2006: Radio Day

In between all the hard work this year it was particularly nice to have been able to find time to attend the Radio Day in Amsterdam as an invited guest and a panel member. The antithesis of an academic conference, it was just a really interesting day, a chance to meet some people I hadn't seen for some time, and an opportunity to make some new friends. Plus, there was absolutely no preparation needed! Within hours of the day coming to an end, seventy-two pictures of the event had appeared on the web at http://www.offshore-radio.de/radioday/. Congratulations to the organisers, Hans Knott and Dr. Martin van der Ven, as well as to Robbie Owen for providing us with such an amusing commentary to his slide show! Robbie (pictured left) was quick to remind me that it was a phone call from me that was his first big break in radio. Hans is well known for his monthly radio report, sent via email. Noam Tal was recording interviews with us and some actuality for a TV report on the day. It's at http://www.offshoreradio.de/radioday/2006/vop-reunion.wmv and as you'll see, he had the good sense to edit out the bits with me in them.

2006: Conferences and publications

This has been the final year of the IREN project (International Radio Research Network), an EU-funded Framework 6 initiative led by Jean-Jacques Cheval, a leading scholar in the field of radio who is based in Bordeaux, France. Although I was not one of the original thirteen partners from ten European countries, IREN have made me most welcome from the beginning, to the extent that Jean-Jacques called me the membre caché at the final conference held by IREN, in Belgium in November! I considered that quite a compliment.

The project has provided an excellent stimulus for research into a wide variety of aspects of radio, as well as a lively forum for radio academics from Europe and beyond to meet, discuss and collaborate in a number of very positive ways. During 2006 I have given the following three papers at IREN conferences:

The democratisation of the media through proliferation: new technologies, changes in regulation and community broadcasting at the Jornadas Internacionales de la Radio y la Television, Bilbao, Spain, January (http://www.kazetaritza.com/).

Regulation and democracy – PSB, commercial and participatory radio in the 20th and 21st centuries at The Medium with the Promising Future (Radio in Central and Eastern European Countries), Lublin, Poland, June.

Radio: theorising the future/theorising in future (or in French Radio : théoriser le futur / théoriser au futur) at Quelles voix/voies pour le futur, Brussels, November. I was particularly pleased to be invited to give a keynote address at this conference, which was split between the town of Louvain-la-Neuve and the Belgian capital, Brussels.

All three papers are being published in bound volumes along with other contributions to those respective conferences, and although the Bilbao paper was presented in English to a PowerPoint presentation in Spanish, I have translated it into Spanish for the book.

Although IREN in its first incarnation has now come to the end of its contractual life, it lives on, not least within ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Association) but also as a federation of national radio research groups - with a further exciting initiative to follow in 2007.

A fourth 2006 conference, La radiodiffusion aux tournants des siècles, at Lyon, France, in June, was organised by the French radio research group, GRER (le Groupe de Recherches et d'Etudes sur la Radio), of which I became a member. I wrote the paper in French and presented it in French after a little cosmetic tweaking by two other GRER members, Elvina Fesneau and Béatrice Donzelle, to whom went many thanks and a nice meal afterwards. The title was Mais, est-ce encore de la radio? Programmation et transmission en mutation en temps de crises http://radio2006.org. This paper is also being published, in the original French.

At Sunderland we hosted two excellent conferences of particular interest this year, Martin Shingler's Sounding Out 3 in September, and Michael Higgins's Politics and the Media in November. While making only brief appearances to introduce speakers at Sounding Out 3, I gave a fifth paper at Politics and the Media, Regulation and democracy: representation of politics in the media – a comparative study.

I do have plans to work on conference papers in 2007, but it is unlikely that I will have the time to give quite so many!

2006: Supporting teaching and learning in colleges and schools

It's been another busy year supporting teaching and learning at pre-university levels, mainly overseeing the implementation of the brand new Edexcel qualification GCE Advanced Level in Media: Communication & Production. I have been Edexcel's Chair of Examiners for the subject since 2001, and we have worked hard each year on the GNVQ and AVCE qualifications, which have been very popular in Further Education colleges in particular, with the total number of candidates reaching several thousand in some examination series. As well as moderating coursework marking to national standards, we set and examined thirteen exam papers each year without a single scandal in the media over mistakes or malpractice - unlike a number of subjects under several of the exam boards - and you know how much certain people in the press like to have a pop at this subject above all others!

The GNVQ and the AVCE are almost finished now, with just a few retakes due in January 2007, but the new GCE looks like becoming another popular qualification as centres begin to offer it to their students - this time many schools are coming on board, as it is easier to resource than the other two. I have been working in my own spare time with two other senior members of the examining team, Philip Holmes and Paul Baylis, to write attractive and accessible textbooks for the separate AS and A2 awards within the qualification, as well as a Teachers' Resource File, and these were published by Heinemann in August. The writing team has been so successful that the original editor, Elaine Tuffery, asked us to also write a textbook for the new BTEC First Certificate and Diploma in Media now being taught in hundreds of schools as an equivalent to upto five GCSEs. This third textbook is now in production, as is an accompanying Assessment & Delivery Resource, with publication due early in the new year.

