Changes At BBC Radio 1 - Some Thoughts

Back in the early 90’s BBC Radio 1 faced heavy criticism from the government, the media and private sector radio. The reason? As a public service youth station it was failing badly, having become a bloated and fat joke. It’s audience profile was greater amongst 30-45 year olds who had grown up with the station than it was with younger listeners.The station's established presenters such as Dave Lee Travis, Simon Bates, Bruno Brookes and Gary Davies weren’t connecting with their target youth audience and the station was considered a dinosaur.

Enter new controller Matthew Bannister who very quickly began a hatchet job on the stations “Smashie and Nicey” DJ culture to bring in new, younger talent. Bates, Davies, Brookes and Travis (who resigned on air with his infamous “There are changes being made at the station that go against my principles" speech) were soon all out and the new guard were in. The music aired also began to change – The Golden Hour (an hour of ‘oldies’ every day) was booted into touch and Status Quo found that their songs were no longer played on the station. Believe it or not Quo challenged this  (unsuccessfully)  in the courts.

Not all of Bannister’s new charges (a number of whom transferred from GLR radio) were a success. Emma Freud, Danny Baker and Kevin Greening were all talented broadcasters but didn’t bring in a new audience. In fact Bannister found Radio 1’s  figures dropping to below 10 million as listeners departed to Radio 2 and independent commercial radio. But with the cull in presenters and audience Bannister set the direction for the future of Radio 1. This was a radio station that didn’t trade on nostalgia,that constantly re-invented itself and defined its status by broadcasting to a younger audience.

Since Bannister’s departure the man steering the ship has been Andy Parfitt. Parfitt has successfully rebuilt the stations audience (up to an average weekly reach of just over 11.5 million) and yet with this build the average age of its listener has also gone up to over 30. It’s flagship breakfast show DJ is Chris Moyles (age 37) who has a style of presentation that harks backs to old school Radio 1 and unsurprisingly attracts a large number of listeners age 45-54 and he’s brought back The Golden Hour. Likewise many of the stations other DJ’s are in their mid 30’s (Scott Mills, Edith Bowman, Sara Cox, Zane Lowe).

Once again Radio 1 (via the BBC Radio Trust) has been tasked with targeting a younger audience and a new controller Ben Cooper, age 42 has been employed to do this. The question is how does he achieve it? Is a spectacular cull of DJ’s on the horizon like the Bannister era? Possibly not so – the recently announced swap between Scott Mills and Greg James with Mills soon to occupy the early rather than late afternoon slot shows that Radio 1’s strategy may be more of evolution rather than revolution this time round.  When  Bannister took over in the 90’s the likes of the elderly John Peel survived the clean sweep by his ability to embrace new forms of pop music, many of today’s Radio 1 DJ’s shows have a greater degree of mainstream relevance in the same way that Peel had underground relevance. However, despite his popularity Moyles time must surely be coming to an end at the helm of the station, but a huge cull seems unlikely.

Instead controller Cooper has already signalled his intention to attract new younger listeners by embracing new formats – smartphone, ipad and IPTV listening for example rather than traditional radios. Maybe as pop music reaches middle age (where very few ideas are original any more) the age of a radio show presenter is less important. Maybe it’s the medium the show is delivered on, the music, the content and the authenticity / ability of the presenter to connect with a younger demographic than a presenters actual age that will define the Radio 1 of the future?

Or despite whatever they do, Radio 1 will never be able to fully shake off their older audience – because maybe, just maybe there’s a group of ‘grey-pound’ oldies out there who find it impossible to lose interest in new music, are interested and not fearful of youth culture (something that maybe their parents were) and can also afford to embrace technology such as smartphones and ipads even easier than teenagers can.

In the 60’s, 70’s and 80's pop music was seen as an art form that alienated older generations, But the teenagers of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s have now lived through numerous changes in fashion and style of pop music and have grown used to the idea of embracing change and the new. They’ve lived through punk, new-romantic, acid house and the birth of hip-hop. The likes of both the mainstream and the underground no longer surprise them, but simply remind them of music of the past.

Radio 1 will be set goals of becoming more relevant to the youth market, but may find that mum and dad and the kids are increasingly interested in the same things. Unless the station is going to be broadcasting Teletubbies LP’s, pop music and pop music radio is increasingly becoming for any age – something which the BBC Radio Trust may have missed and not fully understood.

Here's the aforementioned Moyles plus Tim Westwood (aged over 50) who still presents to a very young audience on Radio 1 Extra. Are their days numbered ?