Earshot with Steve Martin

Earshot is a celebration of great radio production, shared by the people who make it.

Duration 43’21”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 61 MB.
Loudness -16 LUFS.

If you enjoy the show please rate and review it.

A lockdown edition of the Earshot podcast as Matt Podd in rural Essex and Adam Venton on the South West coastal town of Portishead play and discuss their creative audio production.

Hear Adam’s latest work for stations in the UK and the US, Matt’s Iron Imager entry and some of his work for the BBC.

We also discuss working in lockdown (nothing’s changed really) and RadioCentre’s current ad promoting the benefits of radio advertising.

Adam Venton

Matt Podd

Thanks to Harrison RB and InQuality, makers of the ipDTL platform.

Earshot theme by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons.

The Earshot podcast is packed with great radio production, shared by the people who make it.

Duration 39’27”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 55.5 MB.

Subscribe to the whole series with your favourite podcast app, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or iTunes. If you enjoy the show please rate and review it.

In this edition, Michaela Hallam, Debbie Dillon and Kate Dinsdale demonstrate how the BBC’s in-house creative agency approaches radio.

They play trails that promote Audio Description for viewers with restricted sight, their Wimbledon 2018 campaign that was much-loved by Chris Evans and the launch of the corporation’s ambitious project to aggregate music, podcasts and radio together in one place, BBC Sounds.

Kate, Debbie and Michaela describe how they achieve consistency of message while creating bespoke executions to fit the sound of each BBC radio service to maximise the effectiveness of their work.

You’ll also hear how BBC Creative works with independent production houses like Mcasso Music and Audio Always, and the team share tips for you if you want to be part of a future production with the agency.

Career opportunities with BBC Creative

Mcasso, responsible for producing the sonic mnemonic for BBC Sounds.

Audio Always, which has contributed to several recent campaigns by BBC Creative.

Earshot theme by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons.

From Earshot where views are personal and original writing is licensed under Creative Commons. Follow @earshotcreative and send story ideas and examples of great creative work to the editor @smartin

The Earshot podcast is packed with great radio production, shared by the people who make it.

Just weeks after launching its new breakfast show, station sound producers Ben Stones and Liam Hadley share the production secrets of Radio 1’s imaging. We hear also from host Greg James and ReelWorld music director Erik Huber who created the show’s theme.

Duration 45’44”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 64 MB.

Subscribe to the whole series with your favourite podcast app, Google Podcasts or iTunes. If you enjoy the show please rate and review it.

The sound of BBC Radio 1 is heard by more than nine million people in the UK every week. In this edition of Earshot, producers Ben and Liam explain how they and their team create the imaging production and promos for this legendary station.

They unpack the new imaging for Radio 1 Breakfast and presenter Greg James describes what he wanted the imaging to achieve, and what it means for him, his audience and the show he leads.  You’ll hear the different mixes of the Breakfast theme, produced by ReelWorld, including the 2 minute opener.

Ben explains how the station uses a cast of four station voices – Matt, Georgia, Rachelle and Lewis – and how he found new talent for breakfast. Beth is the female voice of the show and it’s her first ever voice gig.

We also learn how many people can fit into a tiny BBC production booth, how ideas Liam heard on Australian radio have inspired his work at BBC Radio 1 and why he insisted on reinventing the music montage.

All that, plus the creative genesis of the Live Lounge opener, the flexible structure of “The 1 for…” positioning line that ended up emblazoned on the side of a tour bus, and deep imaging geekery from two producers passionate about their craft and the power of great radio production.

As with Matthew Corbett and Sooty, Greg had a hand in it…

Question and answer session from The Guardian

In the show Ben and Liam mention Radio 1 Breakfast with Greg James, Reelworld, the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, the station branding service IMGR and the Official Chart with Scott Mills.

Erik Huber talks to Steve Martin

In this exclusive half-hour interview, ReelWorld Music Director Erik Huber discusses his approach to radio imaging production, how the craft has changed in more than twenty years of ReelWorld and his personal perspective on the Radio 1 breakfast project which his company won in a hard-fought open pitch.

