The week in radio Gillian Reynolds Good breakfast shows offer a wake-up call every day
The breakfast audience is the biggest of the radio day, the most valuable to programmers drawing up schedules, to advertisers looking for mass markets. But what about us, the listeners? We’re not, after all, mere pawns. We are, however, invaluable because we are the day’s first tuners in, searchers for information and entertainment, choosers of congenial company. We tend to be loyal. But not invariably so.
I used to wake up to Radio 4’s Farming Today. These days it’s Radio 5 Live’s Wake Up to Money.i love this programme. It starts at 5.15am, is lively, relaxed and very well informed. On Monday, for instance and among other items, they rounded up the causes, effects and likely consequences of the Ryanair flight cancellations. As the day went on that story kept expanding but I knew enough from my daybreak listening to understand why Michael O’leary, its chief executive, showed unusual contrition at his press conference later. Wake Up to Money’s analysis stood out brilliantly among all the other, later reports and commentaries. The show has its annoyances. One member of the on-air team has a very loud and annoying laugh. Her “Har, Har, Har” is my cue to retune.
At such moments I turn to Vanessa
Feltz on Radio 2. Her show starts at 5am and she’s on the air until 6.30am when Chris Evans arrives. Even if it’s pouring with rain, she sounds bright, positive, personal but not intrusive. It’s a music show but she’s genuinely interactive with the audience and inventive with the speech segments. Was she really greeted yesterday by three men in white tie and tails who gave her roses and made her coffee? It was certainly fun to imagine them. It can feel lonely if you’re listening this early, as if you’re trudging down a dark street looking for a lit window, a friendly face. If you hate the music on this show you may not stay long. You will probably go back another day, for the company. When she finishes at 6.30am she walks over to BBC Radio London and, at 7am, does their breakfast show until 10am. She has greatly increased the audiences for both shows and is on this year’s shortlists for Best Breakfast Show in the national Aria Awards and the BBC local radio Gillard Awards. You’d think Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, would be her frequent guest. Often invited, he has so far not chosen to appear.
Even stranger is Mayor Khan’s absence from Nick Ferrari’s breakfast show on LBC. LBC, thanks to digital broadcasting, is now a national station. Ferrari’s consistently high audience ratings underpin LBC’S expansive success. His eye for a story is astute, his news sense is sharp. His interviews get subsequent national press coverage. Mayor Khan has been invited on many times but has never appeared. It’s odd because audiences may love or loathe Ferrari but even the loathers listen intently. LBC is a commercial station so political bias within each show is allowed if overall balance is subsequently achieved through other programmes. Ferrari tends to the right. The presenter who comes on straight after him, James O’brien, tends to the left. I’ve heard Khan on O’brien’s show. BBC TV’S Newsnight has employed each of them as guest presenters. I’m a regular listener to and shouter at both.
Ilisten to Radio 4’s Today less these days. Its ratings remain high but, after years of compulsive fidelity, I’m drifting away from it. Is it my imagination or are there fewer reporters than there used to be? There are certainly more presenters: John Humphrys, Sarah Montague, Nick Robinson, Mishal Husain, Justin Webb. Five, where once there were two. And Jim Naughtie still drops in. There he was recently, talking to John le Carré about his new novel in what seems to have become the regular slot (around 8.20am) for the arts (or anything other than Brexit). I rather enjoy it when actors come in to promote their latest show, rambling on to the despair of the “Famous Five” member who has been lumbered with them. But there are limits. On Monday, there was a chat with Tim Harford, about his series 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy. It finished its run on Radio 4 weeks ago, is still on World Service. He’s nice but this is hardly news. I reached breaking point on Friday when there were four (possibly six?) items on London Fashion Week. I started wondering what’s happening in the real world, Bradford, Birkenhead, anywhere. And retuned. I bet I wasn’t alone.