A LITTLE SARDONIC LOOK AT ME AND SHITSPEARE
Now please don’t get me wrong; there are many great creatives walking this planet. Granted, most of them strutting around Hollywood. We still have some stunning creatives in certain Advertising Agencies and although rare these days, sometimes some of the output is allowed to fly. However, most is not and like such a lot of media it is ‘take the money and run – do whatever the client comes up with. So many in agencies are really just in a job which they hold no qualifications for, because the industry is seen as ‘easy money’ and those running the show don’t see creativity as having any qualifications needed. Worse still, Read more
RECESSIONARY BUSY WITH MEDIA -OCTRITY
It really does seem to be bad for many in the arts right now. I would like to say ‘creative media’, but I must have missed any that might have been lurking about in the last few years. Locally it is as dire as ever and in the Gulf, if not government owned radio, it would all be in deep deep dollops of it now. Outside of America the story is pretty much the same, yet ridiculous, childish, arrogantly incapable and naive cliques are running the radios with heavily formatted, massively boring output just the same and nobody but nobody can tell them different. Hollywood is still the first and last bastion of everything clever and the plethora of mediocrity out there in the form of TV satellite channels leech onto anything going. What the hell would they do without it?
Across the Middle East (where I am), there are loads of channels all doing what I don’t know, but the larger Showtime and Orbit, must be so proud to boast that they produce absolutely nothing of value Read more
NEW FM STATIONS IN BAHRAIN
I need to post about this and hopefully will before the story is too old and soggy.
Sorry oglers, (new word) I have a zillion posts in the making, some finished, some need proofing, but for the last two months we have been around the clock here installing a new Cisco system for one of our major associates. No chance to even fart really.
Coincidence or otherwise, I made a lot of noise about unfair competition and extremely bad business practice in the media sector here in Bahrain. Low and behold a few days later, it is announced that ‘selected Media Companies’ will be issued FM licenses in the coming weeks. (Time of writing: It should be the end of this month – quoting Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News).
Just who these Media companies are and how they were suddenly chosen is a mystery and exactly where the non-interfering FM frequencies are going to come from is even more intriguing. Everywhere else gone digital or satellite, but in Bahrain we open up the analogue.
Street talk is that Read more
MATING CALL OF DUBAI
We cannot really say that it is history repeating itself, but there is a familiar smell and in the Arab world in general, there is no smoke without fire FULL STOP! Some time back, there were murmurs within the clan about Coast Radio (Fujeira) being in a spot of trouble; not only rumours of nonpayment of wages, but also the niggling transmission problems that has dogged the station. (For international readers; Fujeira is in the United Arab Emirates, over the black Al Hajar mountains from Dubai), I also suspected that the Murads out at Ajman, the current kings of ‘sock it to me baby’ independence and Channel 4 FM, had bunged Fujeira Media a wad and Emirates Neon Group (ENG) a wave Read more
RADIO GA GA – DUBAI -PART 1
The name Geg Hopkins was pretty much the be all and end all of radio and production across the Gulf in 80s and even through until now really, although the aspects of the industry have changed considerably. I came in just after Graham Carter Dimmock, he of Episode Six the forerunners to Gillan, Deep Purple and on. Graham was Eagle Studios and was and probably still is quite brilliant and had an excellent radio voice, but left the area in the early 80s. Not only technically, but direction wise, Graham Dimmock knew exactly what he was doing and a hard act to follow. Everything he did sounded FAT and I still have the old 16 channel mixer he used out in my back shed. Wanna buy it? So that was a sort of benchmark in the area for a while. Read more
IS THERE A VIRGIN IN DUBAI?
The following article was penned July 2006 and destined for Pro Audio Middle East and Asia
The intrigue deepens as we go to press and by all accounts there is a possibility, although not exactly strong, that a Virgin Radio will hit the Dubai airways later this year. A pure Virgin seems unlikely but the twists and turns in this saga is akin to what happens in the Bermuda Triangle or why Sir Paul McCartney or U2 are musically so popular. Mysterious Rumours abound in a nearby Kingdom as well, that Shaikh Abdulla Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, he of Two Seas Records and Two Seas Studio fame, along with being Michael Jackson’s ex best friend, had talks with Virgin International. Those rumours are far from substantiated despite several enquiries made. Talk of the Ajman based Channel 4 FM approach fizzled out without any real credence or impetus, but there is still one serious contender flicking through the pros and cons of taking a Virgin on. However, it is extremely unclear as to who is actually approaching who in this quagmire. The impression given is that Virgin is being approached rather than Virgin testing the water by initiating the contacts, although both scenarios appear to be the case.
Of course, the name Virgin is synonymous with Sir Richard Branson but he no longer owns Virgin Radio UK, but retains rights to the name and cleverly utilizes it with extreme judgment at every opportunity with astounding results. The Scottish Media Group Plc actually own Virgin Radio UK and is nothing to do with Virgin Radio Asia which is based in Singapore and part of Virgin Radio International which is still part of the Virgin Group. Are you still with us? Virgin Radio Asia has one station broadcasting in Thailand with others in China, plus Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkatta set to become Virgins in the immediate future, as they link up with a leading Indian media group. Oui Fm is another in Paris along with the Internet based stations Radio Free Virgin out of the USA and this is all part of Virgin Radio International, so it is no surprise that C.E.O Ian Grace and C.O.O Mark Fisher are sniffing around Dubai and their neighbours, either invited or working on intuition.
Could Virgin exist in any Arab state other than Dubai? UAE radio is a hot topic and it has taken the activity Grammy compared to any other country in the Middle East now. A little bit of history is in order to explain the workings of commercial Gulf radio because it is nothing like the UK, Read more