Radio
Battle of the brats
Michael Vestey
Have you heard Brat Radio UK recently? It's devoted to the gormless Young and they to it. Interestingly, the not- so-gormless young listen to it; they think its clever. Some intelligent middle-aged men rave about it, too, one in particular. He's called Matthew Bannister and he has a big job, Head of Brat Radio UK (HBR). If you twiddle long enough you can find this network on a number of frequencies which masquerade under the bogus names of Radio One, Virgin Radio and Talk Radio, not to mention local radio. But don't be fooled, they're really Brat Radio UK. If you can't find them, don't worry, You can read about them in the quality Press which is keen to attract brats to its readership, long before they're ready for it. It was the 40th anniversary of the Today programme on Radio Four that led me to Brat Radio UK. I don't want to sound like a vicar on Thought for the Day — 'When I fell out of the bath this morning I was saved by the towel rail. God is like that ...'
i — but Brat Radio does have one thing in common with Today, in that it comes on at breakfast-time. Not always; sometimes it extends into the evening, as with the appearance last week on that fraudulent Radio One of a Mr Liam Gallagher who is a member of a pop group called Yobs, or it might be Oasis (you see, your radio critic really is quite groovy). Mr Gallagher was invited on for his swearing. This is something he is renowned for. Sometimes he and his group perform curses in front of vast numbers of brat-wor- shippers. His obscenities have gone to the top of the charts. He did well that evening, saying how he'd like to 'beat the f— living daylight s— out of them' (his critics, the country gentlemen of the Rolling Stones and Beatles). This was vintage Gallagher. Flew HBR beamed. Not only was this Rei- lb Ian public service broadcasting at its finest but the column inches would bring m More brats.
The need to extend the brat-reach was Imperative as HBR had just lost his most famous luminary in the entire British brat elite, Chris Evans. He had, so the quality tress informed me, decamped to the reakfast slot of the bogus Virgin Radio network. HBR was desperate. Not only, he wrote pathetically in the Guardian, would 'fans not return his calls but he was not snort of suitable brats to boost the flagging audience. He found a couple called Zoe Ball and Kevin Greening. They could play pop music, interview pop stars and do just what Evans and his chums had done, chat moronically between themselves, and everything would be all right.
The problem is, Ball and Greening have even less to say than Evans and Holly and worse, they're less brat-like. You won't find them talking about masturbation as Evans was one morning last week. It seems that Brat Radio, alias Virgin, will win this battle of the brats. And who do they have to thank for this? None other than the pro- genitor of Brat Radio, Howard Stern, the New York 'shock jock'. I've mentioned him before; the formats of Evans on Radio One and now Virgin, Ball and Greening and Talk Radio's early morning shows are all derived from his: people sitting in a studio being rude to each other, with pop music in between. Evans hasn't yet gone as far as Stem in revolting tackiness — no one has — but Evans is the nearest. Stern, it seems, is an admirer of Evans. I heard one of his studio team say that Stem had played a clip of Evans on his show.
Which brings me back to Today. Having surfed the breakfast airwaves to see what was on offer elsewhere, I now think I might have been a little harsh about the pro- gramme in the past. Although it is some- times pompous, not as important as it likes to think, and biased, it is still the only really civilised news and current affairs pro- gramme available in the mornings. On a recent Any Questions, Max Hastings, the editor of the London Evening Standard, said that, despite grumbles about the pro- gramme, he found it essential listening. Of course, it is to him. Newspapers, politi- cians, local and national, civil servants and others in that world rely on it, just as Today feeds on them. It's less important to mil- lions of others who are not part of the political/media process. They have an array of choices: Radio Five Live's brisk and newsy breakfast programme, Radio Three's classical music On Air, Classic FM's Alan Mann and Radio Two's Sarah Kennedy and Terry Wogan. These are what I call roughly, for the sake of the argument, more up-market radio listening. Otherwise, it's Brat Radio.
We certainly need Today, though, for all its faults. It can make you switch off now and again. A long item about sperm-wash- ing did nothing to improve my breakfast and an interview with Frank Dobson can set the mind wandering, but it remains way ahead of anything else. We must only hope that the long march of Brat Radio fails to reach Today, and that we don't wake one day to hear the dread words, `Mornin' guys, it's Today with Chris Evans and Zoe Ball . .
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