Gillian Reynolds

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I must have the best job in the world. Every Monday morning I sit down and write about what I've heard on the radio that week. In other words, I get paid for doing

(a) what I like and
(b) what I would be doing anyway.

Why do I like it? Because radio in this country has a special place in our culture, and I mean "culture" in the sense of the things that people talk to each other about as well as "high" culture. You are here to discuss the power of radio as an advertising medium. That's your job. My job, my pleasure, it to talk about why radio has a power of its own. The way it can reach into your mind, your emotions, your memory. When radio is good, it may be reaching hundreds of thousands, even millions of people. But it feels as if it is speaking just to me.

I admit I tend to the protective about it. I get very worked up when theatre critics say things like "It was a bit like a radio play..." and mean it as disparagement. What sort of radio play are they thinking of, I wonder. The Dock Brief by John Mortimer, the birthplace of Horace Rumpole? Some little thing by Tom Stoppard or Harold Pinter (both of whom started by writing for the wireless)?

I go ballistic when, as a thicko Guardian music reviewer did the Saturday before last, rude remarks are made about "radio big bands". Didn't this daft lad hear Lalo Schiffrin conduct the BBC Big Band at the Festival Hall? And I explode entirely (or almost entirely) when TV critics burble on about Room 101, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and They Think it's All Over, about Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Goodness Gracious Me without ever mentioning that they all started life on the radio.

I go on with great regularity about this and the other pleasures of listening every Tuesday in the Daily Telegraph which may have been why the RAB asked me to speak here. But they also asked me, very gently, if I wouldn't mind finding out some other people's ideas about the power of radio. Whose ideas? I said, rather crossly. Well, famous people's ideas, they muttered. So we drew up a list, invented a little questionnaire and sent it to a select band of people, together with a letter explaining that I wanted to call them as, well, witnesses.

The response was astonishing. OK, so Prince Charles' secretary said he couldn't answer. And Madonna decided she wouldn't. And Chris Evans was probably too busy counting his money. And Lenny Henry's agent said he was just too busy. But I got a nice letter from the great poet, Seamus Heaney, saying he'd love to be here but he had to be in America. The only thing was, he didn't fill in the questionnaire.

Questionnaire? It is not what experts like yourselves would call a proper or, indeed, a scientific questionnaire. But it has, I think, provided an extraordinary snapshot of why British radio is a very powerful thing indeed.

Slide: Questionnaire. There are five questions, starting with the most basic. How many radios do you have?

Slide: Mick
Guess how many Mick Jagger has?
Twenty.

Slide: Stephen
And guess who has more than twenty? Stephen Fry.
Well, he can afford them, what with being a millionaire from re-writing Me and My Girl when he was only in his twenties and now being the audiotape voice of Harry Potter, (as advertised on a bus shelter near you.)

Slide: Gerald
Gerald Kaufman, Chairman of House of Commons Select Committee on Media, has 12, (all the better to hear you with, my dears.)

Slide: John
John Peel, oldest inhabitant of Radio 1 and prizewinning anchor man of Radio 4's Home Truths, has six.

Now how many radios do you have? More than four? More than eight? More than twenty?

Slide: Jono
Jonathan Coleman, morning man on Heart FM, says he has about six.

Slide: Jono's writing
"Two of them in the loo, plus a Walkperson, plus a solar and windup version, and listening on the computer." Jono admits to being "an anorak."

He is not alone, which brings us to our second question:

Slide: Questionnaire

Which of these describes you best? I am a complete radio fan.

Slide: Rory
Aha, that accounts for Rory Bremner. Well, of course he is. Don't you remember the time, on April 1 it was, when he did Loose Ends in the persona of Ned Sherrin and you almost couldn't spot the difference?

Slide: Michael G
And that's how the great actor, Michael Gambon, describes himself too. That's him in Longitude from Channel 4 but last year he did Art on Radio 3 - and alsmost made me like the play.

