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Buy a VW campervan. Travel around South America. Win a Sony award. These were three goals that I set out to achieve at the start of 2013. And one of those goals has been on that list for several years now… That pesky Sony Award..!

For the last eight years, I’ve co-hosted the Gem 106 breakfast show in the East Midlands (previously Heart 106), and for the last couple of years me and my co-presenter Sam have entered the Sonys. Each year, we’ve sat anxiously watching the nominations online, desperately hoping to hear our names. But no joy. Everyone responded to the disappointment cheerily with, ‘there’s always next year’ – but deep down we were gutted each time we missed out.

This year, however, was different. I’d actually forgotten about the nominations. They had been discussed earlier that morning in the office at Gem 106 but we were flat out that day visiting a school and it was only when I left the school and my phone started beeping uncontrollably that I realised I’d had no signal. Surely my last tweet wasn’t that funny?! The first text I saw said ‘Congratulations’ and I was totally confused. Then ‘YOU’RE SONY NOMINATED-BEST BREAKFAST!!!’ flashed up from my boss at Gem 106. I just sat in my car for the next twenty minutes reading messages while it sank in. The response from friends, colleagues and peers was incredible. I felt an enormous sense of pride for everyone on the show and in our team and relief that this year had paid off. Just to be nominated was a privilege.

The glamorous Grosvenor Hotel, where the annual awards are hosted, really does set it up to be a truly magical night – a fact that was instantly highlighted when Jarvis Cocker brushed past me. And we couldn’t believe our table was so close at the front, within metres of Robbie Williams (!) who opened the show.

By this time, self-preservation had well and truly kicked in and I’d convinced myself we weren’t going to win. But I was keen to enjoy the night regardless and was having a wonderful time as the evening unfolded, watching Chris Evans work the stage and our numerous heroes and peers walking up to collect their awards.

Then the second half began and it was time for our category. Champagne wasn’t enough to cool that odd feeling of excitement, dread and nerves rolled into one. With Bronze and Silver options eliminated the tension felt unbearable. We were still in the running. As Duncan James started describing the show as ‘family friendly’ I felt a nudge in my leg from Sam who whispered, ‘I think this is us,’ to which I sternly replied, ‘Stop it!’

Then came the best time I’ve ever heard our own names announced, ‘SAM AND AMY’. I think the video footage sums up how we felt. I could hardly feel my legs!

After that moment everything turned quite surreal. All these people I admired were suddenly approaching us to congratulate and share our excitement. One of the most hilarious moments occurred backstage immediately after. I was a little in shock when this lovely man started calming me down and excitedly saying ‘well done, you’ve won Gold, just breathe!’ It was Sir Chris Hoy. Basically giving me advice on winning Gold. Amazing.

The rest of the evening was a most enjoyable blur.

To win a Sony Gold Award is something I’d always dreamed of achieving in my radio career. I feel immensely proud of the whole Gem 106 team, they’re all genuinely brilliant people to work with and this has just inspired us to work even harder to achieve more. Especially seeing as Christian O’Connell has set the bar now with his tenth gold under his belt. I mean if anything that’s just hogging it!

If I was to give any advice on winning a Sony, I think our judges summed our show up perfectly by saying we had a ‘rare on air chemistry that is warm genuine and honest.’ Sam is one of my closest friends and we share everything. We are the same on air as we are in real life. Everything in our lives goes on air. We put a huge amount of time into planning and are willing to make sacrifices in our lives for the show. For example, one of the ideas – which made it into the entry – was where we completely swapped lives for a week. There was no faking it. Sam went for dinner with my friends and family and I genuinely lived with his wife and looked after his three-year-old daughter.

We also have a far more robust system than ever of collecting and archiving good audio as soon as we’ve done it. It’s a total cliché but never give up. I remember feeling frustrated that our eight years of early morning starts on breakfast hadn’t paid off as I’d hoped and my wonderfully wise 80-year-old Great Uncle simply saying ‘Patience and Perseverance’. He was absolutely right. Now that’s the bit I should have used in my speech!

