GuyWeb » Radio

The curse of Radio 1

Guy Carberry — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:24:04 +0000

Last night I watched a programme about Radio 1. It was broadcast on channel Five of all places and narrated by Chris Tarrant. Tarrant, of course, was a long-time ratings rival of the Radio 1 breakfast show and took a large hit when Chris Evans was in the hot seat. So it was inevitable that he displayed no a small amount of glee at the ‘curse of Radio 1′. The programme was very good and followed the same path of postulating suggested by Simon Garfield’s book The Nation’s Favourite.

Interviews with the Big Hairy Cornflake Dave Lee Travis show him to continue to be endearing even after all these years. The same can’t be said for Simon Bates who evidently declined to be interviewed for the programme. His exit from the station was briefly captured on camera with Bates curtly announcing that he quit and was not fired. Yeah yeah. Well he moved onto a successful career making pious messages at the start of videos, warning us about the sex and violence contained therein. I listened to Radio 1 this morning (a less regular occurrence for me lately) and Moyles was evidently enjoying his position as the ‘new Dave Lee Travis’, making use of arch-rival Tarrant’s narration clips as jingles.

Moyles of course is a total radio DJ trainspotter from the old school who’d undoubtedly admit that as a kid he loved the glory days of Simon Bates, Bruno Brookes and Liz Kershaw. Though he was bullied by Simon Bates in his rookie days at the station. The listening figures continue to peel away from the station as a whole but Moyles is attracting slightly more than Wogan right now. Controller Andy Parfit professes to not be worried and that the station’s remit is to be a broad in musical spectrum as the BBC charter dictates. Whilst the show was certainly engaging and a ever-so-slight move away from the usual trash found wallowing on five, it was a shame that John Peel was reduced to a mere footnote “John Peel, now sadly passed away..” in fact the show nearly wrote itself off by suggesting that Peel was an boring old fogey. Yet at 65, he still managed to be the most relevant of DJ on the station.

Update: Today, “Wes”, host of the Sunday evening UK Top 40 has been axed.

A feast of veritable glittering delights

Guy Carberry — Tue, 18 May 2004 16:30:48 +0000

Quality item!

From June 6th, Mark Radcliffe re-enters the late night radio arena to host new show on Radio 2. Here’s his new web page.

Chris Moyles in Southampton

Guy Carberry — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 14:01:33 +0000

BBC Radio 1 breakfast DJ Chris Moyles is presnting his show from Southampton tomorrow. Listening to his show this morning I was amused to hear some locals recommending ‘Lennons’ as a top thursday night in the city. They promoted it as having great rock and roll and tasty birds. Whilst I’d certainly agree with the first point, I’d pull them up on the ‘tasty birds’ bit as in all the years I lived in Southampton I don’t recall one such morsel. Of course things might have changed for this Irish-owned club but I doubt it. There are similarly strange suggestions on Chris’ site:

“Go to Jumpin’ Jacks! No karaoke, but if you want fun thats a good place to go!”

- surely you are kidding?

“There is only one place to go out in Southampton and that is Clowns and Jesters…its a legendary student place. So ask Scott Mills,he knows all about it….”

- Oh come on, you can do better than this flea pit for sure!

However, this comment is just about right:

“As far as I’m aware there are no good karaoke bars in Southampton as no one down here can sing (if Craig David is the best imagine what the rest of us are like). However for a sing along and all round good night out try the Frog and Frigate.”