Entertainment For Lively Minds
Who on earth listens to commercial radio and why?
I don't. I can't - why tune into a rolling schedule of radio fluff, pop toffee, reheated 80s favourites and attention deficit ad' breaks crashing in like a ram raid.
Apart from hairbrush-disco, Winning Weekends and the constant re-riffing of 'windows, doors and conservatories' jingles - what do commercial stations have to offer? Who is their target market?
Ad-based radio and I only cross paths while tuning through to something more solid, or in a handful of high street shops. I used to dip in for local interest info when travelling about or on holidays - Invicta, South Ham FM, 2CR. But since Heart moved in, wallpapering over any regional flavours - it's become a magnolia medium.
I don’t know anyone who actively listens to commercial radio now, do you?
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I listen to Talksport. Mike
I listen to Talksport. Mike "Porky" Parry is one of the great comic creatins of British radio, like Graham Shuttleworth or Ed Reardon.
Hmmm..
It's not intentional though is it. Bloody awful station.
As someone who once worked in
the same office as Mikey, I must aver that his usual method acting is perhaps not quite so jocose. Fair made me ashamed to support Everton at times
Did you mean 'creations'...
...or 'cretins'?
Almost never
Though when I'm out of London I quite like to trawl through the channels to see what goes on. There's quite a nice sense of community on some stations, and you'll find the odd once-famous voice serving out their time.
But the music is always awful. That especially goes for London stations. Heart and Capital are execrable, always have been.
Unfair to the early days
I think you're being extremely unfair to Capital Radio. The Kenny Everett and Dave Cash breakfast show, followed by Tommy Vance with Roger Scott at teatime followed by Nicky Horne was pretty much head and shoulders above what was available elsewhere on the dial at the time.
Rotten Radio
In July '77 when he was possibly Britain's highest profile hate figure - Johnny Rotten appeared on the Tommy Vance's Capitol show choosing some favourite tunes and chit-chatting with Vance.
I was only 11 at the time, so missed it - but sounds a great piece of radio. Luckily the tracklist and transcript are available here.
http://www.fodderstompf.com/ARCHIVES/REVIEWS%202/capital77.html
Yes okay
I suppose I mean when I started listening to it in the 80s. Martyn Collins, John Sachs, Chris Tarrant - really ghastly.
It's not all the same
Your description seems to be of "local" commercial radio. I occasionally listen to XFM or NME radio but that's only when there's nothing I want to listen to on 6Music. Both stations are fine as long as you don't listen for very long. I give myself a full 10 minutes of our local station before it seems like I've been listening for hours - it's just awful.
Absolute
I really enjoy Geoff Lloyd's drivetime show and (especially) his Sunday evening show. He's a proper music fan in the mum-and-dad-rock desert of Absolute's schedules and frequently has some great guests come in to play accoustic sessions.
I also enjoy Frank Skinner's and Dave Gorman's shows over the weekend.
Whatever happened to Sunday evening problem phone-ins
I know it's deeply immoral - but they could be a great spectator sport on occasion.
LBC
I still listen to Clive Bull's phone-in sometimes. He's one of the genuine greats of talk radio, although his show seems to have lost some of the eccentricity it had in the old days of Babs from Bermondsey, Schlomo et al
Yes indeed
I go all the way back to Monty Modlyn on LBC. Clive Bull is a wonderful broadcaster - I had no idea Sven was Peter Cook but remember his calls quite well. There also remained a latent affection for Jeremy Beadle (RIP), even when he achieved maximum cheesiness, due to his brilliant LBC shows.
Beadlebum
Yes, as I'm sure I've ventured on here before, Beadle's late-night LBC shows were skill, and actually verged on genius on occasions - usually when something unexpected happened and he he just went with it.
BTW, I wonder whatever happened to Therese Birch…
Is Steve Allen still on LBC???.....
.....always used to pick up his podcasts but they're no longer on itunes.
Sunday mornings
Still there, still bitching about people off the telly.
Planet Rock
I have it on at home most days for a good few hours at a time
Me too
I drop in when I can. There are times when I'd prefer a wider playlist but I'm not ready for Radio 2 yet .....
