Pop music
Breakfast shambles
Marcus Berkmann
'Exalting trivia to the level of profun- dity' isn't the sole preserve of pop critics (thanks, Michael). When it comes to the employment prospects of Mr Chris Evans, everyone does it. It's hard to identify pre- cisely when the post of Radio One break- fast DJ became the subject of such intense media scrutiny, and even harder to identify Why. When Dave Lee Travis handed over to Mike Read in the late Seventies, news- papers were almost stately in their indiffer- ence. Television news bulletins failed to cover the story in the same gasp as presi- dential inaugurations. And poor old DLT, the Hairy Cornflake, with his Pipe Smoker of the Year awards and increasingly angry proclamations about the Young People of Today, managed to wander around London unmobbed by waiting reporters and camera crews. In short, no one gave a monkey's. Leap forward 15 years and the picture changes dramatically. When the Prime Minister went to see the Queen last week for their usual chat, it's hard to imagine them talking about anything other than the departure of Chris Evans and his replace- ment by Manchester City-supporting Mark Radcliffe. (As few in the wider world know anything about the new incumbent, he is currently being described everywhere as Manchester City-supporting Mark Rad- cliffe' until further information comes to light.) The end of the Evans era, in a brief but spectacular flurry of public tantrums, was conscientiously related at great length in every newspaper, and the word 'ginger' has once again become a popular term of abuse. The blame fall-out has spread to encompass Matthew Bannister, the Radio One Controller universally damned by his close association with John Birt, and all other radio stations in the country have already offered Evans unbelievable sums of money to come and work for them. It's a complete shambles, which everyone has obviously enjoyed thoroughly.
I met Bannister some months ago at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch to which he had come to speak. He was both affable and rather impressive — clearly intelligent, and not the hopeless philistine so many papers have lovingly portrayed him as. He was also clever enough, I thought, to pro- vide the assembled hacks with absolutely no copy at all. But in one corner the tabloid boys lurked, pink-skinned and faint- ly malodorous, keen to make trouble. Evans, at this time, had already emerged as Radio One's bad boy and incurred the dis- pleasure of the Radio Authority. So what if he does it again? asked the hack. Well, I've spoken to him and he knows the bound- aries, said Bannister evenly. But what if he crosses those boundaries? asked the hack. There's no problem, said Bannister, I've known Chris for years and we have a good working relationship. (Bannister gave Evans his first break on the London station GLR.) But supposing he went really over the top, said the hack. No one's bigger than Radio One, are they? Well, no, of course not, said Bannister with a smile. Aargh! I thought.
Sure enough, the following day's Daily Mail carried a wonderful 'Bannister Blasts Evans' splash that didn't remotely resemble the discussion I and others had witnessed. Over the two years of the tabloids' Get Evans campaign, the sheer volume of sto- ries like this undermined the relationship between the two, which led inexorably to the events of the past fortnight. The irony of it all is that Evans's original success was as much a press creation as his eventual downfall. Evans, as the legend has it, single-handedly revitalised an ailing sta- tion. And it's true that Radio One is stronger, more confident and a good deal more entertaining than it has been in years. But it's not entirely down to Evans. In his tenure as breakfast host, he raised ratings from 6.19 million to 7.03 million — impres- sive but hardly revolutionary. Others have contributed just as much away from the absurd glare of Evans-generated publicity. Mark Radcliffe is far more typical of the new Radio One — he's unpretentious, very droll and, unlike Evans, positively steeped in the music. If the papers ever find out more about him than which football team he supports, he should have an interesting time.
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