Less ego than Chris Evans... but can nervy Zoe stop Radio 2’s morning fans tuning out?
THESE are jittery times for the BBC. TV audiences are falling like a stone, especially among the young, and Netflix is battering iPlayer. Radio 1 long ago stopped being number one, and only Radio 2 has sailed on serenely, as Britain’s biggest radio station with 15million listeners weekly.
Then late last year, its stellar talent Chris Evans announced he was quitting the Breakfast Show.
So it’s no wonder his successor, Zoe Ball, claimed to be suffering anxiety dreams ahead of her debut yesterday – the first woman to take the prestigious slot.
She opened with Aretha Franklin’s Respect. A few minutes in and she read out a listener’s comment that she was sounding ‘comfortable and relaxed’. ‘If only you knew...’ she replied with feeling.
In fact, she did sound more nervous than usual and at times her word speed accelerated alarmingly.
She does, of course, have Evans breathing down her neck. His new breakfast show begins on Virgin Radio next week, and some of his 9million Radio 2 listeners will no doubt move with him.
Evans roped in his family to help promote his new programme. The 52-year-old, his wife Natasha and their two eldest sons, fronted a series of short videos for the channel. In pyjamas and T-shirts with Virgin branding, they held up signs inviting people to tune in.
The BBC’s response to Evans’ departure has been to chuck everything at the new show.
Ball herself is one of the corporation’s most reliable stars, from her children’s TV and Radio 1 days through to being a likeable host of Strictly spin-off It Takes Two.
She has the virtue of sounding like she doesn’t come from any particular age group or part of the country or class. The ladette image of her past has been replaced by someone with whom pretty much everyone can feel comfortable.
Her debut confirmed that she is to radio what a duck is to water – but few bosses today can take the risk of putting their faith in a single host with a bunch of records.
Instead, they create a ‘zoo format’ with a range of sidekicks stirred into the mix. They dutifully signalled their presence by whooping to Ball’s cue, and sharing stories of first-morning nerves.
There are two big risks with this format. The first is that the chemistry might not work. The other is that it all sounds like a party full of people you’d rather avoid.
Not so the Ball show: It’s a party to which you’re welcomed by a team who are making ‘puppy dog eyes’ at you via the mic. They want to be loved!
None of the team was guilty of rabbiting on for no purpose, however. They dropped in and out of the programme, proving that Ball can easily carry a show alone when she has to.
The great virtue of radio is its intimacy: At its best, as in the great example of Terry Wogan, it’s one person talking directly to you – and Ball can do that. It will be a choice for the show, as she gains in confidence, about how much she’s allowed to do it and how much she chatters away with the supporting cast.
Yesterday’s star guests – John Cleese and Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain – were distinctly underwhelming. Cleese plugged a forthcoming comedy programme and rambled away with the occasional unreliable anecdote.
It was a morning when, understandably, Ball wasn’t taking risks but I’d like to hear her develop sharper questions and more sense of mischief. Other spots came and went without leaving any impression. The ‘seven- second shout out’ – a chance to say hello to family and friends – manages to patronise one listener and offer no value to the rest. It’s not doing Ball any favours to have a feature in which her main job is to cut the caller off in their prime.
‘Show and Tell’ has the potential to curl toes as allegedly talented youngsters demonstrate their abilities via dodgy mobile phone lines. Yesterday, it was someone singing Oom Pah Pah from Oliver!, but Ball said in future it could be a youngster doing something like, well, counting in a foreign language...
ZOE Ball wasn’t the only ‘new girl’ on Radio 2 yesterday, as Sara Cox ( Drivetime) and Jo Whiley launched their own shows – quite a transformation in what used to an entirely male peak time line-up.
Will it work? Yes, it will. This is an amiable programme with decent music – there felt like there was more of it than in Evans’ day – and Ball is warm and lively as a breakfast companion. I predict most of the audience will stay with Radio 2, and she’ll beat Evans’ digital- only offering by many multiples.
Whether it will be as compelling a listen as Evans at his best, I doubt, but the reduction in egotism is refreshing.
I think the BBC can be optimistic that Radio 2 will at least stay afloat in these choppy waters.
Roger Mosey, former controller of BBC Radio 5 Live, is Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge