Good luck Absolute, but that's enough rebranding of radio stations

The Beatles' A Day in the Life finally heralded the death of Virgin Radio and the phoenix-like emergence of Absolute Radio this morning.

After a slightly pompous mission statement about what the company thought ‘real music' is, which included the suggestions ‘gigs not photo shoots' and ‘built to last not flavour of the month', breakfast DJ Christian O'Connell declared that today was ‘The first day in your life of Absolute Radio'.

It's difficult not to wish them well, given the state of the radio industry, although I still find the Absolute name a bit underwhelming.

Rather more fleet of foot and less self-reverential, over at O'Connell's former station, Xfm, his replacement Alex Zane, lampooned the relaunch by temporarily re-naming his own charge as ‘Tremendous Radio' at exactly the same time that Absolute emerged from a rather lengthy and largely Beatles-inspired music mash-up.

With Capital 95.8 being rebranded, Xfm being disbanded from some cities and other stations being subsumed into the Jazz FM network there has been too much change in radio.

Radio owners would do well to remember that while it might just be possible to whip media buyers and branding experts into some sort of excitement about these changes, listeners probably don't care that much.

Sky shows more PSB commitment than BBC....again

Congratulations is once again due to Sky for its excellent coverage of the Help for Heroes rugby from Twickenham on Saturday. Because of Sky's involvement - and that of the other sponsors - all the £1.1m raised from the ticket sales went to the charity for injured servicemen, for whom, unfortunately, the statutory authorities seem all too ready to neglect.

I'm constantly frustrated that Sky does not exploit its rights to live Premiership rugby to the full although this has been tempered somewhat by its support of this cause and by the fact that ITV has seized the opportunity to run a highlights package on ITV4 on Sunday, which is something that was open to the BBC but it chose to ignore.

The BBC also chose to ignore the Help for Heroes game in any of its news and sports coverage, which I think is pretty shameful.

It seems to me that unless you are interested in the Notting Hill Carnival (note to BBC TV presenters - the word ‘carnival', much like ‘medal', is not a verb and therefore should not be used as such) or the Glastonbury festival, there are pretty thin pickings on the BBC. But then again, this is just another example of deliberate neglect by our statutory broadcasting authority.

Five's breaks break the mould

Regular readers (hello mum) may recall that I recently called into question whether Five has ever managed to shake-off its image as little more than a provider of cheap frequency to advertisers' schedules.

While I still maintain that Dawn Airey has much to do upon her arrival as chairman to turn Five into becoming a must-have on any media buyers wish-list, there is strong evidence that the channel is working hard to earn this place.

Break junctions and bumpers - bear with me - may not sound like the most interesting of things but they are increasingly crucial in order to retain viewers throughout the day, and this is important not just for the channels themselves but also the advertisers in the breaks in between programmes.

Real credit is therefore due to Five for attempting to inject a little excitement into the breaks by running frequent and genuinely creative bursts that are intended to describe the brand values of the channel and its programming - something that critics have long said that the channel has struggled to communicate.

Although Channel 4, ITV and the BBC have tried to liven up their break junctions, often, the executions are so few as to have become predictable and tired - for example who can't have failed to notice that when the BBC has hippos swimming in a circle a nature programme is sure to follow.

Five's move is not without risks and therefore shows real confidence in its tone and product. And for that, it should be applauded.

Marketers make good CEOs; media sales people do not

Some months ago, we ran a forum asking the question whether marketing directors made good CEOs. The outcome was a resounding ‘yes'.

They have the ability - acquired through learning their craft - to motivate their colleagues by an understanding of what makes them tick and they have an in-built dedication to generating fresh demand because their training has taught them to focus on growth.

There are numerous examples of marketing directors rising to the top of the pole - Dianne Thompson at Camelot, Stuart Murphy at 118 118, Andy Duncan at Channel 4 and, of course, Martin Glenn at Birds Eye. It is no coincidence that all of these companies are innovative and successful largely because of the background of their leaders.

However do media sales people make good CEOs? I'm afraid I think the answer is probably no. The skills that they have - competitiveness, aggression, a lack of empathy - do not seem to translate well into the boardroom when a degree of tact is surely required in bringing others on side. Given the difficult business decisions that will need to be made by most companies in the coming months, these attributes look decidedly irrelevant - I think it will be the former marketers who will succeed in steering their businesses through rocky times rather than the former sales people. Or am I being unfair?

Channel 4 is in danger of sending out mixed messages

Channel 4 cannot have taken the decision to cut its marketing budget lightly. In its chief executive, Andy Duncan, it has a leader who, unlike some of his rivals, is fully aware of the potency of marketing.

Nonetheless, Channel 4 has had to make some tough decisions as it faces up to a future where its funding model is in doubt and it has to wrestle with the dilemma of delivering distinct public service programming without any guaranteed revenue streams.

But it is still surprising that the decision has been made at a time when it is the job of all media owners to listen to the advice of the IPA and show their confidence in the ability of marketing to deliver results by maintaining spends in order to encourage the advertisers that use their channels to do the same. Otherwise surely isn't Channel 4 sending out mixed messages and negating all the good work of Thinkbox?

Is killing puffins really worse than killing Palestinians?

Astonishingly there are more people out there who find the sight of Gordon Ramsay humanely catching then killing a puffin and eating it more offensive than that of a Palestinian man being shot in the head by an Israeli soldier.

That's the latest revelation to emerge from Ofcom, which subsequently spent an unknown number of man hours determining whether or not The F Word had breached any of its programming codes about the ‘generally accepted standards broadcasters must ensure that material which may cause offence is justified by the context'.

