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A good space for radio
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Radio listeners rarely see the studios in which their favourite shows are created. Writer, broadcaster and comedian Martin Kelner compares how studio spaces used to be, with how they look today...
For a while in the early eighties I used to present the breakfast show on Pennine Radio, descending into a dank basement below Forster Square in Bradford to do so. Depending on the overnight traffic through Bradford's drainage system, the place could be none too fragrant; but fortunately the late night presenter was a heavy smoker, which tended to mask the more obtrusive odours.
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From this cellar, with overflowing ashtrays, and waste bins crammed full of Coke cans and screwed up teleprinter copy, I gave West Yorkshire its wake-up call. It was a cramped, chaotic, dingy, broadcasting space, and was exactly right for the job.
A commercial radio breakfast show in those days was not a discussion programme or a three-handed comedy show. It was about whacking the records on and being funny(ish) in as short a time as possible, which the studio was perfectly suited to do.
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Freed from base commercial concerns, the BBC has traditionally been able to show more concern for its presenters. In the Broadcasting House of the early 1930s, there was a Talks studio kitted out like a library in a fine country house, walls lined with yards of books, microphone placed discreetly on a highly polished oak table.
When religious programmes were broadcast from the studio, the vase of flowers was removed from the table, apparently, and a cross projected on the wall to help passing bishops and the like adopt a suitably worshipful tone.
Visual aids of this type are rare in commercial radio, although Capital Radio, in their old premises at Euston Tower, had a studio with a sort of spotlight for the presenter's desk and soft sofas scattered around the edge of the room, possibly to persuade disappointed guests that they were actually on the TV; or maybe part of an advert for World of Leather.
If the definition of a good studio is one that balances technical needs - clearly a clever design is pointless if the listeners miss every second word - with its use as a performance area, sofas and religious iconography may seem unnecessary fripperies.
A window with an outside view is a different matter. If a presenter is trying to connect in some way with the scurrying masses beyond the studio, the opportunity to actually see one or two of them is invaluable.
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These days, of course, there seems to be an almost equal requirement for listeners to see the presenters. Classic FM's studios, for instance, are almost open plan. Visitors to the station given a clear view of all that's going on through the studio's glass walls.
And for those unable to make it to the studios, there is the ubiquitous web-cam. Gone are the days when a presenter could happily pick his nose - or worse - in the studio while the music played, secure in the knowledge that radio was all about illusion, theatre of the mind, and so on. Every few years someone goes to the logical extreme of making a television programme simply by putting some television cameras into the studio of a popular radio show. It never seems to work. Maybe there's an invisible ingredient in radio's continuing success that is best added by a listener's imagination.
Thankfully, in the days of Pennine Radio, the world was unable to spy on the hideous clutter, although if anybody is at all interested, a friend has an ancient video of me picking my way to the desk, with a box of seven-inch singles and a can of air freshener!
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