free Radio” is driven by that same goal – to create a blend of songs that kids and parents can both feel comfortable listening to on the school run, and which keep everyone happy if on in the shop, office, hairdressers etc. Really broadly based, but right for a local, broadly based station.

And in live music we are still active. Live studio sessions are still part of what we do, with Pixie Lott, John Newman and Sam Smith joining us on Broad Street in the past couple of weeks to record live acoustic sets for playback on-air, and from the days of “Party in the Square”, and “Party in the Park”, and the G8 events, Free Radio is still today ensuring local fans get to see the big acts in a live setting. Our fourth annual “Free Radio Live” LG arena event in 2013, headlined by Olly Murs, was a 15,000 sell out, and we’re delighted that this year we’ve teamed up with promoters Live Nation to bring the internationally renowned Wireless festival to Birmingham, with Bruno Mars and Kanye West headlining at Perry Park.

And if brmb started with personality presenters at its core, that’s also true for Free Radio. And not just at breakfast, where personality is expected. But throughout the day, whether it’s the cheeky approach of Andy Goulding, Dan Morrissey’s subversive wit, the anarchic Jo and Sparky, the ebullient Adam Wilbourn, the voice of sport Tom Ross, or the charismatic Sam and Mark at the weekends, we are still chock-full of larger than life characters. Personality still reigns supreme on our airwaves –And as for stunts and pranks – well brmb married two strangers, and Foxy and Giuliano have just married two dogs!

The line we use to capture this personality driven output as a station is “Never A Dull Moment” - a line which I think would have fitted brmb perfectly throughout its time too.

And if brmb championed listener access, so does Free Radio. We might not still do late night phone-ins discussing the finer points of sexuality – stuff which used to leave me speechless at times in the 80s – but we’re more than happy to let real brummies onto our airwaves at any time, night or day, to entertain and amuse us. Our constant, high levels of local listener engagement are simply not replicated anywhere else on the music radio dial here in the Midlands.

And on news and information, Free Radio earns its corn. Brmb rose to fame covering the pub bombings, Leyland, the Handsworth riots etc. And we, as Free Radio, are still there today, covering the terror trials – nominated for an IRN award only two weeks ago, doing live reporting from the summer riots of 2011, or simply keeping an eye on the council. We might not take 15 minutes to read it all out anymore, but our commitment to covering local news is still strong – and as for travel, school closures, snow lines etc – we think we are harnessing new technology and social media to do those things bigger and better than ever was the case.

And in terms of community involvement there’s no let up either. In the past four years, we’ve raised well over £1m – in fact closer to £1.5m, for causes like Fisher House, built for the families of wounded troops at the QE, the refurbishment of Acorns in Selly Oak, the redevelopment of the A&E department at the Children’s hospital, supporting the neo-natal unit at the Birmingham Women’s Hospital, providing funding for nurses for Cure leukaemia for Kids, and lots of support for Help Harry Help Others. The list goes on, and although we’re taking a break from the walks this year, we are teaming up with the Children’s Hospital again by putting in we hope one of the largest teams of runners ever assembled, into the Great Birmingham Run – another civic event we are delighted to be partners with. By the way – we were present at over 25 major bonfires/fireworks or Christmas Lights displays around the West Midlands this year, with around 200,000 listeners in attendance.

I was proud to start my career 34 years ago at brmb, and I’m proud now to be heading its successor, Birmingham’s Free Radio. It is worth pointing out that brmb started out as locally owned and managed. And today, that’s exactly what Free Radio remains, locally owned and managed – and there aren’t too many local stations can make that claim.

The first 40 years have been a blast, and I’m sure that in 10 years time, whoever I have passed the baton on to will be able to stand here and say music; personality; listener involvement; information and community support – those are the key pillars upon which we continue to thrive and prosper as a radio station in this great city.

Can you "name the year?"

"Name the year"; "The Time tunnel"; "The golden hour" - whatever you call it, it's a popular mid-morning oldies feature which runs on lots of local stations.

Well, naming the year when FM is switched off was the one thing Ed Vaisey didn't do at this morning's Digital Day conference.

