always listening in

Following dosser’s advice I spent a lovely 1/2 a hour in the bath on Thursday evening. While I was in the bath Count Arthur Strong played out the final part of his 2 show run on Radio 4.

After the response I got to the last post I wrote on the Count I felt I owed it to the commenters to give him a second chance so I fired up the BBC audio player and listened again over breakfast. Well over breakfast is perhaps exaggerating – I got about 6 minutes in and couldn’t stand it any more, turned off the computer and tuned into Home Truths (which is saying something as I’m sure you’ll all agree Home Truths is a pale shadow of the John Peel era show). So back to the point – I stand by my original post – I can’t listen to Count, I really can’t, I tried but it just makes me feel really uncomfortable hearing his sneering weird comedy.

I found myself in the unfortunate position last Friday of having nothing to do. I thought ‘I know I’ll turn on the Radio’ – I listened to Radio 1 for a while, then XFM, then GWR, then Bath FM. The one thing they all had in common? “It’s party night on [insert station name here]“.

I don’t know about you but if I’m in alone on a Friday night the last thing I want to hear is the latest uplifting party tunes from some overly excitable DJ. I want something chilled and relaxing, not something reminding me that I’m really sad and want to stay in on a Friday.

This got me thinking, how many people actually listen to these kind of shows? So I asked people I know in the industry. And guess what? Almost nobody. Between 6pm and about 8pm, before people go out, listener figures are pretty good. After 8 the figures take a nose dive; nobody is listening. I can’t seem to figure out why they insist on running these shows after 8 rather than playing something a bit more laid back.

• Does anybody out there have an insight?
• Do you listen to Friday night “party” radio? (Is anybody actually going to admit to this?)
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