Breaking news: Parfitt quits

He's been there for thirteen years - which is an ice age, a coal age and a Preston Guild in both youth culture and BBC executive terms - but MediaGuardian has flashed that Andy Parfitt is standing down as controller of Radio One.

Andy Parfitt isn't in hock to Chris Moyles

Banging on for ages about not having been paid? No, no, that's not crossing the line, says Andy Parfitt.

But he's not in hock to his celebrity presenter.

And when Moyles does step over the line?

That's not really a problem either:

He added that the number of times the DJ has been censured by the BBC or Ofcom could be "counted on the fingers of one hand, probably on two or three fingers".

"Management – ie me – are not in hock to Chris. Chris and I have a long-term relationship and he is absolutely clear where the red lines are," said Parfitt.

Given that Ofcom or the BBC getting involved at this sort of level is a pretty serious injunction, you might wonder if every presenter who got "two or three" black spots next to their name would still be indulged after a clankingly bad programme like last week's. You'd suspect not - but, hey, Andy Parfitt isn't in hock to Chris Moyles. So probably everyone gets a third or fourth or fifth or sixth chance, right?

I'm not sure why Gareth Evans was canned while Moyles is still crept around by BBC Management. (Evans posted on his own Facebook page about a minor dispute with a council, but had never mentioned it on air.)

But nobody is in hock to Chris Moyles.

BBC insist their new Top Of The Pops won't be Top Of The Pops

For reasons that we're sure are well-meaning, the BBC is trying to develop a popular, mainstream, prime-time music programme for a general audience. MediaGuardian reports:

"We are working on it," [Andy] Parfitt told a Broadcasting Press Guild breakfast today, adding that it was "absolute rot" to say there was no music on BBC TV.

"It would be great if we could get a new popular music-based programme with a new format, a new kind of offer that really worked for the audience," he said.

"The work is on to try and find a format but we are not trying to relaunch or reinvent Top of the Pops. That is kind of a red herring. Should we be looking for a programme? Of course we should and we are.

"Would it be a good thing to try and persevere and work with producers to identify a new format? Yes. That's what television does all the time. Jan Younghusband is actually leading that process and I am closely involved with that."

Maybe there is such a mythical format, a world where The Ting Tings, Susan Boyle, The Cast Of Phantom Of The Opera and Sharon Corr can co-exist happily.

But you know what? I think I switched over as soon as Susan Boyle came on.

It'd be great to have a music programme - perhaps something a bit like Inside Sport, but... well, not about Sport - on BBC One. Or maybe a performance slot which does something a bit Whistle Test-y. Develop away happily.

But it's a bit like biscuits, isn't it?

You can have a Tea Time assortment, and if there's no other biscuits around, people will tuck in. But if they like jam rings, they're going to get the hump when there's only one in the box and they have to end up with rich tea fingers instead. Especially when there's an entire channel of jam rings available elsewhere.

At Christmas, it's nice to have a tin of Tea Time. And a few people will always enjoy a bit of a mix. But give most people a choice, and they'll always plump for a packet of their favourites. This isn't an era looking for something like Top Of The Pops, even if it isn't Top Of The Pops.

Parfitt: Only the odd Pops, while Pop and Ma welcome at One

It's been the day of the Radio Academy radio and music forum, and somewhat impolitely Andy Parfitt turned up and talked about television.

In particular, he focused on the question of if the Christmas and Comic Relief successes of Top Of The Pops suggested there might be life in the corpse yet:

"It has come back in those event-driven moments and that's the way to go," he added.

"It's got a mythical status ... but I don't think we should get hung up on that one programme. We are a long way from [BBC1 controller] Jay Hunt recommissioning Top of the Pops in its old-school form on BBC1."

Andy remembers that Christmas is the most magical event-driven moment of the year, and you can't just have that event-driven moment every week of the year.

