I recently spent an incredibly fun afternoon in the Radio Verulam Towers sitting in on the West Herts Drive show with the lovely Danny Smith.

I was even allowed to chose the songs that went out, and at one point I was entrusted with pushing a button that played out one of their features, 'Mystery Voice'. I faced the pressure. I pushed the button. The clip played out without a hitch and I had made my first step into the wonderful world of radio production.
As for choosing the songs, I do think that Danny regretted this liberty he gave me as I picked out all the classics, like Journey, and I could see him cringing as the tunes warbled out.
I was entertained though - and that, of course, is the main thing..... Perhaps this is why I'm not on the radio and take much more of a back seat role.

The West Herts Drive show is a great little show, with regular features to engage with their listeners, prizes to give away (I hear Danny's desperate to give away a Sodastream....) and local news and small business tips. And lets not forget the great music. The presenters have a lot of control over their own shows, with only a third of their music coming from a set playlist. I'm not sure Danny appreciated my contributions - I think I may have damaged his presenter reputation!

Danny had some wonderful insights into local radio, especially when it comes to how they measure their listenership. As a rule of thumb, every piece of interaction from a listener - be it a text, email or phone call - broadly represents about 1,000 listeners.

Radio Verulam is a small community station that is both dedicated to its listeners and it's local content. Throughout the drive show listeners were constantly reminded of the local news of the day and local events that were happening throughout St. Albans. This is so good to see - good, honest, simple radio dedicated to informing and entertaining its listeners. After the merging of several larger stations throughout the country recently, it’s refreshing to see a station so dedicated to being local to its core and offering a service to its listeners.
Through some shrewd business skills, Radio Verulam has managed to keep going for three years now, and is moving from strength to strength. Interestingly, they are only allowed to raise half of their funds through advertising and the other 50% needs to be raised from fundraising and donations. It's a tough challenge, but Verulam seem to have succeeded where so many community stations have failed, and now in their third year of transmitting, will hopefully broadcast for many more years.

If anyone wants to have a listen, or even get involved, then have a look at www.radioverulam.com