The moment we won…

Amy Voce is one half of the ‘Sam and Amy’ Breakfast Show on GEM 106. Last month they won the Gold Sony Radio Academy Award for Breakfast Show of the Year (under 10 million).

by Natasha Maw, Programme Manager, Radio, BBC Academy

On Friday 18^th January, the BBC Academy hosted a day of taster sessions for 30 female specialists to try their hand at TV and radio. It felt a long time overdue. Apart from the rumpus that had been going on in the media about the lack of women experts on TV and radio, particularly in current affairs, I knew from my days as a radio producer that there was an issue around confidence and women putting themselves forward as experts to appear on air.

My last job at Radio 4 had been as a producer on ‘In Our Time’, a programme built on the brilliance of the three academics who appear on it, and we always had an unwritten rule that we would aim  to get at least one female specialist amongst those three.  Sometimes we got two and occasionally we got three, but more often I would have to persuade a female academic that she was indeed the expert of choice and that she would indeed be good enough to take part in a live radio discussion.

When I scanned through the biogs of the 30 women out of 2,000 who had been selected for Expert Women day, I was overwhelmed by the range and depth of expertise.  Amongst them were a theoretical physicist, volcanologist, molecular biologist, architectural historian, psychiatrist, addiction specialist, business consultant, space scientist, maritime archaeologist and renaissance historian. Oh and also Professor Frances Ashcroft, the woman who had done ground-breaking research on tackling diabetes.

I decided that a good way to draw out the collective depth of this knowledge was to run a series of mock ‘Start the Week’ style discussions where these formidable women would get an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and have a go at a group discussion around more general themes.  I enlisted my former colleague Liz Barclay as presenter and another colleague Alex Dalton to co-produce.

What became apparent as the day went on was firstly that all these women were good enough to go on air.  In fact, most of them were probably good enough to present a programme in their own right.  But, there was also the unusual experience of listening to a fascinating discussion between four female experts with a female presenter.  How often does that happen on radio?  There was also a weird dynamic going on in the studio.  Without any prompting from us, these experts were looking for threads and connections between their work.  So a Middle Eastern specialist and a mechanical engineer branched off into a discussion about carbon management and a classicist and an architect talked about the effect of personal identity that a city bestows.  Nobody was trying to compete for airtime or for the superiority of their specialism over another.  Of course this doesn’t mean that male experts won’t listen to each other on live radio.  But it struck me that so often we put up contributors in adversarial roles, particularly in current affairs and, like the way our political system is structured, this puts women off.

The great thing is that since that week in January, some of these women have already be commissioned and booked to appear on TV and radio. And on a collective high at having seen some of the best brains in action, we have decided to run another Expert Women Day on March 12^th.

For more information about the BBC Academy please visit their website: www.bbc.co.uk/academy

Angie Greaves is a rare thing in radio – a solo female drive-time presenter.  Yet in the latest RAJARs, her show on Magic 105.4 has overtaken BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 in listening figures, reach and market share for London. So how does she do it? We asked her to give us a few pointers.

Hi, Angie Greaves here.

You’ve obviously joined Sound Women because you are either passionate or interested in media – specifically radio. In my opinion, radio is the best media platform; instant whether speech or music, edgy, and the most engaging of media. So here are a few pointers that have kept me going since I entered radio and was bitten by the bug, and have also kept me fuelled up enough to land the position of London’s only solo female drive-time presenter.

Take your responsibilities seriously

That bug that I mentioned bit me at Capital Radio in the 80s when there were fewer commercial stations trying to grab their share of the audience. So anyone who was anyone walked through the doors of Capital, and my position was to ensure that their interviews were aired first, so we got the first bite of the cherry.

That responsibility alone gave me a “rush”, made me feel like I was walking a thin line which would break if I didn’t successfully complete my mission. Knowing that it was down to me to get artists in and on air before any other station gave me an edgy feeling of fear but also excitement. Naturally I didn’t want to mess up or have any negative comeback.