Who else is a complete fan?

Slide: Ken
Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London and hero of Tube Travellers everywhere.

Slide: Paul
Paul Merton looking a bit Bacchic there but probably the only comedian who could rival the late Kenneth Williams in the art of interruption on Just a Minute.

Slide: Peter
And here's perhaps the most influential producer in "new form" tv, Peter Bazalgette, graduate of the Esther Rantzen school of tv entertainment on That's Life, inventor of Ready, Steady Cook, half a dozen lifestyle shows and British begetter of Big Brother.

Slide: Stephen
And of course, there's Stephen Fry. Why else would he have all those radios?

Slide: Answer to Q2, Terry Wogan
But who is this, who has crossed out all the categories and put, "born and reared to the radio" in the margin, like a proud pedigree? It's Terry Wogan, radio hero and the man with the biggest breakfast show in the whole UK.

Slide: Alistair
Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary, classifies himself in the next category: I am quite a radio fan. He was the only person who didn't fill it in in his own writing. It came back typed, but in bold and with things underlined.

Slide: Meera
And that's the category too for Meera Syal, comedian, actress, author, broadcaster,cook.

Slide: Paul
Sir Paul McCartney, circled the "I like radio but it's not a huge thing in my life" category.

Slide: Germaine
As did Germaine Greer academic, author, columnist, gardener and broadcaster, whose first tv show, by the way, also starred Kenny Everett and was produced by John Birt.

Slide: Susannah and Slide Natalie
Susannah Simons of Classic FM and Natalie Wheen also of Classic and sometimes still of the BBC are both complete radio fans. Natalie even put four ticks by that bit.

You'll note my female sample is rather small. That's deliberate. Everyone knows that we like the radio. My friend Val Arnold-Forster, former radio critic of The Guardian, a formidable sort of woman, very clever, daughter of Naomi Mitchison, mother of five, superb maker of cake and fine sentences, was once asked what she did for a living. So she told him. "Ah," said the arsehole who asked her, "nice little job for a woman."

Jonathan Miller, doctor and director, still listens to radio having given up most other media. Newspapers, he says, are "self righteous, man and spiteful." Television, he says, is "like a warm bath in dirty water." He tries never to miss Today, The World at One and P.M., the three big daytime news sequences on Radio 4. What he hates are quizzes and games. What he particularly hates are The Archers. "Like receiving a compost heap enema," he told me

Slide: Question 3 and Question 4.
You'll see now that we have arrived at Questions 3 and 4: What programmes do you try never to miss and What sort of radio makes you switch off? If you doubt that radio has power, get ready for a few surprises. It excites profound emotions. The people in my survey love it and hate it with quite particular passion. And the range of programmes cited is interesting.

Slide: John
Take the Today programme. John Humphrys listens to Today even when he's not on it.

Slide: Des and Slide: Barry
Other today fans include Des Lynam and Barry Norman.

Slide: Paul W and Slide: Rory
Paul Whitehouse, and that other superb comedian and social satirist Rory Bremner. No wonder his Humphrys and Naughtie are so good.

Slide: Andy
Andy Hamilton, creator of Drop The Dead Donkey for Channel 4 and Old Harry's Game on Radio 4.

Slide: Feargal
Then there's Feargal Sharkey rock star turned regulator as member of the Radio Authority.

Slide: Michael.
And Michael Gambon Cricket writer of The Times.

Slide: Christopher M-J and Slide: Ken
And stalwart of Test Match Special, Christopher Martin Jenkins and also in the Today Fan Club, our own dear newt loving Mayor Ken

Slide: Al's Choice
But Alistair Campbell doesn't list Today among his favourites. He says that he switches between current affairs and music in the mornings and listens to a lot of Radio 5 Live sport. So what makes him switch off? Alistair hates "ill informed rubbish on current affairs programmes. People shouting at each other. Presenters who are so high on their horses that they, rather than the issue or the interview, become the focus."

