Roots Music Radio Show axed!

Subject: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: Vic Smith
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 02:15 PM

Sadly, another fine world/folk/roots music radio show hits the dust.
This from Mark Ringwood

Please excuse this general e-mail but following the axe-ing of my weekly radio show 'Roots Around the World' I've been genuinely touched by the number of people who have bothered to register a genuine disquiet about the situation - and rightly point out that if a regional radio station just consists of a computerised playlist and networked shows (did you know that Spirit FM generates less than 50% of it's weekly output from Chichester and all of the music is from a centralised computer in High Wycombe ?) then how is new music going to have a voice outside of the national stations ?

Anyway the point of this e-mail is to say that if you feel like registering an objection to the sanitisation of proper music, and the chopping of my show - which went from one hour a month to 3 hours every week in the space of 6 years, and did a lot to highlight the live music scene in West Sussex, as well as my quirky taste in music - then this is the person to e-mail. I doubt it will change things but the satisfaction of her realising that people really care about what they listen to will at least register, I hope !

[e-mail]

Meanwhile I'm exploring other avenues to broadcast on, and if all comes to nought then the possibility of pod-casting through our www.rootsaroundtheworld.info website will remain an option.

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 02:47 PM

The treatment by the BBC of folk music is nothing short of a national disgrace.

Worse when its competitors seem to go down the same road.

Was it available as a podcast of via the internet?

Dave Eyre

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: GUEST,Mr Red on Miss Yellow's computer
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 02:57 PM

If its a podcast come back her and give us the URL. ANd network!

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: GUEST,Mark Ringwood
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 04:31 AM

Sadly, for some reason to do with PRS - or so I was told, commercial radio has no rights agreement to allow podcasting. When we started including 'The Unsigned' - a 20 minute interview and 2-3 tracks by unsigned bands co-ordinated and produced by Milly Luxford - this was initialy available as a podcast but without notice or explanation this facility ceased to exist. Similarly the facility for overseas listeners to access the show via the website in realtime also ceased.

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 05:29 AM

First of all I do a folk show for Sheffield Live which now it is broadcasting on FM is seeking advertisers. We also have a listen live facility for the programme.

However what sort of license does Sprint FM have and is it fulfilling the terms of that license by axing its folk show?

Subject: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: GUEST,Sally Austin of Spirit FM
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:52 AM

I have received a couple of emails with reference to Roots Around the World on Spirit FM so thought it might be easier and save you all some time if I just posted my reply.

Firstly - Spirit prides itself on being the only local station that serves West Sussex, if it's in West Sussex it's on Spirit FM. Whilst we are owned by a larger organisation, this company is called 'The Local Radio Company' and their strength in the radio market place is that they own 28 radio stations but allow them all to run as real local stations to the areas they serve.
Spirit do work from a computerised playlist - as every radio station does - but we still have room for movement locally for presenters to add their own feel to their shows. Is is simply untrue that 50% of Spirit's output is via computer in High Wycombe. We have local presnters from 6am to 7pm daily, and the evening show through until 1am is certainly not a computer in High Wycombe - this too is a real person with local news, commercials and station branding.

Roots Around the World in its current format has run it's course on the station but I can assure you that the Spirit FM will continue to give local bands and local venues a platform to publicise themselves.

The 'unsigned' feature that was a part of Roots Around the World will continue in an improved format in the New Year and will not only feature unsigned local bands but also feature a detailed gig-guide for the coming week (This will continue to be available as it always has via Podcast and on-air - these bands are unsigned so we have no PRS issue).

On top of this Spirit will continue to run our listings feature 5 times a day to highlight different events going on around the County which is free of charge.

We are unfortunately in that terrible position of not being able to please all of the people all of the time, for every 10 people that would tune in on a Sunday evening just for Roots there are 100 loyal Spirit listeners who the show didn't appeal to that would tune away during it.
I do realise that people really care about what they listen to, which is unfortunately why I had to make the decision to stop the Roots Show. For Spirit FM we simply had many more people tuning away on a Sunday than were tuning in so I've listened to the majority and done something about it.

Mark Ringwood will continue to be a friend of the station and we fully back Roots Around the World - we will still be covering the great events Mark puts on in West Sussex.

Kind regards

Sally Austin

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: GUEST,Obie
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 07:07 AM

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: GUEST,Obie
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 07:10 AM

Sorry,
   Too many radio broadcasters want to march to the same drumbeat. Get rid of people and played canned music from God knows where. The problem seems to be widespread.

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 07:58 AM

Sally Austin from Spirit FM made it very clear that the folk music programme was losing them listeners. We may not like it, but that's the commercial reality.

Any minority interest is going to find it difficult to compete for airtime. Fortunately we now have the internet which makes it possible for minority interests to "broadcast" to their specific audiences.

The problem I find is that I don't want to listen to radio at the computer. I do most of my radio listening in the car, so for me a download/podcast facility is a prerequisite. The PRS question does not prevent podcasts, licences are available from PRS-MCPS, so presumably the issue is over the cost of these licences. If PRS-MCPS are pricing their licences too high they doing their own members a disservice by discouraging the provision of the service.

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: GUEST,Albert Pickles
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 02:47 PM

Hang on a minute.....

I want to be in a so-called 'minority' who actually loves listening to music on the radio. What most ILR stations seem to overlook is that there's actually a commercial value to these 'niche audiences.'
But basically the sales teams can't be bothered to chase the minnows....

....Why should the perceived non-chart music be hived off into a marginalised area ?

Who decides why the music of Tinariwen, Kate Nash, Jake Thackray, Lucky Dube, Kate Rusby, Show of Hands, etc can't be on mainstream radio ?

As I understand it the 'alleged' audience switch-off when the Roots' show came on-air has no substantiation. Will anyone please own up to being a RAJAR - diarist ?

But what is critical to the argument is that audiences listening to the radio station in general enjoy (?) a diet of 'computer-generated music'. The radio presenters simply touch a computer screen to play the next pre-selected track which is from a central computer. A frustrating situation for anyone with an ounce of creativity. Yet all the time the box of new release CD's grows ever larger without any hope of airplay....

...So when a programme which breaks the mould of the computer comes along do they really turn off, do people really tune in, instead ?
Can you rely on RAJAR ?

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 03:46 PM

When Alistair Anderson's show was axed on Radio Newcastle and the station editor was asked on "Feedback" if the programme which had replaced it was attracting more listeners then the answer was a hum and a har - so probably not.

The problem is often not the niche programming - but the fact that the niche programme does exactly that - attracts niche programme listeners. What a radio station wants is not people who tune into specific programmes but people who tune into the station as a whole - measurable and thus sellable. (Or in the case of the BBC, boxes to tick).

In the meantime you can listen to "Thank Goodness It's Folk" on Sheffield Live.

Dave

Subject: RE: Roots Music Radio Show axed!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 02:00 PM

Unfortunately, the BBC employs wankers and so does the PRS!