Country hits the headlines

ITV News picked up on the launch of Country Hits Radio from Bauer.

It’s always encouraging to see the mainstream media cover radio, especially when we get coverage from a media brand that competes with our industry for revenue and audience time.

With the amount of change to the UK radio landscape we expect in the months ahead any help to boost trial of radio services is welcome.

But when you invite the TV news teams in don’t expect them to report on you exactly the way you might want. Any editorially independent journalist will use your moment as a peg to tell the story they want to tell.

ITV News wanted to zoom out and make a wider social and cultural point about the modern rise of country music in the UK.

Meanwhile, Michaela Jefferson chose to reflect on the growth of genre-led radio stations in the UK in her piece for trade publication Mediatel.

Both did good work for Country Hits Radio because its message is simple and non-contentious and because Bauer bent over backwards to help with access to talent, studios and graphics.

I recommend Paul Blanchard’s book Fast PR as an easy guide to dealing with the news media – full of good tips and arranged in a colourful and easy to navigate fashion.

We may be steeped in the media but when we become part of the story we still have to stop and think.

But they didn’t mention the jingles

ITV and Mediatel didn’t focus on station sound but we’re Earshot so here’s a montage of the imaging for Country Hits Radio.

Bauer producer Joe Thomas and the team at ReelWorld (who know a thing or two about imaging country formats from their work in the US) are behind the new sound.