Thoughts from the Radio Production in the North Conference

This event goes into my diary as the "must go to" event of the year. Why you ask? For one it is hear in the North West, secondly it is all about radio, and thirdly it is aimed at a growing part of my customer base - the independent radio production sector.  This year the organisers continued their strategy to make it a national conference rather than a regional one and that is great as long as it stays in the region. They also took that expansion and for the second half of the day presented the international view and opportunites for our sector to expand beyond our shores.

We started with a great batch of examples of radio produced by indies in the North and 3 of these examples had been across my hands. Cheque Book & Pen for Woolyback Productions, Merry Christmas Morris Minor for Pennine Productions and I Heart Milton Glazer for the now defunct All Out Productions.

With the conference becoming firmy planted on the national map, the BBC were there in strength with new things to say. We heard from several commisioners Piers Bradford from Radio 1 and 1Xtra, Jonathan Wall from 5 Live, Jeremy Skeet from World Service all outline a much more approachable flexible accessible commisioning system which is long overdue.


We heard from Chris Burns the BBC Audio & Vision Group Manager offering us access to the BBC Innovation Fund, understood to be worth around £500,000. It is designed to pay for ambitious projects which would not form part of the broadcaster’s usual commissioning rounds. She is keen to see more of the fund spent with radio indies. The push follows the extension of her role as the BBC bids to increase its transparency.

The keynote speech came from Time Davie whose is the BBC's Drector of Audio & Music announce a new BBC radio wide streamlined commisioning process.

The plan includes:

• Replacing genre specific preferred supplier list with the introduction of Open Indie Criteria - available to all independent production companies across all of BBC radio
• Launch of a less complex budgeting process
• Confirmation of a simpler system of commissioning rounds
• Introduction of 10 percent Window of Creative Competition (WoCC) across BBC Audio and Music
• Appointment of Chris Burns, Audio and Music Group Manager as ‘Indie Champion’.

Chris's network-wide role will involve liasing with the stations, in-house production and external suppliers to act as a point of contact to “ensure fairness” and adopt best practices. Chris also plans to hold quarterly reviews with industry, with the first taking place in May following Radio 3’s commissioning round to gain feedback how the process can be improved.

We heard from Jane McCloskey BBC's Head of External Supply as part of a session on What Radio Can Do For Telly with Richard Horwood from Channel 6. He made an appeal to the our sector to come and collaborate and get involved in local TV but I remain to be convinced that they aren't just looking for ideas on the cheap. Jane identfied what is good about indies and asked us to come up with big ideas. This is a big ask, because as long as we are a cottage industry it is very difficult to spend the time developing big ideas that might not get taken up. We need a bigger slice of the cake than even the new Window of Creative Competition will offer. Jane also suggested having live web chats with commisioners and channel controllers as a way of improving access for those of us who don't live and work in the South East.

We heard from Steve England and Simon Prentice from S2Blue whose normal time of business is station jingles and making adverts for commerical radio, who told us about how they have done a 12 month deal with Manx Radio  for a 'soap' sponsored the Isle of Man Creamery and called Glen Castle. It became apparent that they are using actors form 'am dram' socities and writing it themselves to make the project affordable which generated a lively debate at the end of the session about not paying people in a 'profit making' making venture.

We had an interesting presentaion from Diane Lees who is Director General of the Imperial War Musem talking about their incredible sound archive and how is is being used. Now I have made some great audio CD projects using this archive that went into books with subjects like Women in War and 2nd World War. It is indeed an excellent resource and they use it in their own presentations too. If you have ever been to the Imperial War Museum North you will know what I mean.

On the international side we heard from Sally-Ann Wilson from the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association outline how they facilitate collaboration internationally but I couldn't help thinking this is fine for the 'state broadcasters' but how can we as small indies make a living in this area. Then is was Lorelei Harris's turn from RTE to outline their new commsioning process which was only formally opened up to indies following their Broadcast Act in 2009. So it is all very new and because of the EU they have to treat any pitch from anyone one in the EU with the same weight as their home grown sector and we heard a varied group of examples of the indie output from Ireland too. Again I have some reservations on how this might work as Lorelei rightly pointed out you need to understand the Irish culture and market to be able to effectively pitch into this market and again how can we when most of us are still functioning as a cottage industry. Maybe another theme that was threaded through the conference might hold the answer, collaboration?  We will see.

Was it worth it? Absolutely, Will I be there next year? You bet!