Freedom of speech vs Perfect Balance..

[Config85]

I really didn't want to do this but i really have to set some things straight after i see those staff members making posts in a LOCKED topic.

Yesterday we got our show cancelled because of a listener drop during the show... This was something I and Dan had talked about before and we agreed to switch hours between me and Simon because he is playing more techhouse/house tracks in his sets than i do and we didn't want some dj's to complain about this.
Anyway, our show was cancelled anyway and i start discussing this matter in the thread. Not only in the name of me and Simon but only in the name of the fans of our show who didn't really understood why this had to happen.. we got opposed by some exagerated facts and the topic was closed. I strongly suggested Dan to open the thread again to let other people and listeners give their thoughts about this and maybe suggest for solutions.. But the topic stayed locked.
When i woke up this morning i some new comments in the thread by staff members of course backing Dan in this matter. I can't blame them. But what i cant except is that those people are saying things that aren't true. Suddenly we get blamed we did a house show, which clearly we didn't, and we also get blamed to be arrogant people, thinking we play the best music there is. Are we arrogant people when we want to diverse from the same trance you hear on the radio all day? We didn't play house only. My sets were a mixture of progressive and trance every time. check out some tracklists for our shows.
2 months ago i played this tracklist on Perfect Balance:

01. Solarscape - Zen (Sunrise Intro Mix) [Solarscape]
02. Masque - Moon Bathing [Carica Revelation]
03. Josel - Digiboy (Dj Tarkan & V-Sag Remix) [Toes In The Sand]
04. David Shaw - Arabian Nights (Flash Brothers Remix) [Cold Harbour]
05. Terk Dawn - Barent Blue (Marninx Pres Monogato Remix) [Well Mixed]
06. Vincent De Moor - Fly Away (Cosmic Gate Remix) [Cloud 9]
07. Frase - Module One (Original Mix) [Eve]
08. Karybde & Scylla - Cocoon Vibes 2007 [Moonrising]
09. Darren Tate - Echoes [Mondo]

not a single track has something to do with house in there. In the same episode Simon played this:

01. The Factory - Couldn\'t Love You More (Fedde Le Grand Big Room Mix) [Toolroom]
02. BSOD - Even More Sketchy [Play]
03. Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back (Armand Van Helden Remix) [Jive]
04. Jonas Steur - Level Up [Black Hole]
05. Oliver Giacomotto - Gail In The O (John Aquaviva & Damon Jee Remix) [Definitive Recordings]
06. Bolier & Coenraad - The Mighty Ducks [Intuition]
07. D. Ramirez - La Discotek [La Musique Fait La Force]
08. Mark Norman - Blikken Machine [Black Hole]
09. Rockers Hi-Fi - Push Push (M.A.N.D.Y. Mix) [541]
10. Joris Voorn - The Deep [Green]

that isn't a complete house set either, but way more of a progressive tracklisting.

That's why i want to set some things straight. People who listened to our show know that this wasn't a complete house shows.. yet they know there were some housy track in it from time to time and those people could appreciate it. We got 8 pages yesterday before this matter started. Why would there be people in a topic if they aren't liking it anyway?

But this was not really what i wanted to talk about. It's more of the backstabbing that hurted me. When the show ended we had a poll of 7 people who voted 'Massive' vs one person who said 'pretty bad' and another saying 'not my style'. Still we had 77% of people who voted for massive. We didn't ask anyone to vote, those people really wanted to vote themselves. Suddenly the topic gets closed and today I see some people of the staff all backed Dan and voted - Pretty Bad and Not My Style. That's pretty lame if you ask me. If a topic is locked also staff member should be not in it. But they all voted pretty bad and now it looks like almost no one didn't like the show. I'm 100% sure not half of those staff members heard yesterday's show. Why does a topic have to be closed in order that the staff can say some things about us that aren't completely true? It's like being in a tribunal but having to defend yourself without an advocate, that's how i feel right now. I thought a discussion about that would be a good opportunity for AH to see what other people think of this. Remember all feedback is good for your progression, even negative feedback. Instead we got the listeners being shut up and Staff members replying we think our music is the best there is and that we are being arrogant, doing a house show.. while clearly we didn't do a house show. It was a diverse show with progressive, house AND trance.

