So James has told you how they do it. But what does it sound like? We listen in to Absolute Radio’s game-changing genre song splits at Breakfast.
Listened In is 2ZY’s regular air-check blog, where we listen to a random twenty minute sample of a station or programme in the news.
WHAT The Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show on Absolute Radio, Absolute 60s, Absolute 70s, Absolute 80s, Absolute 90s, Absolute 00s and Absolute Classic Rock
WHEN Wednesday 21 May 2014
This is NOT a review of Christian, more of the difference this playlist innovation makes. But there’s no doubting from this 20 minutes that he’s at the top of his game. There’s pace, audience connection, laugh-out-loud moments. When someone lives the brand as well as he does, there’s no wonder the station wanted to sort the ‘Kaiser Chiefs on Absolute 80s’ issue.
0719
Content: Listener interaction
Travel
ADS: Mercedes Approved Used
Speed Link
ID: The Christian O Connell Breakfast Show on Absolute Radio built by Wickes
ADS: British Gas/Absolute Radio Account (the song used to illustrate that you’ll hear more music and fewer ads on Absolute Radio was Eurythmics/You Have Placed Chill on my Heart)/Internet Matters/Mercedes Vans/Money Supermarket/Let’s Rock Southampton/New Songs on Absolute Radio (James, Paul Weller, Coldplay, Kaiser Chiefs)
ID: Absolute Radio IS the COC Breakfast Show
SONG SPLIT
AR: Going Underground/The Jam
60: Uptight (Everything’s Alright)/Stevie Wonder
70: I Want You Back/Jacksons
80: Living in a Box/Living in a Box
90: The Bartender and the Thief/Stereophonics
00: The Bucket/Kings of Leon
CR: I Won’t Back Down/Tom Perry
Great to see a brilliant presenter so engaged in a brilliant technical innovation.
Content: ‘Chloe the Claw’ game setup
0731 ID: This is Absolute (Station Name)
News, Sport & Weather
ID: Absolute (Station Name) The COC Breakfast Show (Genre) Music (Station Name)
SONG SPLIT
AB: Molly’s Chambers/Kings of Leon
60: For Your Love/Yardbirds
70: Hanging on the Telephone/Blondie
80: Start/The Jam
90: What’s My Age Again?/Blink 182
00: What’s My Age Again?/Blink 182
CR: Don’t Believe a Word/Thin Lizzy
Content: Chloe the Claw lines open
Travel
ADS: VW commercial vehicles
Speed link
ID: The Christian O Connell Breakfast Show on Absolute Radio built by Wickes
ADS: McDonalds Breakfast/Chad Valley Aeroplane/Absolute Radio Account (I’m into Something Good – Hermans Hermits on 60s)/European Parliament/Ford/Promo: Soul Time on AR60s.
SONG SPLIT
AB: Sunday Girl/Blondie
60: Wonderful World, Beautiful People/Jimmy Cliff
70: 2468 Motorway/Tom Robinson Band
80: You Spin Me Round/Dead or Alive
90: Female of the Species/Space
00: Steal My Sunshine/Len
CR: Foxy Lady/Jimi Hendrix
SUMMARY
If you love clunkiness, you’ll hate this. It took them a while to do, but Absolute have nailed it, for the greater good of radio. Parking each station’s raison d’être during peak listening always felt wrong – if understandable given you’d want Christian on all your stations. Now you get the best of both worlds.
Even when I thought I’d spotted a bug, I looked up the Blink 182 song, and it was released in November 1999, so charted in both decades. Sneaky. And when I heard Living in a Box, I thought “True radio crime if they fade this …” They didn’t. Christian was as tight off the back as he’d have been off vinyl in 1987.
The dinosaurs may argue that radio is about shared-experience – and here, you’re not sharing a single experience. True, but the key (live) bit is the stuff around the music, not the music. Even music endorsement looks possible, from the tweets shared above. And although this isn’t true personalisation – yet – it’s another step along that path. Once again, the team at Golden Square are proving they’re the ones who really understand the space where the tech of radio, present and future, meets.
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