I have now listened to premierscfc's recording of Ash's first radio show and thouroughly enjoyed it. It must have been really nerve-wracking for Ash but I think she showed great promise.

The following comments are offered as constructive criticism and I hope if Ash reads them that she understands that.

First off, Ash, I think you should ditch the "radio voice" and just be yourself. In fact, now I think about it, you did ditch the radio voice once you got into it and relaxed a bit.

Secondly Ash, you should try not to interrupt the records so much. I suspect you've already been told off for this by the producer, so I won't harp on about it! 

Thirdly, whilst it's great having an interactive show, you shouldn't rely on it so much. For example, if you have Imogen on next week, you should have some questions to ask her already prepared.

Fourthly, my favourite bits were the ones where you told us snippets of information about yourself. You have to understand that the life of a celebrity is of great interest to those of us who are not in that position. It doesn't have to be stuff that would make the gossip columns. Even the smallest bits of information that give an insight into your life can be interesting.

I can't stress enough though Ash how proud I was of you. I will definitely be listening next week and may even call you up during the show, assuming I can get through!

Edit: Now I think about it, I probably should have posted this on a different board. If the Mods agree, I'm sure they'll move it.

Further edit: Eeeek, I've just realised that this shows on the website because it is the top post in the News section!!! Please save my blushes mods by moving it for me to the General Comments board.

Phew

Thanks for moving the thread.

I've PM'd you cos I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to post the link here. :ninja

secrethousemate - 2/2/2007 11:40 I think she was interrupting songs because questions or comments were appearing on the chat screen and disappearing just as quickly. What she needs is an assistant or producer to organise the best questions into some order and let her answer them between tracks. Also callers were coming straight through to the studio so Ash was stopping tracks to let them speak! All in all, a great first effort and things will only get better in future

Ahhh, I thought that might be the case. I didn't actually get to participate or hear it live. However, if that's the case, all this interactivity must have been very difficult to manage.

Ash when I ring up, feel free to put me on hold, OK!

Claire originally said that she's let us have an e-mail address so that we could forward questions or comments for Ash to use on her show. I'm not sure, but I don't think this ever materialised. I would have thought it would be useful for Ash to have some questions lined up in advance that she could prepare answers to and use to fill any awkward gaps. 

If they don't want to give out an e-mail address that people can use to contact her directly, couldn't we have a thread on the forum that can be used for this purpose. Or maybe  Ash could just use some of the questions from the Ask Aisleyne Board. 

Ofni, I was thinking along the same lines but knew that I didn't really need to teach grandmother to suck eggs.

Sophie, you sounded great to me when you called up btw, and one thing you can be sure of is that Aisleyne really appreciated it.

I know that there will be some people who think that I shouldn't have started this thread. So I'd like to point out that I'd have kept my thoughts to myself if I had thought Ash was rubbish. As I said in my OP though, I thought Ash was really entertaining and shows great potential. If I had done my first radio show, I'd want people to tell me how they thought I could improve. In fact, if people told me that I was perfect after my first radio show, I simply wouldn't believe them.

maringo - 2/2/2007 18:30

remaha - 2/2/2007 18:18

I know that there will be some people who think that I shouldn't have started this thread. So I'd like to point out that I'd have kept my thoughts to myself if I had thought Ash was rubbish. As I said in my OP though, I thought Ash was really entertaining and shows great potential. If I had done my first radio show, I'd want people to tell me how they thought I could improve. In fact, if people told me that I was perfect after my first radio show, I simply wouldn't believe them.

You were quite right to start this thread, even if it was in the wrong place at first. I'm sure Aisleyne will appreciate the feedback.

I agree with the above  'invisible man'

Remaha..  Great thread idea....

I completely agree with that. The large amount of people in the chatroom made it difficult for anyone else to log on, and also made it difficult to follow the very fast chat flow.

My constructive criticism for the 8th February Radio Show

First off, there's no doubting Ash has kissed the Blarney Stone and that she has a very natural way of chatting to callers and putting them at ease. That really is a talent that she ought to be able to put to good use on a bigger stage. Secondly, she has a good sense of humour and does a paticularly good line in self-deprecation.

Obviously Ash didn't have the time to do any real planning for this show and we should be grateful that she managed to turn up at all. Nevertheless, it seemed to run a lot smoother than last week. Imagine how good she would be with proper planning, a good subject for discussion, equipment that's set at the right sound levels, a phone that works properly, and an audience that has something to say.

Although the swearing doesn't particularly bother me, it is not something she would get away with on national radio these days and if Ash wants to progress to a bigger stage, she needs to learn to cut that out. I've never been a fan of prank calls but doing them live on air is just asking for trouble in this regard.

Idea for a guest next week - a paparazzi photographer. Talk about press intrusion, relationship between celebs and press, celebs I have papped, what makes a good photo, etc, etc. 

And I have a music request - I'd like to hear anything by ODM and her man (come on Izzy, send in a tape or a CD, don't be shy!).

