Radio Gaga

One of the mantras in the Fatea office is, "It's easier than ever to make a cd, harder than ever to get it heard." I guess that really should be listened to. The proliferation of media has fractionated the listening audience into ever smaller pockets. This seems to have coincided with both mainstream national radio and regional radio pushing acoustic related music out of the mainstream.

There's been two main reasons for that. Primarily talk is cheap, literally, no royalties to pay for chat keeps the costs down, particularly important for regional stations. Secondly there seems to be reluctance for radio stations to engage with acoustic inspired music, with the exception of classical, who get two national stations.

The former I can understand, the latter, not so much. I'd hazard a guess that a lot of it is down to the tastes of station controllers who haven't spent much time frequenting the acoustic music scene either currently or during their formative years.

The scenario gets worse on the visual media, in the hours of coverage of Glastonbury how many minutes are actually broadcast from the Acoustic Tent for example?

Proliferation is a double edged sword that can cause almost as many problems as it solves. For example in the area where I live there used to be two radio stations, one BBC, one commercial. In the same area there are now seven. I've checked the rajar figures the total listening figures for those seven stations is within a statistical error of being greater than the two.

It's also a proliferation that comes with some cost to the artists, who need to provide more promotional copies of their albums in order to reach a similar size of coverage and gambling that it'll get the the air play and/or reviews that they need to make their way forward in the music industry.

The good news is that proliferation, particularly through the internet, has brought about access to a lot of specialist shows that either play non-stop acoustic inspired music or give over a significant chunk of time to acoustic based shows. If we can find a way of building awareness of these stations and shows, it will allow artists a greater level of focus and give listeners real aural democracy.

The other good news is that a lot of these shows seems more than willing to give upcoming artists a chance to be included in the show, both those on established labels and artists doing it themselves, the difficulty is trying to link up those artists and the shows.

A fine example is Bob's Folk Show on Radio Wey, which prior to the internet was as exclusive hospital radio station, but now becomes a show with a global reach, providing people can discover it's there. The show, hosted by blues guitarist, Bob Meyer, features songs from folk and blues rich past and more importantly a multitude of songs from up and coming artists.

In addition Bob includes studio sessions from invited guests who he chats to during the course of the show and, because this is the communication age, is able to bring the audience right into the heart of the show, pretty much instantaneously.

Bob is good at promoting his show, making use of Facebook, texts, MySpace etc., but as with all these things the more people get to hear of the show the more the artists that are played on that show will get to benefit from increased exposure. His show can be heard on http://www.radiowey.co.uk/ from 9pm to 11pm on a Tuesday evening

One of the keys is for the acoustic music movement to help promote the radio shows that feature their artists. As part of Fatea's commitment to this, in March we are going to change our Club Section to become Clubs & Radio and will start providing details of acoustic radio shows and stations in that area.

We already intend to cover the shows and stations listed be below, but if there's any that you know of that you feel are suitable for inclusion, please mail us the details.

http://www.radiowey.co.uk/ Bob's Folk Show - Tuesdays 9pm to 11pm
http://www.wcrfm.com Roots & Branches - 10pm Thursdays midnight repeat Sunday
http://www.folkradio.co.uk/ All day every day
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p001d7lt Genevieve Tudor's Sunday Folk Show - 7pm to 9pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p001d7z8 The Johnny Coppin Show - Sunday 1pm to 2pm
http://diversityfm.co.uk Off The Beaten Tracks - Friday 1pm + repeats
http://www.sheffieldlive.org/schedule/friday/ Thank Goodness Its Folk - Friday 10am - 12
http://www.expressfm.com/rooting-around-293063 Scattering The Roots 4pm - 6pm
http://www.speysoundradio.com/?q=node/15 Folk 'n' That Wednesday 8pm - 9pm
http://www.americana-uk.com/ Bob Patterson check website for details
http://www.forestfm.co.uk/ Forest Folk Paul Burke - Monday 8pm to 10pm
http://www.bishopfm.com/ Terry Ferdinand Folk Show - Monday 9pm to 11pm