They Steal Your Trousers When You're Asleep, Ya Know?

I'm sitting here, in a corner of England that is forever Nottingham, feeling quite chuffed with myself that I've managed to rekindle the urge to blog, the stepson is on his laptop and the wife is watching "Ru Paul's Drag Race" on TV.

Despite the down-sounding first post, I'm actually quite blessed in many ways.  It's taken me three decades to get into the job I love but I got there and now enjoy at least 8 listeners to my radio show and podcast.

Being in radio is both frustrating and cathartic.  Frustrating in the sense that there's so much more to it than just picking music, pressing a button and talking bollocks in between tracks.  For me, and this might shock anyone who knows me, it's the "talking bollocks" part that I find the hardest task.
What do you say that is both entertaining and informative?  In my case, it's back-announcing the tracks and reminding people of ways to get in touch with the show (which nobody ever does, barring a few trolls).  The other main problem is that the show is pre-recorded from my corner England that is forever the living room, so it can't be topical.  I can't make people aware of anything interesting that might have happened because, by the time the show goes out, it's old news.  Social media and the media will have made every comment/joke/pun based on it that, to use anything, would be recycling 7th hand news/jokes.

I've tried to stir things up by introducing features and once spelled out a rude sentence using the first letters of song titles in a show, but the originality well ran dry very quickly and I've got stuck in a routine.  Tony Blackburn I'm not...thank God.

But on the flip-side of that, It's the greatest job I believe I can ever do.  Ever since I was a teen, I used to listen to local radio (when it was local) and BBC Radio 2 and think "that'll be me one day".  I started in hospital radio but that didn't lead anywhere after the boss accused me of stealing a Michael Bolton CD.  I mean, if you're going to accuse anyone of theft, make it something credible!  I know I'm the purveyor of awful music but even I have standards, for crying out loud!

It was only nearly 4 years ago that I got a break when I joined Wyrelite Radio with "Kuddly Ken's Cheese Shop" and then onto Coast & County, where the show changed to "Kuddly Ken's Oddbox" before landing on medium wave at CWR1476, whose airwaves are still polluted by me every Monday afternoon to this day.

You can play anything and people will either come with you or tune out until the end of that track.  As a radio presenter (not a DJ), it's my job to reel their attention back in and try again with another track they might like.  I think I've managed to retain some people so far (8-12 regular listener of the podcast shows that) but so far, I've "winged it".  Luck, rather than skill.  And as we all know, luck runs out at some point.

Hopefully that won't be for a long while yet.

But, until then, let's rock! Alright? Nod 'arf!

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