Djobit: Terry Wogan

Arriving back in the UK from a weekend in Amsterdam, on a TV screen glimpsed through a security window was a grinning, waving Terry Wogan. We already knew, of course - this is the 21st Century and you don't have to wait anymore until the news, on the hour, with James Alexander Gordon, to find out what's going on.

My Mum loved Radio 2, or at least loved it enough to be able to listen to it during the day, and much of my early musical experience came from 233 and 330 (less so Stereo VHF). Both Waggoner's' Walks, Diddy David Hamilton, Pete Murray, Jimmy Young and, every breakfast, Terry Wogan. This was his first run of breakfast shows - the era of Pru Forrest, JR, and suggesting that Super Trouper claims Abba were making telephone calls from Tesco. It seemed to be at the time that doing the breakfast show on Radio 2 must surely be the most desirable job in the world.

Along with Ribena and fried eggs, Wogan was how I woke up every morning - calming and reassuring, especially on those mornings when my eyes had gummed themselves shut and I'd come to in panic and fear. He was the very model of avuncularity and, although my tastes moved on, I'll miss knowing he's around.

6Music: Here come the listeners

The couple of Sonys might not have done much to protect 6Music from the long journey at sunrise, but the latest listening figures might. 6Music has broken the million listeners barrier for the first time, reports MediaGuardian:

6 Music had an average weekly reach of 1.02 million listeners in the first three months of this year, up from 695,000 in the final three months of last year, according to official Rajar figures published today.

It turns out the plans to close the network were more effective than any marketing campaign the BBC has tried so far.

In other RAJARs news, Chris Evans remains safely ahead of Chris Moyles at breakfast - both saw their audiences grow. So fears that Evans would lose Wogan's listeners were misplaced; nor, apparently, has Evans brought in a younger crowd. The average age of a Radio 2 listener is still 51.

Evan's figures, 9.53 million, gives him the largest radio audience since the current RAJAR methodology came in back in 1999.

The illustrated Hello: Brian Hayes

Brian Hayes is the man who was edged out of Radio 2 to make way for the return of Terry Wogan, when Wogan returned from TV. Oddly, they didn't invite him to pick up where he left off when Wogan quit again last year.

His phone-in show was quite popular with Snipe fanzine - his no-nonsense "well, you obviously haven't thought through your point, so I'm going to cut you off" approach was unusual back in the 1980s, in a world yet to have been touched by the joy of Talk Radio UK and James Whale being given a show.

There's not much Brian Hayes stuff around the internet - but, had Hayes not been busy keeping the seat at Radio 2 warm, Wogan would never have been free to run around the TV doing Historic Interviews like this, with Ken out of Bros:



And, likewise, without Hayes softening up British ears, James Whale would never have got to take his radio show to late-night TV, and we would have been denied this meeting with Wayne Hussey:



[Part of The Illustrated Hello]

Chris Evans ruins a thousand headlines

There's probably nobody more surprised than Radio 2 that Chris Evans' audience has increased from the level Terry Wogan left it. But there won't be anyone more disappointed than the tabloids, who must have already crafted their "TOG off" headlines and "thousands of Wogan loyalists desert smutty Evans show" standfirsts.

Still, there's a couple of months before the official figures come out - time yet for the Mail to come up with a way that this is A Bad Thing.

[Thanks to James P for the story]

Staying put: Radcliffe turns down Five Live

In the radio gadabout as Radio 2 shuffles to cope with the disappearance of Terry Wogan, there had been rumours Mark Radcliffe had been going to move to take over Simon Mayo's now-vacant seat on Five Live.

That's not going to happen, reckons MediaGuardian, because Radcliffe has decided he'd quite like to carry on playing records, and he wasn't thrilled that the plum slot, doing the movie programme on Fridays, was still going to be done by Mayo.

There's something delicious - given this about a shuffle required by Chris Evans moving his show - that a major BBC show has been turned down because the presenter wasn't required to work on Fridays.

Mike Read knows what to do

Mike Read - yes, the former DJ one, not the dead one who was R-E-I-D anyway - contributed to the Guardian this morning, marking the departure of Wogan from breakfasts.

