David Lloyd writes:

As the summer months loom, we hope you have some lovely things planned.  The below hardly amounts to award-winning holiday reading in the sunshine, but we thought you might value a quick update from your friends at Boom.

Thanks for your lovely feedback on the Sandie Shaw special on the Whitsun Bank Holiday.  It really was a slice of ‘60s Britain wrapped up in a bow. As you noted, Sandie’s voice is ageless.  She opened up so honestly about then and now: “My all- time favourite since I was 13", confessed David from Barnsley, “I’m now 75”.  The programme owed much to a different David - Boom listener David Palmer (from sandieshaw.com) - who heard me mention how much we’d like Sandie to appear on Boom and had a word in her ear.

The Boom team

When not on the radio, our team are keeping themselves out of mischief. Guy Henry from Boom Light is appearing in the RSC’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, directed by Richard Eyre at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon until 20th June. And the King tuned up last week as a surprise guest!

David Hamilton, of course, is telling his story on stage at the Assembly Rooms in Tamworth on Saturday 30th and a few of us will be heckling from the stalls.  Meanwhile, Susie Mathis tells us she’s taken up weightlifting; and Judi Spiers has just returned from another week of singeatretreat.com at Tarifa in Spain. With West End vocal coaches on hand, Judi channelled Barbra Streisand with a crack at Funny Girl.

Back to Susie - did you catch the ‘lost’ edition of Morecambe and Wise from 1968, shown at last on BBC Four to mark what would have been Eric’s 100^th birthday? Susie turned up on it in her Paper Dolls days. As she said to me, the finding of the show “has been a real burst of happiness -  it's been like a little bubble”.  She said a few friends gathered at her house with some champagne to witness at last the broadcast they never recalled seeing almost 60 years ago.

Music

A few listeners this week have asked a similar question: essentially, how do we choose what to play on Boom from all the thousands of records ever released?

Well, firstly we established when we launched which decades of music you love the most: the ‘60s and ‘70s, splashed with a little ‘50s and ‘80s, spiced with a few current/recent tracks and those from other decades. From that conclusion, a little like Colonel Sanders at KFC, we devised our overall recipe which we adopt in general terms across most hours. That recipe, so far, has remained virtually unchanged since 2021. 

Then we find the songs to fit that recipe for each hour of the day – every day - and that’s when the real cookery begins thanks to Paul Robey with chef's hat on. The songs we choose from each decade can be well-known huge hits – as we’d be mad to avoid those – or they can be spicier, such as a forgotten track. The most popular artists with the larger repertoires will be better represented than others, naturally; and each programme has a slightly different feel owing to the time of day and is peppered with the style and reputation of the presenter. As with the best dishes, too much or little of any one ingredient and it may be spoiled! We have a huge record library to choose from, with sizzling contributions from all our presenters - and we’ve never played more different records than we do now. We hope you like the taste.

Audience tastes

The latest official radio audience figures were published last week. These are essentially figures generated for commercial purposes; and, as anyone who really understands research will know well, the stats for relatively small stations such as ours will always be volatile owing its very nature, but if anyone had told me when we began that Boom listeners would be spending around a staggering 10 million hours each week overall with our stations, I’d have thought them mad! It was great to see too that – statistically – our listeners (you!) are radio’s most loyal!   

Quite separately, we have actual audience measurement figures available to us too – and as radio programmers,  it’s those unpublished figures we really keep the most careful eye on to help us understand what you are enjoying and what you find less attractive.  It’s great to see that year-after-year, these continue to grow.

I should say thanks if you completed our last audience attitude survey. That always attracts thousands of responses; so it’s always a decent barometer of how you feel about what we do. 97% of those responding agreed they "liked the friendliness of our presenters", whilst only 1% suggested we talk too much! Well over three-quarters agreed they hear “a lot of surprises in the music played” (only 3% disagree). And you can imagine how we feel when we see that 95% say we’re “the sort of station they’ve always wanted”!

On the way!

Listen out for our special Boom '66 station on 30th July - it's the first time we've ever mounted an extra radio station just for a day. Listen out too for a Clare Teal special to mark Yorkshire Day on August 1st; and there'll also be something special to mark the 50th anniversary of that blistering summer of '76. And, if punk has a special place in your heart, you're in for a treat later in the year.

See you soon

I’m on leave from my morning show for a few days from Monday and Rob Jones will be beaming in his programme from Berkshire in my place.

We're taking a break in Europe - and I’m hoping to take part in the Adidas 10k run through the streets of Paris – France’s biggest 10k - if my Achilles tendon is willing. Ah, the perils of an ageing yet competitive body! I should know better.

Thanks for listening. Do spread the word of Boom. Six years after we had the idea, we are still having enormous fun – thanks in no small part to your incredible feedback.

 

Boom Co-founder - David Lloyd