While I'm not necessarily a massive fan of Ramsay, the fact is that eating puffins in Iceland - where the piece was filmed - is apparently a common practice, which is something I didn't know. Unfortunately, the shooting of Palestinians is also a common practice in Israel but perhaps people are so immune to it that they couldn't be bothered to ring in and complain.

Geldof's Peace Channel proves Homer was right

Bob Geldof's launch of the Peace Channel - which ‘brings online video and user-generated content to global conflict resolution' - proves that Homer Simpson was right. There really isn't anything that rock stars can't do or know.

According to the press release, the online TV channel will cover the world's wars and potential flashpoints and it is being launched at the Point of Peace summit in Stavanger.

It sounds awful - aside from the astonishing arrogance of the man, thinking that he, and he alone, can resolve world peace - who exactly is going to watch it? Geldof seems to think it will be ‘a global arena for anyone who wants to share and access information about ongoing conflicts'. So sounds like ideal viewing for war voyeurs and potential jihadists.

ITV loses blue-chip status while Charles Allen gets another plum job

It'll be a sad day indeed if, as expected, ITV drops out of the FTSE 100 index and loses its blue-chip status, and not just for those people whose pension pot is tied up in the firm.

Over-regulation, the state of the TV ad market and most importantly the restrictions imposed by CRR are to blame for this. It's ironic that in the same week that ITV is due to fall from stock market grace, the chief architect of CRR - former chief executive, Charles Allen - has picked up a number of plum non-executiveships to add to his portfolio.

As well as being chairman of Global Radio, Allen is now a non-exec of Virgin Media and Big Brother-producer Endemol. While few will doubt that Allen managed to get rid of some Government restrictions that enabled Granada and Carlton to finally merge to create ITV, he was not a great visionary for the broadcaster and unfortunately this is a legacy that his predecessor is having to deal with.

I've upset Five

Oh dear. Five are upset with a media analysis that I wrote in last week's mag.

In a letter they have produced lots of figures that counter the argument and the data that we published. There are some good points (see next week's Marketing to see it in full) but boasting that Five has managed to out-rate Channel 4 more than 40 times in peak looks an impressive statistic but doesn't stand up to closer analysis. When you consider that because of its heavy public service obligations Channel 4 is forced to show worthy minority-interest programmes that by their very nature would not rate highly, it doesn't seem that significant.

Anyway I'm left with the impression that Barb audience data can be cut so many ways depending on audience, daypart and measurement that you can virtually prove anything. Perhaps to some extent I was guilty of this too.

I do however concede, though, that every channel relies on too few programme formats - ITV1 with Coronation Street, Channel 4 with Big Brother etc. Five's failure to innovate with new formats just shows and dependence on Five is just the more striking. I'm also embarrassed to admit I spelt Carl Ratcliff's name wrong. Apologies.

Radio is TV's retirement home

Selina Scott's decision to sue Five for alleged age discrimination has reignited the debate about the treatment of older presenters by television companies.

According to reports, Five welshed on an agreement to use Scott as news presenter when Natasha Kaplinsky was off on maternity leave. As has been covered extensively elsewhere, other presenters - such as Kate Adie, Anna Ford and Moira Stuart - have also found themselves thrown in the news dustbin, amid accusations that the TV industry is only interested in ‘autocuties'.

However I think I've found a retirement home for these TV veterans - commercial radio. Magic 105.4, which also has Dr Fox as a presenter, has just signed up 80s pop temptress and avid gardener Kim Wilde to present a weekend show. David ‘Kid' Jensen, 58, also still finds work on radio most recently on Planet Rock. Fluff Freeman was also working up until his hundredth birthday, I think, too while annoying youth presenter Tim Westwood is surely the wrong side of 50.

Virgin Radio, run by Absolute Radio, renamed Absolute Radio - how absolutely boring

So after months of trying to build up some sort of excitement about Virgin Radio's enforced name change with promises that the new name would only be chosen once all stakeholders had been ‘engaged with', the radio station in association with ad agency Albion has come up with Absolute Radio.

In a remarkable coincidence, this is also the name of part of the consortium that bought the ailing radio station, the other being the Times of India Group, which I suppose they decided after a lengthy process involving ‘complex criteria' was not an appropriate alternative.

Times of India with Absolute Radio bought Virgin Radio in June and promised to spend £15m on the new branding. There is a key lessons here - don't try and build up expectations and excitement when you are going for the obvious name otherwise it'll end up looking distinctly underwhelming.

In-house radio industry ads are as convincing as Chris Langham was in court

You can always tell when ad market is faltering because the radio industry starts running ads promoting how effective the medium is. Some years ago, Chris Langham was roped in by its then trade body, the Radio Advertising Bureau, to conduct spoof interviews with real marketing directors on why they advertised on radio.

They were mildly amusing enough at the time - although didn't seem particularly targeted and I'm not sure how effective they were - but at least they gave the general impression that the radio industry was willing to use its inventory to promote the medium.

Much has changed since them, not least that the fact that Langham had a spectacular fall from grace after being convicted and gaoled for downloading images of child porn. All of the RAB's top staff have been changed, the radio industry has gone through a period of consolidation that now means that it no longer resembles the one it did just six or seven years ago and internet penetration and use has, like it or not, changed the way we think about media planning for good.

But those radio ads are back, now featuring comedian and writer David Schneider, once again featuring spoof interviews with real marketing directors. The strategy is exactly the same and the message is the same.

I think the problem with this is that advertisers will begin to suspect that rather than show how effective radio is, running house Radio Centre ads is a way of getting rid of surplus inventory that the radio companies cannot sell. Now who'd admit to being surprised if the Outdoor Advertising Association started to run something similar?