Two Cents

A mate of mine from my radio days posted this on his Facebook wall the other day and it got me thinking.

Radio is having a very tough time competing for your time since new media has come along. Facebook, Twitter, Blogging.. What advice would you give radio stations in 2010?? I’m giving a speech to Radio heads in the Maritimes* in two weeks and I’d love your thoughts. Thanks Dave

Is radio doomed? Do Gen Y, let alone Gen Z ever listen to it?

Radio has proven itself to be extremely resilient over the years.

TV couldn’t kill it. MTV couldn’t kill it. The Sony Walkman couldn’t kill it. Even Kyle & Jackie O couldn’t kill it. Can the digital revolution make the hit?

Logically, iPods, podcasts, mobile video etc make radio irrelevant. Radio can’t deliver news, weather, cricket scores quicker or more reliably than your mobile phone.

But the commercial stations claim revenue is as healthy as ever. Radio still produces big stars such as Hamish and Andy. And radio is adapting with specialised digital stations. Pink 24/7 anyone?

We seem to still be listening to our favourite radio stations even though we can easily program our own commercial free playlists on our iPods/iPhones/iThings. Are the ‘personalities’ and content that good? Do we just like to have a friendly voice in our ear? Is it good company? Does it make us feel like part of community? Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes. There are lots of good reasons radio survives and why people are fiercely loyal to their favourite station. Ever seen anyone (outside of media) wearing a TV station branded t-shirt?

Personally, I think the Pink 24/7 option will be the way radio goes. Lots of boutique stations. But in the meantime, my two cents to Dave was for radio to play to its strengths. Be local, topical and human.

What would your advice be? I’ll pass it on to the Radio heads in the Maritimes.

P.S. Radio Nigel is MY new station. Have a listen.

Jeff Smith is a writer at BCM and has either worked in, written for, or listened to radio for over 40 years.

* Apparently the Maritimes are on the remote east coast of Canada.

Google is a company that has a mission to make the world’s information as universally accessible as possible. And, in their Code of Conduct they state their philosphy is “Don’t be evil.” Both of these seem at odds with how the company operates in China.

In 2006 Google entered the world’s fast-growing internet market by agreeing to censor its search services in China. Everything from sites like Facebook, Twitter and a blog with photos of puppies called Cute Overload as well as key words like ‘human  rights’ and ‘Tiananmen Square’ are all fair game to be blocked (see this wonderful infographic of some of the words and URLs that China has on their restricted access list).

But after some highly sophisticated and targeted attacks originating from China that involved trying to breach the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, Google is about to enter a self-imposed China exile.

Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, wrote in a post on the company blog.

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Seems like a big decision considering China’s number of internet users is now 384 million. But with only around 25-30% of the search market, Google has never had the same success in China that it has had in Australia, the US or other countries. Local search services like Baidu, and Sina.com provide a product more attuned to local consumers’ needs and the Chinese population being very nationalistic were always somewhat wary of the American search giant.

While Google’s position is certainly commendable from an advocacy of open information and human rights perspective, it is a little late for Google to grow a conscience now by taking a moral position four years too late. Obviously they are concerned about attacks against their users, technology infrastructure and intellectual property but I see this as mostly a business decision by Google to exit a costly restricted market.

I recently discussed the Google/China stand off during my segment with Kelly-Higgins Devine on ABC 612 Brisbane.

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Have a listen by clicking the play button above and tell me if you think Google has made the right decision and if you think it was made on moral or business grounds.

Anthony Dever is an Interactive Strategist at BCM

This week we said farewell to the ABC’s Chaser team with the ‘War on Everything’, which began in 2006, officially declared over.  In that time we’ve laughed at their foolish and banal pranks and topical satire, and their attempts to publicly humiliate everyone from politicians, security guards and media personalities and advertisers, right down to the average man or woman on the street.

It is true that at times they have sailed a little too close to the breeze – all in the name of comedy of course.  I will miss them but I can appreciate it’s time they moved on and tried something new.  It’s a shame that in spite of their previous highs, they may forever be remembered by many for their recent and misguided “Make a realistic wish foundation” skit.

This prompted a massive public backlash and even the PM weighed in with his disapproval.  Suddenly we were reminded that making jokes about terminally ill children may not be in such good taste.  The ABC went into damage control, suspended the show for two weeks and ‘reassigned’ the person responsible for approving the content.  The boys even issued a public apology and appeared suitably scolded (if a little stunned) for their misdemeanour.