Earshot theme by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons. Special thanks to Meryn Shetye at ReelWorld.

From Earshot where views are personal and original writing is licensed under Creative Commons. Follow @earshotcreative and send story ideas and examples of great creative work to the editor @smartin

The Earshot podcast is packed with great radio promotion ideas, shared by the people who make them.

This time, two of planet Earth’s leading commercial radio practitioners explore the world’s greatest contest and competition mechanics and what makes them so effective for audiences and sponsors alike.

Duration 47’45”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 71.2 MB.

Subscribe to the whole series with your favourite podcast app, Google Podcasts or iTunes. If you enjoy the show please rate it so its utter brilliance can be in no doubt to anybody.

Thanks to you, Earshot recently hit number 377 in the Apple podcast chart for Marketing and Management in the UK. Yes, 377. In this world one takes what one can get.

From the Cash Call to the Bong Game® to the Real Radio Renegade, Jonathan Lumley from East Coast Radio and Jacaranda FM in South Africa and international radio consultant John Simons from the UK reveal their favourite competition ideas, both as set-piece promotional moments and everyday benchmarks.

In conversation with Earshot’s Steve Martin, they explain how their favourite competition mechanics work, the critical dos and don’ts for any promotion and how data from engaged listeners can help you demonstrate to advertisers the quality of audience you attract. You’ll also discover the 1% rule and why John’s cousin hasn’t been for dinner recently.

If you run competitions, games or sponsored promotions on your station this is a rare opportunity to learn from two of the best, from both sides of the globe.

If you want to check whether a proposed competition has been trademarked in the UK, this is the central UK Trade Mark registry.

Jonathan Lumley (left, enscarfed) and John Simons (jacketed and labelled).

Next time: Ben Stones and Liam Hadley from the BBC, including the inside story on the imaging for the Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Greg James, produced with ReelWorld.

Earshot theme by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons.

From Earshot where views are personal and original writing is licensed under Creative Commons. Follow @earshotcreative and send story ideas and examples of great creative work to the editor @smartin

Earshot is great radio production, shared by the people who make it.

Duration 49’51”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 69.7 MB.

Subscribe to every new edition of Earshot with your favourite podcast app or iTunes.

If you enjoy the show please rate it so its utter brilliance can be in no doubt to anybody.

With a live audience of media students in an even more live acoustic, this is possibly the greatest radio production podcast ever recorded from the other side of a room.

Guests Gordon Lundy (Absolute Radio, Kerrang!), Matt Shields (Wave FM) and Gavin Pearson (Bauer City production hub) share examples of their on-air imaging work and explain how they approach it.

Presented by Steve Martin.

Gordon started in radio production in 2001, in New Zealand, and has been a jack of varying trades since.

He picked up a couple of NZ Radio Awards and returned to his native Edinburgh in 2009 to produce imaging for Radio Forth, and then the Bauer Scotland network in general.

In 2012 he moved to Birmingham as imaging and S&P producer for Kerrang! Radio, later adding Planet Rock and a new base in London. After 2 years in London, he escaped and ran away to Edinburgh working remotely in the same position. And since 2017 Gordon has been part of the imaging production team for the Absolute Radio Network.

He’s also finds it impossible to let go of anything so he keeps his oars in various old pies (mixed metaphors), including as a voiceover for Bauer Scotland stations, and hosting the mid-mornings on Kerrang! Radio.

Matt Shields studied at Edinburgh & Fife College and, despite his young age has been prolific in Scottish radio.

Since 2009 Matt’s audio production work has been heard on just about every independently owned radio station in the country. Original 106, Kingdom FM, Wave 102, Central FM and now the new Wave FM in Dundee and Perth are just some of them.

Matt also hosts the evening show on Kingdom FM and presents for stations around the Bauer network in Scotland.

