Ben Lawrence on why it’s time to turn it off
Radio 1 was once referred to as “the nation’s favourite”. It was certainly mine. As a child of the Eighties, I became obsessed with the fresh, fast-talking, frenetic DJS who shaped my musical tastes and became as familiar as friends: Bruno Brookes and Simon Mayo and Liz Kershaw may not have been the coolest kids on the block, but that was the point. They were sort of confidants, but just edgy enough to instill a sense of wonder in an impressionable musicmad boy from the sticks.
But Radio 1 is unlikely to set any youngster’s agenda these days. In this age of digital streaming, the station has failed to remain relevant, and it is unsurprising that figures released in February revealed its lowest listenership since records began:
8.8 million weekly. That’s a drop of over 3 million in just under a decade.
Now, in a new essay, former culture minister Lord Vaizey has argued that Radio 1 (and its sister station Radio 2) should no longer be funded by the licence fee in its present form. Lord Vaizey’s argument is that they don’t offer sufficient public service value, and that their mixture of music and chat is widely available on commercial radio stations such as Heart and Capital.
I feel that Radio 2 does still have a value. It has an extensive playlist: 15,000 different tracks were played last year, and when you compare this to Radio 1’s 11,000 you realise that it is championing a variety of music far more than Radio 1. (As the supposed home of new music, surely Radio 1 has an obligation to have as extensive a playlist as possible.) DJS such as Ken Bruce, Trevor Nelson and Jo Whiley are smart and informed, and have proven to be deeply reassuring voices during the pandemic (a crucial aspect of public service broadcasting). If you can endure half an hour on a rival station, you will hear no comparison in terms of erudition and professionalism.
Radio 1 is another matter. It’s not as diverse as it thinks it is, and I seem to have terrible trouble distinguishing the bland patter of such DJS as Scott Mills, Nick Grimshaw and Jordan North.
(Of course, I am thoroughly prepared to admit that I might just be getting old.)
However, I think the rot began to set in a long time ago. Certainly I stopped tuning in when Chris Evans and Chris Moyles reigned supreme in the Nineties and everything became about ego. They may have secured excellent ratings, but the warmth and the heart that had helped define the station for so long suddenly disappeared.
It’s a shame when you compare all of this to the glory days, which were probably before my time, when listeners in the Seventies were treated to the brilliantly inventive work of Kenny Everett, or simply left in the safe hands of an authority such as Alan “Fluff ” Freeman.
The thing that makes the station so difficult to justify is the huge amount it gobbles up – £40 million a year is spent on Radio 1, which seems like a huge amount for so little reward. Some of the salaries are eye-wateringly offensive (I know inflated salaries infect much of the Corporation) and although executives would argue that they are paying market rates, £310,000 feels rather too princely a sum for afternoon irritant Nick Grimshaw. The station faces another problem in that it has effectively lost its raison d’être to provide popular entertainment. Why? Because that is already being offered by Radio 2, and innovative music has been filtered into more specialist stations. BBC 6 Music and 1Xtra – even if dealing with much smaller audiences – have proven you can provide an eclectic playlist with clever and interesting presenters for a fraction of the cost. My suggestion would be to close Radio 1 and siphon the money into far worthier causes. Selfishly, I would like the money to be poured into the things I listen to – arts coverage and documentaries on Radio 4, both of which I feel to be currently lacking the wow factor. It might be fairer, of course, to spend it on other things which could attract a younger audience, such as its smaller music stations, or its Bitesize content, which has saved the sanity of many frazzled teenagers (and parents) during the lockdown and has been expanded. A constant criticism of the BBC is that it is obsessed with the pursuit of youth
– and that said youth would rather be flashing their midriffs on Tiktok. I don’t think this is entirely fair, as the success of BBC Three online has shown that there is a young audience out there ready to engage as long as the “content” (sorry, vile word) is decent.
But the idea of maintaining a flagship music station for “yoof ” shows a blockheaded resistance to moving with the times. You could call Radio 1 a heritage brand that should thus be preserved, but there is a strange irony in preserving something because of its illustrious history when it is meant to be at the coal face of new music.
Of course, the station has recovered from terrible crises in the past. In his brilliant book, The Nation’s Favourite:
The True Adventures of Radio 1, Simon Garfield was allowed access to the station as it went about trying to undo the devastation caused by Radio 1 controller Matthew Bannister in the mid-nineties; he had tried to reinvent the station, and a number of highprofile DJS such as Dave Lee Travis resigned. But the crisis was a crisis because Radio 1 really mattered then. If Grimmy Grimshaw suddenly announced he was leaving to sign an exclusive deal with Smooth Radio, I am not sure anyone would give two hoots.
We have reached a point where Radio 1 no longer matters – and the Corporation must stop dancing like an embarrassing dad at a Kano gig
All this money could benefit smaller music stations – or that life-saver, Bitesize