I’m not stuck in my ways. I’m not old. But I am very sad.
Jack FM has announced that it is going to expand its ‘brand’ to cover large parts of the UK, and to try to get it into London.
This doesn’t make me happy, although I’m not unduly negative about Jack FM as a ‘brand’. It’s, well, ‘ok’.
Since Jack FM only broadcasts in a few areas in the UK, I have to stop and explain the format to those of you who, within a few years will forget that it was I, back in 2013, who told you all about the radio format that you will, in the future, just accept as part of your daily life.
 |
| (This poor lad confined to history) |
Jack FM is a ‘brand’ that is licensed by a Canadian organisation who are doing very well out of it, as it gets homogenised and copied throughout the world. Tired old songs, usually rock-flavoured, are played back to back just like what would happen were you to leave an old person’s iPod on shuffle.
There are no radio presenters or ‘DJs’, just pre-recorded slightly odd sounding jokey one-liners. These tend to be a bit ‘sacastic’ and run along with the theme of the constantly repeated (to the point where you want to scream) sneering positioning statement of “We play what we want.” These one-liners are repeated round and round or renewed to make them slightly topical, and, well, are the bits that go inbetween the songs. Well, apart from all the adverts, news, and more adverts, of course. There are no humans or other personalities, just the sneering shouty man.
Back at non-Jack FM commercial radio stations, radio presenters have been told to shut the fuck up on most outputs (apart from the good stations with growing audiences), yet whilst they are saying next to nothing, the pre-recorded sweepers, positioning statements and ‘imaging’ and jingles are played excessively. By doing this, most commercial radio stations are already half-way to the Jack FM format. The listeners hear far more of the pre-recorded shouty bits than they hear the human being who should be thier friend playing the choons for them.
Yes, radio presenters are now so very unimportant compared to all the other ‘imaging’ that they can so very easily be removed altogether without the listener even noticing.
And that’s the plan. The radio stations that the Jack FM ‘brand’ will be taking over are the radio stations currently with these marginalised ‘presenters’. So, more radio presenter redundancies are on the horizon as commercial radio lurches into the sad new phase of presenterless, humanless broadcasting.
The problem about this for me is two fold.
Firstly, it appears to be ‘what listeners want’. The figures for Jack FM ‘branding’ seem to increase very nicely compared to how they were before Jack FM took over from the previous station name and format. Yep, listeners are listening to Jack FMs. For now.
Secondly, I am a fan of presented radio, because it’s what works on today’s pirates playing variations of dance music, it’s what historically worked on the offshore pirates with their massive audiences, and it’s radio at its most personal with its listener. It’s something an iPod on shuffle can’t do. Jack FM is exactly what an iPod on shuffle can do.
So, apart from feeling sorry for the last remaining batches of radio presenters being made redundant, I am sorry for the loss of the sparkle that made radio different. For now, the conch of creative radio is firmly in the hands of the BBC, which, thinking about it, probably explains why they have more listeners than the commercial sector.
England's England 