Here in the UK there’s generally two types of radio station. One type will broadcast a certain style of music, news or entertainment. The other type is that idiotic, commercial pap with shouty character-less DJ’s who seem to have an unnaturally “hyper” voices and play cheesy pop music to please as many people as possible.
It’s generic, it’s cheap. It’s arse.
Meanwhile, stations that I used to respect – such as Radio 1, who tried to be “different” and “fresh”, are now slipping into a commercialised and slightly boring output.
So today, Radio X has appeared. It’s on DAB, which means that a massive amount of people just cannot listen to it. Despite what you might say and despite how brilliant DAB should be, a lot of people still have FM radios in their cars and that, sadly, isn’t going to change quickly.
Despite that, it’s on DAB, streaming and on FM in Manchester and London. Vernon Kay is on there, as is Johnny Vaughan, but Radio X also marks the return of Chris Moyles. His style has critics, but say what you will – he’s not like those other commercial radio DJ’s. This morning, unlike pretty much every other radio station (and those others owned by Global Radio – owners of Radio X), there was no traffic report, hardly and music and a DJ which only played some adverts and one tune after some 30 minutes of banter this morning.
Can this continue? Or will the commercial requirements of a national DAB licence kick in?
It’s a gamble, but I for one hope that Radio X can continue playing music which is different and with DJ’s that are honest and fresh.