New Media Suite & Listening Stats

It give me enormous pleasure to say that as of today Radio Northwick Park’s all new Andy Hewitt Media Suite is officially open for full time usage!

It was March 2007 when I originally announced to the membership the intention to refurbish our Record Library. We started putting funds aside for this mammoth project and when I took over as Chairman six months later I made it my mission to see it through, working hard with the committee to make sure we were financially secure, that our goals and hopes for a new area could be fulfilled, designing the layout of the new suite to meet our needs and that the station could be well prepared for the work being carried out. It’s been something that has overtaken my life over the past year and even more so in the past four months. While the committee and SM’s have done a sterling job in securing Radio Northwick Park continued without a hitch, I would like to personally thank Keith Chilvers and Ben Hart for the huge amount of time and tireless dedication they have given to the refurb.

We now have the conference area which seats 10 people, a comfortable and professional environment to work and socialise in and more storage areas for committee members and studio managers. Other little perks have been the installation of speakers within the ceiling, which allows us to listen to the output of the station throughout the entire room and adjust the volume by a simple dial on the wall! We’ve also got new notice boards, which have now been split up to easily see what is happening in the departments of fundraising, programming and publicity. We also have a display board with loads of pictures from the past 38 years for you to scrutinise over!

Lastly, I would like to thank all our volunteers for their patience over the last couple of weeks while the work was carried out. I appreciate that working from the studio foyer wasn’t ideal, but I did see a surprised enjoyment coming from many members and a more focused production for request shows than usual! We will be organising an official opening of the Media Suite in the coming months and will keep you all updated with work that is being carried out.

As a parting note, I want to take this opportunity to say that we should all be so proud of being part of Radio Northwick Park. Everyone of our volunteers helps make RNP what it is, which is a place where volunteers can be themselves, thrive on the work they produce and enjoy the company of others. Our new media suite comes in a time when we are incredibly strong, broadcasting hours upon hours of live shows every week and being nominated for FIVE awards at this years HBA Awards (a record amount of nominations for RNP!). We’ve also had an increase in phone calls over the past few weeks, not only from patients joining in with our competitions, but also phoning down just to say thank you and how much they’ve enjoyed our broadcasting. I’d also like to share with you the latest Hospedia statistics taken from 15th – 22nd February 2009:

1) ITV 1 – 1,794
2) BBC 1 – 746
3) RNP – 703
4) BBC Radio 4 – 511

The figures shown are listening hours. It’s not surprising we have two major TV stations in front of us, and apparently ITV 1 have this massive lead across many hospitals. However as you can see we are YET AGAIN the most listened to Radio Station in the hospital and with a fairly large lead in front of our nearest rival at number 4.

But it doesn’t stop here, never will we be an organisation to rest on our laurels. As a committee we are intending to expand and further what we offer, making our current services even stronger and better and making sure the continued future of Radio Northwick Park is an incredible successful one!

Here’s to RNP and the opening of our new media suite…a dawn of a new era!

All the best!
Matt Blank
Chairman