So I had to take my responsibility seriously. I would suggest you do the same in your current station. Yes, there will be days when you’re not feeling up to it, someone’s getting on your last nerve, but your job (whether large or small) is going to contribute to the final output on the station, and it’s been placed in your hands, so do it well. Negativity and fear aren’t an option.

Make time for networking and socialising

There’s no doubt that being in radio gives you the opportunity to attend some great social and prestigious events. A percentage of business decisions aren’t necessarily made over dinner, drinks and social events; BUT in many cases speaking to the right person socially can plant the seed that could get you that first meeting. You don’t have to go everywhere, but do network, and research Programme Controllers of stations that you want to work for.

You may have to be spontaneous too. I was freelancing on a station and needed a number for a colleague and the only person who I knew had that number was the then Programme Controller of Magic. When I called him his first words were “aren’t you on air?” Straight away I had to use my brain. If he was supposed to be monitoring Magic but chose to listen to me, it was for a reason. So I immediately took the opportunity to invite him to have lunch with me. Grab opportunities when they arise.

Love talking to your listener

This is a hard one because the vehicle of radio has changed. Most stations, especially commercial stations, sound quite similar in a musical capacity. Some may even say music radio has become repetitive. With Magic being a ‘More Music Less Talk’ station, I really have to monitor how much talking I do and ensure that it’s engaging and informative. I’m finding that Facebook and Twitter are great ways of continuing the conversation and connecting with listeners even more.

But when I’m on air, I think about what I used to do before I was on Drive. It was after-school Clubs with my daughters, a little bit of shopping, cooking in the kitchen. I think about listeners in those positions, and of course the listeners driving home from work after a hectic day. I’ve even joked that being on Drive I now know every junction on the M25 from J1B (Dartford) round to J30 (Tilbury/Lakeside), so it’s important to make the travel sound informative and not repetitive.

Be yourself

As a woman I feel I’m often able to empathise with listeners on a different level to men (and I’m NOT man bashing here). One of the loveliest compliments I ever had was a cab driver listening to Mellow Magic who said he couldn’t wait for midnight to listen to Mellow Magic Love Letters. He had no idea who I was (thank goodness) but said he would love to take Angie Greaves out for a drink with his wife and just chat.  Naturally I was quite chuffed and asked, “don’t you think your wife would mind” to which he replied, “not at all, my wife loves her as well”.

So it’s really important to just be yourself. For example, I never think twice about saying I burnt the dinner before leaving for work, because someone listening will have probably done the same in the midst of multi-tasking that week. So there’ll be a connection with that listener – not because we’re both bad cooks, but I’m being real and sharing a point of vulnerability just for that moment.

Make time for family time

My final tip is to ensure you have quality family time. You can have it all, but not 100% work life and 100% family life. So distribute your time as evenly as possible amongst work and family. If you find yourself spending a lot of time at the office/station, make a decision to give the family more time that weekend or the following week. And be mindful of the images you are sending your kids with your work pattern. That’s an important one.

Happy broadcasting

Angie

Connect with Angie Greaves

You can keep up with Angie at her website http://www.angiegreaves.com, on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and at SoundCloud.

Find out more about her Drivetime show on the Magic 105.4FM website.

At the end of last year’s Radio Festival, I put together a small blog post about the amount of women at the Festival: attendees (23%), speakers (18%), and the wider industry (46% to 17%, depending on the level) – and noted a twitter conversation at the Festival bemoaning the low amount of female speakers.

As someone who’s organised a fair degree of conferences, I’m used to feedback about “not enough women speakers”. I pointed out that the Festival actually achieved the industry board-level split (17% female), and asked what actually is “enough”? In the comments to that blog, Lisa Kerr responded with a challenge: to “aim for 50% and see how far that gets us”.

