The radio problem

I was woken early one morning by the sound of someone hammering on my back door.

 

I quickly dressed and rushed downstairs, where Alun was excitedly waving a piece of paper.

 

“We’re got the licence Jed,” he said, “we’ve got the licence.”

 

“Licence? What licence? Are you getting a dog? Or a wife?”

 

“No Jed. A broadcast licence. The mainland council have issued us with our broadcast licence. I applied last month.”

 

“Why do we want a broadcast licence?”

 

“So that we can run a radio station for our island community, Jed,” he said.

 

“But we don’t have a radio station.”

 

“We can convert the empty house, Jed. It isn’t being used for anything else.”

 

“Yes it is. You’re using it as a particle accelerator. You’ve spent the last two years building it, remember.”

 

“Oh, I’ve given that up Jed. I found the new particle I was looking for, it’s going to be another 50 years before mainland science catches up with me as it is, there’s no point my trying to do anything else with it.”

 

The Happy Island Particle (HIP) was Alun’s greatest discovery, a minute sub-atomic fragment of matter that mainland scientists had completely overlooked. Technically the HIP is comprised of two particles, always found together, which we named Jed and Alun. Jed and Alun are unique in the world of sub-atomic matter as they only ever appear together and make no connection whatsoever with any of the other main particles.

 

“Even so,” I said, “we’ve never run a radio station. We don’t have the equipment, let alone the expertise. Setting up a radio station is expensive, and you spent all your savings on the particle accelerator.”

 

“Don’t worry Jed, the licence was provided free of charge, as we’ll be providing a valuable service to our community. And Radio Stoat Island closed down recently, so I managed to get their whole studio and equipment for seventeen mainland pounds – including mixing desk, FM transmitter, microphones, and 213 I love Stoats T-shirts.”

 

“Even so, Running a radio station, that’s a massive undertaking.”

 

“Oh we’ve done harder things Jed.”

 

It’s true. Living on an island of population 0,000,002 forces you to develop a range of skills you wouldn’t believe possible. Very few mainlanders, for example, have the ability to impersonate otters quite as convincingly as Alun does, nor is your average mainlander competent to build a geep pen to the high standard I achieved.

 

Alun didn’t stop long that day. He had to rush off to dismantle the particle accelerator and build a radio station. I would have offered to help, but the previous night my geep pen had fallen down. The geep had stayed up all night leaning against the walls to keep them in place, so I couldn’t take any time out to help Alun. However, Alun didn’t mind, as he was happy to have a new project to work on.

 

The next morning I was woken early by my radio alarm. “Good morning Happy Island,” shouted Alun. He must have set my alarm while he was here the previous day, as I’ve never had cause to use it before. “For those slugabeds amongst you who are just waking up, here’s one to get you on your feet.”

 

I looked at the clock, it read 6.00 a.m.

 

I got out of bed as commanded, dressed and went downstairs. “For those islanders not busy DJing, don’t forget to pop down to meet the morning boat,” I heard Alun say, as I got ready to meet the morning boat. Typical! Alun had gone to all the trouble of getting a broadcast licence so that he could issue me orders over the airwaves.

 

After I’d been down to meet the morning boat I walked over to the empty house, to watch Alun in action. I found him sitting in the front room, or ‘main studio’ as a sign now described it.  The room was covered in egg-boxes, a makeshift sound-proofing. Alun was wearing an ‘I love stoats’ T-shirt and staring intently at the mixing desk. He shushed me as I entered. “I’m about to do the news,” he whispered.

 

I waited quietly while he announced the day’s news from Happy Island, which mainly consisted of the launch of Happy Island radio and the news that the Off-Mainlander Magazine had awarded us a prize for being the most egg-box free island. I gazed round the egg-boxed strewn studio, but decided to hold my tongue.

 

“I’m impressed you managed to get an entire radio station up and running in a day,” I said, when he’d finally finished and had put on a record. “Where’s it broadcasting to?”

 

“Just to Happy Island, Jed.”

 

“What, not even to the other islands on our archipelago?”

 

“This is a community station Jed, not a free for all.”

 

“But I’m in here with you, meaning our entire listenership is precisely zero.”

 

“It takes time for a new station to grow, Jed.”

 

“No, our entire POTENTIAL audience is precisely zero.”

 

But Alun was in no mood for an argument. “You’re on next,” he said.

 

“What do you mean I’m on next?”

 

He passed me a piece of paper. “This is today’s schedule.”

I eventually deciphered Alun’s clumsy handwriting.

 

• Breakfast with Alun
• Second Breakfast with Jed
• Lunch with Jed and Alun
• Apres Lunch with Jed
• Alun in the afternoon
• Jed’s drivetime show
• Evening slowdown with Alun

 

 

“That’s the day’s schedule? I said, somewhat surprised. “But we hardly get a break. Do we really need to be on air all this time?”

 

 

“Of course, Jed. We’re not just doing this for ten minutes of mucking about every day, it’s a proper radio station.”

 

 

“What’s this one? Lunch with Jed and Alun.”

 

 

“You can’t just have one man talking all day, you have to break the format up. These dual-presenter shows are a massive ratings-driver.”

 

 

“But we won’t have any ratings. Our potential audience will both be busy doing the show.”

 

 

Alun shushed me again, as he changed records, before eventually allowing me to speak again.

 

 

“Well if I’m doing a show I should work out what I’m playing,” I said. “Where are the CDs?”

 

 

“We don’t have any CDs.”

 

“Well what am I supposed to play? The banjolele?”

 

“You don’t need records to run a radio station. You just use anything in the cloud. Here, this is the Playlist.”