Apparently the same rules do not apply in radio.

This is already ‘old news’ by today’s standards, but the issue is on-going.  In case anyone missed it and to cut a long story short… 2Day FM’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O are in very hot water over a segment of their Sydney radio show which went horribly wrong.

They had orchestrated a lie detector test for a 14-year old girl who had been dragged on the show by her mother, presumably to find out the sort of things that a teenage girl may not want to discuss at all, let alone in public.  Things took a turn for the worse when under questioning she angrily revealed she had been raped at the age of 12.

At this point you would have heard a pin drop.  Sandilands’ unbelievable but fumbling repost was to ask if that was the only sexual experience she had ever had.

I’m not sure if this called ‘thinking on your feet’, or whether to believe his claim that he was desperately signalling to producers to terminate the segment as quickly as possible from this point.

The fact is, if anyone thinks it’s morally appropriate to be grilling an underage girl on air about her sexual history then we have a fundamental problem here.  And if this is to be regarded as entertainment then some standards need to be applied before the chase for ratings gets completely out of control.

This scrutiny should not be wholly focused Sandilands himself (although it was not at all well handled), rather we should examine the whole framework around him that would let such a thing go to air in the first place.

Even more disturbing must be the actions of the girl’s mother, who would have known her daughter’s unfortunate history and who might have known the risk of such a disclosure, given the nature of the segment.  The possible impact of this whole affair and subsequent media coverage on the victim will be enormous.

From an advertising perspective we should not forget the station sponsors’ position.  Advertising dollars are the monetary fuel which keeps a show like this alive.

I can’t imagine that high-profile advertisers would want to associate themselves with a station, or a station’s host, who appeared to be so oblivious to a clear case of child abuse.  And if these are the sorts of stunts which are going to grace the airwaves in the future, you have to ask whether aligning your brand or product with this trite and offensive material is in your company’s best interests.

There have been plenty of shock-tactic segments in radio-land that somehow manage to fly under the radar, at least as far as any disciplinary action is concerned.  It may only be when the sponsors walk away that something is actually done about this.

I consider myself to be very broad-minded and am rarely offended by what I see and hear in the media.  This will be seen as an affront to many, and Sandilands and his crew have once again blotted their copybook.

He must have even fewer friends out there now – even if there is an element of the scapegoat here – and one would think a head somewhere could roll for this.

Steve Jennings is an Account Manager at BCM Brisbane

Today I have reached the final day of my internship here at BCM in Sydney, which has left me filled with a mixed bag of emotions: sad (to leave), proud (of what I have achieved), happy (to be going to finish my last semester of uni ever), enlightened (from what I have observed and the tasks I have completed), and finally excited as I have now re-confirmed my decision to work in advertising, and further confirmed my interest into the strategic planning field.

Since starting here two weeks ago, I have had the chance to meet a lot of interesting people with such a wide range of skills and talent, who were ever so helpful and welcoming towards me from day one. I’ve got to work on a few big scale clients including Radio Rentals, Sunbeam, and Artline. I got to work in a range of different departments including: Account service, Media, and Creative.

Although we get to work on real life clients at university, it still does not compare to the calibre of work that is done here at BCM. It has been great to see behind the scenes of how an agency functions from how meetings are booked to how pitches are pitched. From just observing the work done here in Sydney, it is inspiring to see the constant thinking, and innovative ideas that are developed here.

Since I started on my first day doing research on the current clients, my eyes and ears suddenly appeared to become more open and absorbent, as I have realised how competitive this industry is. Gerry had asked me to check the news websites as well as Adnews and B&T each day, and although I am already a current user of those sites, I only seemed to use them when I needed something, but it has now become my new daily habit, and I now feel weird if I haven’t done my morning lap around the news sites. So thanks Gerry for giving me another reason to procrastinate whilst avoiding uni work!

But all in all I have had a great two weeks here at BCM in Sydney, and I hope to possibly return to do another two weeks here in my next break in September. Thank you so much to Gerry for giving me this opportunity and making it all possible, and thank you to everyone at the BCM team in Sydney for being so kind and making the effort to give me an insight into your lives. To all of you I didn’t get to meet in Brisbane – I hope I will get to meet you one day.

Melanie Thorne Charles Sturt University Student