It includes this slightly bemusing segment, rejecting the likelihood that the audience will vanish:

Yes, there will be an exodus, but probably not of biblical proportions; after all, there has never been bondage at Radio 2 – and in any case where is their Moses or Aaron to lead them to a new radio land, unless Elvis rises again from the chip shop.

Uh... yes, Mike.

Still, Mike has plans for the future and - if not Moses, clearly hopes to be casting himself as some sort of Esau:

Long one of our great exports, the music industry has been strangled by the lack of innovative radio and television. This country has far too many radio and TV stations pumping out pap, so it's not surprising that many are proving to be unsustainable. It's time for a shake-up, and perhaps Wogan's departure will prompt just that. Fewer stations, more quality and realistic budgets.

So, how does Read propose that we boost imports and push forward creative music by innovative radio programming?

As the lawyer Jaggers dealt with Pip's question in Great Expectations, let me take a hypothetical case: 20 former Radio 1 voices, all national names and all highly experienced, who have collectively broadcast to billions over the years and won countless awards. What a line-up that would be. Now, we need a hypothetical name, let's say One Gold. Put thousands of advertisers and sponsors, who would kill to advertise on Radio 2 if it were commercial, into the mix. This theoretical station may well broadcast (and I mean broadcast, not narrowcast) the best of the 80s, 70s and 60s as well as established artists who don't seem to get a look in despite highly successful tours.

Yes... Read's idea is to stimulate and innovate by hiring a bunch of faded old DJs and playing a slate of twenty-to-forty year old hits. It's like reviving British cuisine by pushing Hostess trolleys and boil-in-the-bag beef slices.

Gloria enraged? Mail overstates Hunniford's stance

Now it's official that Terry Wogan is off to enjoy a lie-in, and Chris Evans is going to take over, there seems to be some confusion. Especially amongst Daily Mail readers, there seems to be a misunderstanding; an expectation that TFI-era Evans is going to turn up to do the show, with testicle jokes, beer and Kula Shaker over by the piano. This is the howl of anguish from Radio 2 "loyal" listeners who haven't bothered to listen to the more mellow Evans programme on the network.

Still, it's good news for the Mail who haven't had anything to wrap up in a horseshoe and throw at the BBC for, ooh, hours. And it's not just their readers who are struggling to contain their rage, oh no:

Chris Evans tells Terry Wogan fans he'll deliver 'first rate family show' as Gloria Hunniford leads campaign against 'childish' successor

She is, is she? What's Hunniford doing, then? A petition? A march on Broadcasting House? Civil disobedience? How does she intend to be the Joanna Lumley of this campaign?

They include 'shocked' veteran broadcaster Gloria Hunniford, who said: 'I would have reservations. But that's only a personal opinion. He's a good broadcaster, but I personally don't think he's of the same calibre as Terry.'

So she has said "personally, I don't think he's quite good enough" - that hardly seems to be "leading a campaign", does it?

Farewell, Terry: Wogan quits Radio 2

Terry Wogan just announced that he's leaving the Radio 2 breakfast show with, as widely predicted, Chris Evans taking up the slot from the New Year.

An on-form Evans against a fading Moyles? That, simultaneously, is a hell of a personal grudge match and a rather abrupt truncation of choice for people who like unchallenging pop at breakfast.

Wogan is - if rumours are to be believed - going to resurface at weekends on Radio 2.

Rajars: Moyles swells his audience

In the nip-and-tuck of breakfast shows, Chris Moyles has closed the gap on Terry Wogan again; meanwhile, Absolute Radio seems to have stopped freefalling, adding 200,0000 listeners in the last three months. Still some way to go to replace the 31% of the audience who've disappeared over the last twelve months, though.

Eurovision: Wogan shuts up

One of the great broadcasting traditions - that of listening to a mildly sloshed Irishman railing against Eastern Europeans - has ended, with the news that Terry Wogan is stepping down from Eurovision:

"I've had 35 wonderful years commentating on the Eurovision for radio and television.

"From my first, in a small musichall in Dublin, to my last, in the huge arena in Belgrade, it has been nothing but laughter and fun.

"The silly songs, the spectacle, the grandiose foolishness of it all.