He was supposed to - and in 2010 had promised he would, by the end of 2013, set a date by which we would be switching off our FM transmitters and moving wholesale to DAB. But recent lobbying by a bunch of the smaller local groups has probably been the final nail in the coffin of date naming - an announcement that had been fast receding over the horizon in any event.

Ed's speech was full of fabulous numbers - % of households who have a DAB set, miles of A road to be covered when new transmitters are switched on, millions of people now able to get DAB who couldn't before etc etc.

And the truth is DAB is now a fixed part of the radio firmament, here forever, but .... not growing so quickly, or so ubiquitous, that we can simply glide to FM switch-off without a care. The smaller stations are concerned about being left on FM, abandoned to a backwater platform. Others are concerned that FM listening will be stubbornly hard to shake off, and we will lose a whole swathe of our audience by switching it off. I think the politicians, (and Ed Vaisey is a politician first and last) are simply scared of losing votes. And FM switch-off is a vote-loser for sure, especially with older people - who tend to vote more! Try as he might, moderator Nick Higham simply couldn't get Ed to "name the year" - teasing him with 2020. Well I suppose that's possible, but I wouldn't count on it. Personally I'm concerned about who might jump on 96.4, or 97.2, the moment we abandoned them in the West Midlands. Some enterprising pirate I'm sure, offering something worth listening to on a still ubiquitous platform.

One of the biggest stats that jumped out at me was that there are 30m cars in the UK, and currently less than 10% have DAB capability. The man from Halfords told us all 1,800 of their fitters were being trained in DAB installation. But each one of them, fitting a DAB set every hour of every 8 hour working day, would take 8 years to complete the task! I know, I know, that's a facetious and potentially misleading bit of maths - but I think it makes the point that getting DAB into the vast majority of cars is just a huge, huge challenge. Kwikfit are entering the market, and as we know, you can't get quicker than a Kwikfit fitter, so maybe they can speed up the process - but still - car penetration is still a hell of an ask.

In hindsight (2020 and all that) I think DAB would have been better as an add-on to FM, not a replacement, national only, with a selling point for AM upgrades, extending local networks like Capital and Heart, and for new stations and brand extensions. I think we'd have had to simulcast the existing national networks too. Perhaps it would never have taken off without local - but I doubt that. Local FMers like those owned by Orion, Bauer etc are probably the lowest deliverers of DAB listening - mainly because it's easy and obvious that you can listen to them on FM. But we are where we are, and certainly for us, given both DAB and FM will co-exist for at least the next decade, we will have to be on both - the lost audience from departing one platform vastly outweighs the extra transmission costs. TV is already there of course, with commercial broadcasters paying for their Sky carriage, their Freeview carriage, their cable carriage, along with online / on demand / +1 services etc etc. higher transmission costs might just be the price we have to pay for operating in the more complex world we now find ourselves in.

The only real winners in all of this are the transmission companies. For radio of course that mainly just means Arqiva. I wonder if anyone will come out of the woodwork to challenge them as a TX service provider when the D2 national commercial multiplex band-wagon rolls into town, as Ed promised it would, next year. That will be the big headline tomorrow I suspect, a useful deflection from the lack of switch-over announcement.

There was more good news to follow the D2 announcement - Halfords and Kwikfit going head to head might spur on in-car upgrades. Frontier Silicon have developed a super-chip, which will work with every flavour of digital (including the US HD system) and also has FM & AM built in. Ford have linked up with UK Radioplayer too to get their app working via voice control in certain new Fords, and although this isn't strictly DAB, it's another example of the technological progress being made here in the UK.

So I can see DAB continuing to grow, but possibly a little more slowly over time as enthusiasts are replaced as new owners by less technically savvy folk being bought sets for Christmas and birthdays. I think we may end up with DAB and FM having roughly equal shares for quite some time.

Ignoring the smaller station issues (which may get resolved via new, cheaper DAB transmitters, and Ed promised some money for OFCOM to do some more testing), I suspect ultimately that in ten years time or so, FM hold-outs will be the acid test for all of us - dare we run the risk of announcing we are switching off FM and risk losing some audience in the transition, or is that vestigial loss of audience always going to be worth more than the marginal cost of keeping that FM transmitter warm?

