So What Did You Think of the Show?

Getting up at 5.15am, whizzing down to College Green to do Sky News Sunrise and then driving for two hours to Arundel was perhaps not the ideal preparation to present what turned out to be a nine hour marathon election programme. And due to traffic I was late.

However, we got started at 9am on time and despite some people having difficulty in accessing the site in the first hour it was clear that we were building up quite a substantial audience. In the first hour I interviewed LibDem leader Nick Clegg who was about to board a train to visit his victorious LibDem councillors in Bristol. This was followed by a chat with Conservative MP Paul Goodman who had announced that he was standing down at the next election. Throughout the rest of the day we talked to all sorts of political luminaries including Boris Johnson, Tom Harris, Andrew MacKinlay, Kerry McCarthy, Nick Palmer, Chris Rennard, Jonathan Isaby, Paul Waugh and Keith Simpson.

We also interviewed the deputy leader of the British National Party, Simon Darby. If I am completely honest, I wasn't looking forward to this, but I firmly believe they need to be taken on and that a no platform policy is counter productive. My fellow presenter, Hopi Sen, refused to take part in the interview, which I think was a mistake, as Donal Blaney and I took Darby to task for his wholly objectionable views. Indeed, I thought he tied himself up in knots. My interviewing style is not ideal for people like Simon Darby. I am not confrontational, but maybe in retrospect that was a good thing. Judge for yourself. The podcast is HERE.

We had some very good calls from listeners - no nutters! And we also gleaned a lot of information from all around the country which meant that we could talk about individual results with some authority and 'call' an authority way before the BBC or Sky could announce a final result. I think we came into our own discussing the Ian Gibson by election announcement as Morus from Political Betting is a friend of the Norwich North Tory candidate and I know the seat well from my political work there in the 1980s.

I have to admit that I completely lost it during the Gordon Brown press conference, which we carried live. Brown's announcement that Glenys Kinnock was replacing Caroline Flint was just too much. If you saw it, you;'ll know what I mean.

So, was it as polished as a BBC production? No, but it wasn't meant to be. Was it professional? I hope so. Wa sit informative, entertaining and analytical? I think so, but those who listened must be the judges. We're doing it all over again on Sunday night from 6pm to midnight, so if you have any tips for improvements, do feel free to tell us.

I want to thank Hopi Sen, Morus, Donal Blaney, Alan Douglas and Gareth Knight for making it work, and also to PlayRadioUK.com for allowing us to make the programme. I hope everyone felt it was worth it.

If you'd like to hear any of the podcasts from the programme click on the links below.

Boris Johnson (8 mins)
Paul Goodman (11 mins)
Nick Clegg (8 mins)

UPDATE: Joshua Chambers reviews the Simon Darby interview.

Last Night's Radio Show

***************************************************************************************************
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST OF LAST NIGHT'S SHOW

Powered by Podbean.com

**************************************************************************************


Last night's radio show was a blast. Loads of calls and all of them insightful and interesting. The highlight was a call from someone calling himself Lord Elvis, who proceeded to sing a Chas & Dave song in the voice of Elvis with lyrics about Nadine. You had to be there. We also had two eyewitness reports from the Andrew MacKay public meeting in Bracknell. One of them was LibDem blogger Mark Reckons who gives his own account of the meeting HERE.

I'm told that we broke the record for the number of live listeners at any one time on the station which isn't bad for only the second programme.

I'll be back next Friday with another show from 11pm-1am, but the following Friday will be a bit different. We'll be broadcasting all the way through from 9am to 4pm covering the local election results. Hopi Sen will be co-presenting. I've had a tremednous response from readers to provide information and analysis on the day. If you can help, do drop me an email. We'll also be doing a European elections programme on Sunday 7 June fro 6pm to midnight.

Reflecting on My Radio Presenting Debut

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE.


Thanks to all of those who listened last night to my show on PlayRadioUK. To those who couldn't listen at the time and have emailed asking about a Podcast version, I am told it will be available tomorrow.

I have to say I enjoyed myself tremendously. We had some great calls and the lines were flashing for the whole programme. It's quite disconcerting when you see all the lines flashing at once because your immediate reaction is to finish a call and move onto the next one so you can get everyone in. But I tried not to do that too much so everyone could have their say. Much of the programme was taken up with MP expenses, but we did cover other subjects too. It was great to receive calls from all over the country and beyond. We had calls from the US and Canada too.