I also heard some people went complaining about us. Now if those people have the guts to say it directly to us instead of backstabbing us, we would be able to live with that. I heard from Dan people say i'm a bad person.. I really would like to know who's thinking i'm a bad person in here.. All i wanted to do is to say my thoughts.. and being honest with everyone all the time.. I guess people don't always appreciate honesty. The fact that our show was cancelled really hurted. People suggested to move it to an other hour so they could still listen to our show but no hear was given to that. But what hurts the most is that we got our mouth shut up and in the meanwhile staff members have been able to say things that weren't really true about us, giving the listeners an impression we were arrogant and played solely house and voting 'not my style' in order to make it look like no one liked the show while we had 75% of listeners who voted massive before.
Am i a bad person when i like to speak the truth? Am i a bad person because i really have difficulties with being backstabbed, cause that what it feels like for me..

I would really like to know people's opinions about this...

cheers,

Config

 

[R-Tan]

AH.fm is corrupt, that's why I left this place a long time ago. I personally think that PB was a great show and that Config has a point in the things he's mentioning.

I've also read the topic, which got locked eventually but staff members still continued on posting with their thoughts about this matter. And I still have to say, Config is right. 18:00 - 20:00 is usually the dining time for most of the people on the world, don't know what you guys do but at 18:30 - 19:00 I usually put my laptop off and enjoy my dinner.

My personal thought about this is that you guys just need some lame excuse to cancel this show, in this case - it's not solid. You guys are probably going to fill this spot in with ASOT-replicas and hope that people will give up dinner to listen to it.

Anyways, it's unfair that this show gets cancelled ( it's better then most of the shows on AH.fm )

 

[Stella]

Hi Config and R-tan. I think you (and everyone else here)deserve freedom of speech an have your say,but writing things such like AH.fm is corrupt is a bit lame

we all could try to express our thoughts in another way,instead of speaking straight of corruption etc don't you think so?

by the way I am one of those listeners being sorry for diverse styles shows being removed from schedule.
I love trance big time,but if I have a chance to listen to other styles I won't close my ears or shut down radio. I used to listen Config & Simon shows in the past and enjoyed them.

Have not listened all yesterday show though,nor checked out listeners amount while it was playing. I think in the weekend it's normal if listeners are less than usual or at some point in the evening will drop...it's weekend,peoples could have other things to do,dinner,partying,spending some time with family and friend etcetera

I think you Config can talk to Dan and try to sort out a friendly solution,maybe move the show to another day/hour or any other good solution so everyone will be fine.

but once again please do not say AH.fm is corrupt because there are peoples around here,Dan in primis and others,doing their best and spending some time of their life trying to make good things here. I understand Config feeling sorrowful for a show being cancelled and many listeners bein disappointed,but! To hear/read AH.fm and all peoples behind are corrupted is way too much.
Let's hope everything can be sorted out in a friendly manner soon
ciao

 

[Config85]

well, i never said AH.FM was being corrupt and i take distance from that too. But the rest R-Tan said i can agree with.

Also, thanks for your opinion on this Stella. I tried to figure it out with Dan but it ended up with cancellation of the show. The hour i had before and used for my Perfect Balance set is lost now. From 2 hours monthly i only have 1 hour anymore. I bought new expensive equipment to deliver the best quality sets i could, i bought a new Audio-card to raise my sound quality of my sets also. But now it ended up in me losing one hour and only 1 hour left a month to do something with. That's pretty hard to take for me, since i was here from the beginning, my first 'retrovisions' had 20+ listeners.. I always played melodic stuff in my sets, not always trance, but yet, progressive. In the end i'm affected the most by this cancellation, i lost the hour i gave in for this PB-project and Dan took away my participation in the AH end of the year-event. and i really apologize for my extremely disappointed behaviour, but i feel like i'm getting backstabbed by people who don't even want to come out with it and rather stay anonymous. If there were so many complaints about our show, then why do those people don't say it in our face? We would take notice of that. Perfect balance never had an episode with more than 50% house/electro in it and yet we were painted as arrogant house lovers thinking house is the best music there is. That hurts too you know.

 

[abyss]

Well, okay, here we go again..

First of all let me get straight that I'm not choosing sides at this moment. I just want to shed my light on this.
What I've seen happening lately in the scene is an ever growing focus on commercialisation. There are two things to be said about this.

From the view of AH.fm and it's staff it's pretty obvious they have to get as many listeners as possible. Remember, it takestime and amounts of money to get a radiostation up and running, even an online one. I do have a lot of respect for the crew here who try to bring us music free of charge all day long. Thanks a lot for that!

Then there is the other view, the one from the DJ's who create the shows to be broadcasted. They want to show the scene (and with that: as many people as possible) what they are capable of and what their taste of music is like. Nothing wrongwith that either.