"Let's hope that between [New presenter Graham Norton] and the musical brilliance of Lloyd Webber, Royaume Uni will gather its proper share of 'Douze Points' and bring the Grand Prix home to where it belongs."

Nothing but laughter and fun - ah, yes, like the suggestions that the judges were racist or being accused by the Eurovision management of making the event ridiculous. Laughter and fun, laughter and fun.

It is a lovely little thing, isn't it?

The delightfully nuts "are you the butler" knockabout Bing and Bowie take on Peace On Earth and Little Drummer Boy is being recreated for a single featuring Aled Jones and Terry Wogan. While might be somewhat eclipsed by the Colbert/Willie Nelson version, it's got to be better than the X Factor winner trumpeting to number one, surely?

Wogan berates the BBC. Again.

In the tent/pissing metaphor, Terry Wogan is one of those guys who you might consider better off having inside the tent pissing out, rather than being outside pissing in, only to discover that he's actually still pissing in from inside.

Now that Michael Parkinson has retired, Wogan has the field of 'grumpy old sod undermining everyone he works with' to himself, and marks his 70th birthday by moaning about the BBC which gives him a job in the BBC's Radio Times magazine. Standards, it seems, are slipping:

"When I sent my first tape to the head of gramophone programmes at the BBC, I had made the fatal mistake of forgetting to rewind it to the start," he said.

"Yet that gentleman took the time to wind it all the way back, and once he'd listened to it, things went from there," Wogan added.

"I can tell you, if I was a young chap coming over from Ireland today, they probably wouldn't even listen to my tape, let alone rewind it.

"Somehow, that old-fashioned thoroughness and commitment have disappeared. I suppose no one has the time for it anymore."

So: the most important tape he ever sent off in his career, and he 'forgot' to rewind it - and yet Wogan complains nobody else has any old-fashioned thoroughness.

You have to enjoy his implication, though, that if the bloke hadn't taken the time to wind the tape back, there'd have been forever a deep hole at the heart of BBC schedules, rather than someone else equally able having got their chance instead.

He also takes the chance to bang on about Eurovision:

Wogan said he did not want to front Eurovision any more following the increase in political voting which saw Russia win in Serbia this year after gaining the votes of former Soviet states.

"I was considering giving up before Belgrade and now I have to say I'm very doubtful about ever wanting to do Eurovision again," he added. "I've had so much fun, but I think it's time for someone else to take over."

Yes, Terry. You're absolutely right here. Let's hope you're not expecting to see petitions and demands in parliament for you to keep the job.

Wogan gets the huff

Curiously, since he's spent the last three decades commentating on Eurovision discussing dresses, hairstyles, body shape, national characteristics and fair dash of whimsy, Wogan's threatening to quit because erm, it's not a proper music contest "any more".

Somehow surprised that a duff song delivered by someone with no charisma came last - a song, let's not forget, that was chosen by his intervention - he's now talking about calling it a day:

Terry said his producer, Kevin Bishop, was stepping down after this year's contest.

"He and I have to decide whether we want to do this again," he said.

"Indeed, western European participants have to decide whether they want to take part from here on in because their prospects are poor."

Apparently, Wogan sees himself as some sort of showbiz Moses, about to lead his children to a brighter future where we're no longer at risk of block votes from the former Balkan nations. Or perhaps to split the union to give England the chance of a generous Celtic vote.

We could, on the other hand, try and enter a half-decent song.

Eurovision boss seeks some love

As the contestants start to gather for the latest bout of Eurovision, contest supremo Bjorn Erichsen has called for Terry Wogan to, well, shut the fuck up:

"Terry Wogan is a problem because he makes it ridiculous. I know he is very popular and maybe that's the reason a lot of people watch."

He claimed that the UK should follow Sweden's approach and show some "love and respect" for the competition.

Yes. It's Terry Wogan who makes the show look ridiculous.



Terry Wogan does that.

Well done, United Kingdom. That's going to be another year of five points if we're lucky.