Slide: Gerald's hates
And Gerald Kaufman, who switches on for Radio 3's Composer of the Week, switches off Today, The World at One, the World this Weekend.

What of the radio kings, the breakfast presenters themselves? What are their favourites, their turn offs?

Slide: Chris
Chris Tarrant, owner of seven or eight radios (one for each of his millions?) loves "All plays on Radio 4 and Harry Potter Day, Terry Wogan (when I'm off myself) Alistair Cooke's Letter From America. What can't he stand? "People surrounded by sycophants all howling with laughter at their every word."

Slide: Henry
Henry Kelly on Classic FM tries never to miss Radio 4 from 0500 to 0700, Classic FM's Evening Concert and cricket, either on Talksport or BBC. He switches off "political discussions or interviews where everyone talks at the same time!"

Slide: Graham
Graham Dene, morning man on Magic 105.4, who was Princess Diana's favourite DJ when he worked on Capital and, before that, to whom I gave his first job in radio at Radio City in Liverpool, loves Radio 5 Live, Test Match Special and "Various specialist music programmes and documentaries." He hates "Mainstream music - it's become mind-numbingly predictable".

Slide: John
John Humphrys, loves the News Quiz and Dead Ringers, (presumably even when they imitate him!) and, news quiz apart, hates most quiz games.

Slide: Jono
Jono at Heart FM, likes Loose Ends with Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Ross on Radio 2 and The Huddlines, "good old fashioned stuff," he says. He can't abide Rap stuff, "and boring phone-ins and 70s style pop-jocks - "White guys trying to sound black on Radio 1".

Slide: Terry
And Wogan? He seems to be living in a time zone of his own. What programmes does he try never to miss? Dick Barton Special Agent (which ran from 1946 to 51) The Goons (1952 - 60) and Take It From Here (1948 - 59.) Actually, now I think of it, they're all on tape so maybe that's what he does switch on to. His switch off is "presenters who encourage sycophancy, the ones who say 'keep up the good work' and 'love the show' He sums up his turn-offs as "the witless, the predictable, the cliche ridden."

What does that show? It shows that these listeners like distinct voices, people with personality, programmes where there's a bit of a challenge. Why do so many of them, though, choose BBC programmes? Probably because BBC radio has had a headstart on commercial radio. It's been part of national life for most people's lifetimes. It's had our money to invest in good programmes, training, new ideas. But it's not invincible.

Joanthan Pearce on Capital showed that there was another way of doing footie. TalkSport has shown there is another style, a brighter and more classless style, for cricket. Neil Fox and the Pepsi Chart knock spots off Radio 1.

But it's amazing what feelings music radio stirs.

Slide: Dave
Dave Stewart, former Eurythmic and director of the recent All Saints film, Honest, switches off "stupid, superficial, fast paced djs blabbering on about nothing except their own egos."

Slide: John
John Peel loves Radio 1's Mark and Lard, tries never to miss Keith Skues's regional programme, I think he sometimes hears it when he's driving home. He can't abide Radio 1's Chris Moyles.

Peter Bazalgette loves John Peel's Home Truths and London's commercial station Magic: "entire schedule of ageing hippie ballads." He hates The Archers. So does Rory Bremner. Natalie Wheen loves them.

Slide: Parky
Michael Parkinson hates "shock jocks, In Yer Face presenters, estuary English, ex-pro footballers pontificating and prefacing every remark with 'I'll tell you what.'"

Slide: Paul
Paul Whitehouse switches off "irritating commercials (especially mine) young people's music and chattering classes."

Slide: Mick
Mick Jagger loves Test Match Special. I wonder would Kelvin MacKenzie consider having Mick on his Test Match commentary team? But he might have an uphill struggle. Because what Mick hates are phone-ins and commercials.

And now for the big one. The last question we asked was 'What do you personally understand to be the power of radio?'