I suspect there'll never be a right time to "name the year"

There's dancing in the streets...of brum

This is an edited version of a speech I gave this morning, to introduce the new RAB econometric analysis. the speech took place in Birmingham's iconic new library.

I was asked both to chair the event, and talk by way of introduction about the economy in general, and how we are doing round here

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Good Morning everybody and welcome to the RAB’s Birmingham Launch of “The Missing Millions”. My name is Phil Riley and I am the Chief Executive of Orion media, owners of Free radio – but I am here representing all of the city’s radio companies in welcoming you to the new, iconic Library of Birmingham. It is my job to keep this morning’s packed agenda to time and to introduce you to the number of talented and interesting speakers you will be hearing from.

But before we get to that element of this morning, I was asked by the RAB to share some thoughts with you on the current state of the economy, and in particular, how this region is faring in this increasingly competitive, interconnected world.

I want to start with a radio anecdote. Detroit 1980 vs Birmingham 1980.

My earliest memories of working in professional radio were here in Birmingham at brmb radio, and every time we played a Motown oldie in those days we made great play of the fact we were the UKs motown or motor city – a great comparison to Detroit was made.

Not anymore of course, Detroit is now officially bankrupt – driven to economic ruin by a combination of outsourcing, factory close-downs, and a bloated public sector with associated pension liabilities that was simply unsustainable for the city with the suburban flight of the better educated out of the city’s tax catchment area. Not all of those circumstances apply here of course, but the Prime Minister is right; we are in a global race, and even in a rich country, it is important each city/region recognizes that the fate that befell Detroit could embrace them too if they are not careful. I will come back to our region in a moment, but what about the economy in general.

How deep was the recession? From Q1 2008 economy shrank from peak to trough by 7.2%.

We’ve recovered only half of that, including current indications of growth in Q2.

The OECD and IMF are forecasting growth for the UK of 1.5%-1.8% for the year – good but still below trend.

Tim Harford says in his undercover economist blog “Let’s be clear: the UK economy is suffering the slowest recovery of gross domestic product since credible records began by a colossal margin. Sixty-six months after each began, in the awful recessions of the 1920s, 1930s, early 1970s and early 1980s, GDP had recovered to 5-8 per cent above the pre-recession peak. This time, we are still about 2-3 per cent below it. We are looking back – I hope – at an unprecedented economic catastrophe.”

And what type of recovery will it be. Optimists, including Paul Mason, who spoke at this event in London, are suggesting it might be an innovation recovery, with online, social media, and the creative industries combining to boost growth; others, more pessimistic, suggest the recovery might just be consumer-led, possibly fuelled by a housing boom – followed by a bust.

And credit remains weak. Many firms are still finding it difficult to borrow – or maybe just don’t want to borrow to fuel expansion at a time when the recovery is not set in stone. However, there are huge cash balances on company balance sheets. Many of us in the media would like to see those cash balances put to good use, by investment in marketing – hence today’s presentation.

And we can all talk about our own experiences. From our experience at Orion summer trading i.e. June onwards, is up double digits locally – that’s pretty good in anyone’s book. In October we are going to run out of airtime – that’s bad in the short-term of course but it suggests demand has really started to pick up.

Let me turn to the local picture: Birmingham / Greater Birmingham / West Midlands. We sometimes struggle round here to know what to call ourselves – which is one of our problems.

• Birmingham provides economic scale – located within a £94 billion regional economy
• The city and surrounding region is home to 75,000 companies including almost 1,190 international firms
• Youngest population of any major European city – nearly 40% are under 25
• Access to over 90% of the UK market within a four hour travel time
• Most attractive UK regional city for quality of life (Mercer Living Index 2012)
• Air, road and rail connections provide access to 400m people across Europe
• Over 140 direct scheduled and charter routes from Birmingham Airport

Let me first talk about Infrastructure. I think we’ve witnessed a decade of transformation in the city – starting with Selfridges and the relaunched Bullring, which opened 10 years ago, The revamped LG arena, which opened its doors 8 years ago, The eastside developments culminating in Millennium point and Birmingham City university. Now we have Edgbaston’s brilliant new stand; the Cube; the stunning, world class QE hospital, and of course the Library we are in today.

