Adult talk and a fusion of music

It’s Flashback Friday.  Every Friday we bring back a golden oldie article from yesteryear. A chance for you to re-read it and see if it is still relevant today!

I think Apple FM on Sky satellite EPG 913 must be onto a winner with its format of selling off chunks of airtime to wannabies. There seems no shortage of customers.

The latest is Fusion Radio ( http://www.fusionradio.com ) which promises to be a midnight thru 2am adult talk and fused music (“Fused music”? Is that when everything plays at once? 🙂 ) service. It is the work of Rod Lucas.

I used to like Rod Lucas back in the good old 70s and 80s when he was literally the voice of BBC Radio Kent (nee Radio Medway) and provided a very addictive programme of music plus chatter on the phone. He seemed to be on the air all the time and had a following of local folk as Radio Kent (nee Medway) soundtracked their lives.

Why he left and went to Invicta I don’t know, but his format didn’t transfer, and all too soon he was gone.

In latter years after a very long gap I’ve heard him on swings on LBC, and not much else. Certainly the Radio Kent era was a moment in time that probably only worked because it was in the right place at the right time. It is similar to the addictive ‘atmosphere’ that surrounds the more adventurous phone-in based pirate stations in London.

So, we’ll have to see what the talking is going to be about when Fusion gets going properly. It’s about time we had more talking stations instead of the jukeboxes just playing what’s already in everybody’s collections. The Americans are spoilt with talking radio, we are starved of it and it’s what radio should be about.