Paul McCartney said "Setting the imagination free! Stimulating parts not normally reached by other media. Good for grey matter!"

Mick Jagger says "very simple technology, available worldwide, no national boundaries, distinction. Leaves you free to do other things."

A lot of people mentioned freedom, the chance to take radio with you. In the car, the bath, the kitchen, off to bed, out into the garden. Even more mentioned radio's particular presence. Wogan says, "As a presenter, you can get into people's thoughts and achieve a one-to-one, almost personal contact that's impossible on television." Paul Whitehouse says "There's a familiarity about it that I can't quite describe."

Slide: John's Power
John Peel, I think, really gets to the heart of it. "It's better not to try to analyse what is a most complex relationship. There's something mysical about sharing an intimate experience with people you'll never know. This applies equally whether you're a broadcaster or listener, I think."

Intimate. The word crops up over and over again. Merry Syal uses it, so do Paul Merton, Feargal Sharkey, Alistair Campbell, Natalie Wheen, Christopher Martin-Jenkins and Stephen Fry. Stephen also adds, "the ability to play with ideas, words and images with freedom, grace and depth." Peter Bazalgette sums it up in three words "Intimacy. Flexibility. Imagination."

John Humphrys thinks it's more thoughtful than TV, "a civilising influence." Graham Dene says "as a broadcaster the power lies in audience reactions that confirm you have touched an emotion."

As a listener, he says, "great presentation can turn a complete stranger into a best friend, exemplified for me" (dont forget he's a cricket fan) "by the late Brian Johnston."

Rory Bremner discovers it has, both as a writer and a listener, "limitless possibilities for imagination."

Michael Gambon loves it for that oldest of reasons, "being told stories." Henry Kelly says that the more he listens to radio the more he believes that it is the medium of the future because "it can attract and hold a listener in so many locations in a way television and even newspapers cannot."

Even Gerald Kaufman, who'd rather have music than any other kind of programme, says he thinks radio's power is "The word. TV distracts from substance.

Radio forces you to concentrate on it."

Chris Tarrants' handwriting flows all over the page when he gets to this one.
"Radio can be a friend, an ally, your therapist, your comforter, even (through music) your lover. It can also make you smile when you really didn't feel like smiling. It can also make you smile years later at a radio memory."

I wish I'd said that because I know what he means. I think of Robb Wilton and Jimmy James and Jewell and Warris and comedians dead these forty years. I think of Brian Johnston and the cake and the "leg-over" giggling and spluttering on Test Match Special. I think of Seamus Heaney reading Beowulf on Radio 4 last year and Boycott at the Sri Lanka Test matches for TalkSPORT this year. I think of Kenny Everett on Capital. I think of Martin Jarvis reading Just William. I think of James Whale when he was the original Night Owl on Metro in Newcastle in 1974. I think of that old commercial (was it in 1975?) for Barrett's Liquor Mart (Barretts, Barretts, Come to Barretts,) and of why I now seem to know so much about the Carphone Warehouse. I think of Betty Boothroyd saying "Order, Order" on Yesterday in Parliament, and Brian Redhead telling Nigel Lawson off on Today. Of Alistair Cooke talking about his his golf idol, Bobby Jones. Of Brian Hayes telling people off on the LBC of yesteryear. Of Ian Bostridge singing Schubert. They are as real to me now as they were in the moment they happened.

Radio is magic.

It speaks to me.

It speaks to you and you answer, with your brain and your heart.

For someone who works in it, it has a special power. You can get an idea onto the air, just the way you heard it in your head, without forty other people kibbitzing and obstructing. If that idea can then cross the barrier between hearing and listening with the audience, you're there. It takes imagination and thought to make it happen. But when you, as a listener, hear something you like, you'll go back to it and you'll go on loving it and remembering it long after you first heard it. And, as you can see from this small survey we're not the only ones who feel it.

That to me is the real power, the powerful magic