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Whiley, Bowman sidelined in favour of Kit Curran & Smurfette
The sound of the last tide of Matthew Bannister's Radio One washing away, then, as Jo Whiley and Edith Bowman are eased to one side in a new Radio One line-up:
The Radio 1 controller, Andy Parfitt, said: "BBC Radio 1 must continue to change to connect with a new generation of audiences and this is a significant move, promoting three of our up and coming broadcasters into the heart of the schedule."
Aha, so it's about moving out the older presenters for some new, fresh names, is it?
Not quite, as they're bringing in Greg James and Fearne Cotton to daily slots.
Fearne Cotton is 28, so only a little younger than Bowman; Bowman is 34 and actually younger than Chris Moyles.
To be fair, Whiley had started to turn into a fixture of the Simon Bates sort in mid-mornings, and probably is at the point of needing to move on. It's disappointing, though, that Radio One have chosen to abandon any pretence of being interested in music during the daytime in favour of a woman who feels much more Variety Club Showbusiness Awards than Camden Crawl.
Greg James is probably more surprised than anyone at this promotion, given that he actually has the words "sitting in for" on his driving licence. He's one of those people who crop up in radio a lot, with two first names and an ability to fill the unforgiving minute with just enough chat to take us up to the news, weather and travel. Adrian John. Paul Jordan. One of those.
It all makes for the most crushingly lightweight daytime Radio One schedule since Mike Smith and Gary Davies were alive.
2 comments:
I hate Bowman. But Bowman naked and rubbing chillies into my eyes is better the Fearne Cunting Cotton.
"to connect with a new generation of audiences"
Unfortunately most radios don't have the facility to show a clown and a puppet show.
What exactly is the function of radio 1? I mean when I've caught snippets in recent times it's not really appeared to me to have any sort of connection "with a new generation of audiences" and instead has come across like a vague mix of guessing what the masses want. I presume that most of their audience is still the demographic they're looking for but I don't really think that it comes across as being solely intended for this. Surely Parfitt should be saying that they must change to attract as large an audience as possible. Also, "up and coming"? Would we really describe Cotton as "up and coming"? She seems to have been around forever. I mean didn't she do the Apollo 11 landings? I seem to recall Moore saying something about "and now over to Fearne at the large screen in Manchester" "Thanks Pat *hehe* Well we're all having a great time here. *audience cheers* Only 5 minutes left on the giant countdown clock. That's just enough time to chat to Lily Allen about her crazy moon landing outfit. Lily, you're more of a Buzz fan than an Armstrong fan..."
I long ago gave up on expecting music and acknowledge that it's an all-round entertainment channel and I guess that doesn't really bother me as I get my music elsewhere but it probably would be nice if the Beeb would just come out and admit it. Perhaps some large revamp to the station where they rebrand the whole thing rather than gradually every so often telling the older presenter that they've moved the toilets only for lunchtime to come and that person to go through the door marked WC and find that they're standing next to Terry Wogan and Ken Bruce.
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