** 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/ottawacitizen/news/styleweekly/story.html?id=39ff0669-4ff7-42fd-9346-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 gl***** 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 listener****p. "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 re****ts about beef and ****k
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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