So! My first blog of many weird, eccentric ramblings to come. The question is what should you all expect?

Well, the new show will be utter madness and a regular colostomy bag of some of the world’s weirdest and freakiest characters.

Describing what will happen is tricky. Best thing is, come in and join in on the show. Its radio as it should be, not gloating from its ivory towers, with the doors literally swung open to anyone. Mark my words, everyone will end up in on the show; My Nan, Ex-SAS soldiers, dead people, my wife, porn stars, politicians, street cleaners, stupid celebs, fighter pilots, ex-drug smugglers, my daughters, gangsters and your mum. The aim is to re-define the dictionary meaning of the word rehab to “a place where people are rehabilitated from normality back to clinical insanity” – two intensive sessions a week should do it.

Over the last four years I’ve thought long and hard about what I do and actually devised a formula for, what I believe, is the perfect late-night radio show. Whoomp, here it is! Every other show I’ve done has been nothing but a warm up for the show - 10 -1pm on Friday and Saturday nights on Absolute Radio.
If you haven’t met me I’m the skinny fat bloke with a wife and 2 kids (wife Hayley, kids Sophie 8, Annabel 3 – hello Mum!); 34 years old, 6 foot 5 inches, kidney stones, in-growing toenail, one slightly sticky-outy ear, rogue hair in right ear, left-handed, weird exploding heel disease, degrees in useless stuff, beard, Mr Inappropriate Ch4 Balls of Steel, premature, sitting down belly, 9 broken arms, fingernail biter, the amazing farting eye trick, 2 jokes, run over by runaway kebab van, deportation, Fifth Gear Ch5, brown hair.

Excellent – all that and I haven’t once mentioned the fact that I’ve been fired 10 times and all those radio fines. Maybe next time?

Tim Shaw

If you AQA “Who is Jo Russell?” they will immediately tell you “Jo Russell is 18 years old and lives in Maidstone, Kent. She’s into snowboarding, skateboarding and basketball and is a big fan of Tim Burton’s films…”

WRONG! I’m 37 – I’m Jack Bauer’s girlfriend and I want to tell you how to play Beer Pong!

If you AQA “Why do people listen to the radio?” They will immediately tell you “People listen to the radio for information or entertainment. Some like an update on the weather, others prefer the enjoyment factor”

RIGHT AND WRONG! No mention of Beer Pong!

If you AQA ‘What sort of person will listen to Jo Russell on Absolute Radio?’ They will immediately tell you “ A variety of people will listen to the new Jo Russell show on Absolute Radio. The fan base might take a while to build but will be huge by early 2009”

WRONG! It needs to be huge before then as I have bosses to please… plus not one mention of Beer Pong lovers.

I’m looking forward to coming down to London and I have to say thanks to Christian for being so welcoming. This is a record of an ACTUAL conversation between myself and Christian O’Connell.

Christian: Hello Jo, congratulations on the job.

Me: Thank you.

Christian: So, where are you going to move to?

Me: I was thinking of moving into your spare room.

Christian: NO PROBLEM, I’LL CLEAR IT OUT;

Me: Brilliant, thanks. Can you get rid of the dog whilst I’m there too?

Christian: NOT A PROBLEM

As I was on a train the signal then broke up and I haven’t spoken to him since. However, remember this was an actual conversation and the key points are plain for all to see. You’re… like… witnesses.

God I’m gagging to be on air, as much as you’re gagging to hear about Beer Pong – let me on now!  I promise to play Meatloaf songs in full, tell you about Roque force feeding me chicken wings, and fill you in on Goon!

Jo

By the way if you AQA “Will Christian let Jo move into his spare room and remove his dog?” They will immediately tell you “Christian will let his room to Jo but won’t remove his dog from the house as he loves his dog too much” WRONG!… What do they know?

Absolute Radio is based at One Golden Square, and Virgin Radio has been based at the same address since its launch in 1993. Golden Square is in the heart of Soho, and it actually has some fascinating history including a wonderful musical past in this very building.

Today when you head into London, you may well head towards the West End to shop or visit cinemas or theatres, but of course, London grew out of the City which is east of where we’re based.

