8/3/2019 Radio Ezine - Issue 37

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FREE! a monthly digital magazine for programmers

Radio

blue revolution

STAY OUT OF TROUBLEwhy you need to be in the know about libel

SOCIAL

M E D I Ahow to make i t

make money for you

6 o f t h e b e s tG I F T S T O

TREAT YOURSELF

T O I N 2 0 1 2

+ ON-AIR COMPETITIONS

j u g g l i n g t h e d e t a i l s

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See you next month,

Paul Hollins

paul@bluerevolution.com

Blue Revolution isa leading supplierof programmingcontent, musicservices and

production tools toradio stationsworldwide. Ourrange of weekly

shows include theaward-winning

Totally 80s, Totally90s, The WeekendVibe, The Donny

Osmond Show,Wolfman Jack andmany more.

Our network of client stations

trust us to deliverprogrammes

proven to buildaudiences and

raise revenue.Find out more byvisiting us online

at

Issue 37

 January 2012

WWW .BLUEREVOLUTION.COM

Hi again,Happy New Year! (Is it too late to say that now?) Well either way, 2012 is hereand another issue of the Radio e-Zine hits your inbox.

I should start out by admitting that we totally missed sending out a copy of the

Radio e-Zine in December. Sorry about that! With all the best intentions in the world, the plan was to get a copy to you inearly December. However, as soon as we started getting anywhere near thefestive season, it just got a little manic.

 As many readers will already know, here at Blue Revolution we make a wholerange of Festive Specials each year which adds to our already hecticproduction schedule.

In fact, last month we produced over 36 hours of additional content to go

alongside the 84 hours of content we usually produce. So I’m sure you canunderstand when I say it got kinda busy.

 And I also hope you can forgive us for not getting December's Radio e-Zineout, as a result. :) We'll more than make up for it though with this packedissue:

Page 3 - Paul Chantler Gets LegalPage 4 – PD TipsPage 5 – Paul Hollins Shows How Social Media Can Increase Revenues

Page 9 – 6 of the Best: Gifts to Treat Yourself to in 2012Page 11 – A SureLog Special Offer

Hope you enjoy it.

bluerevolutionIn this issue: What you need to know about libel

revenue through social medial

On-air competition tipsl

Topresources for DJs and PDs.

lGenerating

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WATCHOUT!

WWW .BLUEREVOLUTION.COM3

Beware Schoolboys Bearing Libel Lawsuits!PAUL CHANTLER

courses for radio stations and can be contacted at HangThe DJ? by Paul Hollins and Paul Chantler can be purchased from www.radiobookshop.com

or Amazon online.

is Senior Partner for United Radio Consultants which runs legal trainingpaul.chantler@unitedradio.co.uk

The dangers of radio presenters and the law of libel were brought home tome a few years ago – by an eight-year-old schoolboy.

It was in my days as a Programme Director and I was driving to worklistening to our breakfast show. The presenter was running a competitionand had the boy on air as a contestant.

He asked the usual questions, “Where do you go to school?”, “What's yourbest subject?”, “Who's your favourite teacher?”.

And then a tingle ran down my spine as the presenter casually asked, “Who's the worst teacher in the school?”.

The boy answered, naming the teacher. Irritatingly, my carphone (it was fixed in the car in those days) was on theblink and it was another 20 minutes at top speed before I could get to the studio.

On arrival, my PA (yes, we had them in those days too!) handed me a sheaf of phone messages – from the teacher,her headmistress, her trade union representation, the boy's parents and the local education authority.

In asking a stupid question and allowing the boy to answer, the presenter and radio station had libelled the teacher by

“injuring someone in their trade, office or profession” – one of the key definitions of libel.

By some nifty negotiation and apologies all round – including a donation to the school's playground fund – wemanaged to avoid the vast expense of lawyers and being taken to court. The presenter in question was on thereceiving end of an enormous rollocking from and nearly lost his job.

It's lessons like this that are absolutely vital for presenters to learn. These days, the danger of legal action against aradio station is more likely to be prompted by something done by a presenter or producer rather than a journalist who,by and large, are pretty well trained in media law.

ndeed, the two most high-profile radio libel cases of the last few years were caused by presenters. One of the mostrecent involved someone being defamed by a 'jokey' promo; the law does not have a sense of humour (despite thewigs worn by judges!)

There's also the potential problem of presenters and producers posting on social media websites. People think posts onTwitter and Facebook are somehow exempt from libel and contempt laws. They are most definitely not.

That's why it is SO important for everyone on the broadcast side of a radio station to be well trained in media law.The big groups already have training plans in place but smaller stations could be left vulnerable.

run a two-hour Media Law seminar especially aimed at presenters and producers with lots of audio andtextual examples of when things have gone wrong in the past and lots of stories of when I've been sued –or threatened to sue – myself.

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Beware Schoolboys Bearing Libel Lawsuits!

WWW .BLUEREVOLUTION.COM 4

These are valuable lessons as what goes out on air could not only cost the radio station a lot of cash in damages

but could also land the presenter and their boss in jail.