Last view is the side of the listeners. Some of them are regulars, others come here now and then and some of them are fans of certain shows. They keep the whole thing together in the end (although, all sides in this matter have an almost equal impact on this). Without the listeners there wouldn't be a need for a radiostation at all.

So, now we got three different views. In the best possible way these views all agree on the same things. They like the same things, they want to do the same things etc.
Unfortunately people tend to have different opinions, which is a good thing! That is, it's a good thing as long as opinions can be shared, will be listened to and respected.

Even though it's the right of the staff to cancel shows or reprogram them, I still think it shows of respect if they first tell the involved DJ(s). What happened here seems to escalate a bit. The staff should act mature enough to handle this matter without feelings getting hurt or people not knowning what they're up to.

The debate about the style being played should never had started in the first place. After all, is afterhours a place to listen to Trance or is it a place to enjoy music? In these years where every genre blends into the other it's nothing less than understandable that other tracks from other genres find their way into (in this example) Trance sets. I mean, seriously, how many times does Armin play some sort of house tracks or minimal or something similar? And you can't make me believe that no other DJ on this channel has played a track outside the boundaries of trance and progressive. After all, who defines those boundaries?
So, to be short, the genre debate should really not be an issue at this point.

Clue of story:

Well, finally arriving at the topic concerning Config's and Simon's show. If the reason of cancelling is the drop in listeners (month after month) then it's obvious from te view of the AH staff that there need meassures to be taken. They should discuss that with both Simon and Config and see how this happens and what can eb done about it. AS far as I've seen so far, neither Dan nor the other staff members did take any effort whatsoever to see if there indeed may be geographical influences or any other matter involved.

So, to make my opinion clear: get in touch with eachother and try to solve this as matures. If you can't decide what is best let the listeners decided by means of a poll. But please, for heavens sake, act like mature people, respect eachother! I've seen really bad things happen in the scene we all love, because of the lack of respect.

Well, I hope all people involved will solve this and move on..
Thanks for your time reading this.

 

[dfx]

well doh, sorry for making that last post in the thread, didn't know the topic was closed. i'll continue to have no opinion from now on.

 

[Vicky Wood]

From a personal point of view I was sad to see it cancelled, maybe a shift in time slot could have been a possibility but it seems the decision has been made for the greater good of the station as a whole and I respect that.

Yes there was a listener drop, not as big as first thought it seems for this weeks show just gone, but a drop never the less, one which has occurred in the past shows too. Unfortunately not everyone that tunes into afterhours uses the forum and therefore you find the people that are on the forum are the fans of the show and generally votes reflect that. The popularity is guaged by the overall listeners to the station.

I have always liked Config's track selections, but not always been too keen on Simon Steur's to be honest, so I'm sad to see Config's hour he gave up initially gone.

As Stella said, I hope you can resolve a friendly solution with Dan.

Vicky

 

[abyss]

well doh, sorry for making that last post in the thread, didn't know the topic was closed. i'll continue to have no opinion from now on.

Oh, please, you know very well that this isn't the point. Most of us are adults here, so let's act like them and solve this little conflict :smile1:

 

[MooNiE]

About the 'increase' of the pretty bad/not my style votes, I've found that LAME. Why changing that when the topic is locked and making it look like something different? With this the ones who did it showed they're not really mature and they don't really respect the other listeners who voted for 'massive' on the right time and when the topic wasn't locked. This kinda annoyed me.
Apart from that, we should know that there has been some changes in the trance scene. It's not about 99' anymore, people are being more innovative in the prog genre and this is noticable. If not, just take a look at an actual ASOT playlist, even that in essence, it's trance.
I also disagree with the thing that they're playing house all the time. I'm in a country which the main - and almost only - EDM genre is house and I've been in several house gigs. I gotta tell you their show is basically progressive with some trance things. And what happens if they spin some house? Is it a crime?
Hey, it doesn't do any harm I guess, but that's just me.

I just hope things will get in a good way and we can enjoy these kinda shows still... I wouldn't want to listen to a radiostation that only plays the same tunes and the same kind of music 24/7.

 

[dan]

Here I will post my reply...

First off I would like to appologize for having that post being closed, and do take responsbility for staff posting after the thread was closed. My reason of having that thread closed was that I did not want to see anymore bashing coming from either sides... I wanted to resolve this issue with Config over msn (which we did)

To quote RTAN:
AH Corrupt? You need to really step back a little and think about what you said, just because 1 show that has been cancelled due to a listener drop, and the fact that they both have shows and its not fair to have a DJ 2 shows on AH.
I dont want to start issues with you, your words are much appreciated. Thank You

To Quote Abyss:
I understand what you have said, but this does not look like the way you imagined... Thread was closed and then I have spoken to Config over msn, if I did not have planned on doing so the thread would of been open. I do appreciate your post, thanks.

