Today is #WorldRadioDay, and a time when I look back fondly to the beginning of my career. Here’s the story of how radio seduced me before unceremoniously dumping me… and why I’ve never quite got over it.
I was always fascinated with radio. Childhood home videos show me pretending to be BRMB’s ‘Voice of Sport’, George Gavin, offering my takes on the goings on at Aston Villa in the early 90s.
I was 16 before I took to the airwaves for real, bagging a Tuesday evening show on the Black Country’s youth community station, KicFM, alongside my best mate. We were raised on the era of ‘zoo’ formats. Chris Evans on the radio and Johnny and Denise on the telly. The result was an attempt at creating a similar sense of chaos by two people who knew what they liked, but not necessarily how to make it.
It was hit and miss. Raw and awkward. One feature that sticks in my mind was adopting the personas of WWE commentators ‘JR and King’ to offer commentary on that week’s episodes of Coronation Street. You know the schtick. “BAH GAWD, THAT’S KEN BARLOW’S MUSIC!!” and all that. We loved it, and I sort of maintain it was a good idea. That said, I dread to think how it actually sounded.
My next foray behind the mic was a little more ordered, a little less frenetic, as I settled into a weekly show on my University’s student radio station. Play a song. Do a short sharp link. Play another. That’s not to say I didn’t sail close to the wind on occasion, including getting dragged into the station manager’s office for a dressing down over what he believed was a libellous comment I made about David Beckham.
During the discussion, ridiculously, he told me: “I don’t anticipate David was listening, but stranger things have happened”. I still think it’s the most fanciful thing that anybody’s ever said.
Unbelievably, it transpired that David Beckham WASN’T listening to the University of Lincoln’s Siren FM that night after all, so there was no black mark on my record as I took up my first ever full-time job. Fresh out of Uni, I got a foot in the door at Heart FM where, in an era when companies were still getting to grips with the importance of digital media, responsibility for their website, CRM and social media output was handed to a largely unqualified idiot (me).
It was both the best and worst first job I could have asked to have. The best because I loved it and learned so much. The worst because it was a shock to later discover that most workplaces don’t just let you mess around with your mates for eight hours a day and get away with it.
That place was mad. We’d often go out until the early hours, sleep at the station, then wake up when the breakfast show started and just plough through the hangover. My time there also saw a brief flirtation with minor celebrity as I made daily appearances on sister station, Galaxy 102.2, where I was billed as ‘Webbo’. At one stage I was dispatched on an incredibly cringeworthy blind date that took place in front of a paying audience of a couple of hundred listeners.
There was no second date.
Incredible memories made. Lifetime friendships forged. And a couple of OBs with Keith Chegwin to boot. But, just when I was having the time of my life, little did I know that my journey in radio didn’t have much longer to run. In 2009, the industry was making great strides towards a networked future and our heads were on the block. I avoided the chop on the first couple of rounds of redundancies, but finally got the heave-ho on the third.
I was devastated, but determined to get back in. I started putting in as many unpaid shifts as I could at the Digbeth-based community station, ‘Rhubarb Radio’ (guess where its studio was!) while I awaited answers to the umpteen letters dispatched to programme controllers at stations up and down the country.
None came.
Eventually, even Rhubarb Radio went bump, and with it went the dream entirely. I started my journey in PR and marketing, and my stint in radio was done.
I still love radio, but I’ve enjoyed a fulfilling career away from it, and I don’t expect to ever be involved professionally again. To be frank, I’m not sure the industry I miss even exists anymore.
That said, I still look back at those days, and what it taught me about the simplicity of storytelling, and the sheer importance of understanding what makes your audience tick. An old boss once told me that “there’s nothing more interesting than real life” and it’s a mantra I still bore colleagues with all the time.
So, happy #WorldRadioDay to those who love the wireless. It remains, despite everything, the best and most intimate way to get a message across, and should be protected at all costs.
You know it should. It really should.
“Here’s Jamelia…”
Tom Parker. 