There’s a great book called The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson about the last great cholera epidemic in London, in the part of Soho surrounding Golden Square, detailing how the disease was finally understood to be spread by contaminated water.

An early paragraph in the book sets the scene:

In the middle of the Great Plague of 1665, the Earl of Craven purchased a block of land in a semirural area to the west of central London called Soho Field. He built thirty-six small houses “for the reception of poor and miserable objects” suffering from the plague. The rest of the land was used as a mass grave. Each night, the death carts would empty dozens of corpes into the earth. By some estimates, over four thousand plague-infected bodies were buried there in a matter of months. Nearby residents gave it the appropriately macabre-sounding name of “Earl Craven’s pest-field,” or “Craven’s field” for short. For two generations, no one dared erect a foundation in the land for fear of infection. Eventually, the city’s inexorable drive for shelter won out over its fear of disease, and the pesthouse fields became the fashionable district of Golden Square, populated largely by aristocrats and Huguenot immigrants. For another century, the skeletons lay undisturbed beneath the churn of city commerce, until late summer of 1854, when another outbreak came to Golden Square and brought those grims souls back to haunt their final resting grounds once more.

In other words, Golden Square is built over the dead bodies of four thousand people who died during the plague 340 years ago.

The map extract below from 1658 shows the edge of the city of London as it then was. Golden Square is somewhere near the windmill in the top-left hand corner of this image - a field in countryside. The crossroads just below it is now Piccadilly Circus, while the bottom right hand corner shows Charing Cross.

Having been known as Pesthouse Field following the burying of the plague-bodies, it then became known as Gelding Close because horses had been kept thereabouts. It’s also thought possible that there was a tavern called the Gelding.

But as the area was divided into plots, the new residents thought that Gelding Close wasn’t refined enough for them and the name had been changed to Golden Square by the early eighteenth century.

The map below shows how all the plots were divided up, and it’s thought that Sir Christopher Wren might have had a hand in determining how this happened. Buildings on the plot had to be of high quality, made from brick or stone. There had to be “substantial pavements” and “sufficient sewers”, while “noysome and offensive trades” would not be tollerated (In Soho? Never).

As you can see, plot 1, was then, as it still is, in the top right hand corner of the square.

One Golden Square was one of the last sites to be developed with the first building going up in 1705/6.

The first occupant of the building was Lord Maudaunt, but he spent most of his time fighting wars in the Low Countries with the Duke of Marlborough’s armies. Then the 4th Lord Byron - an ancestor of the poet who would be born a hundred or so years later - lived here for a while, before the building and several adjoining ones were bequested to a foundation that provided scholarships to children of the poor. The Bishop of Salisbury also resided here temporarily.

Between 1794 and 1861 a certain William Stodart took up residence - beginning the site’s musical heritage. His firm made harpsichords and pianos; there were a number of makers and manufacturers of the instruments based all around the square including the famous Broadwood firm who had a warehouse at number 9.

Stodart’s father, Robert, patented the first “Grand” piano a few years earlier, while William Stodart patented the “Upright” piano.

Stodart’s piano was described by a competitor as “a new mechanism which combined the utility of a bookcase with the musical use of this odd piece of furniture.”

There’s still a heritage of musical instruments in the square with Foote’s music shop at number 10.

Charles Dickens used Golden Square as the home of Ralph Nickleby, Nicholas’ antagonistic uncle in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby which was published in 1838/9. Dickens also reflects the square’s musical links in this description of the square from the novel:

Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the Opera band reside within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical, and the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening time round the head of the mournful statue, the guardian genius of a little wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square. On a summer’s night, windows are thrown open, and groups of swarthy moustached men are seen by the passer-by, lounging at the casements, and smoking fearfully. Sounds of gruff voices practising vocal music invade the evening’s silence; and the fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars, and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the supremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bands are on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerant glee-singers quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries.

By the turn of the twentieth century Golden Square was at the heart of the textile trade with a tweed manufacturer taking residence, Henry Ballentyne & Sons. But in October 1913 the building was badly damaged by fire and was finally demolished in 1927 before being rebuilt as it is today.

