Richard Bacon leaves BBC Radio 5 Live

It was sad to listen to the last broadcast by Richard Bacon on BBC Radio 5 live this afternoon as he said his farewells. He was one of the those broadcasters that was happy to sure his thoughts and his lives with the audience and you felt sort of at home with him and that is a special talent that not all broadcaster have. For those skills he had the perfect slot in the afternoon where he could show case his many talents.

Richard Bacon joined BBC Radio 5 Live to present the late night show "Up All night" on Saturdays and Sundays on BBC Radio 5 live, but it wasn't a long stay at the station before he decided to try his hand as DJ with a commercial station. In 2007 he returned to the station to the late night programming on the station that eventually earned him a day time slot after he stood in  for Simon Mayo. In fact it was Simon Mayo slot he took over from Monday to Thursday in 2010. It was a slot he was to make his own and his loyal supporters followed in in droves on Twitter and his twitter account has 1.5 million followers which makes him one of the most widely followed British personalities.

I will miss his show on the radio, as I know many other swill. His style and his whit all brought something special to the afternoon, when I had time to listen to him chatting with his guests. I know he will go on to greater things but radio seemed to me the place where he felt most comfortable and I wish him well. I just hope one day in returns to his roots and he comes back to the little speakers in the car and the living room to brighten our days. Good Luck Richard.

Finally I finish the post with Richard Bacons last words on the show, "I remember appearing as a guest on Simon Mayo’s show and sitting in the studio thinking I’d love to do this for a living. It was then my highest aspiration and it’s been everything that I hoped it would be and really a lot more. So I’m going to live a fairly complicated life living between LA, London and New York but I will always be a listener to Radio 5 live. To that troll I made a documentary about who was very upset when I replaced Simon Mayo – it is now safe to turn the radio back on.” 

Time for BBC Radio 3 FM Broadcasts to end?

According to figures published in Wikipedia the BBC spends around £405 million on national broadcasting excluding transmission costs. This amount of money provides for the programming of all the major stations excluding the BBC World Service which gets it funding from a number of sources. Any one knows me knows I have a love of figures so I started to work out which services provided the best value for money and I started with working out which were the cheapest BBC station to provide per listener hour.

If you take a close look at the graph above, you can do this by double clicking on the picture, you can see how much the BBC spends per radio station per listener hour. The most expensive is BBC Radio 3 at £5.12 per hour and the most economical is BBC Radio 2 at £0.34 per listener hour. If you do the mathematics this make BBC Radio 3 over 14 times more expensive than BBC Radio 2 to provide an hours entertainment. 

This comes about because the BBC Radio 3 has a relativity high budget, as shown in the graph above, and relativity poor share of audience figures, as shown in the graph below. In fact it is the forth highest funded BBC radio station and surprisingly has slightly more allocated to it than BBC Radio 1 which has a much bigger proportion of the BBC audience share.

Clearly in terms of audience share the station is down with the only digitally broadcast stations, with an audience share of about 2.3% which is less than BBC 6 Music, which has 3.6% share of the audience. This is amazingly poor audience share given the resources that are pumped into the station, and one could argue is poor value for money, however the BBC is culturally committed to providing a classic music radio station.

Given the figures it dose raises the question if broadcasting BBC Radio 3 using the BBC's FM transmitters is a good use of the analogue of spectrum the broadcaster has available to them. Especially when it could be allocated to BBC Radio 5 live which has three and half times the audience share. This could allow the reuse of the 693Khz and 909Khz on the medium wave band for a commercial broadcaster who is interested in providing an national talk radio network. 

Personally I think it is a waste of the FM frequencies that BBC has at its disposal. Clearly BBC Radio 3 is a minority channel and has limited appeal, and budget aside, it is not common sense to waste resources that could be put to better use. Of course the BBC Radio 3 listeners would argue that the sound quality is poorer on a digital transmitter than an analogue one and of course they are right, you can never digitally reproduce a perfect copy of any analogue signal unless you have unlimited digital bandwidth. However, the current FM signal, although far better than any AM signal, still suffers from interference that can degrade the quality of the audio you receive, something that doesn't happen with a digital signal.

Already BBC Radio 3 has allocated to it a higher digital bandwidth than any of the other stations broadcast on DAB radio by the BBC, 192kbps compared to 128kbps for the other music stations. This is done to ensure the station has best sounding audio reproduction given the limited available bandwidth. This I wouldn't propose to change, but surely it is time the FM broadcasts came to an end. At some point we are going to move to digital only radio, like it or not, so why shouldn't BBC Radio 3 be the first major station to make the move?

