Radio 2 is still a mixed bag, but hiring glitzy new talent has paid off
BBC Radio 2
I have discovered the greatest nitwit broadcasting in Britain today. She is Sarah Kennedy and Radio 2 gives her a prime slot every weekday morning. On most radio stations, the breakfast DJ gets on air at six and gets off, while he or she (usually he) is still ahead, at nine. Radio 2's morning guy, however, is Terry Wogan and he is too old, grand and expensive to get up that early and therefore arrives at 7.30. Early risers get the witterer Kennedy. They will hear more coherent monologues from mad people in shop doorways.
To fill time she reads, at breakneck speed, unassimilated snippets from the papers. One item the other morning was that Radio 2 now has "132 million" listeners. This, a moment's reflection would have told her, would be physically and geographically impossible. Still, 13.2 million is a huge number and easily makes Radio 2 Britain's most listened-to station. Much of this success is due to Wogan, who remains the country's most natural and funniest DJ. This past week he was in Helsinki for Eurovision, painting pictures of 3am dawns, herring breakfasts and flowers "gently dying" in the studio corner. The first morning, he explained he was in Finland: "So, Sibelius." Actually, it was Abba.
If you can survive Kennedy, listening to Radio 2 rather than Radio 4 in the mornings makes you a nicer person. You are not nearly so troubled by politics, for instance, which is not to say Radio 2 ignores the news. The former Newsnight presenter Jeremy Vine runs a smart, newsy lunchtime show that last Thursday devoted itself to an assessment of the Tony Blair years and did not shrink from contracting in Tony Benn to stick in the knife.
Radio 2's success - in the past decade it has put on around 2.5 million listeners (25 million in Kennedy mindset) - is due to the perestroika instigated by its controller Jim Moir and his successor, Lesley Douglas. They slowly transformed the station from middle-aged, middle-of-the-road slop to Radio One And A Half, which is what commercial radio stations were for decades. They hired and kept hiring glitzy new talent: Jonathan Ross, Steve Wright, Vine and even Russell Brand. The strategy has worked, beating the commercial sector, bringing the listener ages down and restoring credibility. Each change, however, meets with outrage from older listeners.
Last year this came with the ousting of Johnnie Walker from Drivetime in favour of Chris Evans. It seemed an appalling mistake at the time. On television Evans was still rolling giant breasts down hillsides. Yet, listening to him last week, I discovered a warm, smut-free broadcaster, happily gabbling away to schoolchildren and weaving a fantasy community among his listeners (one day, people with "licences" were invited to call; another those who had bumped their head that day). His 4.8 million listening figures are still down on Walker's five million but his success has been recognised by two Sony Awards. When Wogan finally retires, Radio 2 will want Ross to replace him but he'll say no and they'll gratefully take Evans. They certainly won't want Walker, who now does a moribund Sunday-night slot but also fills in for Wogan. On Sunday he actually said doing Wake Up With Wogan was easy, because all you have to do is crash the pips, leave long pauses and talk with your mouth full. Hubris, old boy.
So the old Radio 2 still twitches. Sunday night's sentimental Your Hundred Best Tunes ("damn fine tune", my parents used to say, satirically, when listening to it) has gone but been replaced by Alan Titchmarsh, referencing "that Mozart chappie" on Melodies for You. On Saturday nights comes Russell Brand and before him a music documentary, such as the excellent recent two-parter on Morrissey. But on Sundays you get Malcolm Laycock with the "swing era" and show tunes from David Jacobs. You tune in to Radio 2, as you do with television, to specific programmes and not because you love the station's sound. Since the BBC's remit is to serve minorities, I don't know if it can ever resolve its most popular station's multiple personalities. I have one suggestion, however. It should replace the archaic jingles package. It sounds like the Ovaltinies.
Andrew Billen is a staff writer for the Times
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