And then there’s the stuff happening now

§         The NIA, currently being given a new front and interior, and greater capacity
The NEC itself getting a whole new entertainment complex with Genting’s “Resorts World” development. 
Birmingham Airport’s £65 million runway extension will open up direct routes to countries such as China, Australia and the West Coast of the USA
The £600 million redevelopment of New Street station will welcome 52 million people each year

We’re certainly not Detroit. In fact, quite the reverse; the significant decline in automotive manufacturing that we saw during 70s, 80s and 90s has been reversed. If I can quote the Birmingham Mail’s recent piece on the resurgence in car making:

THE UK is poised for its biggest car boom for more than 40 years – with the West Midlands at the forefront of the production bonanza.

Automotive manufacturers said the industry was on course to break all-time manufacturing records by the end of 2015 following a string of multi-billion pound investments.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders predicted more than two million vehicles would roll off UK assembly lines by 2015, overtaking the 1972 record of 1.92 million.

JLR, MG at Longbridge, BMWs mini production plant at Hams Hall are all facilities to be proud of, and we mustn't forget the M40 F1 corridor, with 40,000 people employed by companies like Prodrive, adding £billions in value to the regional economy; And when TV and radio news programmes want to talk to motor industry experts, who do they turn to: People like David Bailey of Coventry University, or the team being assembled at the £92 million National Automotive Innovation Campus (NAIC) at the University of Warwick. Or the folks who run the world class testing facilities for MIRA near Nuneaton.  

Advanced automotive manufacturing remains one of the strongest sectors for attracting FDI, and of course we've only just had Tata’s announcement of 800 new jobs at Land Rover in Solihull and 730 new jobs at the Jaguar facility in Castle Bromwich.

More generally, current activity indicators suggest growth is returning to the Midlands.

Unemployment was down in Q2, although in B’ham is still 10.3%, significantly above UK average of 7.8%. Wider West Midlands was much closer to UK average.  Private sector business activity in WM was up, with a PMI score of 58.8 vs UK 59.8. to put that in context, anything over 50 is good.

If I can quote from B’ham council’s September economic update

“Business confidence over the coming 12-month period in terms of turnover and profitability remains positive for both manufacturing and service sectors—with a vast majority of firms surveyed expecting turnover and profitability to improve over the next 12 months.”

And there’s great new quality of life stuff happening here

·   Birmingham has a bid in for the World indoor athletics in 2016 – the result will be known in November.

·       We’re getting free wifi in city centre – it’s being rolled out by  the city in partnership with Virgin

·      Metro Extension Plans Announced - Centro has unveiled plans to extend the Midland Metro through Birmingham city centre from New St station to Centenary Square, the £31m scheme could be open by 2017.

·     And there’s a huge boost to Cycling in the city - The City has been successful in securing £24m in funding to improve cycling infrastructure in Birmingham.

But – there are still significant problems in the region. Gross disposable household income (GDHI) of West Midlands’ residents was one of the lowest among the English regions, at £14,400 per head in 2011. It ranged from £12,470 per head in Stoke-on-Trent to £17,360 per head in Solihull. That’s a 40% difference in GDI from the top to the bottom of the region, a gap of less than 60 miles.

What about people and culture, and how they are making an economic difference;

Well,

§         Birmingham is the youngest city in Europe;

§       It’s also one of most diverse; actually that fact is a major boost in driving future growth in areas such as life sciences

§     Birmingham has more Michelin star restaurants than any other English city outside London and a thriving independent restaurant scene 

§    Birmingham’s reputation as a visitor destination is on the up, and in the Wider West Midlands – Stratford/Warwick are major tourist destinations, along with Ironbridge further afield, and the foodie heaven that is Ludlow. etc etc.

But, again this positive news doesn’t come with a sting in its tail. I might not agree with the claimed benefits of HS2 – but the jokes on TV and letters to newspapers saying “we don’t need it because who ever heard of anyone wanting to get to Birmingham more quickly” are real problems for us, entrenching the clichéd belief that this is an ugly city, with a downmarket, poorly educated population with horrible accents and nothing to offer. Nothing could be further from the truth – but shifting that reputation is, I think, one of the key strategic challenges facing the city and region’s leaders.