Gavin Pearson began his radio career at Forth 1 back in 1991, becoming a technical operator a year later. At the age of 17, he presented his first show on the station Christmas day 1993. He then took up a regular slot presenting the Scottish Chart and a Friday night show with Edith Bowman. All of this led to a Best Newcomer award in 1996.

In April 1998, Gavin moved to Clyde 1 where he has presented every show on the schedule from Chart countdowns to Election Specials and the world famous Clyde 1 Super Scoreboard.

Alongside presenting, Gavin has kept his hand in when it comes to imaging, and with branding becoming more and more vital, he switched to a role doing this in a full time capacity from 2006. His production of promos and programmes specials has earned him several New York Radio Festival awards.

Gavin is now a proud member of the Bauer City Production Hub; a group of eight producers who image the entire Bauer City Network. He is the only member of that team based in Scotland and he specialises in sport production and Bauer City 2.

As well as all of this, Gavin continues to present on the Bauer City 1 network, hosting Sunday Breakfast.

Richard “Nobby” Newby

Steve Martin dedicates this edition of Earshot to the memory of audio producer Richard “Nobby” Newby who lost his life in April 2018. Richard was originally due to appear on this recording.

In the podcast you’ll hear tributes to Richard from Steve Martin, Global’s Ashley Bard, Matt Fisher at the BBC and Jim Gallatly of Amazing Radio.

You can enjoy Richard’s work in this edition of Earshot from February 2016.

by Michèle Dillon photography

Pre-production meeting

(L-R) Gordon, Matt, Gavin & Steve with John Collins on the faders

Thinking about Nobby

Tricky question from the back row

Gavin Pearson scares everybody

This show was recorded at Scotland’s Creative Media Network student festival at the CCA in Glasgow on 25 April 2018.

Earshot theme by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons. Thanks to John Collins on the faders.

From Earshot where views are personal and original writing is licensed under Creative Commons. Follow @earshotcreative and send story ideas and examples of great creative work to the editor @smartin

Sam and Steve of A Million Ads

The Earshot podcast is all about great radio production, shared by the people who make it.

Duration 43’23”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 60.89 MB.

Subscribe to every new edition of Earshot with your favourite podcast app, or iTunes. If you enjoy the show please rate it so positively on iTunes that its brilliance can be in no doubt to anybody.

Explore new creative opportunities in programmatic advertising and dynamic audio in the company of two highly knowledgeable and likeable pioneers in this emerging field. Steve Dunlop and Sam Crowther run A Million Ads, the London-based agency that leads the world in dynamic, personalised audio advertising.

With patience and clarity in this Earshot podcast, Steve and Sam take Steve Martin through this emerging growth area and how it works. They also demonstrate some new creative routes to more effective communication through personalisation with real-life campaign audio from their early clients. What’s more, they do all this in a pub.

If you listen to online radio or streaming music services that carry advertising you may have already heard dynamically assembled ad spots that take account of the data advertisers know about you.

A short route to increased effectiveness or a little bit spooky? Download this edition of the Earshot podcast and hear for yourself.

Everything Sam and Steve describe in the podcast is achieved through this platform, unique to A Million Ads.

As they explain in the show, data from trading desks triggers individual elements to be instantly assembled to create a customised variant of the ad you hear.

On the production side, the assembly workflow takes around 1.5 times more than production of a traditional ad, yet can yield many tens of thousands of personalised variants… perhaps even a million ads.

Variants are indexed with text labels. Here there are 7 day variants x 4 alternatives triggered by live weather data

Each variant is linked to an associated audio object within a traditional DAW timeline.

In this graphic visualisation (click the image to go big), the first division is a branch determined by the closest airport to you,

Over 12,500 ads in all. Sam says it’s not their biggest, but is one of the more beautiful!

The Theodore Bullfrog

This show was recorded in the Theodore Bullfrog, John Adam Street, London. A great pub in which to discuss dynamic audio.

Research by Hayley Hayes. Earshot theme by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons.

