The Chris Moyles Show will reign until September

In early 1997 I blogged about Chris Moyles, saying:

Must say a word or two about Chris Moyles’ Late Bit on Capital 95.8 FM in London. He seems to be there 10pm thru 2am Friday and Saturday nights. Whilst he mainly keeps the music coming, he plays out different sets of near-live callers trying desperately to talk to him about things inane and stupid as only the thick and typical listener can. His quick wit and side-splittingly funny put-down comments make complete and utter fools of these no-brain callers.

Usually they are the type of people who are always so preoccupied with themselves that they have absolutely no idea they are merely fodder for this master of the sharp tongue. They see their involvement in the phone call as being perfectly normal, maybe thinking the guy seems to be saying slightly odd things, but what he is actually saying nearly always goes straight over their head. They always come back for more.

A growing cult audience of those who do actually get what’s going on are now tuning in every weekend. It is another example of how “pop” music radio should be – a mixture of up tempo chart stuff and a fast speaking witty deejay. That is something started by Wolfman Jack in the States nearly 50 years ago, and sadly forgotten by the accountants and blanderisers currently strangling radio development in this country. It is something that cannot be pre-programmed onto a playlisting computer. It is something that holds the listeners’ interest. Well done to Capital for leading the way in breaking the mould.

We need more like Chris Moyles on the air to help bring the edge back that brings the listeners back to commercial radio in the UK. There are plenty out there. When are the radio stations going to start employing them?

That’s what I wrote when I became a serious fan of Chris Moyles over 15 years ago.

He moved on from Capital, thankfully to BBC Radio 1, where people are allowed to have personalities and be themselves rather than follow a ‘radio script’.  After doing the rounds of the early breakfast show and the afternoon / drive show, he landed the coveted breakfast show.

On Wednesday morning he announced that he will step down from this in September.  The breakfast show baton will be handed onwards to Nick Grimshaw.  More of Grimshaw another time, although I have to say I didn’t see that one coming.  I’d pencilled in Greg James. Hey ho!

Chris still has 18 months or so of a contract with Radio 1, and after a period off air (notably playing King Herod in the touring show of Jesus Christ Superstar), he will return to Radio 1 to see his contract out with a new show somewhere else.

Now, if I was Ben Cooper, the Radio 1 Controller, I’d be sticking him on late at night like he was 15 years ago, but with more irreverence, and listener interactivity. Well, maybe that would be a step backwards for Radio 1 and its requirement to shed the people over 30 who persist in listening instead of the young people.

Maybe I’m old school and an anorak (modern people call this ‘radio geekery’), but Chris Moyles has radio talents when it comes to presentation that are sadly lost or not used by commercial radio, and the celeb-come-radio presenters just don’t have.  Chris can ‘jock’ the songs, weaving in and out of them as if they are part of the show. Far too many radio people just make separate announcements as if they are there but having nothing to do with the songs.  Chris understands music radio, and is possibly the last ‘radio geek’ on the air.  He doesn’t fear the songs.

Having said this, he’s also been trapped in a ‘talk radio’ style for a very long time on the breakfast show.  It’s not about the music, but about the interaction between himself, his ‘side kick’, his ‘producer’, his news reader and sports reporter.  The dynamics actually work and are a brilliant model for anybody else trying to ‘cast’ a talk show of a similar calibre.

However, when he was ‘alone’ and filling-in for other presenters at different times of the day recently, he did sound very fresh and alive.

On the breakfast show, Chris is obviously the centre of attention, but all the others have strong characters rather than just provide the clueless inane laughing and giggling ‘yes sir’ type girlie contributions that appear on other breakfast radio shows. They bring a real contribution to the overall result rather than just sitting there sucking up to the ‘DJ’ that occurs on commercial radio. As a talk show, as the Chris Moyles Show, it works and will be missed.

I could have said it will be a hard act to follow, but it’s an act that won’t have to be repeated.  Radio 1 has to change and adapt to ensure it keeps to its remit of attracting young listeners rather than broadcasting to the old ‘cling-ons’.  The new breakfast show will be radically different.  It can’t be the same.

The fact that the Radio 1 breakfast show has to move on, adapt and change, and will do under Nick Grimshaw, should give Chris a bit of comfort during those moments when he feels a bit deflated about having to move on.  He will have been the first and last Radio 1 breakfast show presenter to have pioneered a much needed talk-with-music format.  Maybe there isn’t yet a radio station around in the UK that it could sit on, but there needs to be one.  A radio station not forced to be driven by the age of its listeners, and so consequently the age of its presenters.  I mean, in the States, Howard Stern has been broadcasting his own format of show non stop for decades now.  Maybe Chris needs the equivalent in the UK?

Probably what Chris Moyles has to do next is work out what Chris Moyles has to do next.  I’m guessing he already has, even though stepping down from the show isn’t going to be the nicest thing to have to do.

Even his remaining time on Radio 1 until 2014 isn’t really much more than a bit of treading water.  He has to leave and he knows it.  I can understand how that can and will hurt.  Radio is in his blood.  Even if he were to transfer the current show to TV (which would be cool) it’s still not ‘radio’.  Some of us out here, even those who work in TV, are in constant awe of ‘radio’.  Or, ‘radio’ from when it was in its hay day, even though the commercial radio sector has now destroyed all that.

So, then, the final countdown has begun.  Chris will reinvent himself and will turn up here and there, but I wonder what will become of the rest of the on-air team, Dave, Aled, Dom and Tina.   They do work well together, and so it would be nice to hope that they will all find good futures as individual broadcasters once the main party is over.