Radio Lab and the BBC

Sometimes, it's easy to see how Radio Lab has positively influenced BBC Radio 4. Take for example, the two part series presented by Dr Ben Goldacre, on the placebo effect, and Radio Lab's own.

Sometimes though, it would be really nice to see even a hint of Radio Lab's influence. Take this Analysis on Thought Experiments, which shares some content with Radio Lab's Morality show.

You know, the Analysis may have as much, or even more information. But how much of it sticks? Only the baking topic, which was mentioned three times throughout the programme.

Now, have a peep at the comments on Radio Lab episodes, and you'll see why Radio 4 feels it can't engage more than on part of the brain at once. I can't be arsed looking up any of the examples of people complaining at how the non-speech sounds distracted them and made them angry – there are some there. Now imagine how much more of that crap BBC Radio 4 gets. Too many older listeners, it is my opinion (and attitude), don't want radio to challenge them, they want it to reinforce they choices they've made in life so far. So, they chose to go through education and to save for their offspring to go to university and to look down on those who didn't and so… they like to learn new things. But only on their terms. Engagement, the fearful old people believe, should only happen though the writing. They don't feel free to let themselves go, to let the sound hit them in linguistic spots, musical spots, intellectual and instinctive spots.

And they are the people who own Radio 4. So that is that.

A few years back I had a discussion with creative producer (and Beeb employee) Martin Williams about how Radio 4 seems to lose the run of itself and carry lovely shows from Alan Hall's Falling Tree Productions that go sound and language hand-in-hand, often with sound taking the lead. Martin reckoned (as I remember it) that the Radio 4 commissioners and editors deep down wanted sound-rich pieces, yet didn't quite know it, and Alan Hall created that a space, showed it to them, and they agreed to let him fill it. My view was more that they knew him well, trusted him, and liked the awards that came with it, so left him to fill in day-time half hours.

And, um, now I've run out of steam. Let me give it some more thought.

Radio Academy Podcast

For a few weeks now I've been listening to the Radio Academy Podcast. It's a humdinger.

It's a proper podcast for radio peeps. The gusts are from across the, um, spectrum: commercial and Beeb, technical, production, management, regulation. The discussion is well informed and informative. Very groovy.

Wreck Diving in Ireland

I caught most of this programme this morning on RTE Radio 1 (audio here). It was a most pleasant surprise! It starts safely enough, but soon turns into a proper radio feature. Not ostentatious, yet very tasty. 

Simple music, filed recordings, maybe some FX, used to excellent effect with interviews informative, passionate, and poetic.

"Why are the best shows on Irish radio on early Saturday and Sunday mornings?" I asked myself – a repeat question that still stands. 

I was pleased at the end to hear Wreck Diving in Ireland was paid for by the BCI's Sound and Vision scheme, something which had passed me by until recently. 

The slot is called Private Passions, and is available as a podcast.

Review: The Emergency

I guess it's about time I reviewed The Emergency, broadcast on Newstalk on Saturdays at 11:30 in Ireland.

It's a half-hour satirical sketch show, that has had TV adverts and reviews in the mainstream press. The title refers to the Irish government's official term for World War II; and for the current economic mess.

The direct combining of the two themes probably leads to the weakest sketches. The sense I've gotten is that people are tuning in for satire towards today's politicians, and while they are plenty intelligent to understand what's going on, they'd rather just laugh at Sweary Mary, the unlovable minister for finance, and Brian Cowan going forward.

It also raises the possible accusation of that thing you should never do – comparing someone to the Nazis.

But the strong characterisations of today's politicians give every episode belly laughs. Good!

The most popular part of the show, at least with people old enough to remember the original, is the regular Dev stings – a WWII air raid siren sounds and Dev (I'm told it's an excellent reproduction) sentences the nation to certain behaviour "during the emergency".

This is often greeted with delight by older listeners who don't appreciate the cultural references, to films like Apocalypse Now. When I say "appreciate", I mean "laugh at". The most impressive cultural references are the songs. So far they have had a perfect hit-rate, which is little short of a miracle when it comes to comedy songs. Some of these parodies could just as well be sung by the original performer, they sound great – as does the whole show. Yes, there's excellent audio engineering on it to boot!

