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Archive: dab

Going radio gaga

3 January 2010 20:31

Categories: *, Current affairs, Entertainment, General, Humour, Media, Personal, Radio

The country lurches back into its usual routine this week. But with the new year comes changes, and a vital part of everyone’s daily life — the radio — will seem very different.

My parents are concerned about what will happen to Radio 2 after the departure of Terry Wogan from breakfast. They were not happy to hear that his replacement will be Chris Evans. My parents originally stopped listening to Radio 1 when Chris Evans took over the Radio 1 breakfast show. (Quite how they tolerated Steve Wright before this is beyond me though.)

I get the feeling that they will stick with Radio 2. Chris Evans is a very different broadcaster to what he was ten or fifteen years ago and has apparently pleased most people with his performances on Radio 2 so far.

While Terry Wogan’s last show was the one that caught all the headlines, the end of two other radio programmes will be far more disruptive to my routine. I was not a listener of Terry Wogan’s, though I don’t suppose I am really part of his target audience.

The end of Adam and Joe

Much bigger news in my world has been the end of Adam and Joe’s programme on BBC 6 Music. They are raising the drawbridge at the Big British Castle for an indefinite period while Joe Cornish focuses on his new career as a film director.

Discussing the Points of View theme tune.

This programme has been a core part of my week for the past two years. It is also unusual because due to its Saturday morning time slot, it has been the only thing that has managed to get me to wake up at a decent hour on a Saturday.

Adam and Joe have an excellent knack of doing a type of humour which is silly but not stupid — a balance that very few manage to strike. This made it ideal listening for the start of the weekend. It was perhaps something to gently lift you out of a mild hangover. The accompanying podcast was also excellent for lifting spirits during your journey into work.

Chat about Later with Jools Holland.

Their gentle humour was mixed with sharp observations on popular culture. Increasingly, towards the end of the programme’s run, listener contributions were a larger part of the programme. Combined with the programme’s elite listening force Black Squadron and the STEPHEN! phenomenon, there was quite a tight-knit community feel to the show.

Adam Buxton discusses his sons’ video game techniques.

This was no doubt helped by the fact that it was on BBC 6 Music, jokingly referred to by Adam Buxton as “the secret station”. Even though it was the most popular programme on the station by quite a long way, due to its location in the outer reaches of select DAB sets, Adam and Joe’s was a cosy and understated programme. It is difficult to imagine Adam and Joe’s programme working so well on another, larger radio station.

Adam and Joe’s replacement will be Danny Wallace, who is not quite in the same league. It will leave a huge gap in my Saturday mornings. What else can I listen to? Saturday Live on Radio 4? Sorry, not for me. Jonathan Ross on Radio 2? Possibly. Or will I return to my old ‘default’ radio station, Radio 5 Live, for Danny Baker and Fighting Talk?

Changes at Radio 5 Live

Speaking of Radio 5 Live, that is the source of the other big change to my radio routine. Richard Bacon has vacated the late-night slot to take over from Simon Mayo, who is moving to replace Chris Evans on Drivetime at Radio 2.

I was a fan of Richard Bacon during his first stint on 5 Live in the weekend late-night slot, and he continued to delight when he returned to the station to do weeknights. Given his background, he is surprisingly good at dealing with big issues as well as light-hearted stuff.

He is also unafraid to use humour. It could be so embarrassing (and some would probably say it is), but I think it works well. The interesting bit after 12:30am was entertaining and brave. I can’t think of many other presenters who would get away with completely doing away with news for half an hour every day on Radio 5 Live.

I am greatly regretful that I never managed to get my hands on one of those badges. It was nevertheless an honour and a privilege to listen.

Richard Bacon’s irreverence is what makes him good as a broadcaster, but it’s difficult to see how he can leverage this in his new mid-afternoon slot, one of the most important in 5 Live’s schedule. Most disappointingly, it will be on during the daytime, meaning that I won’t be able to listen to it.

The replacement in the late night slot will be former Daily Sport editor Tony Livesey. I will reserve judgement until I hear the programme. I gather he is actually quite good. But if I don’t take to it, I might take the unusual step of switching to a commercial radio station during weeknights to listen to Iain Lee on Absolute Radio.

Richard Bacon’s move is part of a wider shake-up at Radio 5 Live, which also sees Gabby Logan getting a daily slot. With the day going from the Nicky Campbell Speak You’re Branes hour to Victoria Derbyshire to Gabby Logan, it’s not difficult to see why some people have started to nickname the station Radio 5 Lite.

It’s not quite the quality station I loved just a few years ago. Just now Radio 5 Live seems utterly bereft of ideas, aside from attempting to stealthily change it into a 24/7 Mark Kermode station. At least Up All Night is still good.

If I was being uncharitable, I might suggest that the presenters that remain at the station are the ones who are prepared to make the move to Salford when the station relocates there next year. The logic behind moving a radio station that covers news (most of which happens in London) to Manchester is still beyond me, I have to admit.

On the bright side…

It’s not all bad news on the radio front. In addition to his new daytime Radio 5 Live slot, Richard Bacon has a Saturday afternoon programme on 6 Music. He promises to take some of the jollity of his late night 5 Live show to 6 Music. But who listens to radio at that time? Not me.

I might make space in my Sunday afternoons for 6 Music though. Jarvis Cocker will have a new programme alongside the already-excellent Freak Zone.

But weekend mornings will still be a problem. And I’ll need a new comedy podcast to replace Adam and Joe. Does anyone have any suggestions? (Not Collings and Herrin — I tried it, and it was crap.)

12 comments

An anal post about the new BBC Radio logos

14 August 2007 02:41

Categories: Current affairs, Entertainment, Internet, Radio, Technology, Television

The new BBC Radio logos All of the national BBC Radio stations appear to be getting new logos. I had noticed that the logo for my station of choice, Radio Five Live, had completely changed at the same time as the theme music got watered down yet again (anyone else remember when it sounded punchy and authoritative?).

About time in a sense, because I can remember that Five Live had their old logo from even before I started listening to it regularly, which is a looong time. In fact, most of the BBC Radio logos are pretty damn old, as this website shows. Seven or eight years old in fact, which is good going for a logo these days (particularly one for a TV or radio station). So it was probably time for a bit of a refresh, although — as usual with these sort of things — the responses appear to have been lukewarm.

Indeed, some of the attempts at new logos are rather uninspiring. Radio 1′s has barely changed from what it had before. Meanwhile, Radio 2′s logo has been changed from the neat neon sign to the utterly dull plain 2 symbol.

But there are some signs of clever creativity. The incorporation of a bass clef into the numeral 3 for Radio 3′s logo is inspired, although it does make that numeral look slightly odd. Similarly, Radio 4′s logo cleverly has a speech mark in it, while 1Xtra incorporates a ‘play’ symbol.

BBC 7′s old logo was one of the best going, so the new version was always going to be a disappointment. It has turned out to be a greatly watered down version, although with a nod towards the old logo.

Similarly, 6 Music’s new logo is a bit like a watered down version of the old logo. I was never a fan of the old 6 Music logo. I never understood why that ’6′ was so slanted and, well, big and fat. To represent Phill Jupitus?

BBC Asian Network’s logo is by far the jazziest. It makes me wonder why all of the other stations opted to go for more reserved, plain logos when the Asian Network can have such a colourful and vibrant one.

What I find most interesting about the new logos, though, is a point about branding in general. Firstly, the logos’ focus on numerals has effectively entailed a name change for one of the stations. The difference between ‘Radio Five Live’ and ‘Radio 5 Live’ might be subtle. But it was obviously important enough for someone to go around the website and, like a cuddly Stalin, change all instances of ‘Five Live’ to ’5 Live’.

As such, overnight one of my tags has become irrelevant. Still, whoever it was that went around changing the website missed a couple of bits, including 5 Live’s own studios as my in-depth investigation of the website reveals! Notice also, that bbc.co.uk/5live still redirects to bbc.co.uk/fivelive. These pesky rebranding exercises are more trouble than they realise.

(Update: I have just realised that the changes on the Radio 5 Live website have even gone to the extent of writing ‘live’ with a lowercase ‘l’. What a load of arse! It is a bit like when Channel 5 changed its name to ‘five’. It just looks stupid! And it looks double stupid when some of the programmes are now called things like ’5 live Report’ and ’5 live Breakfast’.)

Another point is that all of the new logos contain the words ‘BBC Radio’, even when some of the station’s names do not. In other words, BBC 6 Music is not now called BBC Radio 6 Music, and BBC 7 is not now BBC Radio 7. But perhaps this is just a halfway house before going all the way to calling these radio stations.

Presumably the reason 6 Music and BBC 7 omitted the ‘Radio’ tag from their names was to emphasise the fact that you did not need to (indeed, you could not) use an old fashioned tranny to listen to them. This always irritated me, because surely there was more potential for confusion with the television channels.

I mean, the BBC used to always advertise Freeview and how you could get “eight BBC channels”. Yet the BBC have an outlet called BBC 7. Surely that is just asking for confusion. It would surely make more sense to call the radio station Radio 7 and leave the BBC X monikers to the television stations.

As the years have gone on, we have come to learn that radio is not a dirty word on the internet (or, indeed, on your DAB set). Radio is radio is radio, whether you are listening to it on the internet, as a podcast, one of those fancy-schmancy phones or, er, the radio. I mean, the internet is teeming with internet radio stations. Even I have two (courtesy of Last.fm)!

And another thing. Why haven’t the new logos incorporated the really swish ‘radio’ logo that appears on the actual BBC Radio website?

I think I have just given myself a headache over logos. Time to go back into hibernation.

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