I’ve finally given BBC Radio 2 a decent listen, so I feel like I can give some somewhat qualified thoughts here. When I say that, I’m also not entirely sure this is enlightening, and maybe this might invite some discussion.
To give you an idea of my first proper exposure to Radio 2: our presenter is Steve Wright. He’s just played an 80’s track, and now he’s reading out text messages. None of the expected sound effects, so we’re safe. Oh, and now we’re playing a radio cut of Underworld - “Born Slippy (NUXX)”.
Awry is one way to describe it. Bewildering comes to mind. I’m all for broad playlists and left-of-centre tracks - Trainspotting is a wonderful film, and that song is on a number of my Spotify playlists - but that was a seque I wasn’t prepared for.
I can forgive the edginess of Underworld, but looking at this from a more methodical approach you can see where this new cool and hip attitude is permeating through the regular playlist. Heading out of the Lakes District the next morning, it was the bastions of middle England chit-chat - Alan Carr and Melanie Sykes - where new music ranged from CHR/AC friendly pop like JP Cooper / Astrid S - “Sing It With Me” and Bananarama - “Looking For Someone” to an AAA/rock heavy track like Morrissey - “Lady Willpower” - Liam Gallagher’s “Shockwave” has had quite heavy rotation too.
(And yet, as if to counter any accusations of being too hip, the imaging is as daggy as ever. Those sung jingles make me miss the smoothfm top of hours, and I mean it.)
Radio 2 is a diverse station - the same station that plays Underworld at 3pm on a Wednesday will, by Saturday morning, be host to 1960s music with Tony Blackburn. The same station where Jeremy Vine presents a debate on whether clothes should be washed (yes, really) gives airtime to genres like reggae and country. This is its strength, and it should be lauded for it.
The risk you fall into here with the audio smorgasbord approach (which we often see with community radio) is that switch-off effect. If a listener likes one show, you have to work harder to convince them to stick around for a show with possibly a radically different format.
The BBC, I suspect, knows this - else Vine’s harder early-afternoon talk show wouldn’t be followed up with by Steve Wright and his wall of sound effects. The style of talk changes between the shows, but the music doesn’t radically change, and it works fine as audio wallpaper in the background. That is, of course, until the wallpaper no longer matches the room, and your audience begins to question why they’re even in the room when there’s a better looking Heart/Capital/Smooth/Magic/… next door.
(On a lighter note, I am incredibly amused by their traffic reports. It takes about 4 minutes in peak to get through everything - still shorter than a spot break, mind.)