Radio Moments - Clips

In March 2017, Tony Blackburn succeeded Brian Matthew as presenter of Radio 2's 'Sounds of the 60s'. The two-hour show also moved to the earlier time of 6 am.

In Feb 2000, PM Tony Blair began a weekly audio broadcast - a little like the familiar Presidential radio broadcasts in the UK. The eight minute piece was available 'only on the Internet' (accessed either as a streamed file, a downloadable MP3 version or as a transcript). After the tentative introduction - and a what his producer likely suggested was a clever bit of linking - the first edition focused on education.

By the end of the first five months (and 14 editions), the streamed versions of the broadcasts has been requested nearly 37,000 times, an average of 254 requests per day (plus MP3  downloads and hits on the transcript page).

A sniff that just possibly John Humphrys may leave the Today programme some time in 2019 merited a sizeable chunk of the World at One on Radio 4 on 6th Feb – and prefaced the item on the North Korea nuclear summit. And so it should have. Here, he talks to former dawn colleague, Sarah Montague on the World at One on the day the story appeared on the front page of the Daily Mail.

Chris carries off his first show with aplomb. The sense of presence which he effortlessly routinely delivers – and the sense of occasion of a special first show but where the listeners feel part of it – rather than distant. A feat not carried off by all.

“BBC Radio 2”…he finds himself saying - before the hesitant “….is where we used to be’. And he warns Auntie Ethel who’s flicked over that the ‘golden oldies’ are ‘a little more contemporary than they were before’. He’s at Virgin ‘for as long as they’ll let us’ -and talks of his boss Scott. Not ‘one of the really big cheeses…but certainly on the cheese counter’.

The marketing is there, he is the biggest name in radio. The only impediment to success is platform and audience intransigence – and they have wisely recognised that. Good luck to radio’s second Ev.