From the Guardian
The commercial radio industry did not exactly get a good press in 2006. Beset by corporate troubles and with its audience share deflated by the dominance of the BBC, there was not much to shout about. But now, it seems, a fightback has begun.
What do you get if you combine the worst bits from a Marshall Stack with worse bits of Pure radio?
I’m not sure if he’s like it in real life but he doeas seem to have a sinister edge to his interviewing style. The Today Programme sports presenter really give me the creeps.
He interviews in the same style as James Naughtie and the rest but in the world of sport do we really need this style of questioing?
There’s an example here of him interviewing Anna Kournikova and giving her a hard time. Take a pill Gary and relax – be nice to your guests.
Gimmicky site for downloading podcasts to a mobile. If your mobile data costs are anything like mine it’d cost me £34 (no joke) to download Mark Kermode’s film reviews.
Broadcasting House is a real treat of a show. Funny writing, really good journalism, big hitting BBC reporters – Evan Davis this week and host Fi Glover’s irreverent style make for some fantastic radio.
It’s a shame that when Fi is away (she’s away having a baby) the stand-in really isn’t up to the job.
Paddy O’Connell is a good Radio 4 host, but he doesn’t have the ironic style needed to present the show. Fi and Eddie Mair before her both suited the show brilliantly and bought it all together. Paddy seems to struggle when it comes to delivering the lines, it’s almost if he can’t let go and run with it. Come back soon Fi, Broadcasting House is missing you!
The Gronyad reports last week that top BBC radio stars earn loads of cash according to a BBC leak. No surprise there. The really shock is how much the top earners get compared to the jobbing DJs. Jonathan Ross heads the high earners making on average £25 a minute for his Saturday morning Radio 2 show – £530,000 a year.
The real surprise was the difference in salaries between the stars and the jobbing DJs. Pete Tong only earns £70,000 grand – seems a little low compared to the stars like Chris Evans who gets £510,000. The BBC are apparently expecting a round of salary renegotiations and stars being poached as a result
Radio 4 presenter salaries haven’t been leaked yet – now that would cause some real problems at Broadcasting House between the Today programme presenters if there are any huge differences.
From next month Radio 2 will be offering a Best of Wogan weekly podcast.
Wogan has dubbed the weekly compilation a Togcast, named after his fans who are known as Terry’s Old Geezers and Gals.
I for one won’t be listening, I’m not one of Tel’s 2 million daily listeners. I really can’t be doing with Radio 2 in the daytime and Wake up to Wogan really doesn’t float my boat.
The short list for the prestigous UK Sony radio awards has been anounced and the Entertainment Award seems to be the most hotly contested.
Veteran DJ Chris Eveans is going against Radio 1′s DJ Chris Moyles, Danny Baker (BBC London 94.9), Jonathan Ross (Radio 2), and the Ugly Phil Breakfast Show (Kerrang! 105.2 West Midlands). I hope beyond hope that Moyles doesn’t win – he won’t shut up about it if he does.
I know a lot of people really don’t like him but I hope Danny Baker wins it (Previous post I really wish I hated Danny Baker). He always makes me laugh when I hear him and it’s a shame he isn’t on a national station.
It’s also really good to see Lauren Laverne at XFM nominated for the highly prized Music Radio Personality of the Year. Challenging her for the boys are Chris Evans, receiving his second 2006 nomination, Jamie Theakston London’s Heart 106.2, Marc Riley – BBC 6 Music and Virgin Radio’s Tim Lovejoy. She’s one of the best things about XFM and it would be really good recognition is she wins it – it can’t have been easy taking over from Chrisitan O’Connell after all.
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.
Picture the scene; I get home from work late after a bad day. Feeling tired and low I tune in to Radio 4. Imagine my surprise when I hear Count Arthur Strong’s Radio show. Instead of the usual six thirty comedy I hear some variety show out of the 1950′s. Confusing, unfunny, clichéd rubbish by someone pretending to be some has been variety star and what’s worse? It’s on again next week.
Come on Radio 4 get him off air now!
Did anybody else hear it? If so tell the world what you thought.
The BBC comedy blog wrote yesterday about how Ricky Gervais is going to start charging for his popular podcast. It’ll only cost a £1 but could start a trend.
Would I subscribe if I had to pay? I’m not sure. It’ll be interesting to see how it works out and if he can replicate the success he had with the free podcast. He had over 250,000 downloads a week so even if he get half that he’ll be a very rich man.
Would you pay a quid to hear Gervais?
Leave a comment below.
Listening to XFM’s movie programme on Sunday afternoon it really hit me how much better the BBC does film reviews than commercial radio.
Paul Anderson does an admiral job for XFM but never really gets to heart of what makes a good film review – if a film is rubbish saying that it’s rubbish. The temptation for film reviewers to always be positive about the crap Hollywood puts out must be huge, after all, most new films are pretty awful. I’m sure managers in commercial radio don’t want their show to be too negative, after all commercial radio is a ‘happy’ place. Broadcasting a movie review programme that is pretty much negative most of the time wouldn’t fit with a stations image.
Contrast this with Mark Kermode on 5 Live – I’ve talked before about how much I love listening to his reviews. He always says if a film is a turkey, most weeks he struggles to say almost anything positive which is really refreshing. Now if I go and see a film I really know what I’m letting myself in for.
I found myself listening to Sarah Cox’s Radio 1 show last Saturday afternoon. The host was away and in here place were Chappers and Dave who were very funny – I haven’t enjoyed a Radio 1 show so much for a long, long time.
Roll on the day when Chappers and Dave get their own show.
I had a bit of moan about Boothby Grafoe about a month back and he’s repsonded – seems the poor guy is very angry:
no, joe, it’s not just you, it’s countless others like you who have nothing better to do than moan about stuff that in the grand scheme of things mean about as much as you. But there’re countless others again who like my work, and to be honest so what? Try to relax, mate. If you want to write letters U Win Tin is in gaol in Mayanmar for no particular reason, you could write to them and ask if he could be let out. I’m glad I irritate you. It’s wot I was born to do you pointless, thoughtless, talentless wanker.
sincere regards,
boothby graffoe
Seems I’m not the only one who who doesn’t rate his stuff much:
Joe
As it happens I agree with you here. I love Radio 4 comedy on the whole- some of it is utterly brilliant (the Boosch, the Consultants, Dead Ringers) but like you I feel that Boothby Graffoe has more of a “radio 2″ feel about his humour. I didn’t find his reply to you very funny either.
GRL
