Listen with glee, or should we?

One of Oxford’s very own commercial radio stations has made global headlines this week, thanks to a campaign plot with more levels than Inception ….

Launching a new radio station in a crowded market was never going to be easy, but at least these guys had done their homework:

• They had an existing licence as the new station was a switchover from troubled youth station 107.9FM
• They had a target market – twenty-something, high consuming females
• They had content – upbeat and hugely popular tracks from TV and film
• They had a name … or did they?

On Monday the station was launched as Glee FM with a playlist of around 80 songs featured in the hit TV series.  The news was joyfully received by the world’s media and picked up by Sky News as well as the radio trade, and even celebrity blogger Perez Hilton’s eyebrows were raised.  The station’s savvy Twitterfeed went into overdrive with a flurry of classy updates promoting the station, the Glee cast and songs.  Glee FM had, it seems, scored a global hit in a few short hours – what a great way to launch a new station.

But last night avid fans logged onto the news that Glee has become Glide.  Why?

It was all a joke, apparently, and the station managers claim that the whole Glee thing was a stunt.  Glide’s programme director Sue Carter says in the Oxford Times: “The publicity it has generated around the world has completely amazed us, so we thought we’d better come clean before we get in any trouble.”

Glide FM, with the strapline ‘you’ll feel every song’ finally debuted on air at 7am this morning and by the look of its Twitterfeed has been met with, well, glee by a rapidly growing throng of followers. Such a good start is brilliant news and the station is a welcome addition to our regional airwaves.

However, it might take a while before we’re all fully convinced that Glide is for real and Glee was in fact, just a dream …

… or is it the other way round?

Live and direct from Cowley Road

A highlight of Cowley Road Carnival this year was helping BBC Oxford presenters Joel Hammer, Tim Bearder and producer Marcus get a regular flow of carnival peeps to chat to as they broadcast live from Manzil Gardens on Cowley Road.

Live radio is always unpredictable and never more so than when it’s direct from the biggest street party in the Oxford events calendar. Joel and Marcus freely admitted they didn’t have a plan so it really could go either way.

10.30am The radio mast goes up from the BBC Oxford van in Manzil Gardens and things are pretty quiet. With no traffic noise, you can hear the footsteps of a few early revellers, hopeful that something might be happening. Tension mounting, though, as shops, sound systems and outdoor stages on Cowley Road are in a state of panic, it getting close to Procession O’clock and barely a sequin to be seen or speaker stack plugged in.

11.00 We line up a few participants from over in South Park who are generously willing to break away from their last minute set-up and trot over to the Road.Miranda Laurence of Big Dance, and our trustees Junie and Zaheer are very enthusiastic, bless ‘em, especially given how busy they are.

Miranda Laurence of Big Dance

Carnival Trustees Zaheer Qureshi and Junie James

11.20 First few interviews done and n-one has plan for what’s next.  So off I go to find people, leaving Marcus to accost passers by, Tim to disappear off with a roving mike and Joel to keep the listeners from hitting their allotments.

11.30 First stop is the O2 which has a HUGE sound system led by Mr Charm, Count Skylarkin. The Count needs a sound check more than a radio chat  though so off I go, up to Baby Simple, where Jez generously volunteers to walk my way, even though he doesn’t know me from Adam.

11.45  Cowley Road is getting busy. Marcus has a gentle supply of willing victims … Carnival Trustee Laura stopped by, as did the fabulously named Susannah Starling of Queen of Clubs Cabaret.

11.50 Fortune smiles on us a gorgeous dancer from Sol Samba passes by, decked out in full carnival regalia, a vision in yellow and orange, glitter eyelashes and a head piled high with fruit.  Joel describing this lady is the most inventive radio I’ve heard In a long time.

Noon Cowley Road’s musical heritage always impresses me, and this is brought to life by Ospray, a DJ and Carnival veteran, who describes how a member of reggae outfit Makating first had the idea of closing the road for a street party. He wanted to park two lorries either end of the Road, but never quite managed it. Somehow I don’t think Thames Valley’s Finest would have been that impressed either.

12.15 Because the Carnival involves just about everyone in the community, I wander up to SS Mary and John and see if someone from the church was around. The lovely Ruth Conway readily offers to come along and off we march to the BBC van, where she speaks in quiet tones about how calm and peaceful it is in the churchyard, the perfect haven from the frantic road.

12.45 We can hear Horns of Plenty leading the Magnificent Machines procession gradually towards us. It is soon to get very exciting indeed. Count Skylarkin has also appeared, in a much more relaxed mood (explained by the great sounds drifting over from the O2). Sporting a large moustache and bowler hat, he is carrying a bottle of Captain Morgan because, he explains to listeners, Tesco has failed to stock a sufficient supply of Mount Gay.

Count Skylarkin with Captain Morgan and Ospray (left)

1pm The Magnificent Machines Procession arrives, a blaze of colour from Sol Samba, and a collection of inventive contraptions that tests even Joel’s descriptive talent. The Punt on Wheels, The Flatulator, Alan the Cycling Ice Cream Man, The Rocket …. Colourful Cowley Road had never seen anything like this before.

2pm We bid farewell to the BBC team and the afternoon goes on, with more than 30,000 people on the Road and 35,000 in South Park. Sadly, Joel, Tim and Marcus had to take off to make way for the Irish Programme, although they clearly would have stayed on air until every last sound system had sold out of Red Stripe.

Maybe next year they will!

Oxfordshire online is blooming

In a packed-out room at The Ashmolean museum yesterday, Oxford’s local commercial station Jack FM hosted an inspiring and informative seminar, The Digital Future.  And it was entertaining too, largely (but not solely) thanks to Rory Bremner.

Karen Louise-Allen, the station’s sales director, said how impressed she was by the turnout and felt that the vibe is right for Oxfordshire to become the first UK county to truly embrace social media as a business tool.  Looking around the room it’s easy to see how this could happen.  It was filled with all types of businesses as I discovered when, networking avidly beforehand, I ran  into my hairdresser David Popham, restaurant owner Max Mason, someone high up at Darbys law firm and two people from the charity Against Breast Cancer.  I sat between a group from Formula One and Matthew Hare of Community Internet Group.  How diverse is that!

The social media nitty gritty was in Richard Stacy‘s talk.  A web guru working with JackFM to develop its social media strategy, he spoke in plain language about what social media is, and what it isn’t.  ”Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever, are just tools. It’s what you do that counts.”

He said the online world had changed from being a garden, where we the audience stand in the middle admiring the flowers, to a garden centre, where the flowers are brought to us, we can talk readily with suppliers and compare notes with fellow customers.  He put up a graph which shows that traffic to top flowers – websites, that is – is on the wane, and told us that firms like Dell are leading the charge with new ways to engage with the world online.

My own social media strategy revolves around my clients as they are my firm’s shop window, or garden centre.  But it’s a competitive, crowded world so I will follow Richard’s advice and seek out people who seem to like PR firms, those that don’t and those who want to know what a PR firm in Oxford does.

Online and radio seems to be a match made in Heaven.  Karen Louise-Allen truly enlightened us on the relationship between the two.  It’s obvious that radio can be used to great effect to steer listeners online, and vice-versa.  But I hadn’t realised the scale of this ”online multiplier,’ evident in a recent RAB study shows that listeners are 52% more likely to search for a brand name after listening to it on the radio.

With a well-researched proposition for advertisers, a strong local brand and a polished online presence, Jack FM is positioned to take full advantage of this upward trend.

And she is right about Oxfordshire.  The online community in this county is flourishing indeed.

Bloomin’ marvellous, I say!