Behind the scenes -Phil Riley
By Boom Radio Chief Executive, Phil Riley
What a pleasure it was to be asked to write about Boom from the point of view of “the business”.
As you may know from our history here at Boom, when David and I agreed to set up the station, he took on all the creative stuff like picking the presenters and sorting out the music. I agreed to raise the money we needed, and then do the books and look after the cash every month! We both do a bit more than that, but you can appreciate the split in our jobs.
Whenever anyone asks me how it’s going, I always say “Boom is Booming” - and it’s true. David and I worked up a plan back in 2020 to forecast how much we’d need to spend, and where the money was going to come from - and given those two things never quite match, how much we’d need to put in to get the show on the road. If you've ever been in business, you'll appreciate the challenges.
Since those early days, the amount we’ve spent has grown as we’ve become more ambitious - but we are still one of the most inexpensive radio stations you’ll hear on the dial.
The amount we bring in from advertisers has obviously grown too - in fact we’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well we’ve done. But we’ve kept absolutely to our plan of not playing anywhere near as many ads as other stations. The amount ebbs and flows – but it’s no more now at its height than in busy spells two or three years ago.
So, thankfully, we’re now more than “washing our face” as they say, and the bank balance is beginning to get topped up each month. Although we’re not yet in a position to start paying our long-suffering shareholders back just yet, hopefully soon we can, given they dipped into their personal savings and risked their cash to bring our dream to reality.
We are a remarkable operation. I’m writing this from my office at home in Leamington Spa - David and Paul are controlling the output from Nottingham, whilst Dawn oversees sales from deepest Surrey. And the presenters are scattered all over the place.
We are now spending some of our money attracting new listeners. You may have seen our ads on TV or on Facebook - and we get more than our fair share of media coverage in the press too. Finally, we’re growing via word of mouth - so thank you for spreading the word. We know nearly all of our listeners tell their friends to tune in, and now over a million folk listen to us every month. How amazing is that! And Boom now has two siblings - Boom Light and Boom Rock - which we’d love to grow.
It’s a great achievement for a group of old friends with a dream and I’m pleased the financial side is working well enough to allow us to start to plan with a degree of confidence.
The level of confidence of course is impacted by such things as the financial climate - and also on the BBC. As you may know, we are trying to stop the BBC from launching a rival service to Boom. The ball is now in Ofcom’s court, and they will make a decision later this year on whether to approve the station based on the evidence we gather and arguments we and others make.
Thanks for your support - we literally couldn’t have done it without you. We have the most loyal listeners in the country, and we hope we can repay your faith by continuing to grow and expand over the next couple of years.
Phil.