Radio station bosses teach listeners to hate radio DJs

Jack FM is a music-radio format devised in America and, owing to our lack of originality in the UK, copied in its original form wholesale.

The Jack FM format is simple: There are no radio DJs (or presenters).  The songs play out like somebody’s just plugged their iPod in and left it switched to random.  The difference being that an iPod doesn’t have dreary long commercial breaks or play out ‘sweepers’ saying ‘iPod!!!’ between every song.

This no presenter / DJ format seems to be gaining in popularity, with the latest audience research (assuming the ancient methodology in use to do the research actually works) showing huge gains in the listening figures for Jack FM radio stations around the UK.

I can’t lie and say I’m happy about this.  I still believe that the essential ‘hook’ for music-radio is the presenter / DJ.  It’s definitely the case when it comes to youth and new music, as the pirates, Radio 1 and 1Xtra easily demonstrate.

Sadly, general ‘pop’ and ‘oldies’ don’t seem to need ‘presentation’ any more.  Music-radio audiences are now just happy to hear a stream of songs playing one after the other without any hook or continuity or glue sticking them all together.

The journey to ‘educate’ the listening public to hate the DJ has been a fairly long and deliberate one.  Strangely, it has been one undertaken by the bosses of the very commercial radio sector itself.

It started when the radio bosses sat down with the accountants and realised that a large percentage of their costs were for the ‘talent’ they employed as radio DJs or presenters.  The journey has almost ended, now that the bosses have ensured that the presenter is pointless and irritating.  To ensure he remains pointless and irritating, the radio DJ is now shunted to just making ‘corporate’ announcements four times an hour rather than interacting with the listeners and the songs themselves as he used to.

The master plan is for all music-radio stations to get an agreement with Ofcom to drop ‘live’ presented radio and to go the Jack FM way.  It’s only their original contractual obligations for their broadcasting licences that currently force the bosses to keep DJs there at all.  Once Ofcom is convinced the DJ is pointless, then, whoosh, he’ll be gone.

All of this is a very sad long way from the days when the presenter / radio DJ was as important as the songs he played on music-radio.  It didn’t matter whether the songs were new, current or old, the radio DJ was integral in hyping them up and getting the listener hooked.

We first experienced this kind of bond between radio DJ and song back in the days of the offshore radio stations of the 1960s, Radio Luxembourg, Radio 1 and the early commercial radio.  In those days the idea of having one without the other was unthinkable.

Fans for the artists being played were often equalled by the fans for the radio DJ playing them.  Indeed, that’s still very much the case when it comes to today’s dance and underground music.

Once upon a time the radio DJ and the music he played attracted millions of listeners.

However, this came at a huge price as far as the radio bosses were concerned.  Radio DJs were able to ‘hold them to ransom’, to demand higher wages, and, horror of horrors, the listeners would notice if a particular radio DJ ‘disappeared’ and would ask embarrassing questions, even ‘boycotting’ the station or giving it bad publicity.

So, about 25 years ago, radio station bosses slowly and bit by bit removed the involvement of the radio DJ from the total sound of the radio station.  Immediately, radio audiences plummeted and have never recovered.  The listeners hated the radio DJ’s new role of holding back any personality and just making annoying announcements alongside the annoying commercials.  The listener found the old warmth gone and the radio station cold and lonely without the radio DJ being integrated and integral to the whole ‘hype’ of the radio station’s output.  Most annoying was the DJ speaking now usually telegraphed 5 or 6 minutes of commercials immediately he stopped talking.  This was a deliberate ploy to make listeners hate the DJ.

Yep, subliminally the listeners truly grew to hate the radio DJs.  He was no longer allowed to enhance the radio station sound, but was now one of the main aspects of the output that listeners didn’t want.  So, these days, when he is removed completely, as he is with the Jack FM format, the listener numbers go up.

Along the way, the radio station bosses were able to pay less, employ ‘monkeys’, and remove all the costs associated with having important ‘personalities’ on the air.  Despite the reduced audiences overall, the profits still went up.

After all, ‘profit’ is what commercial music-radio is all about.  It’s not about providing the best listener experience. It’s about providing it for the cheapest so that the shareholders are happy.  That’s why most radio stations are rebroadcasting the output of one centralised studio these days.

And this is also how, in pursuit of greed, the art form of the commercial radio DJ was systematically humiliated, destroyed and removed from UK radio broadcasting.