Student Radio Association

“My show is called ‘Thank Fly It’s Friday’ and went out from 12 – 1pm on a Friday afternoon, my main goals were to play lots of uplifting music, chat a little and most importantly inform students about events happening over the coming weekend...”

Martyn Littlewood was a relatively late comer to Fly FM this year, but what he missed out on early on, he made up for his enthusiasm, energy and top quality presenting. He had the ability to produce entertaining, mainstream radio whilst demonstrating an in depth knowledge of music; with these skills combined with his flair for production and talents in web design, he proved to be a real asset to the station.

With over 2 years experience in online radio and 3 months hospital radio Martyn had a great deal of understanding in how to produce a radio show, but joined Fly FM in order to improve and develop his skills. By the end of the year Martyn had proved himself to not only be a great presenter for Fly but also a vital member of the station. Considering that he joined so late on, what Martyn achieved was brilliant.

Martyn joined in late February with the intention of just adding to the station any way that he could; he took part in ‘Off the Record’ to begin with, this gave him the chance to be involved in Fly’s flagship show and get accustomed to the station. Once he felt confident enough and showed that he had all the skills and confidence to run his own show, he asked to take control of a new show which was coming to the station ‘Thank Fly it’s Friday’. The show was original designed to fulfil a role of being a light hearted, entertaining and informative for students, with the sole aim of updating them on what was going on around the university over the weekend.

Martyn adopted the show as his own and over the remainder of the year transformed it from an information based show to one that twinned light hearted student news with entertainment. Martyn created ‘What’a’Gwarn in Nottingham’ in order to inform students of the weekend’s events, this proved to popular feature and Martyn contends that the feature was never meant to permanently have that name but due to the reception it got; it stuck!

Martyn’s confidence and presenting ability began to shine through as he developed more segments and features, one of the main ones being ‘Oh My God! It’s only Martyn’s game’. Through this feature Martyn was able to boost listener involvement and connect with the audience more directly as he would give them three clues on an individual he was thinking of and ask them to text the answer. Along with this there was the ‘Big Choon at Half Past Noon’, where Martyn would pick his record of the week and playing it out half way through every show.

After ticking off the boxes of producing informative and entertaining radio, Martyn then decided to show off his creative flare and he created a parody of ‘Right Round’ by FloRida, titled ‘Right Now’ by VoteFinder. The idea came from the fact that it was the Students Union executive committee elections and Martyn had never experienced the pandemonium that went with it. After seeing how the nominees would try anything to get votes, he decided he needed to write a parody of it.

Martyn’s fun presenting style also meant that he developed strong relationships with other Fly FM presenters. After getting to know others on Fly, Martyn set Dan Bunker and Kieran Simpson a mission to go up to the Brackenhurst Campus of Nottingham Trent and gave them a variety to tasks to accomplish. One of these tasks involved Martyn asking Dan and Kieran to identify through clues whether he was describing Brackenhurst or Barack Obama, the clues proved to be very tenuous but it was a funny listen.

As well as producing and presenting his own show, Martyn was also involved in Fly FM’s coverage of the run up to the Nottingham Trent Students Union Awards and the day of the tickets for the graduation ball going on sale. He presented a two hour show live from outside the Students Union Executive Committee’s office, it full gaze of all other students in the building at the time. Martyn has subsequently hailed that day as being a triumph for his confidence, as before he got involved in fly he would have been too shy to have broadcast in front of all those people.   

By the end of the year Martyn’s involvement in Fly FM had reached new heights as he was established as ‘Head of Station Sound’ for 2009/2010. On top of this Martyn has also taken it upon himself to create a whole new website for Fly FM next year, and without doubt the station will be a better place with him next year.

By the end of the year Martyn had proved to one of the best and most creative new presenters on the station and he has shown time and time again that he is a dedicated and talented member of the station.