Despite the fact that I (personally) consider Talk Sport to be an invention of the devil, the ‘Radio Bloke’ that everyone said Five Live was going to be, I like the cut of Jon Gaunt’s jib in this Guardian Media profile. He’s right about Victoria Derbyshire’s utility, too, though that again is a personal view.
Despite the fact that he built audiences wherever he went, Gaunt’s tendency to editorialise made him an uncomfortable fit at the BBC, which is governed by strict rules about impartiality. “I only fitted in at the BBC because I was successful,” he agrees. “They would have sacked me otherwise. Of course I should be on Radio 5.” In case I missed the point, he repeats: “I should be on Radio 5. I should be doing that show at 9 o’clock in the morning. [Host] Victoria Derbyshire’s useless. In the interests of impartiality, balance and Reithian values, they should have me on – clearly flag what sort of show it is, have guests on who oppose what I say – and that would be proper radio. Do you think Victoria Derbyshire and Nicky Campbell don’t have their political bias? They come with a soft-liberal, left-leaning view, all of them. And that’s what’s wrong with the BBC.“
Talk Sport’s predecessor, Talk Radio, had a weekly politics phone-in show presented by rightie social conservative Peter Hitchens and the Labour MP Austin Mitchell, which neatly balanced out the open bias of the presenters. You can listen to Radio Five from 6 am to 4 pm each day without any presenter ever stepping beyond the “the gamut of views from A to B“.
(Stealth-edited at 7.34 am to remove a refence to Rupert Murdoch’s non-existent ownership of Talk Sport. Thanks Andrew)
Talksport is not and has never been owned by Murdoch, a common misbelief. One point I can’t disagree with George Galloway about.
Perhaps people get confused by both being associated (at different times) with Kelvin Mackenzie.
Jon “gauntie” Gaunt is a first class idiot. His radio style is like watching a slow motion car crash. No wonder his audience figures go up, I would daily listen with utter disbelief at his displays of simple minded stupidity until I could take it no more and was driven off to radio2.
Gaunts show is amazing for one simple reason….
it’s the only time I’ve ever heard the ordinary working bloke like me have a representative in the media.
Most people in the media have never done a proper days work in their lives. And by that I mean getting their hands dirty, and not paper cut. Gaunty has, and that is why real people listen to and agree with him.
Who cares if Talksport is seen as Radio Bloke ?
It’s about time some of us blokes out here were given something to listen to !
They used to have an American guy on overnight at weekends who was a breath of fresh air to anyone used to the BBC – and TalkSport’s usual alternative – but he just seemed to disappear. Used to quote Victor Davis Hanson and Mark Steyn. In fact, I’m not sure Steyn wasn’t on his show once. Really good stuff.
charlie wolf was the man, very funny, and quite honest, his problem was possibly, the same as Galloway, in that everything is politics politics politics, which can turn people off.
The best radio broadcaster of the last decade on talk radio/5 live has to be the great, and now late Mike Dicken.
A true professional, who will be remembered by many including myself was his coverage of Princess Dianas death, he was on air when the news came through, and i was listening.
Ironically it was a road traffic accident that resulted in his own tragic death.
A man greatly missed from the airwaves.
Your comments suggest that you want a BBC type organisation, but that you are disatisfied with the BBC as it is because you think it is biased. I don’t care that the BBC is biased, I just don’t want to pay for it. Just as most of us buy a biased newspaper, I want broadcasting to be biased too, and I’ll choose the biased station I like.
Talksport is a great radio station. Mike ‘Porky’ Parry is one of radio’s greatest performers, and Andy Townsend is the perfect foil for his blusterings. The football analysis leaves the BBC for dead, and it’s a pity that the station can’t afford the commentaries that BBC Five Live can, and we all know why Five Live can afford those commentaries.
As for talk radio, the BBC’s monopoly polarises it into the politically correct dull stuff we get on Radio 4 and the rantings of Gaunt and Galloway on Talksport. Scrap the licence fee and let a thousand flowers bloom.
I have a slightly different take on it. I don’t want the BBC to be biased at all, simply because it has a tremendous worldwide reach and infrastructure and a carefully promoted (and thoroughly undeserved) reputation for impartiality. As an example, the BBC’s idea of impartiality is to occupy an imaginary middle ground between terrorists and the victims of terror. Besides the fact that there is no middle ground between terrorists and their victims, the BBC actually edges closer in sympathy to the terrorists in its obscene befriending of terrorists and insistence on “understanding” their motives, and of course, its refusal to call terror terror.
The average person has no idea that the BBC is biased and accepts its output based on its reputation and slick delivery.
The BBC has done tremendous damage worldwide with its bias by omission and distortion of facts and by backing its favoured groups while trashing others. As a Jewish Israeli – and therefore a member of one of the trashed groups – I have an interest in the BBC curbing its bias. And I don’t particularly want the BBC to reverse its bias and trash my enemies. I just want it to report straight and stop its deceitful manipulation of the news by minimising or completely ignoring the wrongs that its favoured groups commit while holding a magnifying glass up to the wrongs of those it is intent on demonising.
That isn’t a helluvah lot to ask, but the BBC in its present form is incapable of fulfilling such a basic function as even-handed, honest reporting. That is why it needs to be purged from top to bottom.
If I may, Five Live is in my experience definately not guilty of the usual sins of the BBC. I have a great fondness for Victoria Derbyshire and admire the way that the discussion ethos of Five Live is that the presenter should never take sides but always present each person on the programme with an opposite point of view in order to encourage them to make their thoughts known in a coherent manner.
Please do not compare this station with the bilge of the Today programme (and R4 in general). I have no love for the BBC where it is arrogant, out of touch and propagandistic. Because FL has a live audience base, it is kept honest.
I would agree as a card-carrying Labour party member that the leadership and most of the tv staff need to be purged, simply because in the words of BBCWATCH, they are breaking the guidelines in the BBC charter.
Richard
I assume that’s the same programme Jane Garvey just left. I’ll see if I can access it from over here in the Holy Land. An unbiased BBC programme? I didn’t know such a thing existed.