Category Archives: Radio
Is Netcasting really the Future for radio or just a Pipe Dream?
There are many old school people who deride Netcasting purely because they are not able to consult for them. Consultants fall into many categories. There are the very few that are good. Then there are failed broadcasters and managers. Followed by those who blow smoke up the backside of clients and sell pretty business cases with no substance. The worst of all are those that claim they know what the audience wants without ever going out an actually talking to the listeners – this group could easily be given the name – Radio Murderers.
The above group have no idea, in the main, what listeners want and bury their heads in the sand as to where audiences are to be found – this was evident during the Radio1 50th birthday. Some younger people had no idea how to tune in a radio and some had never touched what the consultant call a regular radio. Can I just state the obvious here, if the listeners don’t know what the device is how can it be the device delivering your content? More heads in the sand.
Humour me here. Many of the consultants come from an age where their peers would consider their music to be noisy rubbish. The then youngsters, who became consultants, poked fun at the old people for not knowing what the youngsters of the day wanted. So, the old people were saying their music was better and the young their music was best. As it goes both were right and wrong.
Now a simply rule for any broadcaster, you need to come up with a balance that encourages young people to start listening to radio so that when your older audience dies you still have an audience.
Again, it’s not rocket science.
We now return to those that don’t and will not use a single use radio. Smartphone are now the pocket radios of 2017, rather like those noisy young people, inc the so-called experts of today, who walked around with a NEW THING called a pocket radio. If you want an audience you need to be smart phone friendly.
Now to upset more people I know. Those that listen to the radio via expensive hi-fi’s are the smallest sector of radio listeners. Actually, they are beyond small. They are a mini-group. Yes, broadcasters have to be nice to them, but in reality, they can kill a radio station. High bandwidth only stations are dead in the water – rather like the thing had stopped DAB from taking off, ever engineered and what actually killed off the old BSB satellite system, more over engineering.
A single sentence, in this paragraph, Shout or Icecast is not the way to get an audience, lead with them at your peril, but at least one going for the anoraks/enthusiast.
N.B I don’t consult on radio. Our team and I are busy running radio that get real audiences, so don’t be offended when we don’t consult free of charge.
My final tip, is don’t be a vanity broadcaster, like most of the corporate are that are killing radio, yes, I do have the evidence to support that comment. Vanity radio is fine if you are a millionaire and don’t care if you get listeners or not. Once upon a time some station gained millions of listeners, now they have just specialist appeal and will only ever get a few hundred listeners – I do not consider that radio and never will. Of course you can run a vanity station, but remember that’s all it is.
Netcasting is the future, but you won’t make milions from – make your target BREAK EVEN
Gosh a Year since I’ve been here
Lots has happened in the past 12 month. I confess to using Facebook a lot for news these day, look me up and we’ll exchange friends requests.
RTI, Radio Tatras International, is back 24/7 and you can find us on so many platforms these days. Take a look at www.rti.fm and go to the tune-in page. Feel free to say ‘Hi’ via the contacts page as well.
Thanks for all the comments – you’re lovely people, you really are!!!!!!
Am I still being bad, for sure. When I’m bad – I’m good. When I’m very bad – I’m even better.
Don’t forget, never give up on your dreams. You are the only one who can kill your dreams, nobody else.
Have a GOOD ONE
Eric
How very kind of Mark Bradley!
Archive Content from my Blog
Antidrugs Video THE DRIVE filmed in AquaCity Poprad
Shot on location in AquaCity, Poprad, Slovakia and surrounding areas. Eric Wiltsher, Harry Cole, Grace Elizabeth Leslie-Rowe and Craig Bramall lead the action. Sponsored by the Bijou Club and filmed by James Courtenay.
DO NOT BE TEMPTED, do NOT get in trouble!!!!!!!!
Despite ASA guidance that paid-for blog posts have to be disclosed, 47% of blogs received unethical requests from a brand in the last year.
The only way is ethics, say UK parent bloggers
26 November 2013: The overwhelming majority of UK parent bloggers want to work with brands, but poor communications – including unethical requests – is an ongoing problem, according to the annual Tots100 Parent Blogger Benchmark Survey.
There is significant potential for PRs and brands among the UK parent blogger community, the survey of more than 1,500 bloggers found:
• 90% of UK parent bloggers want to work with brands
• 70% of bloggers are making money from their blog
• 38% publish ‘sponsored’ content on their sites
• 25% host advertising on their blogs
Despite clear guidance from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that paid-for blog posts have to be disclosed as such, 47% of UK parent bloggers said they had received unethical requests from a brand, SEO or PR agency in the last year.
