Mark Seddon brings his own unique style of humour to URE through a series of quality items and cheeky banter, only to be rudely interupted by top quality
music both old and new.

Contents

About

The People

The Shows

Quotes

Features

back to Seddonism

� Seddonism, Presented by Mark Seddon and team
� University Radio Exeter, 963 MW (and webcast on www.urefm.com)
� Friday afternoons, 5-7pm for 30 Weeks term time 1999/2000
� Website: www.MarkSeddon.com/seddonism2000.html

� What is Seddonism?
Seddonism was advertised as �high density mediocrity avoidance�. It is based around items, sketches, chat, and the best music (both old and new), and was very much fuelled by the team�s personalities. It is very upbeat, both in speech and musical content.

� The People
Mark Seddon. The most radio experienced of all the team, I did the behind the scenes preparation, and guided the direction of the show, but responded to the different ideas that the team would throw in.
Tom Davies is a first year and was my trainee. We work well because he is on the same wavelength as me, so knows exactly where an idea is going, and we manage a good partnership, without him becoming a �Lard� figure, or �yes man�.
Alex Berry is a first year, and fills the role of �on air producer�, writing down the playlist and grabbing cds from the other studio as needed. She doesn�t talk quite as much as the rest of us, but is always ready to chip in, or let us know when we�ve gone too far.
Ashley Amos is a first year and prepares 3 news bulletins per show. We also chat after each bulletin, and it never ceases to amaze me what comes out of the boy�s mouth.

� Preparation of the show
After doing many previous shows where I pre-wrote much of the material, I wanted to develop a show that was very improvised and real. I prepared over the course of the week various things to talk about, as well as a few more traditional items. The show was constantly evolving to work to the strengths of the team, and the features reflected this, for instance, the item �Ashley�s Random Walk� was a response to Ash�s obvious skill for rambling, and gave him a chance to showcase this within a time limit. The music was selected to give quite a broad selection, of new, both from the chart and less mainstream stuff, old, and a couple of more obscure tracks.
Over the week I would write the show outline (sample is attached). However, the direction of the show could often change according to the subjects that were raised over the course of the show. Overall, however, the show was intended to be fun to make, and to listen to. The fact that the team stayed together until the end of a year demonstrated this, despite both Tom and Ash passing the DJ test and going on to have their own shows. Ash, in fact has also gone on to be News Editor at Exepos�, the student paper.

Features:

When Life Goes Bad
Discussion of area of life/story where something has gone wrong (haircuts, lectures�)

And another thing�
Member of team rants about something that has been particularly annoying them.

Today�s Charity Case
Story from papers, read in weepy style. Catch-phrase: �but not in that voice�, after reading quotations.

World of the Web
Review & features from selected web page.

Gallery
Review of new music releases, based entirely on the record sleeve cover.

Ashley�s Random Walk
Challenge set by team to Ashley, start talking about X, end up at Z, thru Y. These 3 topics must be linked coherently together within 1 minute.

The Friday Challenge
Ashley is set a challenge after the 1st news broadcast to be performed during or after the 2nd news broadcast, such as pretending to really like a figure from a news item.

Stressbusting
We make a relaxation tape live (over ambient music), to calm worried minds, using metaphors stretched to breaking point.