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Its not often we receive complaints and we pride ourselves on our openness and honesty with our audience so I have decided to answer the criticisms.

COMPLAINT.

You two are supposed to be well educated persons but by no means sound like that. Brian screams like a butchered pig and arrogantly comments on songs. Maggie is a loafer living in Britain. Your program is NEVER professional and you guys can only be appealing to unmature young fashion chasers who dress up like clowns and idiots. Professionalism leads the way.

Steven Choo

Shanghai, PRC - Monday, December 25, 2000 at 02:56:49 (GMT)

BRIANS ANSWER

Thank you for your comments which raise many interesting and important issues.

It is interesting that out of 3000 messages so far, yours is the only negative one. This puts you in a minority. Of course most people in Shanghai do NOT have access to a computer and the internet, so our guestbook cannot claim to be a statistical indicator of the audience perception of what we do. It too represents a “minority”

“Professionalism” can be defined in many ways.

It is a FACT of life in todays commercial broadcasting environment that success in MEDIA is defined by the number of people who listen and the commercial “value” of the audience to a sponsor. We cannot escape this reality and therefore have to get a large audience to be able to earn our money which enables us to live our lives. This is the same with just about EVERY radio programme, TV programme, newspaper, magazine, billboard, bus, film and record that you hear, see or read in China. This is especially true in the competitive media marketplace that has evolved throughout China in the past few years. This brings monetary success to the media operators but of course it too can and does create problems.

WHY should an audience “believe” what they hear, see or read, when so much of what they hear, see or read is trying to SELL them something.

Our programme is now the longest running foreign co-operation on the radio in Shanghai. It - as a radio programme - is a success. It has maintained a very large audience many of whom have listened from the early days of 1989.

Back in those days it was truly a WINDOW for Shanghai people to hear MUSIC from another culture and indeed another world.

As time progressed, many other radio and TV programmes brought pieces of that world to Shanghai. This meant, of course, that the UNIQUENESS of our musical world disappeared because you could hear that world on almost every other programme.

So...... what would be a "professional" way to keep the attention of an audience?

In the WORLD what makes a MUSIC radio programme a success actually has little to do with the music!

The PRIME reason that the MASSES in any country listen to the radio is that they are bored and want some ENTERTAINMENT. Music is a PART of that entertainment which also includes information, news and - FUN.

Successful Music radio needs to be ENTERTAINING and needs to make people feel GOOD.

The person behind the microphone needs to be a COMMUNICATOR and it is VITAL that they understand, and are interested in the lives and lifestyles of the ORDINARY LISTENER.

You two are supposed to be well educated persons but by no means sound like that.

You say that WE are supposed to be well educated?

Where is it written that a radio presenter needs to be well educated?

Educated in WHAT and for what reason?

It is a fact of life that MOST people in most countries are NOT particularly well educated at least in the traditional sense.

You paint a dangerous picture of a world in which media is under the control of "well educated" people who look down on those who are not. In that world the "well educated" person in the studio will decide what the uneducated will hear....... and think.

NOTHING gives YOU or ANYONE the right to do that.

Your program is NEVER professional and you guys can only be appealing to unmature young fashion chasers who dress up like clowns and idiots.

That is an arrogant, pig headed and VERY dangerous statement.

It also makes you sound like a snob and makes you sound............... OLD!

In the view of an unmature young fashion chaser YOU would be considered BORING and "uncool" They would probably be too busy dressing up like clowns and idiots to even CARE what YOU thought anyway!

Youth "culture" has been one of the biggest phenomenons of the 20th century and is growing and changing almost daily. We ALL in the society that I come from, can look back at our younger days and LAUGH at how silly were the clothes we used to wear and how crazy were some of the things we used to think, believe and do.

Being young is a precious time in which HUMANITY has the RIGHT to be, think, and dress differently than previous generations. Young people have the basic human right to express themselves and experiment with new things however stupid, irrational and crazy they may seem to those who are better educated and........ older.

How can ANYONE understand MATURITY unless they have "experienced" IMMATURITY?

Young people also have the right to and the need FOR some FUN in their lives.

In MY society at least, we also have another great "freedom"

We have the RIGHT to be........... WRONG.

It was one of my first impressions of the young audience in Shanghai that they were - in my opinion - too much in AWE of pop stars and pop stardom. They looked up to them almost as gods.

Very often the REALITY of pop stardom is that those who are successful in the music business lead personal lives that are filled with tears and unhappiness. Their lives and lifestyle - in my opinion - are NOT to be "envied"

Brian screams like a butchered pig and arrogantly comments on songs.

You should hear the radio here in Britain and ESPECIALLY in America!!!!!!

If screaming like a pig and being arrogant can get an audience the air will become quickly filled with screaming pigs and is certainly already filled with arrogance so much so that to Chinese ears it could seem that all Western people do all day is argue and criticise.

Ah....... but criticism and reasoned argument is at the very root of what WE call "democracy" That leads us to many more thoughts that could easily and certainly DO fill many books - and radio and TV programmes.

Maybe sometimes I sound like a pig and sometimes I AM arrogant about SOME songs. So what!!??