Finally looking at the figures it raises a number of other issues that need addressing by the BBC and it is about time we had a debate about how we want the money we put into radio broadcasting spent, especially in a time when the BBC are having to make cuts due to a freezing of the license fee.

Bill Kerr dies at 92

South African born Australian Bill Kerr died yesterday watching his favourite show on television, the American show Seinfeld, at his home in Australia . He was the last of the major cast members of the 1950's radios "Handcock's Half Hour" to leave this earth, and once a familiar voice to millions and still can be heard on BBC Radio 4 Extra, even today.  

He was born on 10th June 1922 into the lime light, and his first appearance was on the stage in his mothers arms. He use to famously say "I was such a hit, I retired in 1922 and made a comeback at seven". He grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia and by the age of 10 he began to work in radio for ABC in 1932 and preformed child parts for about 8 years, making his first of many feature film appearances in 1934 as a blind child. Eventually the Second World War came and interrupted the his career.

After the war he moved to Britain and worked in variety shows and went to appear on BBC radio series Variety Bandbox. He was billed as s "the boy from Wagga-Wagga.", a place many of the British audience thought of as a comically surreal, end of the earth, magical place somewhere left of Narnia. During the time on the on the show he used the catch phase "I'm only here for four minutes." which became the trademark of his act.

In the fifties Bill Kerr became the Australian lodger in the hit radio show "Handcock's Half Hour"a show that is till being repeated today on BBC radio 4 Extra. Originally his character was brighter than Tony Handcok's, the shows star, but as the programme was developed he became dim-witted character who became the butt of Hancock's jokes. In all he made 102 episodes of the of the radio show, but never appear in the television version of the show because the writers, Galton and Simpson realised they would need a smaller cast for the television version of the show.

He wasn't just know to radio audiences during this time, he was also well known for his theatrical success appearing on the West End stage in both plays and musicals. In addition to this he worked on many films such as "The Dam Busters" in 1955 and "The Wrong Arm of the Law" in 1963. This and other work kept him in Britain until 1979 when he returned to his native Australia to settle in Perth where he concentrated on character roles and appeared in many films, plays and on television until he retired in 2006.

For me I will remember him in "Handcock's Half Hour" as a voice that became familiar to me as my love of radio grew as child, a format I still prefer to that of television. So influential where the shows that he made with Tony Handcock and Sid James that they were included in the underground radio stations of the BBC's Wartime Broadcasting Service (WTBS). A radio service designed to provide information and morale-boosting broadcasts for 100 days after a nuclear attack. 

I wish family, friends and his many fans all over the world many laughs in the future after the sadness of his pasting is no more. He left us countless hours of his work to enjoy for many years to come and for new generations to enjoy. 

World Broadcasting

Not too many years ago nearly every developed country around the world were active in broadcasting their message and culture around the world. This not only allowed them to keep people from their country informed while they were overseas but it also gave those countries a way of promoting their country and its way of life to the world. And although it was sometimes used by some countries as propaganda over the years it did allow the listeners to gain insight into those countries.   

 

Another thing that broadcasting allowed to the free counties of this world was to spread the news in an impartial way as they could, something your own BBC was famous for around the world. People in counties where the press was censored would tune into the BBC to listen to the news about their part of the world. It gave them another view of stories that were twisted or left untold and gave them the reason to make up their own mines. Work that the BBC is finding harder and harder to do today with cut after cut to its world broadcasting budget.

The BBC is not the only broadcaster that has suffered from cut and changed the way they deliver their message to the world. Unlike times past the short wave bands these broadcasters use to occupy have largely fallen silent. Even the greats of the past have gone and stations like Radio Moscow are no more, just broadcasting in digital using a system that hardly anyone can listen to without special radios that aren't widely available. Of course other great nations have stop broadcasting too and transmitters around Europe in particular have been mothballed and in many cases scrapped altogether.

In many cases the stations still exist and the majority of counties still have world broadcasting programmes, but these are now transmitted over the internet or by satellite, or just left to websites to relay the message in text. That sounds fine until you think in times and areas of conflict that the internet might not available to the many and that they might not be the power to use satellite equipment. For people in situations like that only the old short wave broadcasting methods might be the best way of get news to the people that is unbiased and reliable. Also in this time of strain with Russia it import the news they get is fair, because that doesn't seem to be happening at home.