As well as their own website linked above, check out the promotional media and the podcast feed on Newstalk.ie

Awesome sounds of radio (astronomy)

If you're anything like me, you'll be fascinated, and maybe a little bit fearful, of radio astronomy. At first the big dishes make it seem so inaccessible, yet somehow understandable – that big collector bounces so much of those faint, well-travelled signals, to make the audible. After that though, you're left mystified. What's the next bit of the chain? How and what do you listen to?

The more you read up, indeed the more you just listen to the radio, you learn it can be on familiar territory. Jupiter can be heard around 20 MHz – that's shortwave, any old radio can tune there!

And then there's meteor showers. A smear of a distant TV channel, or a snatch of FM radio from the other side of the continent, is at times because (as I understand it) the signals are twisted by the fuzz of ionisation surrounding a meteor as it dashes through the earth's atmosphere at some point in between and above you and that radio station.

But radio astronomers, professional and amateur, can do something more structured.

Have a look at what this guy, Thomas Ashcroft does. This recording is of one of the most well known meteor showers, Geminids, at VHF, and it is compelling. Trust me, this is awesome.

There are two channels of audio, about 20MHz apart, recorded in the narrowest of modes, CW (that's how you get Morse code), and yet they interact.

Poke around that website, there's lots of good stuff – binaural representations of electromagnetic radiation. He also has receivers recording 300KHz apart around 21MHz for Jupiter, and VLF and ELF – that's 0 - 20 KHz.

Review: Roberts Robi DAB/FM adaptor for iPod

I've been trying out an iPod remote control that includes a DAB digital radio and RDS FM radio. It's the Roberts Robi.

I like the Robi. It gives fast, solid DAB and FM reception. On DAB, you can only see the station name, no other text services. It tunes between stations very quickly – using the up and down buttons to scroll through, it changes instantaneously. Note though that I have only used it in Dublin, where there is only one DAB multiplex. The Robi may take a bit longer to tune to different transmitters.

On FM, the RDS is quick and the reception is solid.

For both DAB and FM, the Roberts Robi annihilates the Pure PocketDAB 2000 I've had so much grief from – and what that had an SD socket for playing mp3s, this has your whole iPod!

The size of the Robi is just right, the controls are easy to use, and the cable is a useful length.

Mobile phone pic on the bus:

The negatives:

• the switches are easy to accidentally knock, if you put it in our pocket without hold on: this is an issue if you are in a rainy climate and like to retune or adjust the volume a lot – like me!
• DAB mode drains the iPod battery at a rate of knots. You'll get one afternoon around town, going between iPod, FM and DAB, on a full charge.
• The white cable – maybe this could be black? Most iPods and headphones sold are black or encased in black these days, so the cable seems to draw unnecessary attention.

Other than that, I'm very happy with the Robi. Far happier than my brother was when I gave it to him for Christmas, but hey he returned the favour with a hideous clothes store voucher so all is balanced – we do give the presents we'd like for ourselves, don't we?

Sierra Leone – political radio, UN radio, keeping it under control

This from the current Listening Post on Al Jazeera English

Outfront has been canned.

The CBC has decided to axe Outfront. 

Canada's public state broadcaster has to make huge budget cuts, and Outfront is one of the victims.

In the age of User Generated Content, the CBC thinks it's a reasonable idea to stop a programme that gives professional radio equipment and training to people outside the profession. Outfront gives proper training and production help. The result is strong story-telling that combined a clear documentary, social and historical achievement with engaging, creative radio. 

And it's won a ton of awards. I've only written a couple of reviews, because it is so consistently good, I didn't want to seem like I was just constantly praising one pet show. I won't make that mistake again…

Outfront's daily slot is both a strength and weakness: being there for listeners without their having to figure out the day, or check their watches, or schedule their day around a sot on the dial… doing any less almost seems like putting a mill-stone around a programme's neck, especially one without a regular host to – pun intended– anchor it. 

But being there day in day out also necessitates repeats, weakening the apparent value. 

From this standpoint, it should be obvious that reducing Outfront to one day a week would free up 15 minutes for more affordable music or phone-in sequences; cut the number of admin/assistance hours needed for automation, compliance, etc; and probably leave a few people out of a job. 

A huge saving? Not really. You'd save more money by dropping the whole show. 

But the other costs of axing Outfront outweigh the financial savings. 

I know cuts really can be tough for management as well as the production teams. But on this on, seriously, please, think again.