Adam

For more information, as well as the book mentioned above, you can read about the history of Golden Square at British History online. And thanks should also go to an un-named local historian who wrote into the station many years ago with some background history. And thanks to Lee Price for the photo of the Stodart piano detail.

So we’ve all started to chat to our sales clients about our new brand name and generally the response has been good, but let’s be honest would you really expect it to be bad? There are few agency/advertisers out there that are going to say “I don’t like it.” It’s only a word its and its not made up and its inoffensive - it’s what’s behind it that really counts.

“So what is behind it,” they ask ?

We tell the story of our new owners and it’s so easy to enthuse about this part as it’s genuinely exciting to talk about TIML and the history of this truly gigantic media parent. We have them in the palm of our hands at this point. Thinking, uumm, I better sit up and listen to these guys - they’re BIG. Their minds are thinking about how can they pitch for our business.

We then move into Absolute Radio and the story behind how we were born and finally what we stand for.
They like it, they nod lots, the brand book goes down a storm as it would; it feels like a cutting edge brand, not like something they’ve seen before from a million other media owners.

Then the questions start.

‘Real Music’ being one of those and what does it REALLY mean? We explain this with various different stories (stories always bring something to life) from X Factor and Louis Walsh, to The Police and Roxanne, and never heard and rediscover.

The Question then comes back - “I just don’t get this Real Music and what you mean by it.”

So the question I ask you bloggers is what does Real Music on Absolute Radio mean to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts and build up a bigger library of Real Music stories.

Another interesting question that has arisen is do your listeners currently listen because of the brand or the personalities?

Now if our presenters were out with us on these meetings I’m sure they’d have something to say on this but actually they’d be right. From our research we know it really is the personalities that our listeners really do love and we’ll need to make sure all our clients know this as it’s really important when ditching a 15 year old brand name.

What we do know is that our clients want reassurance that spending on us during this change is the right thing to do. They want to know what’s going to keep existing users/listeners and what’s going to bring new ones in.

This launch is all about openness and really believing it’s not our product but actually something we share with 5 million others each month. They have a voice, and we have ears, so between us all I’m confident we’ll keep them (and you) and bring a whole new bunch along as well.

Rowan

Paul Brown will be joining us as Absolute Radio’s new Head of Technology on Monday. He joins us from RadioWorks where his colleagues made him a leaving video he’s very keen that everyone should see.

So I’ve been here four weeks now, and what a trip! We’re all starting to get used to the new name now and it feels good to see it above reception, online, on the front cover of Media Week and talked about on the BBC.

It sounds good on air and with the exception of only a few grumbles most people seem genuinely happy and excited about the new brand and as we always said: “If you stand for everybody, then you’ll end up standing for nobody.”

It’s been a manic month and along with launching an amazing new brand which will be known for decades to come, there are some other things I’m still trying to figure out. Like the digital teams’s obsession with RockBand, Cat’s ferocious appetite to find a story, Clive’s ability to send emails from anywhere at any time and still never be found in any meeting room, Clare’s ability to deal with any crisis and the DJ’s lack of ego. It’s early days but we should take a deep breath and be proud of what we achieved in such a short space of time.

This would have taken ½ a year normally and everyone has worked incredibly hard, including our community of listeners and VIPs. They have really been part of this launch by contributing ideas, asking questions, telling us when we’ve got it wrong, carrying out podcasts with Clive, sticking up for us in the forums and reminding us of the blindingly obvious. Unfortunately a lot of people, (including me) have lost the ability to spell and so far we’ve had 31 different spellings of Absolute. For some reason they keep forgetting to put an ‘e’ on the end and asking whether we will do it in Blackcurrant?

The VIPs have taken to heart the idea that we want to get our attitude back, and renamed themselves Asbo’s! They are enjoying their new found freedom and we have hardly started. Things change quickly though and only four weeks ago I was the new boy but now I’m not, Dougal is.

Everyone has moved on. They aren’t judging me on what they’ve heard about me, or my past reputation, or saying “give it time”. It’s about what I do next and that will be the same for the brand. The name won’t sound new for long and our community of listeners, webusers and media types will want to see changes happen and they will soon get tired of the crossfade messages.

So what am I doing next? Well, we’ve just signed a deal with a great comedy actor from across the water who will be in our TV and viral campaign so that’s the next big job.

