20th Century Local Radio Classics (1994-1999)

 

Local Radio was always a bit rubbish. 

We kind of knew it was rubbish but we loved it anyway. It wasn't glossy or star-studded like Radio 1 but that was part of the charm. It was also the only way you could hear Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood on the radio because the BBC decided it was too rude to be played on wholesome, family friendly Radio 1 by their wholesome, family friendly Disc Jockeys. 

In the 70s and 80s, commercial radio was local radio for local people.

 When I was very young there was a station called Radio Aycliffe and they'd play requests. They might mispronounce your name and you weren't allowed to pick the records they played, but that wasn't the point - for those few seconds you were famous! 

On my sixth birthday they played a song just for me - 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor. It confused the hell out of me in 1979 but it was rather... apt, as it turns out.

Radio 1 might have had the same presenters as Top of The Pops but they didn't have late night phone-ins. On local radio you could phone up and tell them a joke or offer to sing them a song - and they'd let you do it. They might insult you or cut you off half way through but it felt like anything could happen.

Rumour had it that one of the presenters was 'let go' after a graphic on-air conversation with a local female-night-worker. That never happened on Radio 1.*

 

*There's probably quite a few jokes to be made about nothing dodgy ever happening at the BBC - so go right ahead and make them, I'm all for audience participation.

And of course, local radio had adverts because that's how they paid the bills. Sometimes you'd hear brilliant adverts that made you laugh but mostly they'd be cheap and cheerful jingles that were just a bit too catchy... (I tried to find the old Burtree Caravans jingle that I used to hear in the early 80s, but it doesn't seem to be on youtube or any of those vintage radio sites)

 

I ended up working for local stations in the mid-90s - first at TFM (owned by Metro Radio) in Stockton-On-Tees and then at Century Radio (something to do with Border TV) in Gateshead. 

Like most work-places it was felt like being back at school (or maybe that was just me). There'd be gossip about what happened at the week-ends. We'd get told off if we were late to the Monday morning meetings. People would have to sneak out behind a fence for a cigarette. One of my co-workers used to go through the staff phone list and put a little 'X' next to the names of anybody he'd 'do'. And we all got bollocked after somebody put a sign on the toilet door reminding people to flush AND use air-freshener to 'mask the smell of their shit gas'.

I was writing radio adverts for local stations (to help pay my bills as well as theirs) and a lot of time was spent talking to small businesses and trying to get them on air. 

 I spent hours on industrial estates or in car showrooms - having long discussions about whether a phone number should be repeated two or three times in an advert that only lasted 30 seconds.

We were supposed to make creative, funny 'ear catching' adverts - but it was an impossible job. Sometimes I'd be working on 12-14 scripts per day and it was tough to come up with a dozen new or dazzlingly brilliant ideas. 

A few weeks into my copywriting career my boss took me to one side and said that 'some' (he wouldn't name names) salespeople thought my scripts were all starting to sound the same. 

I was churning out between 50 and 60 scripts every week and I was getting bored writing them so it wasn't really a big surprise that people were getting bored hearing them.

I always thought we should spend more time co-writing scripts, but a lot of copywriters liked to keep their best ideas (plus any potential bonuses, awards and 'glory') to themselves. 

There were also rumours that some of the superstar copywriters - the people who always seemed to be full of confidence and were full of fabulous, witty ideas - were off their tits on cocaine a lot of the time. I could well imagine highly paid creatives at some big London ad agency snorting a few lines before a brainstorming session, but I never saw anybody taking performance enhanching substances in Thornaby or Gateshead.

Years later I found out that my folks assumed I'd spent a lot of my radio copywriting career taking drugs and hanging out in strip clubs. They couldn't understand why I was always broke. They must have imagined me living the high life, surrounded by topless models and face down in a mountain of cocaiine like Tony Montana or Henry Hill... but the wildest, craziest thing we ever did was go to the pub next door for a pint of lager and a cheese toastie at lunchtime. 

The pay for copywriters was pretty shit. We didn't get commission like the sales-people did. Now and again we'd be offered gift vouchers as an incentive to sell more scripts but there was never any cash bonuses. We were always told there'd be a 'profit share' at the end of every three months but we'd get to the end of each quarter and be told the department hadn't made a profit and we should all be grateful to still have jobs. Maybe that was the most 'creative' thing about Local Radio - the accountancy.

