HBS recently celebrated its 40th anniversary and I wanted to talk to a number of those currently volunteering at the station, which serves several hospitals in the Greater Glasgow area. So, on a rather dull and wet March evening I arrived at the studios to discover Jonathan Craig (Supervisor), Peggy Mack (Presenter), Isabel Vincent (Fund-raiser and presenter) and Scott Rutherford (Presenter) already waiting for me.
As Jonathan manned the requests telephone and filled out slips of paper detailing the night’s dedications, I was keen to establish why they had all volunteered for hospital radio in the first place?
Isabel Vincent: “I lived in Yorkshire and was moving to Glasgow. I wanted to get to know people and settle in to a new place, so looked up Volunteer Scotland and found HBS. I began as a request collector talking to the patients and obtaining their song requests then I became a supervisor and fund-raiser. Today I have my own show”.
Scott Rutherford: “I actually applied through an advert. It took a long time to hear back as there were literally hundreds of applicants. Mainly, I was looking to get to know a new group of people, make friends and learn a new skill. I had no previous experience in radio or DJ work, just an interest in music.”
Peggy: “…that is important! You learn so much here! The training is rigorous. It’s a 10 week session to become a presenter for example.”
Peggy: “Hospital radio is a huge spawning ground for presenters across the UK, in fact Ross King, Ken Bruce, Paul Coia and George Bowie all started here at HBS. These days however there aren’t the same openings into local and commercial radio as there used to be.”
Scott Rutherford in Studio 2, HBS
Whilst talking, it quickly became clear that all new volunteers must begin, as request collectors in order to better understand how HBS operates.
Where hospital radio greatly differs from other community radio stations is that the output is predominantly driven by the patients and staff in the hospitals covered by the service. There are specialist shows, such as Country and Western, yet the vast majority of output comes from the listener requests.
Peggy provided an anecdote that perfectly illustrated this… “One presenter turned up for his first requests show prepared with the current top 20 already ready to go, but realised all too quickly that he was instead being asked for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone and Bette Midler.”
“You have to remember that the significant majority of our listeners are older and don’t want the current top 20. Although we cover a wide range of ages, younger patients tend to turn up with an iPod or watch TV instead.”
“We also don’t cover big news events”, suggests Isabel “religious output is obviously generalised too, so that we don’t offend anyone”. There is no Sky News feed or hourly news bulletin. Snippets of general information are just added to various shows by the presenters should they wish too, such as Scott offering the latest football results for instance.
Put like that it makes perfect sense, as does the fact that the schedule generally doesn’t change a great deal to ensure continuity and an output that tends to suit an older audience.
One major issue immediately struck me. HBS transmits at very low frequencies and is therefore not available on standard radio sets. HBS has no online transmission or DAB presence and therefore you will either have to purchase a scanner to locate the station’s output or arrange some kind of minor accident that will land you in a ward for a few days. I seriously don’t suggest the latter!
How is it possible to build a rapport with a listenership that continually changes? These days, patients tend to be in and out of hospital relatively quickly.
Other stations have a core group of listeners who will tune in on a regular basis and can be relied upon to keep their radios on throughout the day. So how can HBS make its presence known?
“In some wards having posters up to advertise the radio station would be deemed a contamination risk, in yet others the cleaning staff remove any flyers or posters almost immediately”, points out Isabel.
Therefore the request collectors, not only act as means of obtaining dedications, but also alert patients to the radio stations existence. This is a personal touch that makes the station more immediately accessible and offers a direct point of contact with individual patients.
Another issue unique to hospital radio is that the broadcasts are generally only accessible through headphones, which from time to time are thrown out rather than properly cleaned, as they are deemed a health risk. This leads to having to somehow find the funds to replace them.
Peggy Mack in HBS Library
After 40 years of transmission, what does the future hold for HBS? Scott ponders this for a second and suggests, “There have been rumours for several years that we may be moving to purpose built premises, yet that has not been confirmed.” We are also going “24 hours”. Both of which will clearly provide new opportunities and challenges to the service and volunteers.
As I packed up my recording equipment to leave, I couldn’t help but think that hospital radio in general offers something incredibly personal to a listenership predominately seeking a friend in their darkest hour. For those patients who are in an unfamiliar environment, in a bed that isn’t their own, depressed, lonely, concerned about pending news or the outcome of an operation it is very easy to see why hospital radio provides such great comfort. Replacing hospital radio with pay-as-you-go TV sets or replacing the feed with a commercial station simply wouldn’t begin to generate the same level of empathy, comfort or one-to-one contact.
This is a particularly dedicated bunch of radio volunteers who really do deserve a great deal of recognition for establishing that essential connection between presenter and listener that good radio achieves so wonderfully.
Peggy: “We are all very proud to be part of HBS. I would say that what really frustrates me more than anything else is that it’s not so well known “out there”.
I’d like to thank Niall Anderson (Chairman) and the volunteers for having taken the time to talk with me.
And good luck to Jonathan who presents his first show on the 29th March.
Link to site: http://www.hbs.org.uk/
