I’m sorry that Simon Mayo is to leave BBC Radio Two. I think he’s a brilliant broadcaster, one of the very best of my lifetime. I stopped listening to the Drivetime show some years ago, preferring the relative cutting edge and new music of BBC 6 Music, yet never thought for a moment the show would be cut off in its late prime. However, today we learned that Mayo has been effectively axed from Radio Two. This doesn’t strike me as a good idea.
The Beach Boy Mike Love was quoted, I don’t know how accurately, of telling Brian Wilson not to “fuck with the formula” when the band’s wayward genius put together the still astonishing Pet Sounds, which was a million miles away from the cars and girls songs of the early 1960s. The same thing could apply to the treatment of Mayo.
One of the things people like about Radio Two, and one of the things I don’t like about it, is its unthreatening familiarity. Mayo exemplified that, as does Ken Bruce and, I’m afraid, the ghastly Steve Wright with his horribly dated and turgid ‘In the afternoon’ show. I have to say it’s not for me. It’s for the countless millions who like Wrights shtick. If I was the controller, I’d have put Wright out to grass a decade ago, but I’m not. I can choose to listen to something – anything – better.
BBC radio is getting very good at fucking with the formula. 6 Music, my station of choice, has reacted to record listening figures for Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie’s funny, eclectic and very clever afternoon show by relegating them to the weekend breakfast slots, replacing them with the drab, monotonal Shaun Keaveny. Why do that?
Is it because Mayo and Radcliffe and Maconie are deemed too old? I suspect it might be, in which case, it’s absurd. If they are good at what they do, who cares if they are older than some people who are, well, younger? I know I am repeating myself but why fuck with the formula?
Radio Two is the most listened to radio station in Europe, yet it’s managers are going to risk everything for what? The Drivetime show will continue, but with who as the presenter? Which woman will they choose? (Yes, I know this risks being accused go misogyny but what the hell?)
We know what we like, whether it’s the safety of Wright and Mayo playing the kind of tame, unthreatening music or the safety of Radcliffe and Maconie playing new, cutting edge music. If the BBC is really public service broadcasting, why is the new policy more scorched earth than gentle evolution?
I am not impressed.
