It's a schedule shuffle that's been used for years by radio station bosses...when your breakfast jocks are getting twitchy and tired from 4.00am/5.00am starts, move them to drivetime. If they've got a good following in the morning, they can boost the going-home audience figures.
We did it at 5Live, making Peter Allen and Jane Garvey a very happy tea-time duo. Nick Grimshaw is on his way to the afternoons at Radio 1.
Now it's a more-than-reasonable bet that Nick Ferrari, who has done the hard pounding at LBC, could be getting a much later start. Nick, reportedly 59, has been on unsocial hours for nearly 20 years, at either end of the day.
New signing Eddie Mair won't have come cheap - I'm guessing at least £350k - so why not play him big at breakfast ? If it works, Eddie takes on the big boys of Today at a time when their massive audience is on a slight dip. Eddie has made it plain in a number of print columns that he's an early riser - and, through his tweets, that he's competitive about audience figures. Why not incentivise him further with the dangle of a RAJAR-based bonus ?
He probably would like to get bigger interviews than PM could secure - and breakfast is the place to do it. The only editorial problem for his new bosses - will Boris Johnson ever join Eddie for a
broadcast conversation again ?
No comments:
Post a Comment