Disruptive influences, 'uncomfortable voices' at Radio Festival 2016

There has never been a media forum that didn’t have as its subtext the notion that the industry is in an unprecedented state of flux. This week’s Radio Academy Festival put it straight into its title: ‘DISRUPTION’ (with the ‘R’ typographically reversed to help make the point).

Disruptive influences ranged from social media and new distribution models to political upheaval and partial news, and there was a lot of rethinking - if not outright discarding of traditional approaches - from the panellists on stage at the British Library.

Starting with Today programme presenter Nick Robinson (above), in conversation with LBC’s Shelagh Fogarty. The former BBC political editor was candid about his nightmare first morning in the Today hot seat last November (“Get me out of here….”), as he struggled with a frail-sounding, croaky voice, following his treatment for lung cancer.

He was also frank about how the political turmoil of the last year had given him pause for thought as a journalist. Coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, for instance, had left him wondering whether it wasn’t time to “step away from the ‘who said what’ style of reporting”, he admitted.

And that Brexit result? “There aren’t many moments when [as a journalist] you stop and say, ‘bloody hell!’. The 9/11 attacks had been another.

“It was the first time in a long time when I said to my producer, ‘I just need 10 minutes’ - as a citizen.” He added: “Whether you look at Brexit, Trump, the SNP or Corbyn… it’s about time we as journalists started to think that what ‘can’t happen’, can.”

The proliferation of partial sources of information was a further challenge to old assumptions: “I believe in impartiality - it’s very important for the BBC,” Robinson said. “But don’t assume the model you grew up with is the one that will [continue].”

He concluded: “All you can say as a journalist is that every day you’ll do your best to get as close to the truth as you can. You won’t always get it right. But if people are getting their news from partial sources, don’t be surprised if you’re [increasingly] challenged about getting it right.”

Challenging? Partial? Cue ‘The World According to Katie’, a predictably high octane session with LBC’s opinionated radio presenter Katie Hopkins (above), who delivered a trademark polemic against vegans, HR departments (“the demise of society”), diversity targets and what she sees as euphemistic reporting of terrorism in the “liberal” media.

She didn’t quite rise to the challenge from BBC Woman’s Hour presenter Jane Garvey that “spewing bile” on the radio was easier to do than what Garvey and others did - attempt to conduct impartial interviews. But she did concede that she would, in all likelihood, “be sacked one day”.

And love her or loathe her, Hopkins did manage to end on what was, for her, a more measured note: “There is no truth - only the stories we choose to listen to. In a world of half-truths, someone being blatantly honest - even if she’s a cow - deserves a voice.”

Coming to ironically similar conclusions, albeit from a very different starting point, was US diversity activist Verna Myers, joining the festival via Skype from Washington. The lawyer from Baltimore warned the media against unconscious bias and “group think” in order to get closer to the truth.

“Be more suspicious of yourself, more curious, more diligent… Look for voices that make you feel uncomfortable.”

She criticised mainstream media coverage of this summer’s protests in her home city, which, she said, had not reflected what she’d witnessed on the streets. The impact of social media meant that “no one report is the right report” any more, Myers told her London audience.

“If mainstream media want to be trusted, they need to work a lot harder, connect with a much larger database of sources.”

And that’s where Facebook comes in, argued the company’s media partnership manager Patrick Walker, and in particular, Facebook Live.

Just a year after launch, live Facebook video had become integrated into professional media routines, he said. Channel 4, for instance, was seeing 140m video views a month, “connecting in whole new way with its audience”.

But was Facebook a “friend or foe” to radio, session host Gemma Cairney wanted to know: “If you’ve got ‘a face for radio’, it can be a bit overwhelming. We want to embrace Facebook,” the BBC Radio 1 presenter said, “but how do you nail something simple in a radio show?”

Don’t aim for “high fidelity broadcasts”, just “better ways to connect with younger audiences”, Walker advised - think short videos by BBC Radio 5 live and LBC. If in doubt, “don’t force it”, and perhaps run it past younger members of the production team before posting, he suggested.

Against the background of recent criticism of Facebook’s ‘editorial’ stance, Cairney asked Walker about moderation on Facebook around sensitive content like Radio 1’s The Surgery, which she presents.

There were community guidelines, he said, aimed at preventing publication of nudity, hate speech and the like, and Facebook relied on communities to flag those things: “We make mistakes but it’s evolving,” Walker told delegates.

Were there any plans to start a Facebook radio station? Perhaps a disruption too far, even for Facebook: “No. Our job is to help people with their ideas and choose the things they want to share.”

No less keen to partner radio, in the brave new world, was YouTube (a billion active users, 400 hours of content uploaded every minute). Senior director Stephen Nuttall saw opportunities for stations to reach new global audiences, tell stories in news ways and find new revenue streams. More than half of YouTube revenues go to content partners, he said. Also worth remembering that most millennials don’t own a radio and that 60% of YouTube views are now via mobile.

Proven successes included BBC Radio 1, top YouTube radio channel in terms of subscribers (3.2m); NPR Music in the US (600,000) with its more “unplugged style”; and LBC, with its knack of “flicking on cameras in the studio when there’s a good moment”. YouTube presenters, meanwhile, were “in many ways the new mainstream”, he argued.

Nuttall’s insider tips for getting started on YouTube?

• Start small (be scrappy, no five year plans)
• Ask yourself if you’d share this with someone else. If not, don’t upload just yet
• Think quirky and (of course) visual
• Think about engaging people in a conversation.
• Upload a title that’s search friendly (YouTube uses algorithms to recommend videos based on likely “watch time”)

Other festival sessions explored the gloriously disruptive ‘autonomy’ of podcasting, the immersive leap into binaural sound (subject of an upcoming Academy blog) and the prospect of BBC radio producers taking their ideas to ITV or Amazon, under the BBC’s new ‘compare or compete’ deregulation of in-house production. Plenty more to return to in future posts.

Radio Festival images of Nick Robinson and Katie Hopkins by Bellanova Photography.

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