Besides, says Andy, you can't have a music programme on television now, because the kids have the mp3s on their iPods:

Parfitt said that younger music consumers expected more interactivity than just broadcasting Top of the Pops once a week, in an age of iPod playlists, online music services and other options open to the BBC audience. "The days are gone when we can make a programme and just put it out there," he added.

Yes, nowadays, programmes have to be scheduled, promoted; audiences have to be nurtured. Back in 1977, it used to be enough for programmes to be taken from the edit suite and dumped in the street - audiences would run out in packs and collect the shows to entertain themselves with on their G-Plan televisions and flared radios.

Isn't the opposite more true now? That an organisation with the BBC's clout and nous could just film five or six bands doing a couple of songs, just stick the files up online and perhaps behind press red, brand the whole thing 'Top Of The Pops' and leave the rest to the audience? Wouldn't that be quite exciting? Couldn't Top of The Pops become the equivalent of an iPod playlist for music TV? You could draw up your own list of favourite records; that could generate a chart in turn which - right down the end of the line - could be assembled to make an old-style rundown programme.

Parfitt did turn his attention to radio, though, to wrestle with the problem of Radio One's aging audience:

Parfitt also today defended Radio 1 against accusations that its audience and roster of presenters are too old, insisting that the station reaches 40% of its target demographic, 15- to 24-year-olds.

"As Radio 1 has grown it has grown its 35-plus audience but it has also grown its teen audience. Its mean audience is 27," he added.

"If I want a way to travel for Radio 1 it would be not older but younger," admitted Parfitt, who is also controller of Radio 1, 1Xtra and multimedia teen content brand BBC Switch.

So... hang about a minute while I try to make my brain catch up. The remit of Radio One is to target 15 to 24 year-olds, two out of three of whom it misses altogether; instead, it hits an average age of 27, already three years older than where it's being pointed - so the boss thinks his ideal plan is to try and attract a larger number of older listeners?

Perhaps Parfitt would have been happier arguing that the obsession with age targets is meaningless once you get past the CBBC age group, but given that part of his remit is pushing BBC Switch, or "Hullo Teenagers... Everywhere" to give it its official title, he's going to find doing that a little tricky.

However, he said that older audiences who grew up with the station have stayed with it because "they want to remain younger longer". "You can't make them go away," Parfitt added.

Actually, Andy, you can make them go away, by changing the line-up of presenters. You might remember Matthew Bannister demonstrated this quite effectively when he had the Radio One studios sprayed for Travis, Bates and Juste.

He insisted that "Radio 1 is a hot young radio station", citing the popularity of the late John Peel as proof that the age of presenters did not mean that they could not appeal to younger audiences.

Bloody hell, after all these years, and Radio 1 controllers are still using John Peel as their get-out of all sorts of awkward situations. A couple of decades ago he would be invoked as proof that the station still cared about new music; now, he's proof that young audiences will listen to older presenters. Well, yes: but only if they trust their taste. Do fifteen year old kids really think that Jo Whiley is more musically acute than their mates' iPods playlists?

Something to listen to: Rap comes to the Commons

This doesn't seem to have turned up in the papers this morning, so you might want to get to Yesterday In Parliament before next Tuesday to hear what happened when the Home Affairs Committee investigation into "Young black people and the criminal justice system" turned its attention to rap music. Amongst those called to give evidence were DJ Dodge and Radio 1's Andy Parfitt.

There were all the factors you'd expect: an MP reading out some rap lyrics totally out-of-context ("Murder... murder... murder... street"), Andy Parfitt stumbling through a defence of how, you know, erm, sometimes rap deals with difficult subjects. DJ Dodge pointed that there were two positive rap songs produced for every one negative rap song (although he didn't have anything to back up the claim - I love the idea that there might be a team who rush out a pair of "Trees are lovely" rap every time there's a new Tupac track unearthed) but that the negative songs are the ones which get the attention.

This interesting point - that maybe we should be asking why negative rap strikes a chord, rather than if negative rap causes crime - was more or less sidelined by the committee, though, who then rolled on to the question of upbringing.
[EDIT - Fixed the link; see comments]