So, when Matt Deegan and I sat down to plan this year’s nextrad.io conference, we decided to aim for 50% female speakers; and during the conference, Maria Williams asked us for a blog post to see how we’d found it.

So, these are the things we’ve learnt:

It’s really hard to know who to ask.
The way conferences normally work is that we look for excellent speakers at other conferences and ask them whether they’d mind speaking at ours. This, of course, is a chicken and egg situation – we see few women speakers (I didn’t see a single one in a recent conference in Paris, for example) and therefore it’s much harder to find a good speaker for our conference.

Sometimes it’s quite hard to ask.
I found it quite hard to try and get some organisations to field women. For some, I mentioned our target of 50%, and asked for a woman speaker if at all possible. Some did supply female speakers – others politely listened to our request, ignored it, and gave us a bloke (who, given we were asking for peoples’ time for free, we gratefully accepted). This might say more about me than the people I was asking – or it might not – but I found this process rather awkward.

Sound Women could help more.
Well, this might be awkward too. But when a conference organiser recognises a problem and asks for help in their diversity of speakers, it greatly helps if help is forthcoming. It’s difficult when a request for help repeatedly gets as far as “yeah, I’ll get back to you next week” and no further; when a list of suggested speakers includes people who’d never speak in public even if their life was in danger; and when pleas for “more females to hit a 50% notional target” helpfully gets us a suggestion of a session comprising of a woman and two men. (It was a very good session. Thank you for the suggestion. But…) It wasn’t all bad – and Sound Women were especially good at promoting the conference and pushing its membership to suggest other speakers. That really helped.

It changes how you promote a conference
In promoting a conference, we naturally want to promote people who are recognised as great speakers or senior people. However, as discussed earlier, people who are known as great speakers are more likely to be male; and the Skillset research shows that the same is true of senior people. It came as a surprising realisation that we’d need to change the way we released our speaker lineup, so in the end, our speaker announcements were carefully orchestrated to be 50/50 female/male.

The audience doesn’t always follow
In spite of the differences in promotion, and the kind help that SoundWomen gave in promoting the conference, our audience – sold out weeks before the conference – comprised 19% women, 81% men. This is an increase from the year before; but perhaps we were hoping for a more balanced audience.

We want different microphones
Here’s an amazing discovery: we want different microphones, it turns out. Those little lapel mics – which I’ve been specifying for the conferences I run, because it keeps hands free to hold notes or to gesture – work fine with shirts and jackets, but less fine with dresses. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. (One experienced speaker said that she wore a jacket specifically for the mic.)

There’s more to diversity than female/male
Our speakers were overwhelmingly white. Totally middle-class, too. Perhaps by focusing so strongly on the female/male split meant that we missed other, just as relevant, targets.

So, how did we do?
We had nine women speakers out of a total speaker tally of 23. So, we achieved a final mix of 39% women, 61% men. We failed in our target to hit 50% – but I think achieved a lot in terms of learning and understanding how to make a conference programme cover more than just the usual suspects. I can’t decide whether the lack of anyone “noticing” was a good thing or not!

If you weren’t there, you missed a great day – lots of excellent speakers, passionate about radio and sharing a ton of new ideas. As a special treat for reading this far, I’m pleased to be able to give you a free pass to the entire day – and 2011’s conference too – because we’ve shared videos of almost every presentation online. Visit nextrad.io and watch them all at your leisure.

by Kate Cocker

However you feel about the word ‘networking’ it’s without a doubt a key skill to progressing in radio. As they say it’s not what you know it’s – well yeah – you know that saying right?

Following on from the success of the Summer Networking Event in London with Edith Bowman and Harriet Scott Sound Women are bringing this session to the North West.

Shelagh Fogarty

We would like to invite ALL women in radio and audio, right across the North, along to our Networking Event at Media City in Salford on Tuesday October 2nd 2012. Whether you are in community or student radio, work for the BBC, commercial radio, or an indie – you are welcome here. So please come along!

This is your chance to improve your networking skills and practice them with some of the senior representatives of radio in the North.