Also in our spare time, Paul, Phil and I will soon be tackling a textbook for the ever popular BTEC National Diploma early in 2007. It will be written to the latest specification - the third version of this very vocational qualification. I'm pleased to see it is still as popular as ever, having a particluar interest in it, as a member on three separate occasions of writing and editing teams assembled by Edexcel to ensure that it remains relevant and up to date.

John Gray 1918-2006

Very sad news this Christmas about the death of John Gray, a long-serving staffer at the BBC then academic at Edinburgh Napier University. You can read an obituary at http://www.bectu.org.uk/news/gen/ng0263.html but I would just like to add my personal recollection of John as a kindly man with a love of radio and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the BBC since its early days. He retained his liking for a pint over some good conversation until very recently when poor health overtook him at the age of 88. When a student of mine contacted him for an interview while researching a documentary on the 'voice' of the BBC, he welcomed her and her boyfriend into his home and even took them out for a pizza. John will be sadly missed and my sincere condolences to his family.

2006: Balance and Bias in Journalism

One of the most satisfying developments this year has been the publication of my new academic book, Balance and Bias in Journalism: Representation, Regulation and Democracy to give it its full title. The research for this book began in 1995, when I began my PhD, but the bulk of the actual writing took place during 2004-6. The year of publication is officially 2007, even though it has been available since November, and that is how it should be referenced in bibliographies.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive so far, although I consider it to be quite a provocative book due to the nature of the subject matter. No doubt the reviewers will find plenty to quibble over! Several people I haven't ever met have taken the trouble to get in touch and say how much they enjoyed reading the book, and some who teach journalism say they have put it on their reading lists. That's particularly welcome as Emily Salz at Palgrave has invested heavily in the project, and it would be good for the publishers to make a decent return on it. I am very grateful to Emily for having the confidence in the original proposal to go ahead with it, and her input has been very valuable at a number of stages in the process.

Palgrave Macmillan also published Radio in Context in 2004, and both books are available in paperback and hardback from http://www.palgrave.com/products/results.aspx?k=Guy+Starkey . Some of the web book retailers offer used and nearly new copies, so getting hold of both titles needn't break the bank! This is starting to sound like an advert, I know, but very few authors of academic books get to retire on the proceeds of their sales... the market is so specialised that the financial return wouldn't pay for a tiny fraction of the time spent on the writing. Thankfully the Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sunderland has supported both titles by granting me sabbaticals to work on them. You can read a sample chapter of Balance and Bias and view the index for free by visiting the Palgrave web site.

2006: What a year!

In the time-honoured tradition of the media shamelessly filling the quieter days around the festive season with something they prepared earlier, the following posts are a retrospective look at what has been an incredibly busy year professionally. Had the blog been up and running at the time, each of these events would have been added contemporaneously, with its own entry. What follows is the next best thing.

Programming masterclass

Now, the chance to meet one Progra-

mme Controller when you're looking to begin or to develop a career in radio is a real plus. But when two come along at once, that's really something - especially when you get to go down the pub afterwards and the lecturer buys the round! Our radio masters students had a great opportunity to do just that, in a programming masterclass last Monday.

Richard Spencer from Galaxy North East (pictured left) and Paul Smith of 100-102 Century FM (center) joined the regular Monday evening management module to discuss all sorts of programming issues from scheduling to hiring and firing staff. Both of them had some very interesting things to say, and while Paul is a friend from the heyday of the Radio Academy North East branch, it turned out Richard had listened to my shows on the radio when he was living in North Wales.

We have strong links with all the stations in the region, and Doug Morris who has been acting as Managing Editor of BBC Radio Newcastle came in to respond to some student presentations in October. Meanwhile Brian Lister of The Local Radio Company regularly teaches for us, and both Metro and Century have broadcast live from our studios.

Many thanks to both Paul and Richard for giving up their time last week, and to Sandra and Martin for the photo (he took it with her camera).

Life, the universe and blogging

So I've been pondering whether blogging is pointless or worthwhile. If everyone in the world had a blog, how many people would have the time to read each one? How many would be worth reading? At least when I opened the microphone to speak on the radio there was fairly convincing evidence to suggest several hundred thousand people were listening.

A number of people have commented on the fact that five thousand people have downloaded the Flintshire Motors ad I voiced a few years ago, but we know that when it was played on the radio around 300,000 people would have heard it. All but the most moronic among them would have realised it was a parody, too.

But then, is writing only legitimised by reading, or is there an element of art for art's sake here? Certainly writing can be therapeutic, but what's the point of joining the massed ranks of bloggers ranting on about the price of sprouts?

Suddenly I am reminded of a conversation with Paula Cordeiro, the lone Portuguese radio academic, whose blog in Portuguese and English http://netfm.blogspot.com/ is read by hundreds of people keen to get the latest from her. I'm sure Radioid would never grow so big, but maybe it could have some impact. Perhaps.

Beginning

So I take another faltering step into the twenty-first century - somewhat belatedly of course - but after biding my time a little, watching and waiting from the sidelines, blogging seems to be catching on.

The blog is called radioid because I've done well out of the medium - earned a decent living from it, got a lot of fun out it and made a lot of good friends from working in it one way or another. I suppose I must be a radioid if there is such a thing. Better than being an android, frankly, although they may be the next craze to come along.

This month radio will be one hundred years old and despite premature rumours of its impending demise it's still going strong. Hmmm... I wonder if blogging will last as long?