Eddie Mair

[Lat-Literal]

Mention of "phone-in station" and "sister station of Classic FM" would not encourage me to tune in. When I read Lat's remarks I think of the shock jock approach. I assume Eddie will be able to resist the house style and do his own thing.

House style:

Darren Adam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-zEKltwRWM

James O'Brien:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11r4E_Hi8Dk

Comment: For many years, the station was almost certainly right leaning politically although it strenuously denied it. Consequently, the two examples shown would have been something of an exception. But since going national - and since London has become more left wing - it has achieved a balance. However, there is as always a shock jock leaning.

The permitted exception:

Steve Allen -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-rQ-gf5uTI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vljlgQBE8Hw

Comment: A difficult broadcaster to assess who might have been better known in a standard role on BBC. He has adapted with the times. The "tell it as it is" does imply a breaking of formulaic convention but increasing emphasis on celebrity culture and mild shock jockism is very much agreed at board level for repetitive commercial appeal. It sits unusually with the observational/human aspects which while lacking the poetry has parallels with the likes of the great Ray Moore. To deliver a monologue for several hours each morning is an "ability".

[Karafan]

Katie Derham.

I sincerely hope you are joking, Zola! I can't bear her!!! Paddy O'Connell at a push...?

[french frank]

He may be intended to ‘twin’ James O’Brien who frequently hits the headlines with his hard-hitting interviews?

[Lat-Literal]

He may be intended to ‘twin’ James O’Brien who frequently hits the headlines with his hard-hitting interviews?

Yes - I think that's astute.

There is flexibility in him - now that he has also been mentioned, R4's Paddy O'Connell is at the other end of Mair's spectrum actually - which might well be another reason.

I have taken in huge amounts of this stuff over decades although I tend to drift away these days, feeling that broadcasting on games is better than broadcasting on politics as a game when I tend to be more about political values. Also, I don't really see any point in taking part in something which is all opinion and no influence. But a lot of these stations/presenters now have e-mails and texts as a part of their inputs. I have experimented on the music and politics sides by submitting things to see what sort of reception they get. I won't ring up.

It really changes the outlook. I went off Nick Abbot for ignoring what I wrote and re BBC Radio London Robert Elms for sounding dismissive. You do get a much stronger impression of the extent to which it is intended to be two-way rather than just them. Ian Collins, LBC - a presenter who I didn't feel that I especially gelled with as a listener - reacted fairly and positively to something I wrote and my entire attitude towards him changed. In the old days, I did it on rare occasions by social media - Charlie Gillett especially, Ann Nightingale and Michael Rosen briefly responded when there was nothing in it for them. It wasn't a part of their broadcast. All many years ago but in this way the genuine quality of them was proven.

One thing that upset me was how when I put in a lot of work on The Verb, Ian McMillan never dropped in here to say thanks. The lovely late Chris Newman did what he could have done. Global Truth did too which was really good but then I was in that World Music clan so what was especially nice at that time was that it also came from someone who was a bit elsewhere. None of this outlook implies I am cut out as a listener to/of shock jock conflict radio. At least in sports you know that two sides are putting forward different arguments just to entertain.

[Lat-Literal]

This goes a bit broader but I do have a clear view on radio which age and this forum have helped me to clarify in my own mind. I am not highbrow or lowbrow by leaning; rather a mixture of the two. But I do think radio to survive has to be about vibrancy and non-modish innovation. In fact, I think the best of innovation almost in any sphere is by definition non-modish and does new things while drawing on tradition.

It is anti stodge and anti the obvious. Sometimes the two work in tandem or against each other. The sheer repetitiveness in a Steve Allen show vis a vis topic - and many find that tedious - is counterbalanced by the newness of what he is doing which is to talk for umpteen hours and get a good audience for it. It is in that sense startlingly new and innovative, points that can be perhaps be too easily overlooked.

With the low brow there are certain indicators of excellence. Sometimes when you get an aw-gaw blimey presentation they are in the words that are used and the logic presented. There is a cleverness there. Sometimes it is accompanied by humour. Talksport is often doing this very well. Adebayo's programmes on 5 Live are variable and different but at their best they reach similar heights from a conventional broadcasting perspective. In a different sphere, I didn't just love the Muppets (and its predecessor Sesame Street) but looked up to it because of the colour and the way it used language. It is so clever in that sense.

