Radio, Radio – Part II

Following on from my post a week or so ago, things have moved more quickly than I thought. I’ve listened to many programmes about Annie Nightingale, listened to a few old John Peel shows, and viscerally missed doing radio, in truth. The guilt of stripping away new music from Radio Stradbroke’s programming was weighing heavily, too, I must admit. So, after a little bit of thought, I’m starting to do a weekly 1-hour(ish) pre-record of the best new music of the week on Radio Stradbroke. I’ve worked out that this reduces my time commitment to about 2 hours a week, and still allows me to be committed to new music.

One important consideration for me was also the opportunity to reach a much wider international audience (especially as we don’t really upload podcasts to mixcloud anymore, due to their charging structure which would have been too much of a financial burden for an internet radio station to bear). So the pre-recorded #NewMusicFriday show will go out at 14:00 UK time every Friday (starting today, 19th January), and be repeated at 23:00 UK time the same day. So listeners in all US time zones will be able to hear new music, and maybe some people in the UK getting home from the pub. We shall see.

Another reason for scheduling the first airing for 14:00 is that this is the time that BBC Radio Norfolk and BBC Radio Suffolk switch from local shows to network shows, and I wanted to give people an alternative to listen to.

Reducing the show to 60 or so minutes also means I can be a lot more discerning with the stuff I play, and play some really far out material, some real underground stuff. Today’s show runs to 16 tracks, including a 7-minute one, which means it’s a packed show, but that’s what it’s all about. And I hope people who listen will find at least one track they hate and one track they love. That, again, is the purpose of good radio – get people out of their comfort zone.

And ever Saturday morning, I’ll put the running order up on here so folk can then go find what I’ve played at their own leisure.

I like new chapters.