Tom Harris phoned in, which was nice of him, and several blog regulars also joined in. Molesworth1 gets the accolade as caller of the night. John Hirst (Jailhouselawyer) called in too to talk about his pet issue of votes for prisoners. I hope he thought I gave him a fair crack.

I was supposed to play a quite a bit of music, but we had so many calls I only ended up playing one song, Apologise by Timberland, which I dedicated to the Prime Minister.

Did anything go wrong? Apart from me fluffing the name of the radio station at the top of the programme and Skype freezing at one stage due to the volume of calls, not too much went wrong. I got a bit mixed up with the faders from time to time but generally it all went very smoothly. I deliberately didn't have a script so I could move from subject to subject at will. What I found most difficult was keeping on top of all the different methods people were using to communicate with me in the studio. I think I concentrated too much on the phone calls and didn't use Skype enough, or read out enough emails - and I forgot about Twitter completely.

The producers told me afterwards that the audience had been several times what they were expecting and the level of phone calls was huge for a first show. Judging by the comments on a previous thread it would have been far higher but many of you couldn't access the live stream. It seems that there are issues with Macs. I remember we had these teething problems at 18 Doughty Street, but I will pass on your comments to the producers.

They seemed highly delighted by the programme, so it looks as if I will be doing it again. The plan is to do it as a regular Friday or Saturday night gig. I'm speaking in North Wales next Friday and debating with Hazel Blears in Salford the week after, so hopefully we can start it after that.

UPDATE: Listen to the Podcast HERE.

TONIGHT from 11pm-1am Call the Iain Dale Radio Show

Tonight I'm hosting a pilot Talk Radio programme for Play Talk from 11pm-1am. It's part of PlayRadioUK, a new internet radio venture with 15 different stations. To listen just go to http://playradiouk.com and choose the Play Talk channel.

It's a very loose format - no script at all. Just me, a microphone and the listeners and the odd bit of music thrown in for good measure. We'll have plenty to talk about, not least MPs' expenses, Joanna Lumley & the Gurkas, the BNP, the European elections and anything else that takes my - or your - fancy.

I hope some of you will be tuning in and taking part.

Phone 01243 556161
Email talk@playradiouk.com
Skype play.radio.uk
Twitter @playradiouk

Do try to Skype me in the studio if you can't get through on the phone.

And if you have any ideas for the show, let me know!

And finally, a competition. Richard Bacon signs off his late night show on 5 Live copying the Midnight Caller programme, with "Goodnight Great Britain, wherever you are".

How should I finish the show?

UPDATE: Listen to the Podcast HERE.

A New Venture For Election Night Broadcasting

As you may know, next Friday I have got a two hour stint (from 11pm-1am) on PlayRadioUK. I went down to their Arundel studios on last Friday to learn how to use the studio. Very exciting. I promise not to use the Fader on callers (unlike certain more illustrious talk radio hosts :) ) without good reason!

While I was there I discussed doing some live election coverage on Friday 5 June and the evening of Sunday 7 June. Most county councils will be counting during the day on Friday rather than overnight on the Thursday.

The idea is to do live radio programmes from 9am to 4pm on Friday 5th June and from 6pm to midnight on Sunday 7 June. These would be very much akin to how we covered the local elections on 18 Doughty Street on local election night in 2007. Very rough and ready and using citizen journalists all round the country to provide information and updates on what is going on in their area. It will be a sort of PoliticalBetting.com on radio...

The BBC is not doing an election programme on the 5th and won't be on air until 9pm on the Sunday, so it seems to me there is a lot of scope to do something very innovative.

I'm looking for correspondents to cover each of the County Council/Unitary elections and also for the Sunday, correspondents to cover each Euro region - preferably more than one. We have the facility to get people on air by phone, Skype, email, text and Twitter.

I'm also looking for volunteer interns to join us in the studio backroom to crunch figures and collate information on the 5th and the evening of the 7th. If you love near the studios in Arundel, and want to get involved, I'd love to hear from you.

We're not going to try to repeat the kind of election programme the mainstream broadcasters do - it will be very much live and loose, and totally reliant on citizen journalism and bloggers to make it work. We'll be talking to leading politicians and pundits over the course of the programmes too, but the bulk of it will be devoted to people like you.

During the course of this week I'm putting together a proper programme plan. So if you'd like to be part of it, do get in touch by email.