Got to say though, if the next six months are as fun and exciting as the last month I’m going to keep my “new boy” title as the luckiest man in media.

Chris

In a comment Adrian asked the following question:

Hi Donnach, please tell us what Absolute has in store for the future of the Medium Wave transmissions.

We’re fully committed to continuing to broadcast on Medium Wave or AM as it’s otherwise known for the forseeable future. Our licence to broadcast from Ofcom on AM continues until 2012, and we’ll continue in that format until at least then.

We know that 35% of our listening hours are via AM, although obviously we’re keen to continue to serve our listeners in whatever format they want to hear us. We currently broadcast 16 different platforms including DAB across the UK, and 25% of our listening hours are now via one digital platform or another.

Ofcom and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport launched the Digital Radio Working Group at the beginning of this year to look at the broader picture of how we should be listening to radio in the future. This includes what platforms stations should continue to broadcast via. You can read their interim report here, with the final report being published towards the end of this year.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about the different ways you can listen to Absolute Radio, you can find the details on our website, including listening via your radio, the television, the internet, and your mobile.

Donnach

Eight letters. Loose from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional. Complete in itself; perfect; consummate; faultless. Viewed apart from modifying influences or without comparison with other objects; actual; real. Absolute. Goodness. We hope we can live up to all that our new name might be seen to imply.

As we anticipated, nay invited, our text and email in-boxes are replete with comments on what we’re up to. We are reading and considering them. I know that sounds like some blasé pledge from a chap in a cheap suit in a customer care department of some company - which likely means he’s merrily ignoring customer comments. (My theory being that that any company with a customer relations department clearly feels that the role of the rest of the company is to ignore customers.) But, genuinely here, we are reading through everything we can, as it helps us to understand where the potholes are in the road as we make the transition from Arthur to Martha. The great thing about being a radio station is that response is immediate - and heartfelt. I can’t help thinking that the email boxes of other world-wide brands undergoing name-change would not have been as full of comment as ours are. People clearly care.

One other interesting area is the spelling of our new name. I know predictive texting sometimes sends all sorts of inappropriate words to bosses or lovers, but my Nokia predictive text certainly manages to handle Absolute. We are using the word as a key word to enter our latest round of our text competition: ‘The Bid’ (Now ‘The Absolute Bid’). One great, and frankly deliberate, side-effect of this is that it helps us to understand the many permutations that our most inventive listeners might consider when spelling the word. I gather from our newsroom today that those starting school this year will now have to remain there until they are thirty three, but I do not think that decision was fulled by the 0.15% of our texters who are spelling the word wrongly. Frankly, it’s quite good fun reading them.

Absoulte (finger trouble?)
apsolute ( quite a few of these)
Appsurlute (we liked that one)
Absulute (a few of these, maybe it’s Christian’s pronuniciation)
Absoulte (finger trouble again, we though. Those phones now have such small keys)
ABSA LUTE (A new Dance artist?)
Absoloute (well, it could be, if we’d gone for a made up word, but we didn’t)
Absolote (London accent?)
Absulout (sounds almost Continental)
Absoloute (would be better with an accent or two, maybe?)
APPSURLUTE (Another one we liked - BUT NO NEED TO SHOUT)
ASOLBUTE (I wear a pair of those on my feet in Winter)
ABSOLULE (My dad used to play one with George Formby)
Aabsolute (A new plumbers in the yellow pages?)
Absolut (Amazing, actually, how few people are confusing us with alcohol, actually. Not least owing to the Golden Square culture.)
Abselute…. (The ellipsis is attractive, yes?)
Absalout (A new government sanction?)
Absoulute (Italian?)
Abssolute (Too much to drink last night?)

But no. Of course it is Absolute. And don’t forget the full stop. Here’s another.

David

We’ve been really busy planning the best options for Studio A since my last post about Studio A strategy, and we have settled on a two phase approach due to the tight timelines involved.

The first and current phase involves stripping the studio back to the plasterboard, renewing and adding additional soundproofing, building a production room next door and rotating the entire studio desk to face the new production room. We’re also giving Studio B a functional makeover, ready to be the new home of our award winning News Team.

