The battle for breakfast radio is taking an unexpected lie in
The 5 Live Breakfast show (Monday to Friday) has a very distinctive energy: newsy but not provocative for the sake of it, less metropolitan than Radio 4, and, happily, less given to sneering. It’s an atmosphere that works, and has done for years.
But this week, 5 Live has had a shake-up of its presenting team. After 20 years, Nicky Campbell has been moved to later in the morning, where he is presenting his own solo phone-in show from 9am to 11am, cocking a snook at James O’brien’s programme on LBC at the same time (though with Campbell’s more measured style, and the hand of BBC balance resting ever-nervously on his shoulder, the vibe is already a little different). Meanwhile, Campbell’s former co-presenter Rachel Burden has been teamed up with fresh blood in the shape of Rick Edwards.
Edwards has done various bits on 5 Live before, but this is his first fulltime gig on the station. His new role is unnerving for someone of my generation, who grew up with Edwards as a blokey youth TV presenter on T4 and E4, and harbours uncomfortable memories of a 2011 reality show called Tool Academy in which he humiliated useless boyfriends. But the joke is on me, because Edwards isn’t just a laddish stereotype, but has a natural sciences degree from Cambridge, has co-hosted a pop culture science podcast, Science(ish), and contributed to another podcast, Conflict of Interest, explaining the complexities of the Iraq War. And he is now a pretty serious, well-rounded radio presenter with a sensitive outlook and a clear head.
And, remarkably, his partnership with Rachel Burden – a smart, quickwitted and empathetic broadcaster with the all-important twinkle in her voice for morning radio – sounded fresh and natural from the start. I don’t know what Edwards was ever doing presenting Tool Academy, but I’m glad he’s found a finer calling in life, and a professional partnership with Burden that works. The new line-up on 5 Live is a great match, especially followed by the rousing chaser of Nicky Campbell solo from 9am.
Breakfast radio is going through a shift. The latest Rajar figures, released after a year-long break due to Covid, suggest that people are listening to radio later in the mornings than before. While 8am was traditionally the peak while people drove to school or work and listened in their car, now with more people working from home, the radio is switched on later. While some breakfast shows remain solid, such as Greg James on Radio 1, or have posted modest increases, such as Chris Moyles on Radio X, others have fallen, including Virgin Radio and Radio 2. Mid-morning, instead, is where it’s at.
Which perhaps explains the decision by some stations to shift their most headline-grabbing programmes a little later. Campbell is a lead presenter for 5 Live, so this move is not a demotion; in the current listening climate, his new, later slot is a step up. Similarly, Radio 4 has begun beefing up its 9am offering with more high-profile, in-depth features.
For instance, this week Jon Ronson began presenting Things Fell Apart (Tuesday, Radio 4), tracing the surprising origin stories behind the culture wars. By culture war, Ronson says, he means “anything that people yell at each other about on social media”. The first episode explored abortion, and the history of the evangelical Christian Right’s concern with the issue in America.
Ronson told the story of how, until the 1970s, abortion was largely ignored by US evangelicals and treated as a Roman Catholic issue, until one evangelical sect made a series of short films on the subject. The films were so dramatic and galvanising that they inspired an outraged movement of evangelical anti-abortion campaigners taking increasingly extreme actions, including the bombing of clinics. A gynaecologist was shot dead in his home in front of his children.
“I have no words to express my sorrow and the depths of my repentance for my stupidity,” said Frank Schaeffer, who had made one of the original films inspiring the movement, in a statement to Ronson. “I beg for forgiveness. I am ardently pro-choice and work to defend women’s rights.” Ronson’s programme was, as Ronson always is, observational and reserved, though never quite as unbiased as he pretends to be. Other divisive topics he plans to tackle will include Qanon, feminism and transgender identity.
Still, the first episode did what morning radio should always do: leave you with something surprising to power your thinking, discuss with your family and colleagues, and digest slowly as the day goes on. Even if it’s a little more like brunch these days, breakfast radio is still the most important meal of the day.