Industry News

Annie Lennox voices DEC radio appeal

Radiocentre is helping to co-ordinate the latest appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) across commercial radio and audio in response to helping fight the coronavirus pandemic in the world’s most fragile places.

Commercial, community stations and podcasters are once again able to support the DEC. The new appeal has been voiced by Eurythmics singer and music legend Annie Lennox. Full contact details can be found below.

Covid-19 is spreading in the world’s most vulnerable communities – people living in refugee and internal displacement camps who have been forced from their homes after years of war or instability, in places including Yemen, Syria, Somalia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. There are 24 million internally displaced people in total in these states, and an additional 850,000 Rohingya people living in the world’s biggest refugee camp in Bangladesh.

Radiocentre says: “Stations are not obliged to take any action but we hope that this desperate situation encourages them to participate on humanitarian grounds. A 10, 20 and 30 second version of the appeal have been recorded by the iconic Annie Lennox. The DEC would be grateful for the spot to be played as often as possible, with a particular emphasis on the next two weeks.”

The spots have been distributed via Audiotrack and can be found with the JCN 2781910. Anyone who cannot access Audiotrack should contact helpdesk@audiotrack.co.uk. The audio is also available to download via Dropbox. Community stations looking to run the appeal should contact Bill Best (bill.best@commedia.org.uk) and podcasters should contact dec@britishpodcastawards.com. For all media, the campaign end date is 23.59 Monday 27 July and it should not be made available or broadcast after this date. For more information on the appeal more generally contact jade.atkinson@radiocentre.org.