Kelly’s Eye

IF RADIO 2’s bosses have any sense – and recent developments there indicate that is a debatable proposition – they’ll be praying that Ken Bruce has very good genes and is prepared to go on broadcasting his mid-morning weekday show indefinitely.

For other reasons to stay listening to the station are diminishing fast.And Paul O’Grady’s departure last week reduced that tally still further.

O’Grady confirmed that he’s leaving over the management’s inexplicable decision to make him share the Sunday slot he had made so popular, so that he alternated periodically with Rob Beckett.The latter – blameless though he is – now faces a needlessly uphill task to win back disgruntled listeners.

You’d think that those in charge might have had the humility to learn from a similar debacle a couple of years back when they grafted Jo Whiley onto Simon Mayo’s successful early evening weekday show, with equally unhappy results.

Bruce and O’Grady (and Sounds of the 70s legend Johnnie Walker) are old school – that rare breed of entertainers who make the job sound easy, seasoned with a spiky and unapologetic humour that never patronises listeners. It is being replaced too often by a bland and gloopy mush, in which every interview subject flogging their TV series, film or book is, without exception, “amazing” and “brilliant” (the same applies, incidentally, to any edition you ever find yourself watching of The One Show).

Steve Wright is as guilty of this as anyone – and few more faithfully plug the BBC line – but he also remains a gifted broadcaster. So why is he too shortly vacating his afternoon show – a decision which is evidently not entirely voluntary either? Ditching him is the corporate equivalent of self-harming.

Not that I’m suggesting the oldies are always the best.To prove the point, might I finally suggest that when a fellow DJ takes a holiday or goes off sick, the solution is not always (some cynics would say ever) Gary Davies.