Oh yes
main thing it has going for it is non cretinous presenters (apart from that total wang Bernard Docherty) Wakeman and Jenson are fun, Nicky Horne's a legend and the newish Darren Redick is really very good, he plays a lot of American prog like Kansas, Styx, Head East and Boston. He also has an exceptionally cool presenting style. It's nice the station has a soft spot for The Groundhogs albeit limited scope - Cherry Red and Garden are the usual choices although I have heard Thank Christ for the Bomb.
Planet Rock for me too......
.....Alice Cooper on at breakfast time when in the shower then that Rob Burney fellow with the anorak rock quiz (which I REALLY must phone in for,) on the days I work at home.
Harborough FM
My local station and until very recently dismissed out of hand by me as just another generic commercial station...
...until, that is, I checked the Ashra website to discover that Manuel Gottsching - my musical hero - has just recorded an interview on the self-same station. I was dumbfounded; but it turns out that it hosts a late-night Saturday show that specialises in "Space Rock, Ambient and Electronica."
Makes me wonder what other gems are hidden out there.
All for Micro-local
We used to have one in Southend broadcasting from a boat near the Pier - playing random rock classics Wishbone Ash, Molly Hatchet and suchlike.
NME Radio
It's pretty good despite the title, shame it's getting pulled from DAB as it's quite competitive against 6music in the daytime(it tends not to bore it's listener's to death unlike daytime 6)
Talksport is a viable option against 5live when it comes to football coverage although it does have it's fair share of knobheads e.g. alan brazil/stan collymore
It's for numbers, not for people
Commercial radio is so focussed on its target 32 year-old woman key demographic that it's literally programmed by computers and run by accountants. The only point to it is delivering an audience to advertisers. Forget such arty ideas as musical integrity and diversity, it's for machines and people who think like one. Even the music played sounds processed.
I've been shown round Key 103 in Manchester twice and it's like stepping into a a den of Satan's minions. There is no love for what they do, just ambition and a determination to improve on those numbers.
I could also question why these station are so geared towards the charts when records sell so poorly that 99.9% of the population are clearly not interested. But it's all they know I suppose. Thank god for the BBC (if it wasn't currently being run by an idiot).
Clive Bull
Babs from Bermondsey.....she was sheer class.
Didn't she live in a block of flats overlooking The Den?
And what was the name of the guy from The Rainbow Party who used to quote John Lennon?
Oh, and Peter Cook used to regularly ring into Clive Bull pretending to be a fisherman from Norway living in Deptford or somewhere!
Question:
Why is every radio in every east London charity shop always tuned into Heart FM?
Is there a clause that says this has to be the case?
Peter Cook
AKA Sven from Swiss Cottage. Used to ring in in the middle of the night and, no matter what the starting point, always turned the conversation to the subject of fish.
Hear him here: http://stabbers.truth.posiweb.net/stabbers/html/sven.htm
Clive Bull tapes
Mate of mine was a Clive Bull obsessive - he's still got piles of cassettes and recordings of Clive's highlights.
One old dear (Irish I think) seemed to be a regular. Her twenty minutesexchange about spuds was a cracker if I remember.
I don't know if there's a spacing accident in your post
but I was briefly intrigued at a sex change that only took twenty minutes...
Commercial radio.
Where I live & work, just about everybody swears by the local radio station (CFM). I think it is inane drivel, there is no musical identity whatsever.
The big cheese on the breakfast show is a mid 70s Noel Edmonds wannabe.
Dreadful station.
Only at work, purely because...
... I share the office with two others. The station of choice for the first hour is Hartlepool FM for the guess the year competition. Then it gets shifted over to Smooth Radio. The music isn't bad, but it is all very safe - as you'd imagine.
It passes the day, there is the odd quiz - and all in all, it does its job.
Commercial radio...
... is radio for people who don't like radio. Or music.
That's about the best way I can describe it, based on what I've heard.
iain Lee
A hearty recommendation to the massive for the Iain Lee show. It is on Absolute (nee virgin) from 10 until 1 on monday through till thursday. Music and phone ins. the kind of self contained world that once in you feel a part of. The callers are an interesting mix of mad and sad. Iain is freewheeling and unprofessional in a charming way. i podcast it and it makes me laugh each day. You might remember him from the 11 o'clock show, much is made of his fall from fame. A great of the late night call in
That Iain Lee podcast
Is that of the day's events, or the week's?
Nearly 2 hrs of podcasting a day? No chance of being able to keep up with that. A juicy edit of a week's material into the same length would be much easier to follow.
iain Lee
It is of only one days show. With ads, news, and music cut out. S my long commute is ok. Hwoever there is also on i tunes a best bits podcast. About ten minutes of stuff from each day. Genuinely funny, give it a go.
Most of my co-workers
Most of my co-workers seem to listen to City FM (based in Liverpool) and nothing else.
They are nearly all 30-odd year old women so they fit the "ideal demographic" that Captain Black referred to above. They say that they like it because it plays "good music", has local news that is about their city, and the travel updates are helpful when driving to / from work. So the researchers and accountants must be doing *something* right.
I've never knowingly listened to it so really can't comment on its quality.
Good Lord, No!
Castle Groan's wireless tuning knob is pretty much welded to Radio 4, and I listen with Meerschaum and Churchill slippers donned.
The only exceptions to this arrangement involve messrs Radcliffe and Maconie (of an evening) and The Freak Zone (whilst preparing Sunday Dinner). Far out man.
Ummmm...
I don't mind Classic FM if it's inoffensive background I'm after.
Otherwise, I've no time for music radio. Give me R4 and some intelligent discussion any day. If I want to listen to music, I have my iPod or home stereo. If I'm in the car, it'll either be silence or (on a longer journey) R4 or maybe R2, depending on who's on...
RADIO CAROLINE
is still pretty good. Has nothing to do with the original as far as I can tell, even though it pretends that it does. Nonetheless, some cracking old songs that you rarely hear elsewhere on the radio.
Commercial Radio
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Aaaaaaarrgh.....................my ears......make it STOP...
Sometimes the office is forced to endure an hour of Heart FM at lunchtime. Clearly programmed from a hard drive somewhere in Reading.
I now know that wherever I hear Don't Stop Believin' as sure as day follows night and Ant follows Dec, Pppppppoker Face will be right behind it, followed by Alone. Interspersed with the above ad and "Where do skydivers like to holiday? In the air - Go Compare Go Compare....."
Die die die die die die die die
Absolute - but that bloody woman
who is always doing voice overs in a supposedly sexy manner drives me absolutely mad. I think she is called Leona Graham but i may be wrong. Why do they think there is any need to announce a jingle for travel news in a voice that is trying to sound like she is ready for bed. Dont mind a bit of Geoff Lloyd and Christian O Connell but I have to switch over as soon as she comes on - which seems to be every 10 mins.
I cant be the only one who finds her voice one of the worst things on radio am I ??
Great to see three of my closet favourites mentioned above
Steve Allen (LBC) - a radio great. If you have to wake up early, tune into Steve Allen 4-7am. It's like the camp bits from the Come Dine With Me combined with sharp vitriol.
Mike Parry (TalkShite) - brighter than he appears, sends himself up constantly and gives ridiculously provocative ideas to stimulate moronic callers. In small doses, great fun.
Clive Bull (LBC) - the late-night phone-in giant. Why FiveLive never snapped him up is a mystery cos all those up against him down these years have fallen well short.
Remember Weller's Protégé - Tracie Young
Her from The House That Jack Built she's now a DJ on Southend Radio Station. Wonder if she ever gives herself a spin-up (should I rephrase that perhaps?)
http://www.southendradio.com/onair/presenter.asp?id=Tracie%20Young
Commercial radio in the
Commercial radio in the Midlands is truly dire - Heart, Smooth, Signal, Beacon, The Wolf, BRMB, Mercia - all playting exactly the same sort of music. I could listen to Galaxy or Kerrang but its not my sort of music.
Can commercial radio be defined as not funded by the licence fee. or a station that is funded from other public sources and carried adverts for the local health centre. If so then I listen to WCR FM - Wolverhampton Commercial Radio. Excellent music and plenty of specialist programmes.
I do listen to Planet Rock but its variety within a restricted spectrum if that makes sense. You know what you're going to get