看中國電影了

今天晚上在布魯塞爾Flagey看了《二十四城記》。好久沒有看中國電影了，大概3年左右，今晚看感覺很精彩。《二十四城記》講故事的方式很有意思，是半紀錄片，半演的戲，而且兩個格式混用，有的很難分別。我認為這是對中國電視格式的反應，再加上典型角色又被模仿，又被張開，至少可以說是給中國電視新聞和實施專題報道習慣做個評價。

映完後，陪著兩個同事和她三個相識一起去隔壁的Belga喝一杯。其中一個在電影院工作，我們三四個人談的很痛快。在回家的路上，心情好得我都想跳，甚至高高興興地跑十來米，腦子好像突然重哲血似地。就這兩天，創意感在我的心又開始露面，這過城由《二十四城記》這部電影催進了很多。在快要離開比利時的時祭，一邊戀愛在非洲的女孩，一邊喜歡周圍有魅力的東西，有魅力的文化，有魅力的人。:-)

India.Arie Part 3 – on NPR

So there is a neat follow to my previous two posts on this – India.Arie has done a live session on NPR's Weekend Edition, on International Women's day. And that interview and songs brought a lot together. 

First off, the language from host and guest was entirely public radio. And it was effective – enhanced yes by the voices of both people (I'm not a fan of "radio voices", but in a soul singer I guess it's a more than acceptable attribute) – listen to Ghetto. The lyrics could be from a radio report, a really good US public radio report. 

So there is the influence and the shared language, as much as the shared aspirations. Good job all round.

Doing my bit

The v funny BBC Radio 4 Today video – voilá:

Well deserving too coz it's funny!

More on Pearls and speech radio.

I've had some comments on that post from Françoise, the friend and huge India.Arie fan who introduced me to the song in the first place. She's allowed me use her comments here, and so I can make some more points about radio. Yay!

First off, the song is a cover, of one originally sung by Sade. Françoise points out "I also think this song is completely one that could have been written by her, and totally fits in the "politics" side of this album (along with songs like "Better way" and the great "Ghetto")"

Françoise says something I tried to say in the first post, only she says it, you know, clearly: "I also think the new shoes are more than a constrasting parallel for the pearls, knowing that the pearls she's looking for are meant for the same Western chicks whose shoes hurt (and that includes me, I know)"

Yep, I could have expanded on the meaning of contrasting parallel, but there's no need to now coz it's written just up there.

She points out how the song brings to mind this poster by Amnesty International.

"I really love what you say about how you can find a different meaning to the song each time you listen to it while a radio show is most of the time very poor (just delivering factual information) - that's why I loved… On est où là on RFI. I totally agree that radio is one of the most frustrating medium on earth for that!"

I generally agree, that the news bias of radio is more a weakness than a strength – while the general acceptance of it as a news medium keep a certain amount of funding coming into radio, it also plays a part in under-seling it. No radio programme will get the production or promotion budget of a Hollywood movie (nor the awards), but if you have a choice you can be as well entertained, enlightened or transformed in an hour at home – for free – than €10 worth of a trip to the cinema. Because, radio is for news and traffic, right?

Referencing: Towards the end, there are some vocals not in English. This is where I think of the typical Africa story on public radio – narrator-heavy stuff, that, frankly, switches me off. Does India.Aries' African ancestry change that? As a listener, hearing it once, not sure either way.

"These lines are really... Perplexing. First because I'm not sure I get why those "vocals not in English" make you think of the typical Africa story on the radio - rather than the lyrics of the song. By the way it's by Ivorian singer Dobet Gnahore, which I think is important because India makes a song on Africa that sounds African - the whole song's chords sound African actually. Please don't link this to India's African ancestry. Too much of a shortcut."

Exactly – does the performer (be it singer or host) being African-American mean their dealing with Africa in their work is more fair or accurate than someone else's? It's worth noting here that India.Arie has visited Africa, which is more than I have. But to go into more detail about my original post: So many radio pieces about Africa are narrator-driven, with the (usually white) reporter telling you pretty much everything, over a general sound bed of the events concerned. Interviewees are put to air far less than in other stories. The producer's line is probably a simple, mechanical radio one: the accent is too hard to understand on the radio.

Isn't that just patronising?

Well, once in a while one gets thorough, and suddenly, the feature's shows that have the values, the interest and the money to cover Africa, start getting kudos from features shows. Here's a recent and very good example: The Mender of Broken Hearts.