Together with Paul Hollins, I've written a book called Hang The DJ which is a radio presenter's guide to the law.It's well worth a read as it could also not only save you money and your liberty but also your job.

If you're a presenter or producer, you need to know what you can and cannot put on the air.

It's so easy to make a mistake – especially when you're taking phone calls from kids on the air!

Dtips

    !      !PD Tip #6. On-Air Competitions If you're running on-air competitions the easy option is to give the presenter the infoand then leave it to them to 'take care' of it.

But as PD it's your responsibility to make sure that competitions are correctly executed.Otherwise you will have an angry Sales Execs and/or client breathing down yourneck.

On-air competitions can be time-consuming and you've got to ensure that compliance rules are followed.Failure to do so can land you in serious hot water and in extreme cases cost the station a lot of money infines.

Therefore it's important that you don't delegate the responsibility or swamp the presenter with extraunnecessary responsibilities such as lining up the callers, taking names and addresses, or checking forcompliance issues.

The presenter's responsibility is to concentrate 100% on the output of the radio station – after all theoutput is your 'product' – so it's important not to give them other distractions.

Have a member of staff volunteer to handle to calls (or do it yourself). Train them in compliance issues.For example, if you have a competition where you're taking a number of callers to air, you have toensure the selection of those callers is completely random and, more to the point, verifiable.

Also give the designated 'phone handler' the job of collecting names & addresses so prizes can be sentout to winners. This takes the pressure off the presenter who is then able to concentrate fully on his/hershow.

The benefits are huge and you will be amazed how much difference this simple process can make to thesound of your station. 

Got an idea for a great PD Tip?Email pdtips@bluerevolution.comand it could feature in a future edition.

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n the last Radio e-Zine I wrote an article about harnessing the power ofSocial Media through sites like Facebook and Twitter. The article generateda lot of positive reaction, especially from programmers who had beenstruggling to get a handle on the positive impact Social Media can haveon their output.

spoke about how Social Media can quickly and easily help you toconnect with your audience in new and exciting ways which finally makes

he conversation you have with your listeners two-way. Radio has alwaysbeen a one-directional medium but now we can engage with our listenersike never before and see their reactions almost instantaneously.

Radio, as an industry, needs to embrace this new world order becauseSocial Media isn't just a passing fad. It's here to say, no matter how muchyou might want it to go away.

Following on from last month's article, I promised to explore some of the ways that your station canmonetize the process of tweeting and posting status updates.

From the feedback I got after last month's article, I think this will be of particular interest to small andmedium-size stations that don't have the resources (or budget) to employ a full-time Social Media expert.

A Very Quick Re-Cap On Last Month's Article

f you've followed the pointers in my previous article, your station should by now have a Facebook FanPage and a Twitter account set-up.

The idea is to get your listeners to 'Like' your page on Facebook. If you can get them to do that it meansyour status updates will start to appear in their 'news feed'. The benefit of this is that whenever you post anupdate it will automatically have an audience.

On Twitter it's even easier as people just elect to 'follow' you. Once they do that, your tweets will thenappear on their Twitter feed. Again, this means that your followers will automatically see your tweets.

You can even link your Facebook & Twitter accounts so that when you post on one your message isautomatically passed to the other. So if you tweet via Twitter, the same message will be shown to yourFacebook followers and vice-versa. It’s a good idea to do this as you’ll essentially get a double-whammyor the same amount of work

The key is to post updates and make tweets on a regular basis, so that you are reaching out to youraudience. Encourage them to respond to your updates and tweets. Above all, be visible.

Follow the rules that I mentioned in last month's article about the best methods of tweeting andwhy your DJs should only ever give out THE STATION Facebook details and Twitter address (andnot their own).

Paul Hollins is the CEO of Blue Revolution. He is an award-winning presenter and producer. His on-air broadcasting career includes many of UK’s most well-known stations including Key 103, BRMB, Capital FM and London’s Heart 106.2. In 1999 hebecame the first British presenter to fly to Los Angeles to host the internationally syndicated ‘World Chart Show’ for RadioExpress Inc. Since setting up Blue Revolution in 1999, Paul has helped grow the company into one of Europe’s largest providersof audio content for radio.

Social Media As A Revenue Generator 

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continued 

Getting Started With Monetization

If you have already started to build-up your Facebook fans and Twitter followers, it’s easy to start themonetization process.

If you haven’t already started, set-up the accounts today and start promoting them on-air so that yourlisteners start to ‘like’ you and follow you.

Once you've done this you can pretty much post/tweet about anything. As long as your updates arerelevant to your audience, they will feel like you are engaging directly with them.

So, let's say you play Rihanna on your station and you decide to do a tweet/update about her latest music  video, it might make for great Social Media content but it doesn't bring any revenue to your station, does  it?

So let's say that instead of tweeting about Rihanna's music video, instead you tweet/post about the fact that Rihanna is coming to play a live concert in your town (or at least will be at a venue nearby). Wouldn't it be great if you could also give your followers a link they can click to buy tickets immediately?

generating revenue through social media

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