Evening Standard: Radio 1 comes under fire over 'dance'
By David Rowan
THIS might just be the moment for Tony Blackburn to ask for his old job back. As Radio 1 confronts falling ratings, confusion over its music policy and protests about "dumbing down", calls are growing across the industry for radical changes at the station Blackburn launched 35 years ago this month.
With its share of listening down from 10.7 per cent to 8.3 per cent in two years - at a time when Radio 2's audience has risen by a third - critics are asking if the station's continuing obsession with dance music is a sign of a deeper failure to understand today's young audience. "There's been pressure for a shake-up for some time, and I think it's going to happen," according to a senior music-industry figure. "There's a big disenfranchised audience out there that it's just ignoring."
Last month's quarterly listening figures showed Radio 1's audience falling from 13.8 million to 12.8 million, with Sara Cox's breakfast show losing almost 700,000 adult listeners in a year when she was censured for obscene remarks in an Ali G interview. Andy Parfitt, the station's controller, blamed the World Cup for the slump, but in the same period Terry Wogan's Radio 2 breakfast show gained half a million new listeners.
If the station sees Cox as its big star - she recently signed a three-year £1 million contract - then other corners of the corporation seem not to agree.
After Wogan told an interviewer that Radio 1 had "lost its way" and criticised the "doubtful taste" of Cox and her fellow presenter Chris Moyles, the latter yesterday went a step further. "I think I could do a better job (than Cox)," Moyles told Heat magazine, adding that he would rather spend his time watching breakfast television than listening to her.
But what concerns the industry is the station's current music policy. It recently decided to axe its innovative show, The Evening Session, presented three nights a week by Steve Lamacq, which has a rising audience and helped launch the careers of bands including Oasis, Blur and The Strokes. "Losing the Evening Session is a big mistake," a senior A&R man tells the Standard.
Bands, too, have been lining up to condemn what The Parkinsons are calling "a sad day for the future of rock 'n' roll". The band Hell is for Heroes has denounced it as "a great blow to alternative music". The station says the programme must go in order to "revamp and refresh" the schedules, and that a replacement will continue to showcase independent music. But some see the decision - together with the recent departure of veteran DJ Mark Goodier - as symptomatic of a deeper malaise.
"Radio 1 has got an identity crisis and doesn't quite know who it is aiming its musical content at," according to James Oldham, deputy editor of the NME. "It's axed The Evening Session at a time when we're undergoing a rock 'n' roll renaissance, but Radio 1 seems shy of getting involved. So it's missing the young, hip, popular bands that are dominating the market at the moment - The Strokes, the White Stripes, the Datsuns. A successful band like the Vines has not even been able to get on to the playlist, but an electropop band such as Fischerspooner gets through straight away. Everyone knows that dance music is in the worst state it's been for years."
Paul Jackson, programme director at Virgin Radio, believes that the rival station is "out on a limb" with its devotion to dance music. "This year's hottest records are by Coldplay and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but they're not getting the play you'd expect on Radio 1. It will need to re-address its priorities: the trends are moving so fast now, and we're already entering the back end of the rock renaissance. Music in the past few years has fragmented, and Radio 1 has to bring the varieties all together, but it's hellbent on going down one path."
Yet the station's power remains such that few people who spoke to the Standard would give their names. One senior music industry figure, who launched the careers of a number of internationally acclaimed bands, blames its music strategy for holding back new talent. "The pop charts have been hijacked by the eight-to 14-year-olds and driven more and more by television shows, yet Radio 1 isn't breaking any of its own records," he says. "And then when a left-foot record breaks, such as Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus, they ignore it. It just hasn't got its finger completely on the pulse as to what young people want."
He suggests that this may be because Alex Jones-Donelly, its editor of music policy, comes from a dance-music background, a sector that is becoming an ever more focused niche. Others in the industry worry that Jo Whiley appears to be one of the few presenters to "care" about the music.
Radio 1 denies that the loss of Lamacq's evening show and the departure of Goodier were linked to the disappointing listening numbers. "We don't base our decisions on figures," a spokesman says. "These changes were planned some time before and are not an indication of some bigger shake-up." The spokesman insists that the station continues to broadcast more hours of guitar-based rock than dance music and that, despite the criticisms the station has faced, Andy Parfitt "has still got a smile on his face".
The music industry, which relies on Radio 1 to help nurture tomorrow's success stories, is less relaxed. "It's never been easier to break new pop talent - you just need to be on TV or in the press," an industry executive says. "But only a few people are working to build a band's career. Why isn't Radio 1 developing the acts?"
He adds: "Radio 2 is the UK's most successful station because it absolutely knows its audience. Maybe we need a Radio 1-and-a-half."