From Earshot where views are personal and original writing is licensed under Creative Commons. Follow @earshotcreative and send story ideas and examples of great creative work to the editor @smartin

Tom Cross and Adam Burgess of Contraband Media

The Earshot podcast is all about great radio production, shared by the people who make it.

In this edition Steve Martin meets Adam Burgess and Tom Cross: two thirds of the production house Contraband Media.

Together with music director Small Paul, Adam and Tom have built Contraband into one of the UK’s leading independent radio imaging companies with clients here, in the US, New Zealand and Australia. They were nominated in the 2017 Audible Audio Production Awards for their CHR imaging work.

In the Earshot podcast you’ll hear how they made the transition from technical operators on Southern England’s 103.2 Power FM to station imaging producers and then directors of their own business.

Tom and Adam share production secrets from their branded song intros from the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show with Nick Grimshaw and their Imaging Blueprint CHR imaging service and play some great examples of this work.

They also explain how their work for Radio 1 is puzzle of micro-editing, pitch-shifting, tuned voices, soft synths and the cheekiest individual syllables smuggled from song lyrics.

Generously, Tom and Adam share business advice for you if you’re thinking you might leave a salaried job and set-up your own production company or enter the freelance world.

…and we enjoy a simple, beautiful radio ad from one of the longest-running FMCG campaigns in Britain. It’s a monthly winner from the Aerial Awards scheme which honours the most creative and effective radio advertising in the UK.

(duration 38’48”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 54.8 MB)

Research by Hayley Hayes. Earshot theme by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons.

From Earshot where views are personal and original writing is licensed under Creative Commons. Follow @earshotcreative and send story ideas and examples of great creative work to the editor @smartin

Three of the world’s leading entertainment radio imaging producers join Steve Martin to discuss their craft and play their work.

Left to right: David Konsky, Steve Martin, Ron Tarrant and Victor Lisle.

(duration 33’04”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 49.2 MB)

Head of Production at Southern Cross Austereo’s Hit Network and 2DAYFM in Australia, Konsky got into radio by doing graveyard and swing shifts at Triple M. Today, he also produces for ReelWorld’s Production Vault service through which is work is heard on stations worldwide, including Z100 in New York. He’s a self-confessed ideas magpie:

A former on air personality and creative services director for Clear Channel, Victor has run ReelWorld’s Production Vault service for the NewsTalk format for the last nine years. He’s also the voice of the Rogers NewsTalk network in Canada and is a leading proponent of imaging that connects emotionally.

Head of Imaging and Sound Design for Howard Stern on Sirius XM, Ron is the first Canadian to hold the position. Ron also voices all the production used across the bouquet of Howard satellite channels on the Sirius XM platform. He has previously worked across rock, CHR, AC, talk and sports formats in Canada and you can hear more of his career reel on Soundcloud.

The Reelmix imaging event was held in September 2016 in Miami, Florida USA by ReelWorld and the Mix Group. The two day masterclass in imaging production for radio featured the world’s leading imagers who shared their expertise to a capacity crowd. You can see our live blogs from the event in a series of posts on this site.

Day one morning.

Day one afternoon.

Day two.

Thanks to ReelWorld and The Mix Group for bringing these people together and for inviting Earshot to join them in Miami.

Earshot theme music by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons.

From Earshot where views are personal and original writing is licensed under Creative Commons. Follow @earshotcreative and send story ideas and examples of great creative work to the editor @smartin

Steve, Chris and Hayley, complete with knitwear in a panelled room.

Bauer Media is one of the UK’s leading commercial radio operators. Chris Ward is the Content Operations Director and Group Production Director for its Bauer City Network of around 50 outlets.

Every week this network reaches around 7 million listeners and generates more than 60 million hours of total listening.

