From January 12, 2008, the Oneword Radio DAB (digital) station will be pulled. It will be off the air, closed down and lost into the ether of digital radio trials and relics, a bittersweet memory. "Bittersweet" because it was a sweet joy to listen to, but also because there is much bitterness in its demise, most from its listeners.
This article in The Bookseller says it all and quotes Oneword's MD, Simon Blackmore as follows:
"We were perhaps ahead of our time. We're seeing a take-up of DAB radios now that we thought would happen five years ago. The public appetite is now there, and I think there is a place for a Oneword-type station."
So why did Channel 4 not see that vision when they applied for the second digital multiplex licence? Why did they not see the value of book programmes? Why didn't UBC Media, the longstanding and resultant 100% owner of Oneword make an effort to see the station commercially viable, rather than pull out at the last minute?
Dear God, it's far too easy to toss an award-winning but loss-making (whose fault here on the latter?) station & subsidiary into the gutter when you have no further use for it.
Channel 4 appears to have used Oneword to get into the digital radio market; but what rationale has UBC Media for running a subsidiary/investment interest for about 7 years and then saying "goodbye", blaming competition from BBC7 and a strategy of wanting to be a service industry and not a station provider, into the gutter? A subsidiary with a mission and objectives is not a pair of slippers to grind away into the carpet!
Oneword was a station devoted to literature, books and the spoken word. I hope we don't see (hear) the last of its wonderful programmes come Jan 12, 2008. The quality, yes, do get this, the quality of its programmes was something not to be missed and I hope these are resurrected on another channel whose owners pay due respect to the production quality and make the most of it. If only more people had realised Oneword was there; but that's crap marketing for you, as I indicated here!
Sad to see you go Oneword. Please come back soon with your wonderful programmes on another channel, even if you don't have an exclusive home with your own branded station and even if you only manage 5/7 and not 24/7 - that would be a pull!
My very best to all of you who produced and presented in 2007 on Oneword. As I said before, I only realised how to listen to you in 2007 and during that year you brought much light, stimulation, education and humour to the darkest hours in my life. Your talents will be noted and actioned further, I'm sure; you have too much to waste, even if your (major) parent company could not see it in 2007/8 and before. I will listen again as soon as I know you're there. Such talent as yours will be on our airwaves again and soon. I look forward to listening again.
My very best to those who created and maintained "Oneword"; keep your chins and heads held up high you darlings, because that is where they deserve to be!
I do hope we listen again soon.
cfr
Adam,
I've never been into its serialisations. Indeed, I've never been into "audio" books per se, but I did try them out in the latter part of last year and I have a post coming up on this later in Jan.
The audio book has always been an oddity to me as I like to read at my own pace and garner my imagination at its own pace. I can read a page and divert off into my own thoughts and world, leaving the page behind and then suddenly realising I'm needing to turn over with no idea what I've read! Thus I go back to where I last took off (consciously)...
But, back to Oneword. If they relied on this income so much, it's clear that they were not even going to break even. Their audioville listen again stock was priced such that it looked cheap (little income there then) and the user/listener possibly wondering why they even had to pay for it at all, I suspect.
In all of 2007, I never felt I'd grasped the beginning of a series of book talk anyway, so I never wanted to listen more. I heard the dulcet tones of Lindsay Duncan so many times, having thought she was Juliet Stephenson originally.
I think another of Oneword's problems was not knowing what came up and hearing the same again, even before the repeats of "Best of".
But all this criticism is nothing when it comes to the station at hand and its problems in a commercial world.
Oneword did not have a future because no one seriously sought it out and seeked a business model that could possibly work.
No one can guess the future accurately, but some can take an intelligent guess at the future and make their company or own work strive towards it.
Oneword seems to have failed here. But perhaps, dependent on its parent company(ies), and their lack of support, it was due to die a death and so it came..
Posted by: crimeficreader | 14 January 2008 at 20:33
I think the problem Oneword faced was that a speech radio station is just really expensive, and with the sheer quantity of audio books they had, it was actually a difficult station to get into - with one book following another all day long.
Radio 4 serialises its Book at Bedtimes over just two weeks in fifteen minute chunks, while the non-fiction Book of the Week is only ever in five fifteen minute parts. Somehow, even though the books will have been enormously abridged, those durations are accessible; I've got a chance of hearing all five or ten parts (perhaps catching up with the odd part via Listen Again).
Oneword always seemed to have enormous unabridged or relatively lightly abridged versions of novels which invariably ran to multiple hours. So Oliver Twist might have been serialised in 40 or so half hour episodes. That's very intimidating, and it's not the same as buying the book on CD or via Audible. If I listen to an audiobook via one of those mechanisms, I'm listening to it at my own pace, starting and pausing as I like. So although the audio book market is increasing, that doesn't mean that listening via the radio is the best way.
That said, it is a shame that Oneword has gone, and we can but hope that some of the better aspects of it turn up on Channel 4 Radio when it launches towards the end of this year. But skillful abridgment to bring books down to manageable sizes is very important.
Posted by: Adam Bowie | 14 January 2008 at 16:31
And what appalling timing - I only just got a DAB radio for Christmas! Suppose I won't know what I'm missing at least...
Posted by: Lesley | 14 January 2008 at 15:32