I was incredibly timid - so I often got into trouble for letting advertisers say daft or inappropriate things. Window and Kitchen Companies always wanted to say they were 'The Best' (most of them asked if they could use 'that Tina Turner song') but we were only supposed to let them make claims they could prove.

I also got into trouble for letting an agency run a 'smutty' advert about a bloke not being able to programme his Video Recorder. I was phoned at home on a Sunday afternoon - 'just to let you know,' my boss said, 'the Managing Director's wife has taken exception to that Sony ad. I don't think there'll be any disciplinary action but you need to be aware that it has been noted...' 

That was a phrase we heard quite often - 'it has been noted'. If we were late for work, had too many coffee breaks or left at 5.29 instead of 5.30pm then we'd be told that 'it has been noted'.

Anything that had 'been noted' was clearly going to be written down, kept on file and used as evidence against us if we ever applied for a promotion or asked for more money. 

I thought I was going to get sacked for the 'smutty' ad, but I lived to fuck-up another day. 

I think, sometimes, I really did want to get sacked. I thought if I was unemployed it would motivate me to do something different. Maybe even somthing better. Any kind of change had to better than more weeks, months and years of long commutes and window commercials.

Car adverts were also a complete pain in the arse - there was always too much information to cram in. 

Car dealers wanted every single feature included - and you were lucky if you could get away without having a credit example gabbled at the end of each commercial ('Terms and conditions apply. Your legs are at risk if you fail to keep up with your daily payments. Typical APR 666%'). 

You never had much time to do something funny or memorable before you were into a big long list of things like 'metallic paint', 'stereo radio cassette' and 'walnut fascia'(?). 

I certainly didn't have the experience or the wit to do anything very clever with those precious remaining seconds. 

Radio adverts started to irritate me - everything was too rushed, frantic and busy. I hated hearing the bloody things. I still do. 

It was much easier to get a jingle made - but it was also more expensive. Most advertisers couldn't afford 5 or £6,000 for a musical identity from Metro Radio but once I was working at Century we could look at alternatives. 

There was a bloke in Manchester who offered to put jingles together for about £500. They were cheap, cheerful and incredibly catchy. They were almost a throwback to the stuff I'd heard when I was a kid listening to Radio Tees. And it saved us having to come up with new ideas all the time! 

Sadly, the station managers didn't like them at all.

 

I was told they sounded 'cheap and tacky' - and I suppose they did. The advertisers were happy and the sales reps were happy but I was told to remove all of the 'new' jingles from promotional tapes and showreels.

In the 90s and 00s, local stations were presenting a much more polished sound - usually because they were being bought by enormous corporations who wanted to link them together as 'brands.' 

Radio Tees had been bought by Metro Radio Group (who re-christened it TFM) and then the Metro Radio Group was bought by Emap - and not much later Century Radio was bought by Capital and they all ended up being bought by even bigger fish...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CkhMIVvHIc

 Once local stations became part of big networked brands, I knew they wouldn't need local copywriters or producers - it would be far more efficient to have scripts written by anyone who had a fax machine (damn, that makes me feel ancient). 

I didn't have the ambition or courage to buy a fax machine and start up on my own - so I made my excuses and left after a brief (and very happy) stay at Galaxy 102 in Manchester.

 But after all that - my favourite adverts were for products that never existed: Century Radio had two separate transmitters (one for Tyneside and one for Teesside) and most advertisers only put their commercials on one of them. Sometimes the ad breaks didn't run to the same lengths, so we had to make fake 'filler' commercials just to balance them up.

 

Mystery Hotline Fake/filler Advert (1999)

 

On one of the last afternoons I worked at Century we sat in the studio and made up a load of adverts for fake products and businesses - Tartan Paint, Powdered Water, Hot Meat Squares and Mystery Hotline. They were cheap, thrown together quickly and a bit rubbish. It was probably the most fun I had working in local radio. 

 

Lots more local radio memories here:

https://funsizemagrs.blogspot.com/2020/11/superscreen-aka-worst-radio-ad-in-world.html

https://funsizemagrs.blogspot.com/2020/11/my-glamorous-showbiz-memories-jimmy.html

https://funsizemagrs.blogspot.com/2020/11/name-dropping-more-glamorous-local.html

https://funsizemagrs.blogspot.com/2020/11/we-were-teesside-tfm-radio.html