Back to the staid old model. Is it any different from how, towards the end, something obviously African briefly appears?

One reason why I am less qualified to have an opinion here is simply how it is a piece of music, and, I am ever happy to admit, I am not 100% on the vocabulary of music. Still, I wouldn't do it.

It's taken me days to finally sit down and write this, and so, I feel like I've left something out. Typical!

Update: Some very similar topics are being raised in photojournalism, at the duckrabbit blog. Simple, good points.

India.Arie teaching Public Radio

Have a listen to the song in the YouTube clip below. Its called Pearls, and it's from the new album by the American singer India.Arie. Listen to the lyrics. And tell me if you have ever heard an American pubic radio show tackle those sort of issues, in those ways.

It would be difficult, but not impossible, for a typical or famous public radio host, I think, to open a link or report like that, There is a woman in Somalia, scraping for pearls by the roadside. There is a force stronger than nature, keeps her will alive. 

Certainly some of what follows is not unknown to our medium and its formats.

But then:

And it hurts like brand new shoes.

Any public radio host would have to apologise in advance for perhaps offending his listeners – I don't think a female host would feel able to us that analogy at all, fearing or feeling too superficial, girly, urbane.

Yes, it brings it home to something everyone can associate with, but doesn't that mean it belittles her suffering? After all, she's off in Africa, her suffering must be far beyond just a new pair of shoes. 

Really?

She's dying to survive. 

For pearls. Now combined with the musical elements, I don't think it's immediately apparent how the message moves. The radio producer, knowing the need for it to be simple to be understood in one listening, will cut the story down. The message moves on from the staid image – a woman in Africa suffering – to a calm celebration of the survival. 

The brand new shoes are contrasting parallels for the pearls, of course. And the imagery is superb.  

As speech radio producers there's a lot we can learn from this song. 

Towards the end, there are some vocals not in English. This is where I think of the typical Africa story on public radio – narrator-heavy stuff, that, frankly, switches me off. Does India.Aries' African ancestry change that? As a listener, hearing it once, not sure either way.

Now my conventional musical vocabulary is limited – I'm comfortably limited to this radio-centric arc – so I know I may have missed some obvious progressions and interpretations. I've listened to the song a dozen or more times – but there are so few 4 minute radio pieces I've heard that often. On the other hand, my interpretation has changed a lot, while with the radio item, at least most of the meaning has to get you first time. Rarely will I listen to an item more than three times, and yes you catch different things each time. On occasion the impact is much less on the second listen, and that would mean a superb traditional radio item. That is not always the case, often as a shortfall in our skill, of course, but increasingly by design. It takes a lot of self-belief to think people will re-listen to a whole hour-long show on their iPod just to get your repeatable report, but I think the people who are conscious of it, are doing work worthy of it. 

I am leaving quite a few loose ends here: please comment!

Finally, if you're at all familiar with my blog or my listening, you'll know what show I have been itching to mention here, but out of self-discipline, I'll hold it in ;-)

How We Got Here (PRI) and Alison Des Forges

Four episodes in, I'm really enjoying How We Got Here, a podcast from PRI's The World. I've never heard The World – what stands out the most about it to me is how a studio manager in Bush House got excited telling how good the ISDN line to WGBH in Boston used to sound, and with so little delay. 

So all I know of the content of The World comes from this podcast, which I noticed when its producer Jeb Sharp mentioned it in her Twitter. And I follow her on Twitter because there, she follows my place of work, International Crisis Group. In this episode of the podcasts, those two worlds have slid into sync. 

How We Got Here, episode 4, is about the Cambodian genocide trials, and moves on to talk about Alison Des Forges, who did astonishing work for Human Rights Watch in Rwanda. I admit I had never heard of her before last week, but she was clearly well known and admired by my colleagues. 

In this podcast, an anthropologist called Susan Cook spoke of how Alison Des Forges, and of how media isn't enough to stop genocide, yet genocide must be documented. This matters to me, and it's why I've ended up, albeit briefly, in Crisis Group's Communications Unit.

The topics for the How We Got Here podcast have all hit the spot for me, and I have been promoting them around the office. If you are interested in these fields, or, to put it simply, if the title appeals to you, then subscribe to How We Got Here.