To Quote everyone else read below.

Conclusion:
Once again I would like to apologize to you about the therad being closed and ah staff posting after it was closed (this was out of my control) but i do take blame for it.

Secondly yes there was a huge drop of listeners during Simons show, 19:01 was 515 tuned in, then before confid started was 410, my math does not add up to what i have said in earlier posts where I said 120 I believe, my bad. To make it clear there was not a drop during Configs show but Simons. Due to the nature of them having a show together, I decided to close the show because of 2 main reasons.

1. Every month there is a drop in listeners during this show, as you can see in the graph although they drop only a small percentage will come back. Following shows we have about 5 on that day, all djs after this show suffer the droppage. For example Robbie has 550+ every week except this week, he is a huge supporter of AH and im sure he does not appreciate the droppage. This has nothing to do with config or simon, its just the style of music simon plays does not fit in this day in this schedule.

Simon agreed for the show to be removed, he has his own show on AH which is before GDJB each month. I understand each DJ having their own style of music, diversity is ok, but my point is and other djs as they quoted "diversity is ok but not at peak times of the day" which I do agree with.

2. Second reason is, I have been emailed and approached by few DJ saying to be that is it NOT fair for Simon & Config to have 2 shows on AH while others DJ can't (not fair). We need to follow the same road as other schedules. I been meaning to move the show to another time, but then again same issue arises the "fairness" of DJ's @ AH.FM I have made this decision to cancel this show, and leave Simon + Config with their own shows so its fair to Afterhours DJ's.

With all fairness, Config has 1hour show on AH, many AH djs times were cut to allow more new talent to come in, a good number of AH DJ's have 1hour a month shows and they are really happy with. Config has agreed to give his other hour 8 months ago for this perfect balance show, at that point I could of given many hours away due to not having soo many DJ's. With current schedule http://www.ah.fm/schedule I cant give more hours. Since Perfect Balance was a 2 hour show it will be given to a new DJ who will be supporting AH for these 2 hours.

Afterhours has grown a huge amount, this is due to the professionalism of AH staff, listeners, promoters, DJs, and community itself, and I will do our best to keep it that way.

Once again im sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused, I just hope you understand where AH is coming from and only wants fairness, I have apologized for the things which I consider were not fair in last few days.

Thank You config for making the post about what frustrated you, myself an AH staff is looking forward to your crossing Borderlines show.

Now lets get back to music

 

[xruntime]

Uh...I have no idea what's going on, I guess its best that I stay out

As long as I hear some good music on AH, then I'm fine with whatever lineup you got

 

[Config85]

The fact that bothers me is that you say dj's cant have 2 shows, but why did we get 2 shows in the first place then? I had 2 hours and i end up having 1 and a lost participation in the end of the year event.
There is a timeslot of 2 hours free now.. why can't i get my hour back, instead of giving a new DJ 2 hours at once? Why don't you give him one instead and make some time table moves so that my other hour won't be in peak time? Really hard to take for me and very hard to understand.. me getting only 1 hour and let a new dj start and give him 2 hours at once. In the end it's all about money then.. well i'm sorry i really did all that i could to upgrade my equipment first, i had huge bills (i payed almost 2000 dollars for it) also and in the end it's half a waste , cuz i lose one hour of time.. I only talked good about AH, i dedicated my free hours to gather the Benelux in the Mix 002 line up..
I see all dj's who were here from the beginning having more than one hour also, so it's kind of judging with different weights for every dj. Too bad the 'Thank you' was a sarcastic one..

 

[dan]

The fact that bothers me is that you say dj's cant have 2 shows, but why did we get 2 shows in the first place then? I had 2 hours and i end up having 1 and a lost participation in the end of the year event.
There is a timeslot of 2 hours free now.. why can't i get my hour back, instead of giving a new DJ 2 hours at once? Why don't you give him one instead and make some time table moves so that my other hour won't be in peak time? Really hard to take for me and very hard to understand.. me getting only 1 hour and let a new dj start and give him 2 hours at once. In the end it's all about money then.. well i'm sorry i really did all that i could to upgrade my equipment first, i had huge bills (i payed almost 2000 dollars for it) also and in the end it's half a waste , cuz i lose one hour of time.. I only talked good about AH, i dedicated my free hours to gather the Benelux in the Mix 002 line up..
I see all dj's who were here from the beginning having more than one hour also, so it's kind of judging with different weights for every dj. Too bad the 'Thank you' was a sarcastic one..