Its stations are based in large cities across the North and Midlands of England, and Scotland. They operate under heritage brand names like Hallam, Clyde, Metro and Viking, tiered in three networks with local speech content among the tracks: Bauer City 1 operates a hot AC format, recently repositioned, and it drives the biggest audience, Bauer City 2 plays classic hits and Bauer City 3 is a punchy CHR network.

Chris’s team is largely based in Salford, near Manchester but he has a couple of team members in Glasgow and Birmingham too.

In this Earshot podcast, hear audio that communicates the new music positioning of the Bauer City 1 network, creative production to support S&P activity and examples of customised sung vocals on playlist tracks that Chris’s team uses on many of the network’s major promotions.

Chris Ward of Bauer Media.

(duration 49’00”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 67.7 MB)

Vintage audio from Africa’s first commercial radio station, Lorenzo Marques Radio.

If you’d like to get in touch or share your production just email us. We love to play audio from around the world – any station – any format, especially if it has an interesting story behind it.

Guest: Chris Ward with audio from his team at Bauer Media which includes James Espley, Reagan Charles, Lydia Athey, Gavin Pearson and Joe Thomas.

Earshot Creative Review theme music by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons.

From Earshot where views are personal and original writing is licensed under Creative Commons. Follow @earshotcreative and send story ideas and examples of great creative work to the editor @smartin

Steve Martin and Hayley Hayes are back with another edition of the radio promotions, marketing and production podcast. Only one of them has a cold: see if you can work out who.

This time, the Earshot podcast is all about creativity. Our two interview guests are experts in creative thinking and the processes that support it:

Earshot podcast: Dr Becky Spelman and John Vorhaus

(duration 33’18”, 192kb/s stereo mp3, file size 46.2 MB)

John Vorhaus is a writer and creative trainer. His work as an advertising copywriter and television sit-com developer has helped feed a string of books on creativity and comedy writing. We discuss The Comedy Toolbox: how to be funny even when you’re not in this show.

You’ll hear tips on overcoming the fear of not being funny and learn some great ways to work towards genuinely funny characters, situations and jokes. There’s something for writers, producers and on air personalities in John’s advice.

<br />

Dr Becky Spelman DPsych Couns Psych, PG Dip Couns Psych, PG Dip (Cog Thp), BABCP (Accred), HPC Reg, B.Psych (Hons) is a London-based registered psychologist and cognitive behavioural therapist, specialising in psychodynamic therapy, eye movement desensitisation reprocessing, dialectical behaviour therapy and mindfulness. She has a very large business card.

Dr Becky explains what happens in our brains when we have an idea, how to overcome the temptation to procrastinate, how to activate the parts of your brain that will let creativity flow and shares lots of practical tips for making the most of your creative ability.

What is “Voice Fry” and does it annoy you? One Earshot listener takes issue with what he feels is an increasing prevalence of the effect on air.

And, since we’re recording in December, Aleksander Lilleøien provides a festive treat from his Christmas station in Norway, P7.

The station’s singalong Top of Hour ident became so popular with listeners that he and production company Wise Buddah have now turned it into a full length song.

Here’s a rough translation of the lyrics:

Christmas bells are ringing

The wait is over

Hello, hi everybody, it’s good to meet again

With children laughing, winter, snow

The radio’s playing P7 Klem

All the lights are lit and

Christmas food and a crackling fire place

Hello, hi everybody, it’s good to meet again

With children laughing, winter, snow

The radio’s playing P7 Klem

Hello, hi everybody, it’s good to meet again

With children laughing, winter, snow

The radio’s playing P7 Klem

If you’d like to get in touch or share your production just email us. We love to play audio from around the world – any station – any format, especially if it has an interesting story behind it.

Contributors: Dr Becky Spelman, John Vorhaus and Aleksander Lilleøien.

Research and audio editing: Hayley Hayes

Earshot Creative Review theme music by the Tiger Club Band. Voiceover is Elly Fairman at Hobsons.

From Earshot where views are personal and original writing is licensed under Creative Commons. Follow @earshotcreative and send story ideas and examples of great creative work to the editor @smartin