Peter Salmon, Director of BBC North, will open the event at 6.30pm, and we are thrilled to announce that our guest speakers will be Real Radio’s North West Breakfast Anchor Sam Walker and BBC Radio 5 live’s Shelagh Fogarty. All this plus drinks and networking bingo…

Sam Walker

Prior to the event at 5.30pm, Sound Women will be running a workshop on ‘how to network’. Tickets for the training workshop will cost £10. You will be given some key skills and top tips on how to get through that moment of thinking “what on earth do I say?”, making connections that could change your career path.

Tickets for the event and the workshop will go on sale at 9.30am on Monday 24th September at Eventbrite.

Looking forward to meeting you then!

Sound Women North West

By Carly Maile

‘And you must be Carly? Your manager said his only girl in the team was turning up today.’

My first day of working at the Olympics had finally come as I was hired by the Olympic Broadcasting Services through the Broadcasting Training Programme.  OBS selected a handful of Universities and offered around 1100 students a range of areas for employment at the Olympics.  Selected as a Commentary Systems Operator my role was fairly technical, assisting on the operational side with both the hard and software.

During the training there was a whole alphabet of acronyms to learn and understanding the signal flow, but once this became a tangible form it all made sense.  When the training had finished the first gold I struck was being placed at the Velodrome.  I was unaware before applying for the BTP that OBS is responsible for providing all the pictures and images of each sport to the broadcasting companies that have purchased the rights to transmit the Games.

Could you imagine if over a hundred countries were elbowing their way against each other trying the get the best camera angles of their athletes?  It would be organised chaos.

We were a team of seven in charge of making sure everything on the 40 commentary units were to the commentators and studios preference. If something went wrong it was up to us to trouble shoot the problem.  There is no doubt that women are not as often in this technical role, hence being the only one on the team, and a couple of times my knowledge was possibly underestimated by a few commentators either ignoring my advice or hailing over one of the men from the opposite direction when I was standing right next to them.  But I can only assume, as this most definitely may not have been the case.  However they didn’t hesitate to ask me for stat sheets when needed. Beyond these few minor encounters I had the privilege to work alongside professionals that had been involved with the Olympics for over 16 years and their expertise provided a faultless operation.  And it needs to be, just picture watching Jessica Ennis with the television on mute, it doesn’t have the same impact. The noise from the spectators and the exasperation from the commentators it’s all part and parcel that fuels the anticipation and sheer excitement for the audience at home.

That hysteria from the crowd in the Velodrome may not quite have been relayed over transmission but with the intimacy of the venue and intense roar from the fans for Team GB it was close to deafening.  5 Live were spot on to describe it as the ‘bellow from the velo’.  Mixed with temperatures of over 28 degrees the atmosphere was absolutely electric.  The workspace in the Velodrome where media and press gathered their information filled over 80 bodies at a time and on more than one occasion only 10 of those were women.  But as we see the cycling this year equal the number of events for men and women and the inclusion of female boxing this hopefully will bring more women behind the microphone to illustrate their expertise about the sports and add to these special moments of history.

Finally having a moment to step back and reflect on the Games, the enormity of the occasion is immense.  There is none other quite like it and to be part of the biggest broadcasting event in the world was a once in a life time experience.  And just like Mo Farah’s second gold medal you can’t quite put it into words but the whole experience was incredible.  As like most of us I was engrossed with the Games.  The BBC’s coverage on all three mediums was phenomenal, and as this post-Olympic withdrawal sets in it won’t take complete hold as the Paralympics are just over two weeks away.

By Creative Skillset’s Jo Welch

Until recently, if someone had said “Free Money” to me, I’d think of the Patti Smith song…  Of late, the phrase has popped up on a Creative Skillset flyer, to publicise funding for freelancers usually offered courtesy of the Film and TV Skills Fund.

Now, for the first time in 20 years, we are absolutely delighted that with a pot of cash provided by the BBC, we can offer funding for freelancers in Radio!

