Jack off about radio station imaging

I recently wrote about how radio station bosses have deliberately destroyed the public enjoyment of the work of the radio DJ (here).  The ultimate purpose was to rid music-radio of the ‘DJ’ and so remove the associated financial outlays.

(A radio station’s output held together by a radio DJ)

The article was picked up and published in other places.  It then provoked some responses and commentary.

A couple of commentators were discussing the finer points of the Jack FM ‘imaging’, saying how wonderful it is.

Although the thrust of my original article wasn’t actually about Jack FM itself, but more the concept of presenter-less radio, I thought I’d pick up on the thoughts about Jack FM’s imaging.

Can I start by saying that Jack FM’s imaging is excellent, yes.  Maybe it gets a little wearing after an extended exposure to it, but since most people don’t listen for more than 20 minutes, all is fine.

However, imaging does not a radio station make.  The only people who believe it does are jingle and imaging anoraks.  To be honest, they are the last people who should ever be let loose near a radio station’s output!  Watching them salivate over the call for imaging submissions for the ‘Radio 1 breakfast show with Nick Grimshaw’ should make the alarm siren sound long and loud.

To properly understand the proper use of imaging, we need to look back at a historical ‘great’ like Kenny Everett, or even, for our younger readers, the recently removed Chris Moyles.

Examine the output and we can see two elements working alongside each other to make the total package that grew listeners.  Both Everett and Moyles had great and appropriate imaging.  Everett singing, multi-tracking and using classical music, Moyles using full orchestras, professional singers and voice-over artists.  Both Everett and Moyles had very distinctive and strong personalities, understood and talked with their audience rather than announce things at them, and both used their imaging to add unique value to their presentation.

So, let’s imagine playing out an hour of songs and Kenny Everett’s imaging without Kenny Everett, or Chris Moyles’s imaging without Chris Moyles.  Guess what?  Yep, something would be missing.  The human being would be missing.

Only the human being can give it the human touch and make it all make sense.  The human being provides the real hook that intrigues and captivates the listener.  The human being makes it live and alive.  The human being is reactive to the here and now and interactive.  The human being can bounce off the audience in a way that even the prettiest imaging just can’t.  The human being makes the audience actually listen rather than just have the station on.

Great imaging needs a great human being alongside it in order for it to work properly.  And, that human being has to sound like a human being and not like just an anonymous reader of set pieces like a railway station announcer.

It’s the human being and his imaging that is the careful stitching that holds together the entire patchwork blanket that is a radio station’s output.  Without the human being it’s not a blanket but just a pile of small random prefabricated squares.