Culturally it is a bad thing too as it makes other cultures less fearful of your own while giving you insight into the cultures of others. You just have to look situation the world faces today with extremists able to preach and radicalise young people with lies because the truth isn't out there for everyone to hear. And other cultural elements are important too such as music, arts, literature, history and the heritage of nations too. It gives you an insight in to a nation and its people and you hear it first hand.    

We will never go back to the old days of crowded short wave bands of the past in Europe, but in another parts of the world it is still going strong, but with maybe less hours of broadcasting by any one broadcaster than ever before. In the end time will see these off and old radio bands of the past will fall silent and those old short wave radios will become a curiosity of the past.

BBC Radio Northen Bloke

BBC Radio 5 live once had the nickname "BBC Radio Bloke" because it concentrated on News and Sport and the nature of it presenters mainly being from the male members of society. This was addressed by the BBC by the introduction of more female presenters, but it seems we are going to see a return to the past and it once again "BBC Radio Bloke" but with a slight change in name to "Radio Northern Bloke" if the management get their way.

The BBC have announced that both Victoria Derbyshire and Shelagh Fogarty the result of which will mean the station it will have only one weekly programme fronted solely by a woman, on Friday afternoon single one hour show presented by Eleanor Oldroyd. The changes will be taking part later this year but a date hasn't been given yet, but such a move will upset the female listeners of the show and is likely to cause a bit of a stir in the national press. The also seems be talk that the 5 live management are trying ensure that all new talent joining the station must live in the north-west of England, something that not all members of the broadcasting team do since the station moved from London three years ago.

Victoria Derbyshire leaving as she put it herself has had “brilliant opportunity too good to turn down.” and insisted she had left 5 Live of her own accord. At first it was thought that she could be replacing Jeremy Paxman on BBC2 late evening news programme Newsnight which has been looking for new faces for the show to bring new life into the old BBC workhorse. Later this was denied by the BBC and since then she has been linked with a  to ITV, She described her departure as “huge wrench to leave 5 Live where listeners and I have shared so many experiences, and I would like to thank them enormously for trusting me”. Not if sure the mornings will be the same without her on the show.

Shelagh Fogarty is leaving her afternoon show at the end of the year. She said that “At 5 Live I’ve had some of the happiest times and richest experiences of my working life, covering the fundamentals of life in Britain and presenting programmes from amazing places around the world. I’m very sad to be leaving but it’s definitely time to do so.”. Before going to say that she is going to spend the summer "exploring a number of opportunities, before deciding what’s next’. The radio rumour mill suggests one of the reasons for Shelagh leaving the show is the commute due to the move to Salford three years ago, and that might more to do with the move than being pushed of the station.

Also leaving the show is the popular figure of Richard Bacon whose style of broadcasting the station is sure to miss. He has been a corner stone of the afternoon schedule for quite a while and before he started appearing on the television. He said the following when the news was announced “5 Live has been a spectacular place to work, I’ve got nothing but good things to say about it. It’s been a hugely important part of my career and life, and I’ll always be grateful, and a listener, to 5 Live. After seven years, it’s time to have different adventures, many of which will still be at the BBC.”. According to reports we will thankfully be seeing more of him the television as a result of the change.

It is expected 5 Live will unveil a new daytime schedule with two three-hour shows, running between 10am and 1pm, and 1pm and 4pm. Tony Livesey has been tipped for a prominent new role on the station, as has Dan Walker, presenter of BBC1’s Football Focus, a familiar voice as the presenter of 5 Live Sport. Finally Adrian Chiles is to have an expanded BBC Radio 5 Live presenting role as part of the talk station’s biggest schedule shakeup for years.

I know I will miss all three presenters after the leave the station that I have listened to on and off years when driving or just doing stuff around the house. Personally I think the move from London was a bad one, but this is even worse. We need more women on stations like Radio 5 live not less and replacing them with men is just a bad move all-round and one that it appears the BBC trust agrees with.

Moyles Leave Breakfast Show

Like many I was at a bit of a loss for words initially when I heard that the iconic Chris Moyles Show was to end on BBC Radio 1 today. With audiences of seven to eight million people it has touched the lives of many over the years and woken them up with a smile, and it has been described as the programme that has saved BBC Radio 1.

