Matthew Cole tried very hard to get on air from Henley last night. But didn't. Here's his account.
"There was rain. Not so much coming down but coming sideways.
There was flooding water creeping towards me too.
But could I tell anyone this or anything else? Could I heck.
My satellite equipment fell foul of fellow broadcasters.
Put it this way, in playground terms it was like getting ready for a kick about with your friends, only to have bigger boys come and steal your ball.
Doesn't matter how much you clamour for it back, your voice is ignored.
Our colleagues on various TV channels had brought HUGE trucks with satellite dishes and TV wizardry, and our little PM radio dish was crowded out of the signal spectrum.
It meant I spent an hour hopelessly trying to dial in to out studio without success.
The rain kept coming.
At one stage I wondered if the swans paddling by might perhaps having carried my report tucked under a wing back to base. The didn't look friendly so I didn't ask. Health and safety an' all that being important here at the ´óÏó´«Ã½.
So sorry everyone, my news of Henley's plight in the floods went un-aired. Apologies if you were waiting on it."
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Could you post the pictures youn took while waiting?
xx
ed
Matthew,
It's a heart rendering soul destroying picture you paint.
However, at the end of the day, a decision has to be made as to the worthiness of the story (which it was) and the technical sound quality.
Radio is an immediate medium - always faster than television for obvious resons.
Therefore - was it not possible to just do a couple of minutes on the mobile? - or was there no signal available. Now - no excuses about phone quality not being acceptable - otherwise we wouldn't have 'Any Answers' would we?
I find it hard to believe that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ can't get a few minutes of narrowband audio back to the studio from around a hundred miles away in 2007? and as I often say - It's the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and it's what you do!
Wow. That's so very much a metaphor for life, isn't it?
In a very real sense, the 24-hour news truck is crowding our attention spans out of our spectrum of life, while unfriendly swans paddle by, completely unaffected...
...or something...
....Matty.....i bet Boris is not best pleased with the Beeb now?
....did you see him walking on water?..
ttfn......boriselicious.....init?
....Matty..
re Swans....only The Royals can eat them, suggest you get Phil the Greek on the blower.
No doubt he can bump on off for you...should go well with the roast bullock on one of the other threads.
FF, does Merlot go with Swan?
ttfn.......swanelicious....init?
As a serious afterthought - ´óÏó´«Ã½ News 24 is located in the same building. Surely it would have been possible to let Matthew file a short audio cut back to TV Centre - for a Radio audience of potentially around 3 million people.
Also remebering that PM is catering for the mobile 'Drive time' listeners who wouldn't have News 24 in their cars (well let's hope not)
Jonnie (5) (For I know 'twas you!) I agree completely. I would guess that R4 has a much larger audience from 5pm to 6pm, so I think some heads need to be knocked together. Radio is TV without the visual distraction...
jonnie (2), alas, the final insult was that my mobile was also on its last bar of power, so even a low quality sound report was not possible even if we'd wanted to try.
and (6) the satellite trucks weren't sufficiently near my location to run to them and borrow N24's lines. Trust me, if there was any other way of getting my soggy tale of sorrow on air we'd have done it.
there wasn't and i got soaked for nothing.
and finally Ed (1), sorrow no pics yesterday... too busy screaming at the sat dish!
How infuriating.
Couldn't Boris Johnson have done a mercy dash on his bicycle? Would've done his mayoral chances no end of good.
Specially now Mike Reid has stepped down in his favour.
Is it just me who wonders if we're on the edge of a parallel universe here?
Hey Matt - You did your best and that's all you can ever do.
It's live Radio, and you now have a great anecdote to remind you of 'The Floods of 07 !
Great report yesterday evening - well balanced, great quality both techically and editorially.
You must get together and have a drink with Carolyn Quinn - you may recall she recently had a bad day! - I bet Carolyn hoped retrospectively that she hadn't made it to air but as she said at the time -- on the blog - she always tries her best.
Keep em coming Matt, and thanks for giving us the feedback - much appreciated, it's what really puts Eddies blog leagues in front of the others.
FF (7)
...no girl, yer wrong, jonnie (5) was me or did you get your numbers a bit muddled?
ttfn......muddlelicious.....init?
DI (11-ish) the numbers got muddled. when I posted, Jonnie was at 5...