Lou Glazer, president of the Michigan Future think tank, who is trying to resurrect Detroit, was quoted in a recent Birmingham Post feature as saying “Cities need to be 'talent magnets' to be successful” to quote him directly:

We have come to the conclusion that the places with the greatest concentration of talent are the places that are doing best today and will be the places doing the best going forward.

"In terms of subject skills areas we have found that it is not occupation or degree specific. A lot of people think of the knowledge economy as high technology in focus, but this turns out to be way too narrow a definition.

"The focus for the US Knowledge Economy is around the education; healthcare; financial professional and business services and information, media, IT and communications sectors. It is this broad set of sectors that are driving the US economy today.

"One of the things we've learned in doing this work is that what matters in economic terms is not where you go to school but you where live and work after you graduate. Increasingly, at least in the US, young talent, that is before they have had families, is moving and is the most mobile talent.

"They seem to be settling in urban situations, with 24/7, high density, mixed use, high amenity and activity areas, that are walkable with good infrastructure. They gather in vibrant neighbourhoods where you don't need a car to get around. Those are the places that have become the 'talent magnets' in America.

We need this region to become a talent magnet in the UK.

Let me finish by mentioning three of the sorts of people we should be highlighting as a city – folk that young people can aspire to emulate, who are making their lives and careers blossom here.

Roxana Silbert, the new Artistic Director.of the Rep; Sarah Jane Marsh at BCH; Andy Street, CEO of the  John Lewis Partnership and Chair of Gtr B’ham LEP.

These three are just a small representation of the thousands of inspiring folk helping to build this city, and I suspect the next time Marketing Birmingham want to promote what we have to offer, we need to focus on the people and not just the place if we are to become a true "Talent Magnet" ourselves.

Bad News on the doorstep

I'm on holiday - and certainly didn't intend to spend any time blogging.

But the news today of the untimely death of Dave Hickman has touched me rather badly and I wanted to say a few words in praise of one of the great unsung heroes of West Midlands radio.

I remember getting Dave on board when we launched Xtra in 89, and then hiring him again when we launched Heart in 94. Alan Carruthers reminded me on twitter we had to pay a release fee to get him out of his Xtra contract in time for the launch. He was worth it though. He'd previously worked for brmb, and was for a while the voice of travel for Les.

He didn't possess one of those great "radio voices" (we'd hired Ted Elliott for that!) but what he did have by the bucketful was warmth, an engaging tone, a sense of humour, and a passion for the music he played. He was also a hard worker - a utility player who could do a decent job no matter what was thrown at him.

He met his wife Bev whilst working in radio, and together they were one of the nicest couples you could ever hope to meet.

Dave carried on working in radio - for a long time as the "voice" of the Arrow, and pulling a stint on Smooth too. He was a regular on air from Brum for almost two decades.

No one today on twitter or Facebook will have a bad word to say about Dave, because there wasn't one to be had - he was just a really nice guy we all had the pleasure of knowing, who did his bit to make the airwaves of 96.4, 100.7, 1152 and 1359 and others fizz and crackle, keeping West Midlands listeners entertained for the best part of twenty years.

His wife and kids will miss him terribly I know - but everyone who worked in radio round here and who knew Dave will miss him too. I had the honour to employ him not once, but twice - which shows how much I rated him. He was the same age as me - much too young to leave us.

RIP Dave Hickman

Life begins at 40

I was deeply honoured this week to be inducted as one of the 40 most influential people to have worked in or supported commercial radio over its first 40 years, in a "Roll of Honour" ceremony conducted as part of this year's Arqiva awards.

As most of us nominees had grey hair or no hair (women excluded!) we quickly nicknamed ourselves the "40 over 40" as a pastiche of the Radio Academy's "30 under 30".

Ashley Tabor, who made the 40, would be the only member of our gang who didn't qualify by age of course, being a mere slip of a lad in his early 30s. He deserves his place though, as someone who has really shaken up the industry over the past 6 years.

