Radio is a funny world. On the one hand there is nothing better in the daytime than listening to some banter on 5 live whilst getting on with work because the tone of the radio relaxes you – providing you’re not listening to George Lamb on 6music – and is in general very peaceful. But recently this week the air has been turned blue by not one but two on-air tirades and were both were related to recent reports made in the press about the person doing the shouting.
Firstly, there was the astonishing eleven minute monologue made by Chris Moyles on his breakfast show earlier in the week. Earlier in the weekend The Sun went to press with a story that the BBC were going to sack Moyles and replace him with Scott Mills because he was younger (albeit by a single month as Moyles pointed out). The entire rant can be read here and it’s still available on the BBC iPlayer for a couple of days (it happened just after 8am on the 20th April) but here’s an excerpt:
Here are the facts – we ain’t going anywhere. We are staying on the show as long as you want us on here and as long as me and Radio 1 are happy doing it. There are no plans to take me off in September or August or November at all. ‘I am too old for the show.’ What they are doing according to Gordon is get Scott Mills to come in and fill in until they find a replacement. Scott Mills is one month younger than me. It’s such a stupid, stupid article Gordon. What have you done?
Chris Moyles probably wasn’t necessarily in the wrong to use his show as a platform to defend his position because it is his own show but it did go on and on for a while and about five minutes in you kind of think ‘Well OK Chris I get it now but can you just shut up and play a bloody song?!’
If you want to defend yourself on air, do it like Frank Lampard did on London station LBC yesterday, defending judgmental claims by presenter James O’Brien over reports of him being a bad father:
I find it insulting that you’re telling me you would fight tooth and nail and insinuating that I wouldn’t fight tooth and nail.
Sometimes you should think about things before you speak about them because you are speaking about personal people now. Next time I’ll speak to you man to man, forget the radio show, I’ll speak to you man to man about that.
That is how you defend yourself on radio. I’m not a fan of Frank Lampard to be honest but his response was dignified and he should be applauded for that.
