What tosh
Michael Vestey
Occasionally, the Radio Times reaches heights of absurdity in its gushing praise of broadcasters, but it excelled itself last week with its report on the 40 most ‘powerful’ people on the radio. In what was really a brazen puff for the BBC, a PR job, the magazine asked ‘experts’ — the people who run radio and appear on it for their ‘favourite and most influential broadcasters’. Top of the list was Jonathan Ross for his awful Saturday morning show on Radio Two; Terry Wogan was second and John Humphrys third. Fourth was someone called Christian O’Connell of the independent London rock music station Xfm and Radio Five Live.
So what on earth does the RT mean by ‘powerful’? It doesn’t know, of course, because the term is meaningless and the magazine doesn’t attempt to define it. The whole exercise was largely to promote broadcasters — all but four at the BBC and provide a front-cover story for radio, as the RT is normally obsessed with television. I always find RT covers disconcerting as its photographs of people make them look like waxwork dummies at Madame Tussaud’s. Perhaps in real life they do indeed resemble such objects, but they can’t all do so. No doubt there’s a technical explanation for this, which only a photographer could provide, as one assumes the snapper has no malice aforethought.
Ross is one of those ghastly dumbingdown freaks the entertainment industry throws up every so often; Chris Evans and Graham Norton are others. It’s a telling indication of how this government has used the Honours system for some cheap popularity that he’s been made an OBE. On his show the following Saturday, he admitted he’d once declared that he would turn down such an Honour if offered it, but his family had wanted him to accept it so he graciously agreed. This didn’t prevent him sneering at the royal family, even though the Queen wouldn’t have had anything to do with his OBE. With a bit of luck, she won’t even have heard of him. Yes, he had mixed feelings about the royals, he opined, and had thought some of them were ‘useless people’, but otherwise he felt sorry for them. His explanation for this was simple: ‘Posh people are always weird, aren’t they?’ I dare say that, despite his great wealth from the licence-fee payer, ‘posh people’ feel sorry for him. Anyway, the hypocrite will be wunning along to Buckingham Palace to accept his gong.
His show is a strange concoction. It copies the American technique of having some anodyne person in the studio with him, presumably his producer, to spark witty comments out of him. Anyway, this person is called Andy Davies, according to various websites, and clearly doesn’t do his job very well as Ross is about as amusing as a mullah in a synagogue; the jokes seemed very feeble, though in the insufferably smug RT feature his fellow Radio Two disc jockey Steve Wright was backscratchingly supportive, ‘One of the wittiest people on radio ... ’ The odd thing about this show being on Radio Two is that the network has always been very careful about its presenters’ diction. Some of the clearest-speaking people have graced it over the years. The delightful Brian Matthew precedes the Ross show. The network, though, seems to have abandoned this. Apart from his inability to pronounce his ‘r’s, he talks so quickly you can’t follow everything he says. In my case this is a blessing, but possibly not for those among the Radio Two audience who might like him. And who does Ross think his audiences are? I can’t think they stick with his show for three hours every Saturday morning as he sucks up to popstars like those from Coldplay. At least, to give him some credit, Ross did describe the RT award as ‘cobblers’ and was able to recognise that he had no power and that it was all rubbish.
If you’re talking of wit, forget Ross and think of Terry Wogan. Although his honorary knighthood is more symbolic than anything, as he’s Irish, he can at least claim to have entertained the nation for many years. His show on Radio Two is not for me, but when I have listened to it I can recognise a truly witty Irishman with flights of fancy and brilliantly funny streams of consciousness. Interestingly, his photograph made him look like the real person he is. This was because it was a little unflattering but his toupee and double chin gave him a closer resemblance to humans than many of the others. Unlike Ross, Wogan doesn’t come across as someone cloned in a modern popular-culture laboratory.
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