It his own typical style he shocked his audience by making the announcement live on air and for a while twitter went crazy with tweets about the show. Many people were saying how much they have enjoyed the show, how it was part of their lives and how much they were going to miss it. Others commented on his replacement and how dull the morning are about to become.

The thing that got me was the reason for the change in the breakfast show at the station. It seemed clear, although Chris Moyles wasn't pushed, he was at least nudged a bit along the way, but the boss of the station is keeping quiet on the one. There is a drive at the station to attract a younger audience for the station in the age ranges 15 to 29. This is an audience area that the BBC Trust feel the station is missing out on, although the truth is they probably have little interest in radio and would rather listen to their ipods.

Personally I find this approach to programming is ageist and that something to be condemned, especially given the shows breakfast slot. Radio 1 claims to be the station of new music, this would suggest that the BBC Trust think that only people in certain age ranges appreciate new music, which clearly isn't the case, you can appreciate new music at any age. What they should be concentrating on over the network is the types of music played on the different stations and let the audience find their own home within the network. 

Personally I think the BBC are making a mistake in getting rid of Chris Moyles from the breakfast slot while the show has such a massive audience in radio terms. I just can't see a replacement show getting the same number of listeners in the short or medium term, if at all. This is just an out date ageist approach to programming and that had it day back in the later half of the last century.

Saint Patricks Day Music

This is the last of the posts on the week long celebrations of BBC Radio 6 Muisc's tenth birthday and it falls on Saint Patrick Day so it is only fitting I feature a Irish Band I have taken liking too. The band in question has been around for years and they are called "The Waterboy's" and the song in the video is called "Stolen Child".

BBC Radio 6 Music are rounding off the celebrations tonight with a special show called 6 Music At The Southbank, which will be broadcast at ten this evening. Gideon Coe will be playing a selection of live sessions recorded last night at London's Southbank Centre. These will include sessions by artists like Laura Marling who was featured on Wednesday's post, Public Image Ltd, Anna Calvi and many more artists who appear on the station. If you are out tonight, then don't worry, you can listen to the show on BBC iPlayer later in the in the early hours of Sunday morning, or watch the sessions on digital television by pressing the red button from Monday.

I have had a great time listening to the radio over the last week or so. It is something that I have missed and having music in my life is more important than I have realised. I will be dusting off the old iPod over the coming weeks and loading it up with music to enjoy and thanking my lucky stars that I have rediscovered BBC Radio 6 Music and some great shows again.

Finally whatever you are doing tonight I hope you all have a great Saint Patricks Day, a day that over recent years which has been embraced by the whole of the country to celebrate all that is good about Ireland. One thing is for sure they have produced some wonderful music over the years.

Fridays Musical Friends

Carrying on the theme from Wednesday of groups and bands that I have been introduced to through BBC Radio 6 Music, we have the now critically acclaimed band Elbow. It is a band I came across back in the mid to late summer of 2009 when I use to fill my evenings with music.

It is a band with strong connections to the station. Not only do they play their music but the lead singer Guy Garvey has his own show on Sunday Evenings.The track I have picked for the video clip is from a live performance they did for the BBC that was filmed in Manchester Cathedral singing the song "Starlings". In fact if you would like to see the whole of this concert you can follow this link - Elbow at Manchester Cathedral. What is interesting the show was originally recorded for BBC Radio 2 and features one of the few times I know of the station has broadcast a questionable word, but then I don't listen to BBC Radio 2, so I could be wrong. To be honest I'm not sure if they fit the BBC Radio 2 mould, but they probably wouldn't have got the exposure playing the BBC Radio 6 Music card where they fit so well.

If you have never heard of the band you are sure to have heard their music on various television programmes as background music. Have a listen, they are really good and deserve the success they are currently having. They might not be chart toppers, but they are special, and they will grow on you as they did on me back in 2009 when I heard "Station Approach" for the first time.

Thursdays Music

Once again I have been listening to BBC Radio 6 Music during my free time. I really warming to Gideon Coe's show late in the evening on the station. What is even better is I am discovering new artists that I like and want to hear more of in the future. Some hardly known others from the past and well know in the music world but who have been forgotten and who are still recording.

