Some of your oldest friends, whose conversations and gentle jokes have made your everyday life easier for years, are banished from your life.
You have no say in this. Neither do they.
Because these old friends are popular radio presenters… and the controllers are senior BBC executives.
Some of the Beeb's most popular voices have been adopted by Radio 2, including Simon Mayo and the great Ken Bruce. Listeners are expected to tune in to their successors like Vernon Kaye and Sara Cox without noticing the difference.
The injustice of this was highlighted yesterday by the sudden death of Steve Wright at the age of 69. Wright's lighthearted banter, corny jokes and passion for minutiae have been part of the British soundscape for more than 40 years. His afternoon show was first heard on Radio 1 in 1981.
Steve Wright's lighthearted banter, corny jokes and passion for trivia have been part of the British soundscape for more than 40 years
His death is a loss for millions like me who considered him a friend for most of our lives. We may never have met him – Wright was a private man with no penchant for public appearances – but his chatter was wonderful company.
It's painful to realize that more than six and a half million people who tuned in every day to listen were cheated out of the last 18 months of his life.
Wright was ousted from his show in September 2022, and although he was allowed a Sunday morning shift and a podcast as a consolation, he never broadcast in the afternoons again.
Paul O'Grady suffered similar abuse – he was axed from Radio 2 in August 2022 after refusing to share his slot with comedian Rob Beckett.
Never one for diplomatic silence, O'Grady said: “I was disappointed because I'm a big believer in continuity.” Radio 2 has changed, it's not what it was. “They're trying to appeal to a much younger audience, which doesn't make sense because there's Radio 1. Radio 2 has always been for an older audience.”
He also died not long after being dropped. How much happier everyone would have been if he could have continued his popular On The Wireless show to the end – everyone except a few overpaid suits on the top floor of Broadcasting House who imagine that listeners either don't care or I can't tell the difference between O'Grady and Beckett.
This is a measure of managerial snobbery. Many of them don't listen to the programs because they see Radio 2 as ear filler for the outdated.
Mayo and Bruce have found a way to fight back at the BBC's expense. They moved into the commercial sector and joined Greatest Hits Radio [GHR]. Simon Mayo attracts a whopping 2.5 million listeners, but Bruce's morning show is the big winner with 3.7 million, many of them loyal fans of Radio 2, where Vernon Kay's morning show enjoyed ratings.
Ken Bruce found a way to fight back at the BBC's expense by moving into the commercial sector and joining Greatest Hits Radio
Some of the Beeb's most popular voices have been released by Radio 2, including Simon Mayo (see above).
When Bruce was in charge there, 8.2 million people tuned in. That number has fallen to 6.9 million. Overall, Radio 2's audience has fallen by a million in just one year.
BBC Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore claimed she was “delighted with the great start Vernon Kay has made to the morning”. It's fair to say that if she were a passenger on an airplane losing altitude as quickly as Kay's radio show, she wouldn't call it “flying.” This is more like free fall.
Other presenters on the failing station include Scott Mills, who replaced Wrightie, as well as Rylan Clark, Michelle Visage and DJ Spoony. You're not just dealing with GHR. 14 percent of listeners at home use Amazon's Alexa radio player, which uses algorithms to find music that users might like. At the other end of the technical scale are veteran David Hamilton and his contemporaries at Boom Radio, including Roger Day, Simon Bates and Nicky Horne – all familiar voices whose presence can be a comfort.
The importance of a voice we know was underlined last week when sister station Boom Rock launched, with the gravelly tones of Tommy Vance adding gravitas to its jingles.
My generation grew up listening to Tommy's Friday Night Rock Show on a transistor radio under the covers. His annual countdown of the ten greatest heavy anthems was a national event, even though we all knew that Derek and the Dominos' Layla, Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird and Led Zep's Stairway to Heaven were guaranteed to be in the top three.
The fact is that Tommy died in 2005 at the age of 64. His voice was recreated by artificial intelligence and is indistinguishable from the real voice. “Rock,” he growls from beyond the grave. “That’s why we’re here.”
The BBC must value its old employees and not throw them out the door. Because if they continue to lose listeners, it will take more than AI to revive Radio 2.