It's nice to be nice!

In one of the scenes in Peter Kay’s Car Share where the characters are listening to Forever FM, the fictional presenter (I assume) makes a mistake. After an ID for the station there’s silence, before the middle of a Tears for Fears song is faded up and then down again. “What a balls up,” says Peter Kay’s character after the song starts properly.

I have some sympathy for Forever FM’s presenter. It’s easy to make a mistake in the studio - even when it’s something you’ve set up carefully.

A few years ago I listened to a drivetime show on a local radio station every night. The programme was on two stations at once, with only the commercials and a local What’s On guide different on each station. Pre-recording this sort of thing is easy on the live studio desk: send the microphone to the studio PC only by deselecting the other outputs and start recording.

On a few occasions I heard the presenter start recording the What’s On guide for the other station over the top of a song on air. Given the station had an easy to remember number I would give it a ring straight away in the hope of telling the presenter (or someone in the building) that the mic was live.

I was grateful a few months later when I was tech-op for an outside broadcast. The presenter had done their first link, I started the song in the studio and through talkback told them what time the next link would be. They replied and made some comments about the music, who they would hope to speak to and so on.

The studio phone rang and it was another presenter on the station, who had pulled over the car to ring in. The presenter was still on air, albeit on top of the song, and their chatter could be heard by listeners.

I’d put the presenter on pre-fade to hear them and thought I had switched the channel off. When I looked at the bottom of the fader the on/off button was lit up green.

Thankfully the presenter hadn’t sworn or libelled anyone, but it made sure I would pull down the fader and double check they were off air before initiating talkback again.

Whether you believe in karma or not, noticing an error is an opportunity to help someone out. You could call or send them a direct message or email. It only takes a minute to let someone know about a broken link on their website or a production problem with a podcast episode. They might be grateful, remember you or return the favour one day. You can’t say the same about a rude and critical tweet.

It’s also an opportunity to think about how you would handle a situation, or even if you could prevent it. If you hear a mistake or something that you suspect would be a breach of the broadcasting code, ask if there’s anything to stop it happening on your programme or station.