At RadioDays Europe, Ben Cooper, the former Chief Content Officer for Bauer Media Audio UK and Controller of BBC Radio revealed his three keys to unlocking success and enjoyment in your radio job.
- Passion
- Purpose
- People
Cooper’s presentation began and ended with stories about the Greek philosopher Socrates. “He was a grumpy bugger, he was in the Agora talking about philosophy and no one was listening… so he started telling a story and the crowds gathered around.”
Human minds rely on stories to make sense of things and to help them remember.
“We are storytellers in a market place trying to grab an audience,” said Cooper. The marketplace is changing, but stories are still important in gaining audience. “Short attenditon spans are a myth, make it as long as it is interesting and audienes will stay with you. Kids will spend hours on a couch watching Harry Potter or playing an online game, if the story is strong enough they will stay.”
As a leader how do you harness the power of stories within a successful organisation?
Quoting advice from Alasdair Campbell, he discussed the OST strategy he has used as his method of success:
- O for Objective
- S for Strategy
- T for Tactics
At Bauer he used the OST framework in this way:
Our Objective was to win new audiences in new ways. The phone is a weapon of mass distraction – we had to fight against it to grow our audience.
Our Strategy was listen, look, live and local. Let audiences Listen on all platforms. Look – be seen on phones and screens, Do Live events that create special moments, Be Local with news, adverts, information and voices.
A focus group participant commented in one of Coopers research sessions, “if I didn’t see it on my phone it didn’t happen,” so he encouraged his team to increase their presence on phone platforms as part of the strategy.
Our Tactic was KISS, keep it simple stupid. Make the complicated simple. “Make the internal workings of your organisation as simple to navigate as possible so that you can spend your time having fun.”
The old assumption about music for young audiences was that stations targeting youth should play recent and brand new music. In a world where all the songs ever recorded are available to young listeners, quality is now an important factor, not just newness.
“The biggest mistake radio is making is that we assume that young audiences are all about new music.. New music no longer represents the next generation.
“New music to the latest generations is not just the latest hits, new music is something they haven’t heard before. Old music can be new music if it’s a great song and it’s the first time you’ve heard it,” said Cooper.
Think of the best place and time where you have worked. The reason it was so good is probably because of the people, according to Cooper.
People – think of the best times, they usually have to do with people. “Get the right people on the bus and put them on the right seats,” he advised.
Purpose – the best things we did were about important purposes, they’re the things I was most proud of. “Purpose makes people happy at work, even more than making a profit.”
Passion – about radio and the storytelling that radio can do. “Radio is curated by human beings, it can tell stores that are not created by algorithms.”