You'd have hoped that the bemusing selection process for Song For Europe - sorry, Making Your Mind Up; sorry, Your Eurovision Decision - had been constructed to try and stop the voting public sending a lame donkey into the Eurovision finals this year. A first round of head-to-head matches (presumably inspired by Loaded's Crisps world cup) delivering three finalists, topped up with a single Wogan wildcard, and then the decision thrown across to the public phone vote during Casualty.

And yet we still end up with Andy Abraham beating out Michelle Gayle. Everyone looked surprised - not least Michelle Gayle, who sloped off through a shower of sparks. Of course, Gayle's song was a bit weakly delivered. In fact, it might have been better in the slightly more girl-group hands of The Revelations; the rocky delivery made the "woo woo woo" backings sound like feeding time in Battersea Dogs Home. But at least it sounded like a possible Eurovision winner. Maybe a 1980s winner, but a winner nevertheless.

Instead, for some reason, we're sending a mid-set song from a provincial wine bar act. Abraham only made it into the final because of the bloody Wogan wildcard. When you're sat in the commentary box, downing your fourth glass of the local liqueur and complaining that Latvia hasn't given us any points, remember whose fault it this year, Wogan.

Radio audiences: we have a difference of opinion, Geoffrey

Proving, perhaps, that the RAJAR figures are so hard to navigate you can read into them what you wish, Digital Spy and MAD.co.uk report simultaneously on a 10% and 16.6% share of radio listening for Digital audiences. The discrepancy, of course, is because Digital Spy is quoting the figure for audiences listening on a DAB receiver, while MAD is looking at any digital platfrom.

The news isn't good for commercial digital broadcasters, though, as of the five largest ad-supported digital-only stations have had their audiences slip over the last quarter; of the big five only Heat managed an increase.

New owners of EMAP's old radio business, Bauer Radio, might be sucking a thoughtful tooth when they discover Q had displaced a quarter of its listenership between September and December.

Happily, a weak set of commercial results was balanced by strong figures for 6Music - edging ever closer to the magic half a million mark despite the new shouty-boy daytime schedule - 1Xtra and BBC7.

Back on old fashioned radio, Moyles is closing in on Terry Wogan - now just 420,000 listeners shy of his breakfast rival. Although Moyles has been doing the show four years now; at this rate Wogan's going to be dead before he catches him.

London's always diverting battle sees Capital continuing to languish in the area it once dominated; Heat and Magic are both the biggest radio stations now depending on if you care about reach or share. They'll take some comfort in that the gap between them and Kiss is a little wider - 90,000 listeners compared with 10,000 this time last year - although 'victory in the battle to avoid dropping to fourth place' isn't much of a song to sing to the shareholders.

They might be feeling a little vindicated, though, looking at XFM's performance year-on-year: their share of total listening in London hasn't shifted - 1.3% - but the size of the audience has nudged up from 479,000 to 513,000. Killing off presenters has brought in more listeners.

All year-on-year comparisons, by the way, are effectively valueless as RAJAR changed it methodology in Summer 2007.

Children In Need 2007

The strongest argument for strengthening the welfare state is, surely, that if we remove all children from lives of want, we can stop asking Terry Wogan to struggle through seven hours of live television.

They're claiming that Boyzone are back together "just for Children In Need"; a one-off super special that might be more special if they'd not already released the tour dates for the ongoing comeback. And if it wasn't Boyzone.

Also back in room have been the Spice Girls, playing together for the first time in over eighteen hours. Their lucrative actual comeback for Victoria's Secrets means that time and money which could have been put to charitable uses (or perhaps retaining a couple of newsroom jobs) has gone on a satellite link-up.

The Spices were sat in the Dancing With The Stars studio behind the judges' desk - it looked a little like those sci-fi movies where aliens land and announce plans for crushing our puny race during a hastily-convened press conference. Except no alien invasion squad would have been quite as shambolic as the Spices: talking over each, getting lost in sexual innuendo with Terry Wogan (you wouldn't, would you?) and, at the middle, Victoria Beckham looking as confused as Peter Davison would on meeting David Tennent's doctor.

By the time they came to actually do a song - that ballad which they've given away to the charity - Mel C had changed her costume, the better to resemble a Victorian undertaker. Complete with a big black top hat. We're seeing it as a cry for help.

