A view of the CRA National Radio Conference by Peter Saxon

For the past decade or more, each conference and ACRAs has featured a big name international celebrity. Among them, English Sirs, John Cleese, Bob Geldoff and Michael Parkinson – Australia’s own Dame Edna, American moon man Buzz Aldrin, fictional TV talk radio host Kelsey Grammer and last year’s famous for being the wife of somebody kind of famous, Sharon Osbourne.

While for most, their connection to radio was tenuous at best, CRA justified the six figure sum it took to lure them to the antipodes by pointing to the value of the publicity they drummed up for the industry. Certainly it was great publicity for the celebrities as they did the rounds of media – a few even landed a TV commercial while here. Cleese even landed a radio commercial. But publicity for the radio industry?

This year, despite all the A, B and C listers queued up to spend a week  down under at the peak body’s expense, CRA decided it had better things to do with its money. I think they were right.
So, this year the conference and ACRA’s made do without the marquee value of an internationally known celebrity guest.  And it was all the better for it.

If I want to listen to Sharon Osbourne prattle on about “Camilla Parker Bowles’ tits and Prince Charles’ willy” I’d watch E, not lose an hour of my life I will never get back at a conference where I came to learn about radio.

To my mind this was the best conference I’ve attended since … well…  since celebrities started coming to conference.
Right off the bat, the sessions were generally strong with plenty that even the most hardened radio veteran could take away.

Dr Morten Boyer from GfK made the world of audience measurement sound exciting as he introduced his company’s new methods that will form the basis radio ratings from 2014.

Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman knows how to welcome a delegation of commercial broadcasters to his state by enthusing about the development planned for regional areas. He mentioned almost every radio market as earmarked  for spectacular growth – music to most network’s ears.

The best was yet to come with one of the most original think-out-of-the-box presentations we’ve seen in years from Adam Ferrier, If Psychologists Ran Radio Stations. More on that in the next few days.
Another session that drew high praise from delegates was Jules Lund’s presentation entitled Are You Likeable? Maximising Social Media and a similar one from SCA colleague Sam Cavanagh on the subject of Fans not Listeners.

The much anticipated Brutal Truth was fun but hardly brutal. The real revelation was how two out of the five panellists Merrick Watts and Rachel Corbett, who’d been sacked just days before conducted themselves with such dignity and professionalism. Still, aided by Robin Bailey, Dylan Lewis and Paul Murray, the session was entertaining and provided some insight into how talent deals with management.

radioinfo contributor, Pat Bryson was met with a full conference room of sales types eager to learn how Deeper Conversations with Clients would yield more dollars. Ms Bryson did not disappoint.
Unable to be two places at once, I didn’t see the Jonathan Holmes hosted Avoiding Media Watch session, but I was told that someone form 2GB, a station often in Holmes’ sights when he presented the ABC show played a long excerpt of Andrew Bolt’s take on Media Watch. Apparently Holmes was not amused.

Another meaty session was hosted by Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes with panellists Ciaran Davis (ARN), Helen Lecopoulos (McDonalds), Jo Dick (OMD), Ralph Barnett (SapientNitro). They discussed the age old question of why radio doesn’t get more money from agencies? While the issue was far from solved there was some illumination, the clients saying they needed to speak to other people in the station besides the sales reps. And the sales reps needed to spend more time with the agency’s creative people and not just the media buyers.

All in all it was a strong conference with more relevant material than ever and by my barometer more delegate approval than ever. When on previous occasions the majority of attendees would drift away by the mid afternoon sessions, the after conference networking and drinks, sponsored by radioinfo, were the best attended that many had seen.

Perhaps it had something to do with the 64 gigabyte iPhone 5S we were giving away. It was won by SCA’s Stuart Tovey, General Manager – Central Queensland who downloaded the new radioinfo app and correctly identified Katy Perry’s Roar as the number song on the AirCheck National AirPlay Chart.

Peter Saxon