I was delighted to be interviewed by my former Shine Radio colleague and college student Gareth Boyes for World Radio Day. Here's how the full conversation went:
What’s the history of Express FM and what are the aims behind the station?
Express FM was one of the first community radio stations to be awarded a full five-year licence by Ofcom in March 2006, the same month in which it launched, and the initial aim of providing a platform for the people and organisations of Portsmouth to “express” themselves, educating and training volunteers, facilitating discussion about community matters and strengthening links within the city remains at the forefront of our mission to deliver informative, interesting and inspiring local radio.
How does Express FM support local artists and musicians?
Championing Pompey’s vibrant local music scene is one of Express FM’s greatest achievements over many years.
Through our weekly show dedicated to artists and bands in the city, to showcasing their songs across the schedule every day and our esteemed Local Music Chart that is voted for by listeners, we are proud to provide a platform for musicians in our area many of whom were / are destined for big things.
We recently teamed up with Victorious Festival to announce the launch of its Road To Victorious competition which will see a lucky artist / band within our community get a professional video recording session and play a string of UK festivals this year including Victorious at the end of August.
What are some of the challenges you face in content creation and curation?
Being a small not-for-profit organisation on a budget, staffed largely by a team of passionate volunteers who have to earn a living elsewhere, we never have been and never will be as well-resourced as competing media - but that doesn’t stop us fulfilling our mission.
My involvement in various local radio stations over the years has taught me what can be achieved by forging the right partnerships, and that a willingness to work together to achieve common aims is sometimes all you need to really boost the quality of your offer.
This is demonstrated at Express with our existing partners, including the University of Portsmouth where we are based, and since joining the station as Content Manager seven months ago we have been keen to add some exciting new ones.
Our focus is always on the listener and we are accountable to them, so it’s essential for us to make sure everything we do puts their best interests before anything else.
At the same time, it is important for volunteers to enjoy what they do for Express because they’re giving their own time to it - and I’m proud of the fact every member of our team recognises their commitment to the local community and our station’s primary point of difference.
Another challenge is the rapidly increasing importance of upping digital content. Today, the most successful radio stations are more than just that - they are multi-media brands - and must go where consumers are.
I have started to look at how we can grow Express FM’s podcast offering, including allowing listeners to catch up on core interviews by following our feed in their chosen aggregator and I believe this is of equal importance to the linear radio station.
What does World Radio Day mean to you, and why do you think radio remains relevant today?
While surveys show radio is still the most trusted medium for information, and it is still used as a purveyor of it more often than you might think, there’s no end to ways of finding out that information in this day and age.
So what is it about radio that gives it the same reach now that it had twenty five years ago?
Humans. Connection. Friendship. It’s entertaining, it’s emotional; it makes you smile, it makes you sad; it makes you think, it makes you angry. Fundamentally, radio always makes you feel something.
It also benefits from the fact it’s still very convenient for most people given it is often consumed in the background while doing other things unlike other media that requires more of your time and energy.
Another key factor is how the industry has never stopped working to reinvent itself - from visualisation and Alexa skills, to interaction via WhatsApp, big-name personalities and even ad-free subscription services among many other things.
As I touched on earlier, meeting consumers where they are and embracing the likes of TikTok and Instagram to showcase great content is crucial nowadays. Linear radio is just one of many platforms people get it. By distributing across as many other platforms as you can, not only are you maximising potential reach for that content, you’ll likely end up boosting the linear station in the process.
What do you most enjoy about having a career in radio?
I’d be the world’s biggest liar if I said the geekery had nothing to do with it. I love the tech and production side (when it works properly at least). But no-one on or off air should take for granted the intimacy of radio.
We are talking to talking to and connecting with one person directly. As an industry, we work together on something that, quite literally, has the power to make someone’s day.
It’s a privilege to be let into someone's car, home, office or wherever their ears happen to be at any given moment.
What advice do you have for someone looking to start a career in radio broadcasting?
Radio is showbusiness, as I was once told a good few years ago, and this rings even more true now it is predominantly a national medium.
It’s easy to see how local commercial stations have merged into big networks and, most recently, local BBC stations have faced catastrophic cuts and assume there are fewer opportunities.
In reality, thanks to the digital revolution of our business coupled with having more national stations than ever before, there are so many new and exciting roles in our industry.
Many years ago, most aspiring presenters would bang on the door of their local station and maybe start out making the tea before getting an overnight show.
These days, presenters are multi-platform content creators and by using social media effectively to get your name out there and engage an audience you will become instantly more attractive to a future employer.
By putting the work in, showing your passion, having faith and making the right connections, you can achieve great things.
How does your station involve itself in community events and initiatives?
Express has been involved in many big and small local events over the years.