The Technology Operations Team have been working really hard over the last few days to release up to seventy cables from the desk, along with all the equipment stored in it - and yes, we have finally managed to rotate it. I have to say that I have never seen Leona so excited!

We were so pleased with our progress that we thought you might like to see some pictures of the desk move, and the work by the contractors refitting the studio…

Eddie

As you’d expect lots of people have got lots of questions about what’s going to happen here at 1 Golden Square over the next few weeks. Lots of anecdotes about house renting, Jif and Opal Fruits…

• Why are we changing the name?
• Will we be having a tie-up with the vodka brand? (if I’ve had one email about this I’ve had a hundred!)
• What’s happening to my favourite presenter?
• What changes will there be to the website?
• Will we be playing Leona Lewis? (Think you know the answer, then maybe think again)

VIP Alistair, AKA Zippy, is a regular in our online forums and a loyal listener over the last 15 years. He wanted to get answers and so he asked whether he could interview Clive about it!

Errrr……yes, of course - seems like a good idea to get a fresh perspective and make sure we’re on the right track and answering the right questions.

This morning, Zippy met Clive (with Bungle pressing the buttons - sorry that’s supposed to read Bing).

It’s available to stream here:
Clive Dickens interviewed by VIP Zippy

And you can download the mp3 here.

Paul

How does anyone say goobye to a legend? Tony Hadley is just that. No ’80s tv documentary passes without his face within, singing those great songs which spell out that decade to a generation. For almost two years now, it’s been a privilege to have had him on the schedule, most recently hosting Party Classics on both Friday and Saturday evenings. Now, our changes mean that we will be saying farewell to Tony; and I know that it will be a sad one, given he is such a popular, genuine and enthusiastic figure in the building.

The plan going forward is to echo our weekday ’80s offerings at the weekend in a new music-intensive show called ‘Absolute 80s’ on a Friday night, with Neil Francis. Then on Saturdays from 6.00 p.m Leona Graham will be hosting a special ‘Absolute Classic Rock’ show, part of our strategy of showcasing the digital brands on the main station.

What a journey. The task was building a radio station which kept the best bits of the Golden Square success story, adding in some extras and making sure they fitted perfectly. And choose a new name. And do it all it a matter of days. A jigsaw. A pretty big one.

Getting the new brand right was the priority. Next came a label for it: ‘Absolute‘.

Many of you at Golden Square will have heard my story about how this name came about - if you have not, do ask, but set aside a few minutes, it’s a long story. Suffice to say, alongside Albion our brand consultants, we explored everything from made-up words through to words that described what we do. We held all suggestions up against criteria which included URLs and trademark availability, resonance with brand, international translation & appeal and the like. Absolute was a clear winner on all fronts and the more we lived with it, the more we really liked it. Such a great powerful and flexible word. And we can own it across the World - and we can really build a music entertainment business around it, with a great radio station at the core. It sums us up well, though, I think. The word embodies what we stand for: we are resolute and unapologetic about our passion for real music - our desire to build a great entertainment brand and business - our determination to put listeners at the heart of our plans - and we are not afraid to challenge the commercial radio status quo.

But, then again, it’s just a word, and it’ll grow to mean as much as we do under it.

What is that? Well, for one, certainly not just a change of name. We are seizing this once in a lifetime opportunity to innovate and step into a new phase. Under our new name, Absolute we can explore opportunities which we could not. Commercially, those opportunities are clear, particularly with the advanced digital assets we’ve inherited. We’ll build on these with a new HD Streaming Video player, hopefully the first commercial music subscription service, and a real focus on in-car DAB. There’s evidence of the latter with our plans to cross-market our digital services on the main service like no-one else has (Xtreme and Classic Rock). Some innovative thinking here: introducing the digital audiences to Geoff and Christian’s shows - and heralding the choice available on all three services at the end of each of those shows. Conversely, we’ll create a unique show on the main station each week to showcase each of the digital station offerings.