You can get funding for courses in any of the areas identified by industry leaders as priorities for the industry, so that the training you take will actually help you to get work in this ever changing world of Radio and Audio.  This means craft & technical skills, including editing, social media, multiplatform content development and distribution and sound engineering, or business, teamwork and management skills are all covered too.

80% of the cost of training – and some associated costs – are on offer, so do think about which skills you’ve wanted to update but maybe haven’t been able to afford to.

You have to identify one or more courses – worth up to a max of £1500 – to actually apply for the money, so talk to colleagues and friends, and research online to make this money work for you. The pot is not large but will be opened twice this year.

If you’re struggling to find a training provider or a solution that meets your needs, please do take a look at Creative Skillset’s course database and follow this link to find out more and to apply: www.creativeskillset.org/freemoney

Read the guidelines carefully too – this offer is for established working freelancers who don’t have support with their training needs.  It’s not for employees, students or anyone who’s just entered the industry.  Making the choice to live and sustain the freelance life is a tough one – we hope this fund can give you a boost for your skills and make getting the next job a little easier.

Creative Skillset is the industry body which supports skills and training for people and businesses to ensure the UK creative industries maintain their world class position.

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By Rebecca Maxted, Producer at Wise Buddah

The BBC’s Director of Audio and Music Tim Davie played host to a networking event for Sound Women members at the brand spanking new Broadcasting House on Tuesday 19^th June.

The evening kicked off with a special networking workshop, ably led by Sue Ahern and Natasha Maw from the BBC Academy packed full of tips our networkers could arm themselves with for the event.

In all honesty I was pretty terrified before the Sound Women Networking Event, as I knew that it was such an amazing opportunity…but I also knew how terrible I was at approaching people I didn’t know, or ‘networking’ as you might also like to call it. But after some wise words from Sue Ahern I felt as ready as I’d ever be… 

 Jade Hutchinson, AP, Wise Buddah

Primed by the pre-drinks workshop, the networking event itself seemed much more manageable. I was pleased to see that Soundwomen had bagged a shiny, new, high profile venue and we weren’t just shoved in a faceless meeting room somewhere.

Kirsty McQuire, Speech Assistant Producer

140 Sound Women members and radio VIPs gathered in the Media Café overlooking the subterranean open-plan news floor at the BBC’s gleaming new Broadcasting House for the main event, nicely timed to precede England’s Euro 2012 match against Croatia (it wasn’t planned, apologies to those who missed kick off!).

Tim Davie kicked off proceedings, warmly endorsing the work of Sound Women, welcoming everyone to the BBC’s brand new building and talking about the importance of networking in our industry. He also kicked off a quick sprint of ‘networking bingo’ where Sound Women members and guests were given topics to kick-start conversation and the opportunity to win a bottle of bubbles for the swiftest movers.

Our attendees had the chance to chat to the likes of Clive Dickens from Absolute Radio, Gwyneth Williams from Radio 4, Rhys Hughes from BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra, 6 Music’s Liz Kershaw and Sunta Templeton from Capital Breakfast.

It was a whistlestop affair as everyone was ushered into seating positions to hear speakers Harriet Scott from Heart Breakfast and Edith Bowman from BBC Radio 1. Edith and Harriet shared their stories of ‘making it’ in radio, how they juggle their family lives with their high profile careers, and the art of being a co-presenter versus going it alone. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3vXD-lEFlM&w=560&h=315]

We were delighted to see all the activity on social media and twitter and receive positive feedback about the event – at least one Sound Women has already got a big new chunk of work out of it – and were doubly excited at the promise made by Tim Davie to hold other events, including at other regional BBC hubs. Next stop, Manchester!

I loved being in a room full of people with the same passion as me and I made contacts with people I would never otherwise get to meet so that was really rewarding. The cherry on top for me would have been to get some producers also chatting about their experiences alongside Edith and Harriet…

Sara Sesardic, Freelance AP

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