Tonight their was a group on the show called "Soap and Skin" performing a song called "Wonder". The group is lead by the Austrian artist Anja Plaschg who describes her work as an experimental musical project. All the songs are her own arrangements and feature, in the words of a NME review, icily rolling piano, violin and sudden, jarring fizzes of electronics which tell tales of crushed love and innocence. What she creates is a haunting melodies which she combines with thoughtful lyrics to which she adds the beauty of her voice.

She recorded her first album at the age of eighteen, achieving top ten sucess in her native land and making the charts in Germany, Belgium and France. Many critics have already tipped her to be the next big success to come out of Australia, and I can understand why. I know I want to hear more of her music. So once again thanks to this wonderful station I have someone new to listen too.

Different Music for Wednesday

Listening to BBC Radio 6 Music reminded me of some of the great music I have discovered through the station in the past. It got me going through my iTunes library and dipping in music I have heard for years. 

There is some music you come across that just grads you and takes you off to some dreamland with the way the words and the words combine to make you mind drift into some other place. One such group hat comes to mind is Hope Sandoval and the warm Inventions whose sound owes a lot to the amazing voice of Mazzy Star. The track I have featured is another great track played on 6 Music, that made me take note of the group, "Blanchard".

I have always had this love of music that takes you places and has a fresh distinctive sound and this group certainly ticks all those boxes. It might not be everyone cup of tea but I like it and it makes such a change from the more popular music played on mainstream radio stations. If you fancy something different they are worth listening too.

Tuesdays Music Surprise

On of the things that makes BBC Radio 6 Music different it doesn't have the same reparative mix of songs playing over and over again like the more normal popular music stations, but surprisingly they do have a playlist of core tracks which appear on the different shows. For example Laura Marling, who is featured in the video singing a different song, is featured in next weeks playlist with the song "All my Rage".

To me this came a bit of a shock, as I had never really noticed the existence of the playlist in their programming. It never seems to repeat that often you actually notice that any kind of playlist exists at all. This weeks list feature artists like the Arctic Monkeys, Laura Marling,Ladyhawke, The Shins, Paul Weller, Florence and The Machine, The Crookes and many more.

Personally the fact the station manages to have a playlist without actually over playing the songs is a big plus. The problem with lots of radio stations is that when you have listened to the station for a few hours the music just repeats over and over again and this seems to go on for weeks on end. The commercial radio stations like Capital Radio being one of the worse offenders. BBC Radio 6 Music avoids this and it always manages to sound different and fresh.

Music for Monday

I was listening to BBC Radio 6 Music and I was pleased to find that the station hadn't completely sold out to the BBC Radio 2 brigade which was the way it seemed to be going last time I listened. The show that really made me sit up and listen was the presented by Gideon Coe. It started at nine and the evening and finished at midnight, and it is well worth listening too.

A band that took my fancy was "Sergeant Buzfuz" and the historically correct three part song called "Here Come The Popes". I just loved the idea of putting history to music artistically, after all it is method of telling stories that probably dates back from mans first attempts to sing and create music.

The band themselves are from, according to their Facebook page, from London and they have been recording together since 2000 when they released their first seven inch single called "Plugged in". Since then they have recorded four full albums, a number of singles and various collections of tracks. If you want to see them live they can regularly found doing gigs in the London area and occasionally nationally.

Listening to there music it is a surprise that they haven't made more of an impression in the music world. Their sound is sound is distinctive and very pleasing to the ear, and their song writing is interesting. Hopefully with more exposure on the Radio we will be hearing more of them in the future. As for the show I listened to, I will certainly be listening to it again.

Happy Birthday BBC 6 Music

Having stopped listening to BBC Radio 6 Music daily when it appeared it was slowly being over taken over by BBC Radio 2, I almost missed the fact that today the station is 10 years old. It was only by chance I was in the kitchen and turned on the radio to hear the start of a weeks long celebration.

Two or three years ago I use to listen to the station almost non stop during the evenings. as well as when I could during the day. The music it features and introduced me to was simply amazing. Like many other listeners I joined the campaign to keep the station n the air when it was announced that the station might close. The station seemed to important to close and it was playing great muisc the main stream stations wouldn't touch, including music from many of independent lables. With the station playing music and live sessions from the last ten years I think I will be listening for the coming week, when I can. Hopefully listening again will bring music with a difference back into the house. Something that has been missing recently. As part of the celebrations for the next week I will write posts on some of the artists I have heard and like on the station past and present.

