My first port of call on the radio always used to be BBC Radio Five Live. I used to listen to it obsessively, even appearing on a weekly show in 1993/94 where I was a manager in the station’s Fantasy Football League show (I finished runner up to Nick Hancock despite having Cantona and Shearer up front in my team). I always loved the idea of a rolling news and sport station and, for a while, it was my perfect station. Now, even with the very best presenters of all – Nicky Campbell, Rachel Burden (who I once took to a Bristol Rovers game), Emma Barnett, Tony Livesey, Anna Foster and the brilliant Mark Chapman – I am listening less and less. Why? Because it has changed.
Listening today, Five Live was an ongoing Brexit phone-in, started by a ghastly segment of the Breakfast show called ‘Brexit Barometer’. People ring in, a remainer then a leaver, then a remainer and, well, you get the rest and ultimately the programmes go nowhere until the next Brexit show and phone-in begins.
Obviously the Brexit nightmare is the lead story at the moment, as it will be for years to come if we leave Europe, and Five Live believes it has a duty to cover the bloody thing incessantly and whilst the very mention of the word Brexit sends me into spasms of anger and disillusion, I really can get enough of it. It’s the death of rolling news that I find so sad.
In its early days, Five Live may have been more stodgy, more serious, but so what? Programme makers must have researched like crazy to bring us the news of the day in line with the BBC’s unique purpose, to inform, educate and entertain. Now, they seem to turn up just before the show begins and tell the presenters to talk about nothing but Brexit. And when they say “we are going to turn on the Brexit barometer”, I turn off.
It’s not just Brexit, though. Five Live has become a day long phone/text in show. No item can pass without the presenter urging the audience to “let us know what you think”.
My first morning port of call these days is BBC 6 Music where I can be informed, educated and entertained, unless Shaun Keaveny and Mary Anne Hobbs are on in which case I am totally stuffed.
If I wanted to listen to day long phone-ins, I’d listen to LBC and if I wanted to listen to an ill-informed hour long phone in to help me lose my temper I’d remove my brain and listen to Talk Radio or Radio Bristol. But I don’t and until Five Live has a good thing about where it’s headed, I’ll be listening less and less.
