Capital Radio heads in One Direction

When Harry, the one who had all the hair, from the X-Factor created band One Direction did the ‘thank-yous’ at the Brit Awards he put his foot right in it.

He accidentally thanked BBC Radio 1 for all the support they’d given One Direction.  Unfortunately, the best single award had been sponsored by and included votes from iTunes users and Capital FM listeners.

Whoops.  That’s far worse than thanking Burger King for your lovely Big Mac.  Far worse.  Radio station bosses don’t have a sense of humour and take themselves very very seriously.

Sure enough, Capital FM bosses Ashley Tabor and Richard Park were not happy.

From that day forward they decreed that One Direction no longer existed.

They rushed back to their HQ and deleted all the One Direction songs from their music playout computers and barked instructions at their presenters to never ever mention One Direction or any of their members ever again, evah!  This included the presenters and songs played on their other pop-ish radio station, the one for the (older) ladies, Heart.

That’ll teach ’em they thought!

Later they also cancelled various bookings they had for One Direction and a co-sponsorship deal for a tour.

Now then, Capital FM and Heart supposedly reach over 14.5 million listeners across the UK between them.  So, this must be having a big dent on One Direction’s sales and popularity, yes?

Noooo!

The thing is, nobody’s even noticed.  It’s been nearly three months, and nobody cares.

There may have been a time when commercial radio could make or break artists, but that time has long gone. Commercial radio has no listener loyalty. That’s why listeners happily stab the button to find another station as soon as the presenters’ ‘links’ telegraphing the ads come on.  Likewise, if they want to hear One Direction, listeners will stab away until they hear One Direction.  Listeners are in charge now.  The big egos of those who run commercial radio stations are irrelevant to the listeners these days.  Unfortunately whilst the listeners know this, the radio station people don’t.  The radio station people think it’s still the 1970s which is when they last had control over the listeners and could hold artists to ransom.

The net effect from this tale of spitting dummies out of prams, of course, will be that Capital FM will be delivering far less listening fodder to its advertisers.  The only thing they are hurting is themselves.

Back in the 1970s a band desperately needed the support of a radio station – every radio station – in order to survive.  Not any more.

Yep, One Thing One Direction have just proved is that individual radio stations are largely irrelevant to today’s artists, and to 1D I say that’s What Makes You Beautiful!