Blast from the Past

In recent weeks on long journeys Emily and Catherine have started listening to the a series of radio broadcasts from the the hay day of radio. They are adaptations of the Paul Temple stories by Francis Durbridge broadcast between 1938 and 1968. With the coming of digital  radio the shows were rebroadcast on BBC 7, which later was renamed Radio 4 Extra. Over recent years these stories have become popular once again to the point that some of the original lost recordings were remade using the vintage equipment.

Over recent weeks Emily and Catherine have become addicted to the stories of Paul Temple, a mystery writer turned private eye, and his wife Steve as they solve a number of high profile criminal cases for Clients and Scotland Yard. Paul Temple is that typical English gentleman of his age and the closest he gets to swearing is when he say's "by Timothy", even when being shot at, drown or forced off the road by another car. Each programme comes with a cliffhanging ending that just makes you want to hear more until you get to the end of a series. They are classics of Radio of the time and you can see why he became one of the most popular private detectives of all time. The girls love him and especially his wife, Steve, and I'm just happy they have discovered the world of Radio Drama.

Audio Treasure

Sometimes you come across some treasure you have forgotten about. In this case I was seeking for something to listen to as a change from music. I wanted something to occupy my mind that would keep it busy and take it off into a another world, rather than being stuck in this one with all it's issues and problems. Something we do when we read a book or watch television. A escape from all that troubles us. The solution was simple, the radio version of Lord of the Rings recorded by the BBC which I hadn't listened to for years.

With the coming of the film, like many I guess, your version of the story becomes that of the film. The visual imaginary just makes it more memorable than a book or a radio versions of the story.  The effect of this is quiet interesting since the film is adaptation of the story and not the story itself. It follows the main storyline well but does change elements of it completely. For example Saruman the White in the film is no more than a puppet of the Dark Lord while in the main story he is also in competition with him wanting the ring to have complete power to himself. Although the radio version again omits elements of the story but it does this with changing the main story line at all.  The result is that the radio version is closer to the original work than that of the film.

Nearly every one has praised the film version of the story and rightly so, but the radio version has been forgotten in the wake of it's popularity. Listening to it again after seeing the film version you fell the richness of the radio version of the story fills in some of the blanks and adds twists to the tale that have been left out from the film. As an example of this the first three hours of the radio version is compressed into one and half hours of the film and there are loads of the story in the film missing, some of which is taken up by visuals shots alone, something that is clearly missing from the radio version. It goes without saying that the only way to understand the full story is to read the book, but the radio version preserves more of the story than the film and is a more true representation of the story.

It not just the fact that their is more to the story that make the radio version a little treasure, it is the way that story is told too. Like the film the cast was carefully picked and the acting is second to none. I have always thought the whole cast of the film deserved an award for their work. Their team work was amazing and it was never recognised, something that can be said of the Harry Porter films too. The film industry might make stars of people, but stars don't make films, it is the whole cast in acting terms that tell the story that makes a great film. The same is true of the radio version. Their love of the story and they way they work together shines through the words that sinks you into the world of Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves and Men as the fight the great evil from the West. Where the pictures are missing from the film the way the story is told makes your own pictures in your mind to fill the void.

If you are a fan of Lord of the Rings, then like Bilbo in the story of the Hobbit, you should really seek out this treasure and listen to it. It won't leave you with a nasty surprise like Bilbo was left with the ring but it will give you a better understanding of the story if you haven't read the book. If you love the film know it compliments it. It is wonderful price of work.

Bob Marley

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the death of iconic reggae star and trailblazer Bob Marley who died prematurely on the 11th May 1981 at the age of 36. He is renowned for the spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience, making him an iconic figure in the music business.

In tribute to his life BBC Radio 2 have a special programme on called "Knowing Bob Marley" as part of their Bob Marley session. In the programme five of his closest friends and colleagues share personal experiences of the man they knew, while revealing the singers roots which later shaped his music and view of life. 

Although I'm not a Radio 2 listener, the status of the singer/songwriter makes this is a must listen too. If you like me are serious about music it is on BBC Radio 2 at ten o'clock and if you missed it you can listen to it again on BBC iplayer shortly after the show is broadcast. 

Radio 4 Extra

This week saw the launch of Radio 4 Extra and like most so called new stations on digital radio. It was heralded trailers promising a whole new world of listening, however any regular listener to digital radio will tell you it is all just a smoke screen. There is little new about Radio 4 Extra other than it's name. It just a rebranding of the once popular, now non existent, BBC Radio 7, with some of the programmes taken out and a sprinkling of the Archers and Desert Island disks add in. 

