ALL WE HEAR IS RADIO GA-GA

Recently found out Patrick Forge has left Kiss FM so now they really are f*cked! With more commercials than ITV and Channel5 put together and commercial DJ’s with laughable play-lists that would make Radio One sound positively experimental I think Paddy did the right thing and called it a day. Paddy’s show The Cosmic Jam deserved more critical acclaim than it actually got. Giles Peterson’s World Wide is ok but I tended to sway towards Cosmic Jam but having said that it’s still the best show on Radio One. Being honest I should get my arse around to listening to the show more often as authentic DJ’s like Peterson are far and few between. Kind of brings me to my next point.

They say the best things are kept secret which is probably true. Take Chris Moyles for example. Patrick Forge relatively unknown, Chris Moyels- over weight, overpaid, over the top DJ at Radio One. Remember the time on Never Mind the Buzzcocks when Mark Lamar verbally gave Moyles a bit of a kick-in, taking the absolute piss outta him? When it came down to it Moyles couldn’t hold his own when confronted with someone that actually had whit and personality. Is Moyles a shock jock but without shock making him totally pointless? As with Jacko’s self proclaiming statement, ‘King of Pop’, Moyles proclaims himself as the ‘saviour of Radio One’ but oh contraire monsieur Moyles. Only thing larger than his waistline or his gob is his ego. In that respect, Moyles has a lot in common with John Gaunt, another hateful bollocks.

Fact of the matter is Moyles only landed the breakfast show cause Chris Evans at that period of time was a piss head that couldn’t get up in the morning. Last time I listened to the Breakfast Show it was nothing much more than Moyles and his crew having a conversation amongst themselves. There was very little actual music played (good in hindsight maybe) with Moyles ranting on about subjects he knew little about or if not that then he would bully the people around him. God, he tried unsuccessfully to take the piss outta Jo Whiley but she was too demure and stylish for the lard eating lad from Leeds. Radio One seems to be slowly forcing poor Jo out the back door and that’s not good. With Whiley almost gone and Lamacq already left the stations target audience will be 12yrs old or younger. Never mind, the son of a Vicar still runs the Rap show.

Is Radio the medium it once was? Personally I used to make a point of listening to certain shows, grew up listening to the legendary John Peel but now seldom bother unless there’s a footie game on I can’t see so tune into 5live or Radio Scotland. Sad state of affairs is that DJ’s in the ilk of John Peel are a rarity. Is it old fashioned to value passion, enthusiasm and extensive knowledge over personality? Airwaves seem to be congested with jocks that are ‘all shirt and no trousers’. Even though I don’t like his style of presenting, Westwood’s knowledge and enthusiasm are boundless.

Though I have to concede that not all shows can be specialist as with the Breakfast show as an example, personality is the issue. Big question must therefore be ‘how do producers choose a certain type of personality to fit a designated time slot/ show?’ How objective are their choices? A bad choice will alienate a large chunk of the target audience and we’ll end up with radio ga-ga.