Finally, a note that I am not staff at Crisis Group, and what I write here is my own opinion, not Crisis Group's.

A poem about Ireland today

A slight change in direction this time, with poetry from a radio producer of yore. Kevin O'Connor is my uncle, and one of his docs came to mind as I was doing a fantasy job interview for Radio Lab in the parks south of Brussels at the weekend.

In the mid-90s he made a documentry about his late brother, which included his sister describing the childhood home something like this: Grand-da lived at the top of the house. I suppose you could say Grand-da was the the matriarch of the family.

I remember my mother asking him why he left that in, it was embarrassing (a show was the term used, I expect), and (as I remember it), he fudged the answer.

The RL context was as a way of illustrating humanity in a radio item. Especially in contrast to Hugh Manatee.

Moving on to the poem in question. Typos are the artist's own. And I admit I can only see reference to The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Let me know what more what I'm missing.

ODE TO A *ANKER

Well Seanie, you’re the Boyo
Built the Bank - and broke the Bank
Skipped away to nurse your wounds
which were all our dreams...

“ Each man kills the thing he loves”
As you’ve oft heard said
‘The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with sword...’

And some with hefty borrowings
Of many, many millions...
as Pensioners in public weep
for their lost shares of comforts

Well, Seanie, you’re the boyo
brought a country to its knees
Fitzpatrick of the silver locks
Put the rest of us in hock

So here’s to you, me boyo, Seanie
Did what no else could do
Built the bank and broke the bank
and flushed our savings down the loo....

Kevin 0’Connor

AudioDocumentary.org

Hat-tip to the Hearing Voices blog, on AudioDocumentary.org. I've never seen it before, but it looks good – like a more demanding version of Public Radio Redux. Basically, a collection or short reviews and pointers to good audio. 

It is all US stuff, as far as I can see, but it goes beyond just NPR and PRI, to include traditional media outlets that are not traditional audio outlets, plus some more. 

Nice links bar on the right too gives me a couple of new sites to check out. 

So far, thumbs up!

Dinky explanation of frequency effects.

Here's a nice (and seasonal) explanation, in pictures alone, of beat frequencies. 

Now maybe the same guy can answer my age-old question: Can you ever hear someone else's tinnitus? I admit the answer is most likely no…

A few months of freebasing

Let me outline my listening since about November:

In the build-up to the new series of Radio Lab last Autumn, I set up a recorder (Wiretap Pro) to save for me the Real Audio streams of older shows, when the "lab" meant a weekly experiment in radio from all over (in contrast to how it's nowgenerally taken as "this is a radio show about science". Anyhoo). I listened on my pocket recorder (Olympus LS-10 -- it can double as a mp3 player after all), on the commute to work, and listened to each episode of the new series twice.

And then it was all gone. Cold turkey.

Next I somehow or other discovered the unofficial podcast of Jonathan Goldstein's WireTap on CBC. I had about two years worth of episodes to listen to. So I did. They fitted very neatly into my commute -- that meant two episodes a day. I love it. And I think it started to show in my podcasts too... ;-)

And then... it was all gone too. I'm down to one a week. 

Twitter wanderings recently brought me to Ear Ideas, and a podcast in praise of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales (the stuff of my childhood), by none other than Stephen Fry. And so I have discovered Stephen Fry's Podgrams. And so I am freebasing again! There is thankfully a backlog, so this morning I listened to something about a year old. And it nearly had me punching the air for joy. Not much to say about the format -- it's just about noticeable. What matters, here as much as in Radio Lab and Wire Tap, is what is communicated. Which really is a pointless statement as that is what everyone does in radio anyway! Maybe though this is a pointer to the difference between an art and a craft. For sure, mixing the two can tie you up -- as it has done for me. As a trainer, I may well have unnerved people as much as other editors did me.

Am I out of the knots yet? Over the fear of people that stops you micing a situation right? Not quite. But if you fear people, you'll only occasionally make great radio. Does the thread follow out to all of art too?

Radio Today Obama splash page

How cool is this? The splash page on the front page of community station Radio Today in Johannesburg, South Africa.

From Blogger Pictures

I don't bloody believe it.

I mean, it always made sense: Kinder Eggs were from Switzerland, right? German name, but it's chocolate, and white and reddish-orange, so it's Swiss, naturally. But no, no, no. 

The Shocking Truth.