According to the BBC this is a drive to attract more listeners to digital radio and the leverage to do this is the Archers. This has already has caused uproar with listeners who are missing out because they listen on analogue. They feel they are missing out on something and for some of these fans of the show this is true as they simply don't have the digital coverage in there area they live.

In addition to this, many parents are up in arms at the loss of  the original stations  children's radio shows and with good reason. BBC Radio 7 was the only national radio staion, if not the only radio station in the UK, to actually broadcast younger children's programmes. Already there has been loads negative feed back about this change with comments. Surely this move is short sighted. Don't we need to encourage the young children at an early age to get into the radio listening habit, not turn them exclusively to the television? One day these people will be the adults and they won't ever have thought of turning on a radio. 

The press reaction has been mixed with some of the older reporters loving the fact that young childrens spot has been axed while others are more critical of the changes and that it is all as superficial. 

I will morn the loss of BBC Radio 7. It had it''s style and it own identity that made it different from Radio 4. It was special it wasn't Radio 4 at all but a station in it's own right. I believe that by seepage the rebranded staion will just become an station that offers Radio 4 repeats as funding cuts take force at the BBC. 

The BBC have finished yet, next on the hit list is 6 Music, another station with its own style that is going to be eaten up by Radio 2 to become a spin off station. The question will be will there be so many people listen to it when they changed its name. I'm not sure that many 6 music listeners see themselves as Radio 2 listeners at all, and they could be turned off by the whole idea. There has been a campaign to save the station since this rebranding exercise was first dreamed up and announced. I know personally that 6 Music has been slowly changing into Radio 2 and it has already lost me as a listener. I use to listened to it non stop at one point and now I would rather listen to Radio 1.

Radio

Over the years, from the time I spent without a television, I have really fell in love with radio again as an entertainment form. Why I say "again" was as a child I listened to a lot of radio, In the past I use to listen to BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio5. Since then with the advent of DAB with have more stations to listen too from the BBC I have loved the music BBC 6 Music and the comedy and drama on BBC Radio 7. If you don't have a DAB radio then get one and listen to what you have been missing out on, it not just the BBC that use it there are loads of other stations to listen to.

I know my love of radio started when I was very young when I use to listen drama and comedy on BBC Radio 4 and later late night listening to LBC secretly while I was in bed and meant to be sleeping. Even my love of cricket comes from the radio through years of listening to Test Match Special as I did my paper round as a child. The introduction of BBC Radio 5 was ideal for me with it's mix of news and magazine format shows and that is one station I still listen to for my news and comment, before that it was the today programme on BBC Radio 4. When I discovered DAB radio and BBC 7 I started reliving my past with their great radio shows from the past that are still relevant today as they were when were first broadcast. Great comedy in my opinion is timeless. 

Like many radio was a great introduction to music while growing up. In the morning my mum would listen to Radio 1 while I had my breakfast and I got older I moved onto classic pop stations about like Radio Luxembourg, Radio Caroline, which was a pirate station that broadcast from a ship in the north sea, and the new commercial radio stations that had just started to appear as my musical tastes formed. Without radio back then there was no real means of listening to music without physically going down to the record shop and buying it. I remained a loyal commercial radio station listener for years to come before finally listing to Virgin Radio which I once managed to get a request played on much to my amazement. Then there was few lean years until I discovered BBC 6 Music which became my stable radio station of choice and where I discovered lots of new music. So for me it was bad news when the BBC announced it would be winding up the station sometime in the future and just make sure it lost listeners it started making it sound like BBC Radio 2. So at the moment I am Musically devoid of a station to listen to and now go looking for new bands and music on the internet.

So what of the future of radio, well that is going to be interesting in todays world of the internet and downloads. What I see is a bright future for talk radio while I see the popular music stations suffering. There are whole generations growing up now where their source of music is the internet and they have never heard radio in the same way as the generations before them have. This new generation is accustomed to picking and mixing there own music and playing it when and where they want to. It is this choice that will see the numbers of young people listening to music on the radio decrease year in and year out. Music stations won't die altogether but a lot of the smaller commercial stations and medium ones won't be able to generate the incomes to carry on broadcasting and with the pressure on the BBC to save money even some of their music services will go. I hope I'm wrong because radio is an ideal platform for music broadcasting.