Our main annual fixture is three days of live broadcasting from Victorious Festival in Southsea over the August bank holiday weekend, but as a local station we’re equally keen to attend more fetes, markets and other small-scale community initiatives this spring and summer.
Just over a week ago, we took our annual partnership with Southsea’s Icebreaker Festival to another level with nine hours of live programming including interviews with and songs from many of the local musicians who played.
As part of our relaunch for 2024, we now have rotating “what’s on” information throughout the day which showcases upcoming events from charities, community groups and other organisations in the Portsmouth area, and we’re looking to become a more important platform for them going forward.
What makes Express FM unique in Portsmouth?
Of those available on all broadcast platforms, in terms of locality, Express FM is the closest radio station to its listeners in Portsmouth and provides a dedicated focus on life in the city - not London, not Hampshire, not Winchester, or that other city up the road, just Portsmouth and the smaller areas nearby that look to it.
What’s more, it is made by Pompey people who walk down the very same high street and along the same seafront as those that tune in.
What's the process behind selecting shows and music?
Unlike commercial groups, I don’t have access to data from large-scale music research. This often involves gathering a mix of existing and/or target listeners in an auditorium, playing them x number of songs and scoring them against a number of factors including whether they know it, like it or don’t want to hear it so often.
As a programmer, it is important that I understand the tastes of our target demographic (35-54 year-olds living / working in Portsmouth). I like to go a step further and think of a particular personal friend, colleague or family member who meets that profile and what they would be tuning in for.
Our “Core” songs are the most familiar and most popular spanning almost 50 years (from Don’t Stop Me Now and Never Gonna Give You Up, to Wannabe and Moves Like Jagger).
Every other song played, in every other category including our “A” & “B” lists (new music) and “Recurrents” (recent tracks that have cut through) and “Spice” (suitable classics heard less frequently to add variety) or a request, MUST complement these.
Presenters understand that as little as one track played that sticks out like a sore thumb can cause irreparable damage to the station, and that playing a single inappropriate record for one person who's written in has the potential to quietly turn away a hundred others.
Our Ofcom licence declares that the main type of music broadcast over the course of each week must be “recent and current chart hits” - a key commitment fulfilled in part by providing seven hours of youth-orientated music and content overnight for the sizeable 15-24 population in this university city.
New specialist shows are commissioned where significant local demand can be demonstrated. In other words, does it pass the test of having a positive impact on life in Portsmouth?
I’m not of the view that every minute of every hour of every day should be about Pompey because our listeners don’t live in a bubble. I’ve always been clear that relevant beats local for the sake of it, but obviously local is our primary point of difference and should be used at any given opportunity.
Do you see radio broadcasting changing over the next decade?
Significantly.
Firstly, in terms of infrastructure, RAJAR data just published for the final quarter of last year shows a whopping 70% of weekly listening hours consumed digitally with analogue (FM / AM) now accounting for less than a third of these.
Four years ago, the UK government delayed a digital switchover until at least 2032 and said there will be at least a further two years of broadcasting from the point at which it’s announced. I’m sure we will see a natural end to all AM transmissions sooner as operators continue to hand these licences back - the figures show it’s a dead man walking and therefore hard to justify the extortionate energy costs.
DAB, currently the biggest individual listening platform, will gradually decrease as connected cars and other devices become more prominent.
That said, new cars in which DAB+ comes as standard will be around for many more years and it will continue to be an essential part of dashboards for some time yet. Online listening is creeping up and up but, at this stage, only just over half of the 42% share enjoyed by DAB.
Secondly, before that happens, as soon as parliamentary time is allocated, there will be further deregulation of analogue commercial radio licences to allow for the scrapping of designated music formats and the discontinuation of all regional programming.
There was significant relaxation of the rules around “approved areas” and co-locating / content-sharing among analogue licences in 2017/18 but these requirements will be removed altogether. It’s right that the market is free to make its own programming decisions, especially given how much less-regulated competition it now has compared with when the rules were first drafted decades ago.
Thirdly, AI will enhance day-to-day operations and while we will hear indistinguishable computer-generated voices to an extent, it will never replace the human connection of radio which will continue to be its greatest advantage going forward.
I can see more tech companies / brands attempting to bounce their ball in radio’s court, but so far few have actually understood how to play the game. This may change, so existing broadcasters should continue to prepare - the battle for big personalities will only intensify as we move to a level playing field on an international scale.
One thing’s for sure, just as it always has done, radio will keep reinventing itself to remain a part of people’s lives. Platforms for great content will come and go; creators will come and go. Linear and on-demand will continue to serve their respective purposes and people will continue to get what they want, when they want it and where they want it.
There will be continued evolution and change, but we’ve been waiting decades for the demise of our great medium that has been predicted by so-called “experts”. Call me cynical, but might that be because… it will never happen?
Spoiler alert: it won’t.