Kenny Everett was very clever with soundscape. C4's The Big Breakfast at its best was brilliantly clever. The Simpsons likewise. When you see it, you just know that what you are getting is true sophistication in an unusual sphere. PM with Eddie Mair does language. It does soundscapes. But it has been doing it for a long time. So the change will be interesting. And it could go either way - fresh and remarkable or just the same old.

Of course, many of the evils are in what is now the very long term "zoo" format. I have that innovation down to the unknown Rod Lucas, once of BBC Radio Medway, and there is nothing on You Tube now to suggest that he was ever anything other than inane. His star fell dramatically when shockingly he turned up in the 2000s on lists of BNP members which I believe he has described as something along the lines of a phase.

There were always elements of the unknown and disappointed about him. The sudden dropping out from stations. But I have tapes of his from the late 1970s prior to controversy - his love of black soul music ironically - and an early combination of music and phone ins with considerable innovation and kindness to people. He hadn't invented "zoo" at that stage but sometimes trends, better or worse, come from the strangest places.

[pilamenon]

I don't warm to Eddie Mair's style at all - that slightly sarcastic undertone in almost everything he says, even when asking formulaic questions of the BBC's own reporters (a tedious conceit at the best of times). A shame if Carolyn Quinn won't have the main position, with her more straightforward but relaxed style. EM seemed particularly unsuited to presenting Newsnight for a brief spell, too.

[kernelbogey]

I don't warm to Eddie Mair's style at all - that slightly sarcastic undertone in almost everything he says, even when asking formulaic questions of the BBC's own reporters (a tedious conceit at the best of times). A shame if Carolyn Quinn won't have the main position, with her more straightforward but relaxed style. EM seemed particularly unsuited to presenting Newsnight for a brief spell, too.

Whereas I enjoy his irony - as I would call what you call sarcasm - and don't warm to Carolyn Quinn's blandness, as I would call her style.

[LMcD]

Whereas I enjoy his irony - as I would call what you call sarcasm - and don't warm to Carolyn Quinn's blandness, as I would call her style.

[Richard Tarleton]

Whereas I enjoy his irony - as I would call what you call sarcasm - and don't warm to Carolyn Quinn's blandness, as I would call her style.

I'm with kernelbogey. I find Carolyn solid and reliable but pedestrian, a bit of a plodder with no apparent sense of humour. Eddie Mair has a sublime sense of the surreal - the other day, when one satellite TV provider stopped providing several channels to its subscribers because the price had gone up, a reporter was set to look in on a closed channel so that he could tell the recently bereaved subscribers what they were missing. I think it was a programme about tree surgery, and of course utterly tedious. Beautifully done. But, I suppose you either warm to him or you don't. Various others have been tried out on Newsnight and presumably found wanting, for whatever reason - the combative James O'Brien, for example, who I thought was rather good.

[kernelbogey]

a sublime sense of the surreal

Although I'd quibble, pedantically, with Richard's use of 'surreal' in this context, I think he puts his finger on an amiable quality in EM's presentational style. It is, in part, his ability to break through the formal persona of a broadcaster to be personal, with charming whimsy, in a manner which I believe is what endears listeners to (for example) Ian Skelly on Radio Three. Somehow this infused even his interviews with his dying friend Steve Hewlett, without ever abandoning the gravity of his situation.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, I'll stick up for pilamenon - I enjoyed reading EM's columns in the Radio Times and greatly appreciate his whimsical irony on i-PM (a sort-of afternoon Home Truths of fond memory). But I've increasingly found that "isn't this all rather ridiculous" tone irritating and frequently inappropriate on PM - to the extent that when I had the programme on one day last week when he was presenting, I thought to myself "I thought he'd gone!" and switched off. If kernel, LMcD, and Richard's adjectives are accurate, it's a "bland pedestrian" presentation of news and ideas that I want.

[kernelbogey]

"I thought he'd gone!"

Put 17 August in your diary....

[DracoM]

Day after A-level results.
Good weekending for some
Maybe not for all.

[DracoM]

Just caught the first 20+ mins of his LBC show. Oh dear.
How ON EARTH he can create propulsion in a show which has such relentless and MASSIVE ad breaks, I do not know.

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm finding PM post-Mair very dull, I'm afraid - the first week or so, with Chris Mason and Simon Jack in the chair, made me think there might be hope, but it's lost its distinctive quirkiness under CQ.