When Radio 1’s Jo Whiley and Edith Bowman were axed from daytime Radio 1, the announcement came some month or so before they went. They were allowed to talk about their pending leaving. Their final shows were a celebration of their years presenting in their timeslots and a goodbye. There was closure.
Why doesn’t this happen in the commercial sector? When a presenter is axed he/she is axed instantly! They disappear 30 seconds after the decision has been made, and the website is purged of any reference to them past or present. They are removed from the history of the station faster than Margaret Thatcher was removed from the women in politics list. Other presenters who haven’t been culled (this time) are not allowed to make any reference to them whatsoever or even address any listener questioning their sudden non-existence. There is no closure, just confusion and puzzlement in the minds of the listeners who feel they’ve been cheated.
So, why does the commercial sector do this? They even do it with talking radio such as LBC or talkSPORT where the whole concept of the programming is the interaction and relationship between the presenter and the audience. This is even more noticeable and hurtful for the bewildered listeners left behind, scouring the website to try to find even a microscopic trace of DNA from the culled.
The commercial sector do this because they want listeners to identify with the station and not with the presenters (quite a hard demand when dealing with talking radio!) who they hate listeners to build a relationship with. Well, if this is what they want, why allow the presenters to mention their names in the first place? Why not restrict them to just making announcements like they are on the PA system at a railway station without any personality or individuality? (Not that what they are allowed to say these days is that far off from platform alteration announcements.)
What’s the point of having presenters if commercial stations are so paranoid about them getting a following that they have to write them out of existence and history when they are axed?
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