RADIO - Students are often reluctant to experiment, to try out new ideas, to take risks and have fun.

We are constantly looking for ways to energise and invigorate the medium and those involved in it.
 Students are often reluctant to experiment, to try out new ideas, to take risks and have fun.

Programme Making for Radio, Jim Beaman (2006) London: Routledge 129 pp., ISBN 0-415-36572-4 (pbk), £14.99
 Reviewed by Matthew Linfoot, University of Westminster
 
 
A book about the professional techniques and production practices of programme making in all its formats 
but its omissions raise some interesting issues for anyone who is currently engaged in teaching radio production skills
to those who will work in the industry. 

Overall, Beaman’s stance is informed by a very traditional training background,
yet most radio production courses are beginning to meet the demands of the multi-platform audio era.

We are already witnessing the evolution of bi- and tri-media-skilled roles in the radio newsroom and elsewhere.

New technologies and methods of listening present exciting opportunities for untapped audiences, and
the entrant into the industry needs to think about the changes this brings.

Ultimately, this will result in a break with many of the traditional formats Beaman discusses. 

As far as working practices go now,

• producers and broadcast assistants are often expected to re-version audio for other platforms and
• write copy for the web.

Journalists at Radio One are multitasking too,

• everything from taking photographs to
  
• recording short pieces on DV cameras.

The emergence of podcast production has also provided a significant area of employment for graduates with radio production skills.

Although there may not be room in this text to enumerate all the necessary skills,
any aspirant worker in the sector needs to know about the convergence issues and be prepared to exploit them.

But I think it goes further still. We are constantly looking for ways to energise and invigorate the medium and those involved in it. 


Students are often reluctant to experiment, to try out new ideas, to take risks and have fun.

At the Student Radio Awards 2007, Capital Radio’s Lucio gave this advise to students: “Ask forgiveness, not permission”.

Of course, we need to teach good practice and professionalism,
we need to know about the law,
editorial guidelines and regulation,

but we also have to ask what will inspire the next generation of radio professionals to innovate and entertain.

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, there is the constant danger of homogeneity and shifting to the middle ground (even in some parts of the BBC).

Beaman’s own experience and many years of radio listening are chronicled in the introduction, yet somehow the passion has become diluted by the lexicon of production.

I think it’s time for more celebration of the diversity of opportunity (including community radio, which barely gets a mention here), the excitement of the medium and the potential for finding one’s own voice on the airwaves.