“I realise, to my adrenaline-infused horror, that if I don’t speak, there will be nothing broadcasting. “
Hello friends -
Some news this week (Wednesday 18th May) which, I hope, has not escaped your attention. In a dramatic twist, I’m about to move to present a breakfast radio programme and also get longer in bed. There are not many people in the world for whom that would be true.
Here’s the announcement on air this morning:
Times Radio is an amazing place
In under two years, the team has established a credible, warm, engaging, intelligent, analytical news radio station, the likes of which the UK has been lacking for some time. I am so honoured that the bosses of Times Radio have decided to move me from my current home on Early Breakfast, to Breakfast on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (6am-10am). It is such a thrill, made even greater by the fact I get to co-present alongside Chloe Tilley. She is world class, brilliant, and lovely. We start on Friday 27th May 2022.
“The magic hasn’t worn off”
It’s odd to move around within the dream which you’ve dreamt since the age of 11. Presenting on the radio has been my ambition since I saw my dad present a programme on BBC Radio nan Gaidheal, the BBC’s Scottish Gaelic language service. I was only supposed to be waiting for a lift home. Instead, I was transported in a remarkably different way. I don’t even speak Gaelic, but the magic of what was happening in front of me, for real people to listen to, engage with, be entertained by and learn from, has never worn off.
Every morning at 5am, the Times Radio jingle plays, I turn up my headphones (a trick to inject energy as a response to loudness), and smile as the red light of radio goes on. Every time it happens, I realise, to my adrenaline-infused horror, that if I don’t speak, there will be nothing broadcasting. What an honour. A terrifying one, but an honour nonetheless.
“A monstrous one”
The magic of Early Breakfast should never be ignored. For the last 23 months, (almost) every morning at 5am, the cold-shock rush of the illumination of the red light has also opened the doors for the Early Breakfast Club to spring into life. 5am is a special time. You’re maybe a go-getter, up to embrace the day and change the world. You could be an insomniac for whom 5am is but the start of another jet-lagged cycle of grimness. Perhaps 5am is the hotly-anticipated end of a night shift, or a night out (someone once texted the programme to say they were on their way home from a “monstrous one” - in Oxford, I think).
It is the privilege of my life to get to be on the radio. To have been welcomed by you, as listeners and friends, has been astonishing. Somehow, you never quite believe people will actually want to be part of the programme, but there you’ve been, every day at 5am.
Please come and join Chloe and I for Times Radio Breakfast on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (6am-10am) from 27th May.
Hopefully we can keep in touch here, too, where I’ll share some updates, some news and some thoughts from the weeks as they go by. I write each week for my local paper on the Isle of Lewis, The Stornoway Gazette. Some of those pieces will pop up here too. On the revelation that I was starting this Substack, a close friend writes:
“I have to be honest - not sure what Substack is. Isn’t that Dominic Cummings’ OnlyFans?”
Fair.
This, then, is a place for us to share the radio together. Occasionally witty, sometimes insightful, always enjoyable.
I hope you listen to Times Radio. We provide remarkably important coverage of our world, assessing the significance of politics and social issues and discussing the implications for you and I, by putting them into intelligent context. There’s so much to come both on air, and here, online as well. Thanks for being with me. You are wonderful.
Chat to you on Times Radio Breakfast with Chloe Tilley and me, from Friday 27th May at 6:00am.
Well this is both a disappointment ... and a brilliant move.
Five hours of Early Breakfast in a week is just not enough. Then again, in this world of short attention spans and combined with early morning stresses, the discipline imposed by short, sharp, punchy information bursts has a symmetry and perfection to obliterate any opposition. Some radio stations talk, but are confrontational, some are music and blather. I’ve tried the best of the music kind, but it is not the point in the day to get immersed in long, classical masterpieces. They just cannot get the attention they deserve. Plus, it turns out the playlist is so limited that the repetitions occur with more regularity, and more annoyingly, than the regularity that The Big Fruity delivers me annoyingly familiar and comforting 70s rock tracks. Ah.
So. Uncertainty comes with the thought of 12 hours, although 50% split, giving us, most certainly a 20% presenter uplift per week.... but how does this “work”. In one hour a day I don’t feel bad about those minutes that are missed, but a full attendance for 60 of your earth-minutes, even if a couple stray to The Sport, or the Commercial Necessities, is a possibility even if 100% attention span is impossible. In four hour bursts, how much will I miss; worse, how much gets to go on a repeat loop, because currently the station reuses its early good clips enough, even only an hour or so later, that has a nasty, numbing effect on the synapses. Repetition was fine for Chopin Preludes, less desirable for human conversations, though. And TR EBC is a conversation, a participation, a challenging stimulant to how the day will succeed. My only fear is that the news and magazine gets demoted to a bunch of advertisements with filler to wallpaper the ears, not nurture the little grey cells.
It’s all scary stuff. Then again, if it can keep *some* things similar, but give it more, let the articles swell naturally a little in size, but keep the engagement never-urgent and attention-demanding but add more breadth. That would work. A sort of Aasmah and Stig, but less rude, lewd and crude as befits the High Days and Holy Days of the week..... yup....we’ll be there....
Calum, will miss you in the week, but look forward to listening at the weekends! All the best, Paul