Nicole Logan is Head Station Manager of the new Transmission Roundhouse. It’s a dedicated audio platform created by and for young people featuring radical talk, experimental, underground content, opinion, politics and entertainment for 18-25-year-olds. It launches on the 3rd March and is available on Mixcloud and via the Roundhouse website. The station is made up of over 50 presenters and producers, broadcasting from the heart of Camden’s Roundhouse and is led by an all-female management team.
Hey Nicole, so how does Transmission Roundhouse work? It’s not your usual radio station is it?
Well in some ways it is, in others it isn’t. We’re about playing around, experimenting, breaking the rules of radio and then putting them back together again to see where we land, though we are still figuring it all out as we go. You’ll still able to plug in your headphones and listen to something on your commute but you’re more likely to hear something about the politics of porn than the weekend weather! You definitely won’t get fusty breakfast, lunchtime and drive time with us.
If I know a young person who would like to get into radio, how can they get involved?
Tell them to keep an eye on our Instagram or Twitter as we’re going to do a call out for more people to get involved in the next couple of weeks; or they should pop down to one of our drop in sessions, which are every Thursday from mid April, where they can learn the basics of radio. Or tell them to DM us, honestly we’re really happy to have a chit chat with anyone who wants pointing in the right direction or a bit of a pep talk – which we love doing. You are brilliant, smart, kind and capable of taking on the world! And that pep talk you can have free of charge!
How did you choose the presenters?
The majority of our presenters we’d worked with before, either through one of our drop in sessions or workshops, or they had approached us – hearing about Transmission through word of mouth. A lot of them moonlight at much bigger broadcasters but work with us to make the sort of playful radio and have the sorts of conversations they probably couldn’t do at the day job. In terms of the process, it’s about getting to know them and them us – you know we kind of court each other and see if it’s a good fit, it’s lots of coffees, phone chats and time in the studio playing around with ideas, it’s all very lovely.
You’re not going to be playing old classics are you? This is truly cutting edge, underground stuff, right?
Well it depends what you mean by old classics. If you go crazy for modern takes on American blues and French jazz and northern grime, then I suppose we’ll play lots of classics. But in all seriousness, everything has a specialist slant; we look to reframe things and take a different angle, whether that’s through the chat or the tunes. All the producers pick the music they play, so you know they’re super passionate about the music and behind the artist.
Interview: Josh Jones
Photo: Tom Medwell