 

“Do we need a playlist? It’s just you and me, surely we should just play our favourite records.”

 

“Don’t be a fool, Jed, our station needs to play music from the current crop of releases to ensure the station has a contemporaneous feel. You wouldn’t want listeners to think we’re a fuddy-duddy old station just playing our favourite oldies and goldies.”

 

“I don’t mind playing a few new releases,” I said, “but I can’t understand this. There are four different playlists for a start, which one should I be using?”

 

“All of them Jed. It’s quite simple. You play four records from List A, three records from List B, two from List C and one from List D.”

 

“Eight records from your list every hour. That’s over half the show.”

 

Despite my concerns I allowed Alun to give me a brief tutorial on how to use the equipment and began my first ever radio broadcast. It was easier than I’d imagined, I hardly had to think of any of my own links, because Alun kept giving me messages to read out from the station’s ‘sponsors’: ‘Alun’s vegetables, all home-grown, the finest vegetables on Happy Island. Not for sale to mainlanders.’

 

It was a long, hard day. When I wasn’t on air I was working hard catching up on the 1,001 chores you have to do every day on an island idyll such as ours, whilst listening to Alun’s show in order to keep the listening figures up.

 

As I was doing my final show of the day I was interrupted by Alun.

 

“The figures are in,” he said.

 

“Figures?”

 

“The audience ratings. We had three listeners.”

 

“Three? I thought we were only broadcasting to our island. There are just the two of us here.”

 

“The boatman Jed.”

 

“But she was only here for a few minutes.”

 

“It’s total audience reach that matters, Jed.”

 

The next morning I was again woken by my radio alarm, with Alun shouting out for me to wake up.

 

By this time I had more idea what I was doing and started introducing ‘features’ into my shows, such as Tiny Too at two during my afternoon slot. I thought this was a great idea, as Alun and I are both massive Tiny Too fans, but shortly afterwards Alun burst into the studio in a foul mood.

 

“You can’t have Tiny Too at two, Jed,” he said.

 

“Why not?”

 

“They’re too obscure. You have to think of the audience, you need big name acts not never-heard-of indie bands from yesteryear.”

 

“But we both like them,” I said, “and we’re the audience.”

 

“Even so Jed, you can’t have them as a feature, you’ll run out of songs to play in the slot in no time – they only ever recorded one album. You need a more general feature, like my ‘A record at 7.17’.”

 

“But that’s too unspecific”, I said, “it’s no different from every other record you play.”

 

“The audience are happy with the feature Jed.”

 

“But I’m your audience, and I’ve just complained about it.”

 

Towards the end of the day Alun appeared again. “The ratings are down,” he said.

“Down?”

 

“Total audience figures for today were two. The boatman’s stopped listening. She say’s she was only tuned to that frequency so that she could pick up Stoat Radio.”

xxx

Although the time commitment involved in co-running a radio station was a considerable one, I soon got used to the routine. I quickly learnt which records on the playlist were long enough to accommodate a comfortable toilet break and was undeterred by the falling ratings, even the blow that Alun had stopped listening to my shows because he was busy.

 

I was astounded therefore, to be interrupted mid-show by Alun brining unexpected news.

“It’s the latest audience figures, Jed,” he said.

“Don’t tell me, we’re down to one.”

 

“No Jed, we’re up to 12,347.”

 

“Are you sure?” I said. It seemed unlikely. “But I thought we were only broadcasting to Happy Island. Our total population’s 12,345 shy of that figure and they don’t all listen to the station any more.”

“I started broadcasting online Jed, to improve the signal. Somehow word must have got out, as we’re getting a massive online listenership.”

 

The next day I was suddenly nervous, knowing that I was broadcasting to real people, mainlanders at that.  At various points I fluffed my links, played the wrong record and I even got my jingles mixed up. Alun was similarly affected and all of his shows seemed to consist of one mistake after another. However, in spite of the poor quality of the shows we were broadcasting, at the end of the day Alun announced that our audience ratings had actually increased to 175,293.

 

“That’s more than Mainland Radio Six?” I said, astonished. “And that’s taxpayer funded.”

 

“Have you ever listened to Mainland Radio Six?” Alun said. He had a point.   

 

The next day I was surprised to be woken early by a hammering on my back door.

 

‘That’s funny’, I thought to myself. ‘If that’s Alun who’s on air?’

 

I quickly dressed and rushed downstairs to find Alun in jubilant mood.

 

“It’s mainland radio four, Jed. They’ve bought our radio station.”

 

“Are you sure?” I said. It seemed unlikely. “Mainland Radio Four – isn’t that a news, comedy and very-poor-quality-drama station? Have they actually heard us?”

 

“Yes, Jed. Of course they’ve heard us. They’re not idiots. I’ll read you the email: ‘Happy Island Radio Station is the funniest spoof we’ve heard in a long time. The characters of Jed and Alun are hilarious, and with the right actors and a tighter script we believe the team at Mainland Radio Four can turn the farce that is Happy Island Radio into a rating winners’.”

 

“They think we’re a joke,” I said. “They’re buying us out as a comedy.”

 

“Yes Jed, but look at the last paragraph. Look what they’re prepared to pay us.”

 

“Good lord,” I said, as I read, “A thousand mainland pounds!”

 

“Exactly Jed. Just think what we can do with a thousand mainland pounds.”

 

“I don’t know. We don’t have any shops here, so there’s nothing to spend all that money on.”

 

“Yes there is Jed. A space programme. I’ve asked the boatman to bring us the equipment we need. We’re going into space Jed.”

 

Which is how Alun and myself became the first people to visit Mars. But that, dear reader, is another story.