We're not totally sure, either, but we think they might have recast Scary Spice.

Other musical highlights so far has been the discovery that that woman off Holby City has a pretty good soul voice and that John Barrowman might have excellent delivery for show tunes, but can't actually sing properly. This is a bit of a problem when he's doing Your Song, although if it means that his "songs for your mother" Christmas album turns out to be a one-off, we'll feel a lot more comfortable watching the next series of Torchwood. Jason Donovan, surprisingly, is now a dead ringer for Tony Blair.

They also had a duo called Sam & Mark on in the first fifteen minutes - it's not exactly A Night Of A Thousand Stars stuff when you have to hit Google to remind yourself who they hell it is you're watching. Apparently, they lost on Pop Idol; they still sing like they're hoping there might be a telephone vote to save them.

Steve Harley is currently on, doing a regional opt-out for the East. He usually turns up doing Come Up And See Me whenever people are raising money anywhere in Anglia; he probably earns more for charity than he does for himself these days.

It's all in a good cause, of course: bbc.co.uk.pudsey to donate online.

Wogan's paranoid fantasy "just a fantasy"

Tired of the endless whining about block-voting, the organisers of Eurovision called in PriceWaterhouse Coopers to audit this year's voting.

They found no evidence of orchestrated irregularities:

[Svante] Stockselius said that the robustness of the tele-voting system meant block voting could not occur.

"We have looked into it and we have had auditors look at it, but it is not possible to manipulate the voting," he added.

"I wouldn't say 100% because that would be impossible but there is no way you can manipulate the tele-voting.

"People say this in their disappointment when they try to find explanations."

This misses the point slightly - not even Wogan at his most drunk suggests that the Greek government is pulling strings to ensure their 12 points go to Cyprus; the point is that - for the purely innocent reason that countries which share borders are more likely to share common tastes - the current voting system is liable to favour small nations which tend to give leg-ups to each other's neighbours than, ooh, haughty off-shore island nations which enter camp airline-themed bands, for example.

Still, you have to admire everyone involved for burning through cash on a consultant's report which doesn't even understand the question it should be asking. This is like watching Man United beat Stockport five-nil, and when people suggest it wasn't a fair contest, arranging drug testing for the United team to disprove those claims.

Eurovision 2007: Blow by suck

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Hawkins: I'm a victim of racism

Apparently it hasn't occurred to Justin Hawkins that his failure to win the UK's Eurovision heat might be down to people not liking him or his song. Sure, it must be hard to go in two years from being the toast of the Brits to being rejected by te Making Your Mind Up audience, but even so, to then try and suggest he's been the victim of racism because he was working with Beverli Brown is really shabby:

“The United Kingdom must be either racist or stupid not to have voted for Big Brovaz or Beverlei Brown.

“It’s like when multi-award-winning, multimillion-selling LEMAR lost to DAVID ‘Three stars at Burger King’ SNEDDON in Fame Academy all those years ago. Nothing ever changes.

“The whole thing whiffed of a stitch-up.”

Victoria Newton is in pieces, so she is:

I really hoped Justin would win Saturday’s sing-off. Representing us at the contest in Helsinki this May would have been a nice way to mark his return to music after getting out of rehab.

Without wanting to be harsh, why should the UK public have its votes motivated by wanting to "do something nice" for someone coming out of rehab? Was there something in the rules we missed?

And having seen what a terribly bad loser Hawkins is - this shabby attempt to wrap himself in the cloak of the underdog and his childish storm-off when he found out his antics hadn't swung the vote - it's probably just as well that he was voted out at this stage, showing himself up, rather than embarrassing us at as a nation during Eurovision.

Meanwhile, the BBC has tried to delicately blame Terry Wogan for announcing the wrong winner on Saturday without actually upsetting him:

A BBC spokesman said: "Terry was given the right name down his earpiece. There was no technical problem."

They admitted the studio was noisy and emphasised Sir Terry was not being blamed for the mix-up.

Terry has been quite upbeat about it all:

Speaking on his BBC Radio 2 show, Sir Terry said: "Nobody died, it's a TV programme. It wasn't the general election. People got a bit confused."

"People" got confused, did they, Terry?