So which pop radio station do you listen to? It’s a question people who run pop radio stations often feel compelled to ask, without really wanting to hear the answer.
So which pop radio station do you listen to? It’s a question people who run pop radio stations often feel compelled to ask, without really wanting to hear the answer. Most of their friends and contemporaries listen to Radio Four, and so do mine. But I need music to work to, and to wash up to, and Radio Two has come to occupy a significant place in my life. Ah, Radio Two. Once old, fuddy and duddy, more recently it has been home to Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, and still it’s the most popular radio station in the country. Maybe the most hated, too.
There is of course a long-running campaign, in the Daily Mail and elsewhere, to privatise both Radio One and Two, on the grounds that they are commercial stations already in all but name, with a giant subsidy and no ads, and therefore operating at an unfair advantage over the poor, benighted commercial stations out there which no longer make any money for anyone. O woe! Let’s disregard the blatant commercial self-interest of many such campaigners, and also the entrenched loathing of the BBC so many of my journo chums seem to feel. What’s left is a terrible snobbery about pop radio: mush for the proles. You would never know the vast qualitative difference between Radio Two and the commercial stations if you listened to neither. It’s primarily a matter of intent. Commercial stations exist to deliver listeners to advertisers at the lowest possible cost. Their economic model assumes there are millions of thickies out there who haven’t heard ‘Against all Odds’ by Phil Collins quite often enough. Radio Two, constantly required to justify its existence, has to do rather better. There is an argument that the hatred it inspires has actually fuelled its drive to excellence. Being good has certainly drawn in the listeners, who are more discerning than the commercial sector can quite bear. What happens at Radio Two thus becomes important to us.
A few months ago a rumour went round that Ken Bruce would be replaced by Simon Mayo when Radio 5Live went to Salford and Mayo stayed behind. Ken Bruce! Maybe not the most famous of Radio Two’s line-up, but one of the best. Now it’s said that Terry Wogan will go to weekends, Chris Evans will take over the breakfast show and Mayo will get drivetime. This would suit me, as I rarely listen first thing in the morning and almost every day at drivetime. The Evans ego has recently shown signs of re-inflation. He’s calling himself ‘we’ again and borderline-bullying his on-air minions. (I also haven’t forgiven him for playing a beautiful Kate Rusby song that someone had requested — ‘Underneath the Stars’ — and then slagging it off afterwards. Insufficiently lively, apparently. Philistine.)
Maybe it’s a function of age. Having always laughed at those crazed Radio Four listeners who march on Broadcasting House when Brain of Britain is moved on 15 minutes, I realise I am turning into the Radio Two equivalent. I will tell anyone who listens that Steve Wright has perked up again after a few years when he appeared to be on autopilot. I evangelise for the magnificent Radcliffe and Maconie. I express the wish that Jeremy Vine read out fewer emails from frothing lunatics and bigots and play more tunes. I marvel at the boundless enthusiasm of Mike Harding and Bob Harris, and the wild eclecticism of the great survivor, Desmond Carrington, up there in Perthshire. And I switch over to 6Music when Aled Jones or Jonathan Ross comes on. Radio Two isn’t perfect, or anywhere close. But like Radio Three and Four, it’s all we’ve got, and it needs to be protected from the vandals in our midst.
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