As a PS to my previous post, I agree that we need another way of communicating with Ash about the radio show. An e-mail address at Invincible would be the obvious answer. However as ofni and I suggested last week, this forum could be put to use as well if we have advanced notice of who the guest is going to be.

How about a messages and dedications thread for the show as well? 

A new section of this forum has now been set-up. We'll bring the requests and third radio show threads to the attention of the appropriate people. Hopefully, some posts might be read out on air, as the chatroom is currently having difficultly coping with the number of people.

I agree with ofni. I made the suggestion on another thread that a good guest for Ash would be a paparazzi photographer. Let's face it she has the contacts.

Another idea, perhaps, is to have a journalist from More magazine or one of the photographers or stylists from one of Ash's photoshoots.

The best thing to do in the first few weeks is to stick to subjects she's comfortable with. She could even get a couple of friends from the promo world to talk about life as a promo girl. I bet once they got going they would come up with some interesting stories.

And if Ash didn't keep giving these pop stars the brush off, she could try to get one of them on. A good opportunity coming up at the Brits to get someone to agree to come on the show, particularly after they've had a few!

It would be useful to post the Invincible telephone number on the forum btw.

The music tracks would have to be edited out first for copyright reasons, like the Big Brother FM podcasts. A bit difficult with Aisleyne's "interrupt the track at random intervals" style.

However, it is an interesting idea.

You're both right. The radio show could get more people listening than just Aisleyne fans, if the right guests and themes were chosen.

The Internet dating topic from the first show was a good idea, but a lot of people on the phones and chatroom were only interested in talking about BB7 (understandable given it was her first show).

Great post, Odm

We supporters need to ice BB7 ASAP. So does Ash! No matter who requests it, never ask a guest to do "Hot topics", for example.

Ash is naturally gifted as a presenter. I don't think she's fully aware of that, yet. Actually, I hope she never becomes aware of it

If not, there should be a rollover prize this week.

The test is whether Ash can attract listeners from outside her solid fanbase. At least, she'll have to avoid alienating the Invincible listeners who listened at that time, anyway. Otherwise, it might as well be a podcast to BB fans - and I doubt whether Invincible want to sponsor that. Say the audience grew by 20% with Ash fans, then steadily fell by 40% because of regular references to the same few forum members and obscure BB themes every week, Ash might be invited to leave and the opportunity is gone.

We have to give the lady space to breathe and grow while supporting her?

I, hastily, add that Ash fans don't seem to be the types who suffocate their star but Ash does seem to be sensitive to pressure even when there isn't much. It's obvious that she wants to keep her supporters happy but what she might not be aware of is that, as long as she exists, we're pretty happy

This thread has gone wildly off-topic. It is meant to be about Ash's third radio show not about her entire future in radio and the media.

Does Ash have a guest or topic lined up for the third show yet? If so, and we were told, we could help Ash prepare by posting questions on here, instead of relying on the chat room.

This is what I thought this thread was for.

You're quite right. I moved the off-topic comments, especially those of that troublemaker maringo, to this thread.

Hopefully, we'll have some news on this week's show soon.

I am in awe of the powers available to the mods on this forum!

Naturally, I didn't expect my posts to be considered off-topic when I raised the issue.

Foisted by my own petard, methinks  

[Or is it "hoisted by my own petard"?  I just did a quick check on google and no-one seems to know!]

Thanks. I might have known I'd choose the wrong one!

I'd have to say that it sounded very much as though Ash winged it today. She got away with it, of course, through force of personality and was helped immensely by having Prince Diamond acting as co-presenter. In fact it turned out to be a very good show because the two of them have a good rapport. However, I think she'd benefit from doing a bit more planning for future shows and trying to follow a bit more of a structure.

As ever, I must qualify my comments by saying that I think Ash has a natural radio personality and could have a great future in this field.

Hey Ash, you're getting better and better, particularly at the twiddling with the knobs part.  

I'd have thought it would be difficult to keep discussion on a topic going if you are relying on the phone. Most chat shows have several incoming lines and can keep callers stacked-up waiting to be put on air. As you don't have that facility, the discussion is always going to seem a little fractured.

I think you need to pick just one or two topics each week and mention them several times. You could listen to the phone-ins on Radio 5 live to see how the profesionals do it. You need to keep repeating the telephone number as well if you want callers. I'd say that it would always be better to pick a subject you know quite a bit about. An ideal subject a few weeks back would have been who deserved to win a Brit award but missed out.

Here's me giving you all this advice Ash and I haven't called in once. I promise that when I have got something to say on one of your topics, I'll will do so.

Personally, I wouldn't go ahead with your plan to do wind-ups. As PD found out this week, they can easily backfire. And if you do it live, you can expect people to eff and blind when they discover the truth (remember Imogen!).

Ash, my favourite parts of the show are where you talk about what you have been doing during the week, who you met, etc. Just the little things. OK, a bit of gossip is always good. But it doesn't have to be the sort of stuff that would make the gossip pages of the red tops.

Keep up the good work Ash. I'm enjoying the music, most of which is an education to me!   

There was slightly too much talking, but with all that juicy gossip I didn't really mind a bit!