Like I posted on top please read my post,

at that point I could of given many hours away due to not having soo many DJ's

All djs spend money on equipment, tracks etc its all normal, plus they support the cause of AH, cause without them, there would be no AH. I hope you understand.

 

[Config85]

still that's not a real answer to all of those questions i think. U say there are so many dj's now, which is true, but now u give someone 2 hours just like that. Instead u could've given him one hour and there wouldn't have been no problem at all for me. The fact that u took that hour in the End of the year event away has nothing to do with that too, that's just a punishment. And now you're saying thank you to me.. Something's not right in that picture.
I'm backed up to only 1 episode a month now, it would've been cool if i could air a 2 hour set instead of one, but it seems that's not possible either. My help maybe couldn't always been measured in money, but it was help none the less.

 

[Renov8]

I agree with Dan, I think it's fair enough to have room for more talent to come in. When I started my show which is 1 hour a week, and opened another sub-label, I thought of asking Dan for another weekly, but that could just not happen. This is why we split it equally between labels.

Now as in for music. We've recently opened a tech label. You know, not many people like tech trance music. Nevertheless, I asked Dan whether we could get 2 hours a month with that, and another great DJ from Ukraine who would deliver quality tech sound. Dan said no. So it's not a personal issue here.

My conclusion is that Config should have been notified long before the show was cancelled and this matter would be relolved in private before, so noone would be hurt.

And AH staff posting in locked topic is messed up. I would never support that if I were an Admin or Mod, and putting in 2 negative votes after the topic was closed is very low. I think Dan should have a word with whoever did that, because that makes AH.fm look really bad.

 

[Config85]

your point being completely true renov8. But please also consider we're not on weekly , we were biweekly and now moved to monthly.

There should've been a conversation before the show, and not during. In that case we could've done a special last episode. Now it's just teared to pieces while the show was still airing. Very hard and impulsive decision to accept for me (and i'm sure that is for Simon too). There never was taking any time to find some alternative solutions and that's very painful. The way everything happened was just not proper at all and that was the first reason why all of the arguements started. yes i am to blame also but anyone who gets their show cancelled during it's airing time without even knowing that could happen would do the same. That was unethical

 

[Renov8]

your point being completely true renov8. But please also consider we're not on weekly , we were biweekly and now moved to monthly.

There should've been a conversation before the show, and not during.

I said that in my post.

 

[Config85]

I said that in my post.

well.. i agreed on that

anyway, i will stop the fuss for now.. i hope Dan will eventually change his mind about some other things.. not only for me, but for the fans also. The reason why i made this topic was not to harm AH.FM in any kind of way, and i know Dan knows this also.

peace.

 

[Bjorn_Akesson]

As watching this from above I think it's much better to try solve exactly everything private first before you make a thread on this. By calling AH corrupt is 100% bullshit you should feel ashamed to say something like that after how much money and work Dan spent on AH. Enough about that, I think its fair each dj have one show each, and dude if you think your new equipment is a waste of money just cuz you wont play as much on AH anymore you should re-think, you can use your equipments for home parties, friends or just to play around whenever you feel like it! Dan is not a perfect person just like each one of us, no one can run a station with having everyone 100% satisfied, sometimes things needs to be done, even if its doesnt suit everyone. Even though your upset please rething before you make a big fuss that makes Dan look like a jerk, hope you solved everything!

/B

 

[Config85]

As watching this from above I think it's much better to try solve exactly everything private first before you make a thread on this. By calling AH corrupt is 100% bullshit you should feel ashamed to say something like that after how much money and work Dan spent on AH. Enough about that, I think its fair each dj have one show each, and dude if you think your new equipment is a waste of money just cuz you wont play as much on AH anymore you should re-think, you can use your equipments for home parties, friends or just to play around whenever you feel like it! Dan is not a perfect person just like each one of us, no one can run a station with having everyone 100% satisfied, sometimes things needs to be done, even if its doesnt suit everyone. Even though your upset please rething before you make a big fuss that makes Dan look like a jerk, hope you solved everything!

/B

just want to state that there was absolutely no point where i said AH.FM was corrupt. And not everything is solved up to date.
I know the money on my equipment is spent well , but still i'm disappointed about the way everything happened. But like i said in the last post i made, i'll stop this fuss for now, since i don't want to trash AH.FM in any kind of way. I hope Dan changes his mind on some parts in the end.

cheers