Presenters? Well, many will remain. Russ is an institution. Christian will continue the great work he’s been doing - and it’s just great that Geoff once again can be enjoyed by a larger audience on his new early evening show. I don’t think there are many who would dispute that Geoff Lloyd is one of the UK’s greatest broadcasters. New names are slotting in too, such as Jo Russell who has won more awards than you can imagine from her Midlands breakfast show. There will be a few others too such as the inimitable Tim Shaw, ex-Kerrang and now the face of Fifth Gear, and my focus has been on real gifted communicators. Not just voices, but entertainers who will play a part in taking this station - and commercial radio - forward. Our goal is to be employing the services of more award-winning presenters than anyone else.

One thing was never in question. Golden Square needs serious marketing investment. We’ve just signed off what we believe to be the largest in Golden Square history. Aimed at keeping our current audiences- and then growing our 5m users/ listeners around the world.

Absolute Music? Most people now have their own personal radio station in their pocket: an MP3 player cleverly playlisted with some popular tracks and maybe a few surprises too. On-line you can discover new material within minutes of it being recorded or re-discover album tracks from old albums from artists who influenced today’s finest musicians. That is the world we are in. So, we’re sticking with real music - not manufactured rubbish - and we’re building on the amount of live music we do - we’re just going to discover more of all of it. Also, one key finding from every piece of research we did, and that includes walking into the newsagents opposite, we’ll be playing more different songs - in fact, ten times more! When we play a ‘Haven’t Heard It for Ages’ on Absolute Radio, you really won’t have done. Once we’ve played it, it won’t be on again for a year. And the No Repeat 9-5 workday is back, by popular request.

Come October, Absolute Radio will leap into life, trumpeted by a new sonic identity, assembled where all great things were. Abbey Road.

I could write about the different way we are doing business and working with our partners and staff. Openly. Honestly. Frankly, I think it is best if others judge us on that in the months to come. But, I am personally delighted with the response this blog has enjoyed.

We’re now into what we’re calling ‘crossfade’ (Christian called it that first). Our old and new names will live happily alongside each other for a few weeks whilst our listeners and users adjust. Then, after a brief pause, we’ll move into being Absolute Radio. In this crossfade period, we’ll be offering hints of some of the new ideas, and the ‘Absolute Classics‘ we’ll play in evey show are a great example of the musical discovery which will be a key part of what we do going forward.

Thanks to all involved here at Golden Square for your help and co-operation - and ideas along the way. I mean the last point honestly: we can point to a whole host of areas where your contributions have helped to shape what we’re doing. Similary, the debate amongst listeners has been hugely useful too - and I think they will be pleased when they hear the new station evolve. Thanks to all here for your tolerance of my midnight phone calls, swathes of dawn emails and the texts you did not understand. When the raw material alone was a huge national radio station, the future has to be exciting. It is.

Clive

I’m delighted to let you know that Jo Russell is joining us.

Jo is one of the best-loved commercial radio presenters outside London (she is the lead player in the ‘Jo and Twiggy’ breakfast show which has dominated its East Midlands market for years) . You may recognise that show’s name. Every Sony and Arqiva judge will - it has won major awards year after year, so it’s great to be able to offer Jo the national platform she deserves.

Jo will be hosting some early breakfast programmes and weekend mid mornings. Her arrival means we’ll be waving farewell to JK and Joel later in the year, as they disappear to do yet more TV (and probably more radio stuff elsewhere too soon, given how much they love it). Sadly, though, this also means that Robin Burke will not be with us on a regular basis going forward after some great efforts at the crack of dawn in the last few months - and almost seven years at Golden Square. Robin- thanks for all you’ve done.

Clive

Someone once asked a friend what I did, to which they replied, he’s a runner…

Their reply? ‘Oh, I didn’t know he was a professional athlete!’

There does seem to be a bit of mystery out there as to what a runner actually does and unless you’ve had any contact with the world of media there’s not really any reason why you’re likely to know. However, even within this industry of ours it’s a bit of a hazy area – the species exist in recording studios, post-production houses, record companies, production companies and on all your favourite TV shows (they’re probably the people who do the food shops on Big Brother!), so it’s not surprising there’s a bit of uncertainty there. What I can say though is that I know of no other runner job outside of ours at One Golden Square with more responsibility and which is a better platform for career development.