Despite ASA guidance that paid-for blog posts have to be disclosed, 47% of blogs received unethical requests from a brand in the last year.
One blogger, Angie Booth, told Tots100: “I was asked recently to remove a disclosure statement from a blog post. When I said it had to be there and sent a link explaining why, I was offered more money to remove it for a month. I refused, and never heard from the agency again.”
Another, Rachel Healy, said: “I’ve often been offered double my usual rate on condition that I don’t disclose that I’ve been paid to publish the post.”
Sally Whittle, founder of Tots100, said: “Asking people to do something unethical is clearly unprofessional. Working in partnership with blogs to create ethical, authentic content will ultimately build stronger, more sustainable relationships. The UK parent blogger community is a thriving and vibrant place, made up of committed writers and avid readers. Not only do they represent a great body of people for brands to connect with, they are eager to do so.”
Use of social media is high among UK parent bloggers, too.
• 87% use Twitter
• 83% use Facebook
• 57% use Pinterest
Twitter is the most widely used social network by bloggers, with 20% of bloggers having more than 3,000 followers. The new Google+ network gets mixed feedback from UK parent bloggers. Although 59% have an account, 36% of these users have no followers there.
The majority (92%) of parent bloggers are female and although that’s the label preferred by 34% of them, 29% are happy enough being called a ‘mummy blogger.’
For brands and their agencies to get the best out of working with bloggers, they need to improve the way they communicate, Sally Whittle explained. “43% of the people we spoke to get sent information that simply isn’t relevant to them, and 27% say they often feel they get stalked by PR agencies asking when they can expect to see coverage. It’s time for brands to get smarter, and more targeted when they approach parent blogs.”
The Tots100 survey canvassed the opinions of more than 1,500 UK parent bloggers, asking them about working with brands, their use of social media and their experiences of PR-led blogger outreach programmes.
About Tots100
Tots100 is the UK’s largest network of UK parent bloggers, with more than 7,000 members reaching 10m readers each year. The Tots100 works with brands to devise and implement creative, engaging blog outreach campaigns.
Tots100 was created in March 2009 by former journalist Sally Whittle, who is also author of the top-rated parent blog Who’s the Mummy. Sally’s blog has been named the UK’s number 1 Mummy blog for three of the past four years by Cision, and Sally was short-listed in Red Magazine’s Red Hot Women Awards in 2012. Tots100 is published by Flea Enterprises Ltd, which also publishes the Foodies100 and HIBS100 websites, and organises the MAD Blog Awards for British parent bloggers.
For Further Information:
See the Tots100 website for highlights of the 2013 Parent Blogger Benchmark Survey and connect with Tots100 on Twitter.
Eric Wiltsher on TV Markiza April 2010
For non Slovak readers/viewers – TV Markiza is a national TV station in Slovakia. There is a debate going on about what to call a place in Slovakia so that the international community can say the name easily. English speakers, for the Slovak readers there are no smilies in English, try these: Kosice. Nope you got it wrong, it’s actually said as Kosheetsa. Now try, if your a non Slovak speaker, Vysny Klatov, send your suggestions by MP3 to studio@rti.fm . There might well be a prize for the best MP3 we get so include your name and address in the e-mail.
The funny thing was I now say Slovak place names as they are said in Slovak, reverting to English/English was quite hard – mind you English was never my strong point 🙂 .
Eric Wiltsher On Air
I am often asked about how I came to be here or how did I get to be there and to be honest it’s tough to remember each step of the way. That’s further complicated due to the fact I don’t keep recordings or shows for more than a few minutes. So with thanks to many kind people who have stored shows, news or simply information about my time in broadcasting so far – THANK YOU!
To those of you who have asked, this link may help answer some of your questions.
http://ericwiltsheronair.blogspot.com/
More older material at http://ericwiltsher.blogspot.sk/
ROSKO
Click the image and visit his FaceBook Page
A true Gent of radio – great to work with and a total pro, also a great guy to have a Chinese meal with. There’s a long story to the Rosk Bank note which Rosko can tell much better than me, so e-mail him and ask him to share the story. I also think it’s about time we saw a re-release of his albums in Europe. They call mixing a modern thing, yeah right. This guy was mixing when the mixers weren’t even in nappies. This is his site: emperorrosko
What’s the difference between UK and SK Audiences?
NONE – Don’t let people fool you into thinking there are either – not only are they trying to fool you but worse still they are trying to fool themselves.
Eric Wiltsher 
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