Original Sin

Original 106 spent a million pounds marketing their new radio station.

They had television adverts during Coronation Street. Huge billboards across Portsmouth and Southampton. The back of the buses proudly declared: "Original 106. For people that [sic] have got something going on upstairs."

They broadcast to a potential audience of over a million listeners. They have Sony award winners Simon James and Hill heading up their breakfast show. And they've been selling advertising with the warm, rich promise of 10% of Hampshire's radio market.

Today, on the day the Radio Audience Joint Research figures come out (telling people exactly who listens to what station) the boys at Original were brave enough to release this preemptive advert in the Southern Daily Echo and The Portsmouth News.

Yet when the figures came in, did they match Original's expectations?

Sadly not. Not by a long shot.

Compared to their rivals, Power FM, Ocean and Wave 105 - all of whom deliver almost 200 to 300 thousand listeners per week - Original sailed in with a disappointing 27,000 weekly listeners. Less even than Southampton's local football station, The Saint.

It was shocking. Made worse by the fact that their determined and able sales team had been out selling packages on the expectation of five times that market share. If the boys at Original 106 think they're disappointed by this showing, I imagine it's nothing to what their advertisers are feeling. They've been paying Wave 105 prices for Saint listening figures.

A while ago, I predicated the fate of Original 106. I even had a bit of banter with radio legend Simon James about it. You can read my predictions here.

I'd never expected anything quite like this!

I think it's down to a variety of factors. Their obscure track listing confuses and infuriates the listeners. Some of their presenters are sophomoric, whereas Simon James and Hill, the headliners of Original 106, are irreverent and unpredictable. Original 106 wanted to deliver something different - but the reason most commercial radio stations sound the same is because listeners don't want anything different.

They just want the music they love and as few commercials as possible, with none of that Smashy and Nicey crap (at least nobody could accuse Simon James & Hill of being cheesy.)

That being said, I don't think Original 106's poor showing can entirely be blamed on their slightly queer choice of output. As much as we in the radio industry love to boast about how much more accurate RAJAR figures are in comparison to press 'readership' (generated by multiplying sales by some arbitrary number) the truth is that neither method really gives a fair indication of who's tuning (or reading) in.

RAJAR diaries are complicated little buggers. Given that the average reader doesn't necessarily know who they're listening to at any given time (we had plenty of listeners at WinFM who rang in thinking they were tuned to Wave) it's pretty fair to say Original might have reached a lot more listeners than RAJAR claims they did.

Nobody knows for sure. And when it comes to calculating costs, none of the agencies are going to care. Original 106 is going to take a pretty big hit over these RAJAR figures, but at least they have one thought to sustain them as they struggle through the next few months.

The only way is up.

.

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In reference to their advert - from a starting point of 0 listeners, a gain of 27,000 DOES make Original 106 the fastest growing radio station in the south. It's very pedantic, but it doesn't make it a lie.

Becoming Jane

There's been a recent movement in the movie industry which insists on putting American actresses in roles traditionally more suitable for Brits.

It's been quite succesful. Rene Zellwegger was hilarious as portly publicist Bridget Jones and wonderful when she played Beatrix Potter. Gwyneth Paltrow impressed us all as Lady Viola in Shakespeare in Love and was excellent opposite John Hannah in London-set Sliding Doors.

Becoming Jane, the new biography of Jane Austen, rather daringly follows this movement by casting the stunning Anne Hathaway as Britain's most enduring female author.

Does it work?

Almost, but not quite. Which is pretty much how I felt about the entire movie.

Becoming Jane is a highly fictionalised account of Jane Austen's early years, as her financially strapped parents struggle to find her a suitable husband. Headstrong Jane rails against the notion of marrying for anything but love - and defies society by promising to 'live by her pen.'

Now I know what you're thinking. This does sound an awful lot like the plot of Miss Potter. Except without the animated rabbits. But read on...

While living in Hampshire with her parents (although the movie was filmed in Ireland, hence why the countryside looks nothing like the rolling hills around Winchester) Jane encounters Thomas Lefroy, a reckless, arrogant Irish lawyer. In a plot that mirrors Jane's magnum opus, Pride and Prejudice, Lefroy and Jane overcome their initial reservations and fall madly in love.

Their parents fail to approve, but Jane and Tom pledge to marry whatever the obstacles...

Oh, wait, this sounds remarkably like the plot of Miss Potter as well. But I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Anyway. Complications arise, fiction reluctantly follows fact and Jane dies a spinster, her books only just becoming popular.

I managed to sum up the plot in two short paragraphs. However writer Kevin Hood managed to spin this yarn out across two interminable hours. Where the Tom/Jane love match looked like faltering, some interesting subplots were teased along and my biggest complaint about this film is that they wound up being far more interesting than Jane's life story itself.

It's such a pity too. Almost every other facet of this film is promising. Anne Hathaway's performance is almost excellent, her British accent perfect and her screen presence undeniable. However Kevin Hood gave her such a negligible role it was impossible for her to get her teeth into it.

The rest of the all star cast, including James Cromwell and Julie Walters, fared much better, really rising to the occasion and lighting up the screen as they were given the best lines and most dramatic scenes. But like a Sunday roast, cramming the plate with trimmings is unsatisfactory if there's no real meat to enjoy.

The film looks beautiful as well, although cinematographer Eigil Bryld indulges in some cheap MTV camera tricks on at least two occasions, which really jar with the peace and pacing of the rest of the film. The score is flat and predictable, seemingly lifted note-for-note from one of the recent Austen adaptations, but in a regency drama like this, I'm not sure what else they could have used which wouldn't have seemed out of place.

Once all the pieces have been assembled, the entire movie looks and sounds good. It's only the horrible writing that really makes it fall down flat. I found myself looking at my watch several times, waiting to see when the story was going to wrap up to it's predictable conclusion. That in itself was a cinematic crime that can't be ignored.

I'd recommend this film only if you're an avid Austen fan - although prepare to be disappointed. Despite what little actual plot Kevin Hood scribbled down, most of it is highly fictionalised.