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(CBC.ca) MEET PROMO GIRL: THE VOICE THAT HAS STEPPED OUTSIDE THE CBC RADIO BOX
** CANADA**
MEET PROMO GIRL: THE VOICE THAT HAS STEPPED OUTSIDE THE CBC RADIO BOX -- by Elizabeth Payne, The Ottawa Citizen, February 19, 2005 http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawac...6-adf55824c5ae Dear Promo Girl Imagine you are listening to the radio, minding your own business, when a persistent voice seeps out of the box and into your head. Imagine that, instead of absorbing the substance of the voice's message, you become fixated on its style. Where did that voice come from, you wonder, and who is the person attached to it? Is she younger than me? Is she being ironic? I thought I was just listening to CBC radio, is there something I'm missing here? Imagine, Promo Girl, that someone younger and chirpier has taken control of your solid, predictable (OK, sometimes dull) radio and that it hasn't quite sounded the same since ... At least that's how it feels ever since Promo Girl became a regular part of the CBC Radio 1 broadcasting day. There she is, her quirky, chirrupping voice giving us a heads-up on what's coming up later on the Mother Corp's daily schedule. "So the world has ended, a guy's still got to keep busy ... " She pops in between programs throughout the day, waking me up from whatever CBC-induced REM state I'm in and breaking into my consciousness. Is that a smile I hear in her voice? No, that's just her style; she's happy, she's a bit rumpled, she was up late chatting with some girlfriends over a few glasses of wine and has not had time to completely pull herself together but, hey, those sort of details don't bother Promo Girl. Promo Girl is, in fact, a figment of CBC promotion's imagination. The voice belongs to an actress (who remains anonymous), and the persona is pure fantasy. Still, she is quickly becoming a very real part of CBC Radio. And listeners, like me, are asking ourselves: What does this mean? Chris Boyce, an executive producer with CBC's Saturday afternoon variety show Definitely Not the Opera, helped develop Promo Girl. The network was looking for someone who would give a "consistent sound and tone" to its on-air promotions, he said in an interview from Winnipeg. What they didn't want was some "voice of God" announcer popping in between programs to talk about the daily schedule in deep, ringing, intimidating tones. They wanted someone more casual and engaging. Read: Someone who would appeal to that coveted younger listenership. "We wanted something that wouldn't sound like every other broadcaster ... that would cut through the CBC Radio 1 program flow," Boyce said. The concept was launched just in time for the network's summer season last year. "We were looking for something that was playful, fun and summer-like ... There was just something about her that jumped out of the the radio and felt like summer." Promo Girl was born. Well, actually, the name wasn't born until the voice began to develop a character. It was the actress who first began calling herself Promo Girl. And the name it caught on. As if to underline the fact, Promo Girl are among the first words out of Mark Thompson's mouth when I contact the manager of English radio communications. "So you want to do something on Promo Girl ... " he says. Thompson tells me that Promo Girl, in less than a year on the job, has gotten a "terrific" response from the public. "People seem to love her," he says, although he acknowledges there are also those who "absolutely hate" Promo Girl. "She gets inside people's heads." No kidding. That is what got me thinking about Promo Girl. I don't absolutely hate her, although you don't have to look far for evidence that others do. One chat room participant said he switched to another radio station because he couldn't stand hearing Promo Girl's spots. "CBC's Promo Girl is not only annoying, but the tone and content of her promos often is (sic) inappropriate for the program being promoted." Another placed Promo Girl fourth on a list of Most Annoying Canadians. She landed behind Don Cherry but ahead of Celine Dion and that smug Canadian Tire commercial guy. Ouch. Which is a bit unfair. She's not annoying. She would be quite endearing if I had met her in a sitcom or on the pages of a paperback. But I'm not so sure I want to share radio time with her. I hate the way she gets inside my head and hijacks my radio listening experience. One minute I'm passively listening to the comforting drone of interviews mingled with low-key small talk, wondering whether we can all stand pasta again for dinner, the next minute Promo Girl is sticking her head out of the radio and speaking DIRECTLY to me. Suddenly, I feel as if I am not alone. Someone is listening to the radio with me, and she sounds like she wants to be my friend. She keep asking me questions as if she might actually expect a response.And then there is her voice. It sounds young, but its main characteristic is that it is hip. Promo Girl has a youthful hipness that can sound incongruous when she's promo-ing Quirks and Quarks, say, or a serious piece of journalism. None of which are huge problems for many listeners. "I love Promo Girl," one chat room participant said. "She sounds like a real person with some of the natural idiosyncratic unpolished timbre that you don't hear from a smooth, professionally-trained beauty voice." This is true. But was is really gnawing at me about Promo Girl is the post-Seinfeldian irony embedded in her voice. That's CBC radio, she seems to be saying, but this is us, and we're younger and hipper than all that. We see the world differently. And, ever since the days when I munched my peanut butter sandwich while CBC Toronto offered its lunch-hour agricultural reports about beef and pork futures (I can still taste peanut butter when I think of the words "choice and good ones"), I have viewed CBC Radio as the home of those older, wiser and with better pronounciation and grammar skills than I. Promo Girl, with her Americanized vowels ("9:30 in Newfound-lay-end") just hammers home something I have been trying to ignore. I'm dated. You know when staid CBC starts sounding hipper than you, that you are over the hill. Sigh. Thanks, Promo Girl, I'd like to get together for drinks sometime, but it would probably be past my bedtime. Elizabeth Payne is Style Weekly deputy editor. Her column runs every second week. © The Ottawa Citizen 2005 (via Bill Westenhaver, DXLD) Personally, I find Promo Girl exceedingly annoying! 73- (Bill Westenhaver, QC, DX LISTENING DIGEST) |
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