David Cameron said when introduced on Richard Bacon’s new show on BBC Radio 5 Live this afternoon: ‘It’s obviously all change at the BBC day’. Indeed.
News of Bacon’s new slot was of course confined to a place in the inside pages, with another former bad boy given a second shot at the big-time hogging the headlines. Chris Evans stepped into Terry Wogan’s rather large shoes as host of the nation’s most-listened-to show, Breakfast on Radio 2, from 7 o’clock this morning, staying one step ahead of speculators with back-to-back Beatles to start: All You Need is Love followed by Got To Get You Into My Life.
There’s been an awful lot of sentiment on Radio 2 lately, what with Terry ending his farewell show on December 18th, his voice cracking, with ‘thank you for being my friend’, and Evans titling his debut broadcast ‘Peace and love and let this be a force for good.’ He reassured the TOGs with a selection of oldies; ‘told you you had nothing to worry about.’ Evans seemed almost endearingly nervous this morning, regularly referencing his practice shows last week, and not braving a move away from Terry’s favourite features. A listenership ‘churn’ is on the cards none the less, figures expected to drop away from Terry’s regular 7.8 - 8 million, before hopefully picking up again within the year, as some return and others come on board. 28 years his junior, Evans presents a more energetic show than Wogan’s, but, although it is far too early to judge, it seems he’s had some of the life sucked out of him on realising the responsibility of presenting the number one show. I fear he’ll end up lost somewhere in between, but a long way away from, both Terry’s gentle crooning and the old outlandish spark that made Evans a great draw in his early years.
Fortunately, the other Chris on the other station isn’t exactly hot on his heels at the moment. Moyles overtook Tony Blackburn as the longest-serving Radio 1 Breakfast Show presenter in September, but lost 700,000 listeners in three months in the process. To be fair to him, he referenced his listener figures when they were up near the eight million mark, and he does the same now they’re down nearer seven. The much-increased number of songs Moyles now plays is as close to an admittance of defeat that we’ll get from him, but maybe the gang have just run out of interesting ‘banter’ (the worst word ever invented, see Dave). The fact that his job doesn’t look to be on the line just yet reflects upon the worrying absence of an up-and-coming replacement. Drivetime host Scott Mills, who like Moyles is 35 and comfortably above Radio 1’s oft-quoted ‘target audience’, is the most likely contender, but neither he nor the station’s other young guns packs enough of a punch for me. Mr Moyles should also be reassured that there’s most certainly life in radio after you’ve had supposedly the biggest job in the business.
For Simon Mayo, who began presenting the Radio 1 Breakfast Show seven years before Evans had his shot, today started his new Radio 2 show in the number two daytime slot: Drivetime. Mayo arrives after nine years presenting the early-afternoon show on 5 Live, in what is an interesting change in direction. The Broadcast Press Guild’s 2008 ‘Radio Broadcaster of the Year’ won plaudits for his work in handling serious interviews and news issues in a sensitive and insightful way. But his new Radio 2 show looks to be strongly musical, today featuring singer-songwriter Amy Macdonald playing live. He might just be the biggest winner out of today’s reshuffles, his new show more accessible than its rivals on Radio 1 and 5 Live. Scott Mills provides adolescent humour for adolescents and even an after-school treat for kids, while Peter Allen’s dulcet tones are an acquired taste on the speech radio end.
The feeling of today being a defining one for BBC Radio was bolstered further by the arrival of a new daytime line-up on BBC Radio 5 Live. The station has long prided itself on being the home of 24-hour Live news and sport, the voices in front of the microphone closer to being show anchors than hosts. But the addition of both Gabby Logan and particularly Richard Bacon to the afternoon schedule signifies a slight but real change in emphasis. Adrian Van-Klaveren, Controller of BBC Radio 5 Live said: “I believe a programme schedule based on three two hour shows is likely to make us stronger as a station, giving each programme a tighter feel and allowing us to develop some new approaches”.
First up from 10, 5 Live’s top performer Victoria Derbyshire keeps her place, this morning putting aside the loss of an hour from her show with a characteristically poignant yet provocative interview with the wrongly imprisoned Shaun Hodgson. Gabby Logan – the female face of sports broadcasting in recent years – takes the reins for the weekday lunchtime shift. Her shows will often fall back into a sporting safety net, although that’s not bad news for a station that seems to switch too abruptly between daytime news and evenings and weekends consumed by sport. Logan’s appointment in the directly competing 12 until 2 slot seems to be a head-on challenge to the supremacy of Jeremy Vine - who has consistently set the daily news agenda over on Radio 2 – and is bold move considering her relative lack of news experience. Rounding off the new line-up is Richard Bacon, the former children’s TV star dismissed from Blue Peter after being caught using drugs, promoted from the late evening slot. Although his show is to be focused more on entertainment, Bacon brushed off suggestions it would be less than hard-hitting by giving the Prime Minister in-waiting a tough time this afternoon.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
‘You know how I know you’re getting old? Because you listen to Radio 4.’
My Dad and I used to say that, as you get older, you progress up the radio stations. Kids listen to 1, pensioners to 4. Radio 3 throws a bit of a spanner in the works, but we’ve always ignored, justified perhaps because of a comparatively low listenership. And 5 Live, well that’s just different. Maybe we didn’t think it through.
But both Radio 2 and 1 listened to us in recent months. Terry Wogan, 71, has been replaced by Chris Evans, at 43, much more suitably ‘younger-middle-aged’. Radio 1’s biggest reshuffle in a while happened in September. Out went Jo Whiley, 44, and Edith Bowman, 35, and in came Fearne Cotton, 28, and Greg James, 24, to late morning and early afternoon respectively. Cue yet another BBC ageism ‘scandal.’
No, seriously, it is not all about age when it comes to your station of choice. More worthy of discussion, indeed celebration, is the variety and quality of BBC radio output, without even mentioning BBC local radio.
RAJAR’s September 2009 figures saw the BBC claim 55% of the nation’s listenership. Radio 2 was again streaking ahead with a 15.9% share. Radio 4, which continues to do its own thing, uninteresting in the vying for eminence with its ‘younger’ stations, but making great speech radio less about the characters in front of the mic, claims a 12.4% share.
RAJAR reported a buoyant radio industry in 2009, listening across all radio at a record high of over 45 million.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
7 until 7 – my BBC radio daytime (best listened to on a tractor)
7.30 – 8.30: Chris Evans – Radio 2
8.30 – 10.00: Chris Moyles – Radio 1
10.00 – 12.00: Victoria Derbyshire – Radio 5 Live
12.00 – 14.00: Jeremy Vine – Radio 2
14.00 – 14.15: The Archers – Radio 4
14.15 – 15.00: The Afternoon Play – Radio 4
15.00 – 16.00: Richard Bacon – Radio 5 Live
16.00 – 17.00: Scott Mills – Radio 1
17.00 – 19.00: Simon Mayo – Radio 2
Monday, January 11, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