(Evening Standard, September 11 2002)
THIS might just be the moment for Tony Blackburn to ask for his old job back. As Radio 1 confronts falling ratings, confusion over its music policy and protests about "dumbing down", calls are growing across the industry for radical changes at the station Blackburn launched 35 years ago this month.
With its share of listening down from 10.7 per cent to 8.3 per cent in two years - at a time when Radio 2's audience has risen by a third - critics are asking if the station's continuing obsession with dance music is a sign of a deeper failure to understand today's young audience. "There's been pressure for a shake-up for some time, and I think it's going to happen," according to a senior music-industry figure. "There's a big disenfranchised audience out there that it's just ignoring."
Last month's quarterly listening figures showed Radio 1's audience falling from 13.8 million to 12.8 million, with Sara Cox's breakfast show losing almost 700,000 adult listeners in a year when she was censured for obscene remarks in an Ali G interview. Andy Parfitt, the station's controller, blamed the World Cup for the slump, but in the same period Terry Wogan's Radio 2 breakfast show gained half a million new listeners.
If the station sees Cox as its big star - she recently signed a three-year £1 million contract - then other corners of the corporation seem not to agree.
After Wogan told an interviewer that Radio 1 had "lost its way" and criticised the "doubtful taste" of Cox and her fellow presenter Chris Moyles, the latter yesterday went a step further. "I think I could do a better job (than Cox)," Moyles told Heat magazine, adding that he would rather spend his time watching breakfast television than listening to her.
But what concerns the industry is the station's current music policy. It recently decided to axe its innovative show, The Evening Session, presented three nights a week by Steve Lamacq, which has a rising audience and helped launch the careers of bands including Oasis, Blur and The Strokes. "Losing the Evening Session is a big mistake," a senior A&R man tells the Standard.
Bands, too, have been lining up to condemn what The Parkinsons are calling "a sad day for the future of rock 'n' roll". The band Hell is for Heroes has denounced it as "a great blow to alternative music". The station says the programme must go in order to "revamp and refresh" the schedules, and that a replacement will continue to showcase independent music. But some see the decision - together with the recent departure of veteran DJ Mark Goodier - as symptomatic of a deeper malaise.
"Radio 1 has got an identity crisis and doesn't quite know who it is aiming its musical content at," according to James Oldham, deputy editor of the NME. "It's axed The Evening Session at a time when we're undergoing a rock 'n' roll renaissance, but Radio 1 seems shy of getting involved. So it's missing the young, hip, popular bands that are dominating the market at the moment - The Strokes, the White Stripes, the Datsuns. A successful band like the Vines has not even been able to get on to the playlist, but an electropop band such as Fischerspooner gets through straight away. Everyone knows that dance music is in the worst state it's been for years."
Paul Jackson, programme director at Virgin Radio, believes that the rival station is "out on a limb" with its devotion to dance music. "This year's hottest records are by Coldplay and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but they're not getting the play you'd expect on Radio 1. It will need to re-address its priorities: the trends are moving so fast now, and we're already entering the back end of the rock renaissance. Music in the past few years has fragmented, and Radio 1 has to bring the varieties all together, but it's hellbent on going down one path."
Yet the station's power remains such that few people who spoke to the Standard would give their names. One senior music industry figure, who launched the careers of a number of internationally acclaimed bands, blames its music strategy for holding back new talent. "The pop charts have been hijacked by the eight-to 14-year-olds and driven more and more by television shows, yet Radio 1 isn't breaking any of its own records," he says. "And then when a left-foot record breaks, such as Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus, they ignore it. It just hasn't got its finger completely on the pulse as to what young people want."
He suggests that this may be because Alex Jones-Donelly, its editor of music policy, comes from a dance-music background, a sector that is becoming an ever more focused niche. Others in the industry worry that Jo Whiley appears to be one of the few presenters to "care" about the music.
Radio 1 denies that the loss of Lamacq's evening show and the departure of Goodier were linked to the disappointing listening numbers. "We don't base our decisions on figures," a spokesman says. "These changes were planned some time before and are not an indication of some bigger shake-up." The spokesman insists that the station continues to broadcast more hours of guitar-based rock than dance music and that, despite the criticisms the station has faced, Andy Parfitt "has still got a smile on his face".
The music industry, which relies on Radio 1 to help nurture tomorrow's success stories, is less relaxed. "It's never been easier to break new pop talent - you just need to be on TV or in the press," an industry executive says. "But only a few people are working to build a band's career. Why isn't Radio 1 developing the acts?"
He adds: "Radio 2 is the UK's most successful station because it absolutely knows its audience. Maybe we need a Radio 1-and-a-half."
(Evening Standard, September 11 2002)
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