I’m constantly tweaking the output on my show on Radio One Mallorca, dropping things that I feel are a little tired, like the competition I did called “Flip It & Reverse It” which, although got quite a few regular entrants, I felt had run its course and it was certainly no “Pop Master” so I dropped it and I simply play another song instead.
I had planned to launch a new competition but decided to try a “Breaking (Cheesy) News” bit instead, it means a bit more production work every day but it’s a mildly amusing feature and fairly short too meaning I get back to the hits quicker. I’m not sure yet whether to make it a permanent feature in the show or not. I’m very self critical, so I’ll listen back to recordings and decide over the coming weeks.
I’ve recently started playing a “Soultrain Anthem” in each hour of my show too, featuring songs that were floorfillers at the Soul Weekenders across the UK and at the massive Bank Holiday “Soultrain” gigs where I used to be a regular Guest DJ back in Bristol.
On the production side of things, I’ll admit here and now that I’ve always been a bit of a sung jingle anorak. I believe a good radio station jingle not only sounds great on air, but it enhances recall. I mean if you find yourself singing the name of the radio station either out loud or in your head, you are going to be 100% sure as to which radio station you’re listening to at that particular moment. Radio 2 back in the UK still uses them and all of the big commercial radio stations I was lucky enough to work on used them too: Red Dragon FM, 103.2 Power FM, 96.4 FM The Wave. I was actually in attendance when the vocal tracks were laid down at The Wave’s package recording session.
Well I’ve taken the plunge and acquired sung jingles for my show. I’m really pleased with them. It’s so tempting to constantly play them out on-air but I’m trying to use restraint and am only using them as TOH (Top Of Hour) openers, ramps for talk ups and as end of show drops. I have the acapella musical stems and the jingle beds too so remixing them in the future is possible as well.
In other news:
Well the BIG news this week was the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer announcement. Experts are hoping for a roll-out early next year. It’s been an awful year for so many people so I’ve got everything crossed that the vaccine proves to be a success and we defeat this virus and return to normalcy as soon as possible.