Surely YOU are sometimes the same? You would be a very strange and BORING human being if you were not!

In my "professional" opinion as well as my personal opinion, I believe that people should examine more closely the music business and the media and advertising business and think..........

Is this song - programme - product - GOOD or is "someone" trying to CONVINCE me it is good?

Is this song - programme - product - something that I as an individual like or is it something that I am being TOLD is something that EVERYONE likes and therefore if I dont like it I will feel something is missing from my life?

THINK.

Maggie is a loafer living in Britain.

This comment is disgusting.

You have no idea of what her life is like here.

It is not easy for ANYONE to survive in another society where everyone around you thinks and behaves in a way that is so different whilst at the same time maintaining such a strong link with people from HOME.

You have no right to say such a thing and should feel ashamed of making such an arrogant and cruel statement.

In addition, as you seem to be so well educated you should be aware that the term "loafer" is a very old fashioned expression that disappeared together with the smog in London back in the 1950's

Professionalism leads the way.

China and especially Shanghai has grown and changed at an almost unbelievable rate since I first arrived at Shanghai railway station in November 1988.

Its, and YOUR journey continue. It will never stop. There is NO final destination. There is only the JOURNEY.

Not only will the growth be material, it will also be internal to each and every person as you experience changes to your own awareness of life itself and what it means to be alive as a human being in the 21st century.

Electronically the world has never been smaller. Culturally there are divides. These divides exist not only between different societies but, sadly, WITHIN societies too. Some of these divides will remain and some will disappear.

All my life has been spent in media. It is a world that I love very dearly and believe in. Technology is wonderful but all the technology in the world is no substitute for even ONE human being.

Surely BROADCASTING is a medium by which people communicate and have at least the potential to understand each other and accept their differences?

To sit in front of a microphone and try to present a picture of MY society to people in YOUR society is a great challenge. Sometimes we will get it right and sometimes we will get it wrong.

It has never been, and never will be, a perfect world.

We can ALL only hope that in the future we can do something to make it a BETTER and a FAIRER world in which the voices of the UNEDUCATED have as much right to be heard as do the voices of the educated.

In THIS society media is a MIRROR to society.

Think about it.

That means that its duty is to present a true picture of ALL tastes and beliefs. That picture can NEVER be "liked" by everyone but you cannot ARGUE against REALITY.

It is also a picture that changes each moment of each day which means that each day it needs to be looked at anew are relearned.

Before even the word "professionalism" can be used with any meaning we have to start from where and WHAT we are.

I am just a PERSON who is trying to do my best. My experience, and "intuition" as a "professional" is that I have a duty to be REAL.

I wish to present no false picture.

There is much HERE that I disagree with and do not like.

The task of a cross cultural radio programme such as our programme in Shanghai is to be HONEST and REAL with the audience. You are being cheated in no way whatever.

In my opinion the biggest CRIME in media is "insincerity"

To maintain the INTEREST, attention and LOYALTY of an audience across so many years really is simple.

Be yourself and have FUN.

FUN can of course be something that has difficulty crossing cultural divides. What makes US laugh is not necessarily what will make YOU laugh. But....... at least you will understand that you do not understand, and therefore you will have learned something.

If no one listened we would be wasting electricity. A radio programme is an "invited" guest into the lives of each listener. Without them we are nothing. Each radio has an off switch.

I believe that Pop music and ANY radio programme should NOT be taken too seriously, but like all ART it should sometimes challenge us and our beliefs.

To build a better world we ALL have to change and grow. Building a better world is surely one of the main reasons we are all ALIVE.

You have criticised the YOUNG. By doing so you have criticised tomorrow.

Your words are negative and miserable and contain nothing positive.

That is YOUR problem. It is not mine. Neither is it anyone elses, wherever they happen to be, or whatever they happen to do, or think.....

PROFESSIONALISM?

It is YOU who do not even begin to understand the meaning of the word or the great responsibility that comes with its use.

A few extra thoughts......

Our programme has never really tried to TEACH anything.

After all, it is only a radio programme. I suppose the aim is to just make people HAPPY.

We have survived for many years with truly FANTASTIC and POSITIVE feedback from the PEOPLE of Shanghai and have also had the continued support of a good sponsor.

Things, people, music styles, stars, programmes and products come and go.

Some last a few moments and some last longer. Some even last for a lifetime and more.

Maybe WE will last and maybe not, but it is a FACT that we have already lasted longer than anyone else in Shanghai. Twelve and a half years in a long time!

You would probably be VERY surprised if you knew just how little money we were making, but in a depressingly greedy, money grabbing and unfair world there are still some of us who do what we do NOT just for money but for.....

LOVE.

So....... to refer back to what I mentioned earlier about songs, programmes, and products.

Some of course ARE "good" and stand the test of time because we LIKE the songs, we LISTEN to the programmes and we APPRECIATE and USE the services and products of the sponsor.

These things become a part of our daily lives and we take them for granted.

That is the biggest COMPLIMENT we can pay to them and to the PROFESSIONAL way in which they are produced.