We tried to find out when the company first introduced runners and even tried to find out what they were doing now, we asked around, obviously Adam Bowie was our first point of call but even he was unsure. The most likely answer is that Chris Evans brought some with him from Ginger Productions to pander his needs and make him tea – but ever since then the job has stuck and become more and more relied upon within the company.

Over time the humble runner has evolved into much more than that of its media relatives and has become part of the furniture at One Golden Square – to the extent that most of them never really want to leave. Our very own Annabel Port before she was Porting Controversy on the Geoff Show started life as a Virgin Radio runner, as did programming’s Tim Vernon and Alysia Ives and Luke Moore started as a runner before becoming a successful Sponsorship Account Manager. And there are a whole host of others some of you may remember who worked their way up through the rank, Mark Augustyn, Lali Parikh, Katy Adair, Beccy Pinfield are just a few…and I’m going to claim Nelson Kumah as one of our own (well he did start with a stint of work experience here).

Working across all departments also has it’s perks, as a runner you tend to become the eyes and ears of the station, we’re often asked to work at events, run errands for people and just tend to be around a lot so we’ve built up quite a repertoire of stories, ever wondered:

• Which former DJ demanded a torch during a small powercut as they refused to pee in the dark?
• Which band had us running around Soho buying specific quantise of Iron Bru before they’d perform?

Or even,

• What the new station name is? (Don’t worry, only joking, not even we’ve managed to find that out yet!)

Basically the trick is trying to keep a staff of 100 happy all of the time and when every job is the most important one, there are times when no matter how good a juggler of tasks you are, someone will feel a little unloved. So as much as we take every request task seriously we have to confess there are some that are quite frankly unbelievable! Obviously we couldn’t print them here…well…ok then maybe a couple:

• “Can someone bring XXXX’s phone down to reception please”
• “There are no custard creams left in the biscuit tin ,only Jammie-Dodgers and bourbons can somebody fill it up now”
• “Can you get a work experience to remove the skid-marks from the loo please”

It’s true to say that no two days are ever the same for a runner here at One Golden Square and that’s what makes it such a great place to work.

But for every custard cream in the biscuit tin, bit of post franked, paper recycled or birthday champagne put on somebody’s desk, we get to produce funny montages for Christian O’Connell, go along with Ben Jones to interview Hollywood A-listers, get to record interviews on tour buses at V and work in the studio with some of the UK’s best talent…the list goes on.

This is why you won’t find a runner like a One Golden Square runner. We’ve got a great history of giving talented people a unique chance to forge a fruitful career in a great radio station and hopefully there’ll be many more to follow in those footsteps in the future!

Now, time to go see if that first floor printer needs paper!

Hannah & Gareth

Casting production talent is probably one of the most difficult jobs in the world. It really is an arranged marriage. You’ve found the groom - now you need to find a bride. Not only do they need to be good at their jobs, but they need to get on with the presenters they work with. Many such marriages do not work out as the two are individually great, but don’t get on. Like marriages too, the dear presenter and producer couple have to be able to honest with each other, take tough decisions and yet know that, at the end of it all, they care for each other and only want what’s best. Breakfast producers? Well, it’s all that times about ten. You really have to have a pretty good relationship to be able to be cheerful in each other’s company at the crack of dawn for years, and still to be firing on all cyclinders in long meetings at the other end of the day.

Christian found exactly that in Roque, and now I’ve stolen him to help me bring on some of the new talent. After seven years with Christian, his will be a tough act to follow.

I’m pleased that we’ve been able to move quickly, so that the new person can be in post as we move the station into ‘crossfade’ into the new brand. So, I can now announce that Richie Firth is joining us next week. Richie meets all the criteria above, and I know that his relationship will be a happy one. Richie comes from GCap Media, and brings a wealth of experience, actually, on both sides of the mic. He helped to take the station he was at most recently to record audiences. Although he won’t be on-mic much here at all, that part of his career is invaluable in helping him understand what makes a great show. Most importantly, Richie is a fund of great ideas and expert at engineering them to reality. That’s great news for taking the Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show to even greater award-winning heights and growing the audiences further; and his inventiveness will be great news for the commercial team too. He has jumped out of planes and things too, as seems a pre-requisite for radio producers now.

Richie, welcome to your new role.

Clive