The 40 were intended to be selected to "tell the story" of commercial radio, and by and large I think the selectors did a great job. From those present at commercial radio's birth, such as Founding Capital Chairman Richard Attenborough and launch MD John Whitney, Jimmy Gordon of Clyde and Terry Smith of Radio City, through to some of the top presenters we have been blessed with, such as Les Ross, Chris Tarrant, Chris Evans, Neil Fox, Alan Robson, Jonathan Pearce and Christian O'Connell. Then there were latter day CEOs such as Ralph Bernard and David Mansfield. It was nice to see folk from the smaller stations, such as Ian Anderson from SIBC in the Shetland Isles, getting recognised, alongside Michael Betton from the Lincs group, and Avtar Lit from Sunrise. And what list of the most influential would be complete without the founder of the RAB Douglas McArthur, John Myers or Parky. The full list is here.

Fewer women made the list than most of us would feel happy with - but that I suspect is more the fault of 40 years of poor hiring choices than any failure on the part of the selectors. Those that did make it were top drawer though - from Gillian Reynolds, ex Radio City and now doyenne of radio critics, through research guru Deanna Hallett, Linda Smith, one of the best commercial ambassadors the industry has ever had, and of course Dee Ford, Bauer's current boss.

There's a nice video here, showing the timeline.

If the list was meant to tell a story, I was pleased that my career managed to tick so many of the important boxes. Although I'm too young to have missed the start of the industry (!), I did join only 7 years in, in 1980, and I look back on my career as having played a part of a number of the most critical phases

• The growing power of the big players in the 1980s. The big local stations, Capital, brmb, Piccadilly, Clyde etc became very powerful media forces during that time, despite having to be "all things to all people" thereby giving folk like me a chance to learn our trade across the waterfront of radio - specialist music presentation as well as mainstream DJing, interviewing, handling phone-ins, news preparation, documentary making. You name it, we did it in those days.

• Splitting frequencies. I was privileged to lead the launch of two, Xtra in Birmingham and Coventry, and then  the original Magic 828 in Leeds. Great days, and it was truly exciting to be launching new radio stations, and we were all clearly learning as we went along, as many of us made some pretty horrendous decisions along the way!.

• Regionals. Probably the pivotal moment for me was leading the team who launched Heart in the West Midlands in 1994. A bunch of reprobates as I recall. Chrysalis was a new entrant to radio, and very much helped along by the rise of the regionals, along with other new players such as Border Radio and then GMG. The regionals represented the point at which commercial radio truly became competitive.

• London. launching Heart 106.2 in 1995 was a defining moment for everyone involved in Chrysalis - and then relaunching LBC on FM in 2002 was another big step for the company, and it was great that it involved fellow nominee Nick Ferrari. Commercial Radio has been a dominant presence in the capital since the mid 1990s, and it's great to have played a part in that.

• DAB. Chrysalis was the lead player in the MXR multiplex consortium, which bid for and won a number of the key regional multiplexes which helped so much to support and grow the platform during the last decade.

And I'm pleased to still be working in the industry some 33 years after first walking into the brmb building on Aston Road North back in 1980. And I'm very proud too that my career has been spent entirely within the commercial sector, and entirely within local radio. The vast majority of it has centred on the Midlands, and  in particular my adopted home town of Birmingham. It was great to see Les Ross up there getting his recognition alongside me - we are the Little and Large of Birmingham Radio!

The "Roll of Honour" was a great idea. I hope we all take the next 12 months to celebrate all that is good about commercial radio in any number of ways. As an industry focussed on the needs of its audience, I suspect we won't be doing too much "front of mic" shouting about our successes and the people who inspired them, as I doubt our audiences are that interested - but amongst ourselves we should be proud of what we've achieved, against sometimes pretty overwhelming obstacles.

Thank you if you've been a part of my radio journey over the past 33 years - It's been fun hasn't it, and I couldn't have done it without the support, help and guidance of so many talented people working alongside me!

Shaking the hands of many of the people I admire so much in professional life up on that stage on Wednesday was a truly humbling moment for me. I count many of them amongst my closest friends, and I was thrilled for them, and truly honoured to be counted amongst their number.

I think in that picture I'm telling Nick Ferrari off about something he did on that day's show. Old habits die hard!

Here's to the next 40.

Image courtesy Hayley Madden