A True Radio Event
I’ve never shied away from the big jobs.
In the course of my long and storied career in national radio I’ve been at the helm for Champions League Finals, one World Cup Final, produced the breaking news of the Michael Jackson trial, covered the live broadcast of the funeral of a famous footballer, improvised two and a half hours of coverage of the Glasgow airport bombings and sat up all night on the evening of July 7th 2005 preventing callers from coming on the air and sparking jihad. Yet none of these jobs comes even close to the significance and sheer scale of the mission I was charged with last night. It was all thanks to these two CDs:
The return of Russell Brand to national radio had been a project many months in the making. Even when the tabloid press broke the news that a collaborative radio show between him and Noel Gallagher was in the pipeline (itself something of a first — when was the last time additions to the talkSPORT schedule were front-page news?) we were assured internally that nothing was a done deal and that negotiations were still far from finished.
Then suddenly they were, and that was when things went a bit mental. Search twitter for talkSPORT normally and you get about three hits a day, either from people randomly telling you what they are listening to or from guests plugging their upcoming appearances. Suddenly it seemed as if everyone was talking about us and in particular talking about the two-hour show set to be broadcast on Sunday evening. Most of them appeared to be from rather emotionally disturbed women firing messages dressed in baby talk at their idol which made me wonder just what they were expecting the broadcast to be, given that it had been billed as a show all about football. Still, a willing audience is a godsend, however literate it may be.
Turning up for work on Saturday morning I was more than a little nervous about what to expect. Would the streets be thronged with newsmen and adoring fans in turn, eagerly awaiting a glimpse of their heroes? At 10 am there was nothing more than a single freelance photographer who was almost grateful to be advised that nothing worth photographing would be present until at least 5 pm. He scurried off to spend the day sipping coffee.
The arrival of the two legends in the building later that evening was planned like a military operation. The master studio was cleared, plants were arranged, signs were polished and food platters were laid on. We had been warned that a swarm of media outlets would be descending on the building, with film crews from TV news channels likely, ahead of the camera crew who were filming Russell Brand everywhere he went for a forthcoming film project. Those of us who normally populated the office on a Saturday were a little nervous about the amount of disruption heading our way, but in the end, it seemed that it was all confined to the main hospitality area. Instead, we meekly peered through the glass as the startlingly slight Noel Gallagher and the wispy meandering form of Russell Brand (wearing a white top last seen on my mother circa 1978 it appeared) materialised in the office and were escorted through to the studio accompanied by various hangers-on.
The exact content of the show at that time was known only to the production team buried away in the studio (behind a rather stern-looking notice that said “DO NOT ENTER”). Our only clue that something interesting would take place was the appearance on the switchboard of an outgoing call labelled “Jonathan Ross”. It appeared the rumours were true.
I left the building at 8 pm on Saturday night still not knowing quite what to expect. Across the road, a handful of photographers lingered on awaiting the exit of the superstars, whilst just to their side stood the Russell Brand fan club. Or at least those who worked out where he would be and at what time. I’m not sure what I was expecting really, but I’m sure my imagination would never have conjured up the gaggle of about eight rather dumpy teenagers who were gathered on the steps with cameras and autograph books. Hollywood it certainly wasn’t.
All I then had to do was await the final edit. Post-production of the show apparently went on until four in the morning with everyone from the managing director of the company downwards being presented with a copy to listen back to and contribute further thoughts. Throughout the following day, I was updated regularly with reports of further edits and references that nervous managers felt should not be broadcast. Was this level of scrutiny warranted? Yes, most probably. Given the hysteria that had been generated by the last notorious radio broadcast by Russell Brand, it was wise to assume that there were vultures circling, people with nothing better to do than complain and tabloid newspapers with space to fill and who would eagerly jump down the throat of any off-colour remark made by either man. The more focused the show was on entertainment rather than controversy the better.
That is when it hit me. What I was about to do was possibly one of the most important jobs I had ever been charged with. News of the show (and the antics we now knew it contained) had been distributed across the world. An audience of thousands would be tuning in, many for the very first time to our radio station and all about to hear just what it is that we do. Under no circumstances would this be allowed to go wrong. Hence I arrived at work an hour before the show was due for broadcast and carefully made sure each copy of the CD would play and that there were other duplicate sources on other playout systems ready to be called into action if required.
The possibility had occurred to us that people might still converge on the building in anticipation of the show being live. As a result I walked up the road with even more nerves jangling, wondering just what I would be confronted with. In the event, it was nothing more than three bearded men in casual clothing. One presumes they were more Gallagher fans than Brand groupies but you can never really be sure. I smiled at them as I walked up the steps and left it to the chief engineer to break the news that the show was on tape and that no international celebrities could be glimpsed that evening.
Finally, the moment had arrived. A thousand home tapers pressed their record buttons, hundreds of Sky Plus and PVR units whirred into life and the online streaming services nearly groaned under the strain as Brand and Gallagher appeared on the radio.
Once the nervy moment of “would the CD fire” was over, there wasn’t actually much else to do other than sit and wait for the commercial breaks. Instead, I contented myself with answering the telephone calls that trickled in. There were those who wanted to talk to the presenters (and who gently had to be told that it was all recorded), the drunken women who wanted to tell Russell they loved him (a fair few of those) and needless to say the complainers. I’ve never really got my head around the mentality of people who ring up and say they don’t like a radio show or what they are hearing. There is after all and easy way to fix that particular problem. Of particular amusement were the people who were clearly determined to moan no matter what, calling up after just ten minutes to berate us for broadcasting what one lady called “the most gratuitously offensive piece of disgraceful programming it has ever been my misfortune to hear”. When I asked if there was anything else I could assist with I was half expecting to be asked the answer to 18 Down on theMail On Sunday crossword.
Part of me was tempted to do something unique at one junction in the show. Lots of people would be recording it and those recordings would almost certainly go into circulation on torrent sites within hours (one enterprising soul has even put the whole thing up as a series of YouTube videos I’m told). Wouldn’t it have been fun to play something in the wrong place, or fade a part too early, just so I could listen back to the recordings and say “that was me — that was my part in the event”. Sometimes my life just isn’t empty enough.
So was it worth all the effort, all the headaches in planning, the disruption to the office and the unrelenting pressure upon us all to get it absolutely right? I’d have to say it was.
The whole point of the exercise was hammered home by a comment Russell Brand made at the very start of the show. Referring back to the incident that caused him to leave his old job at the end of last year he remarked: “I created an EVENT. Remember those Noel, you used to do them all the time in the nineties”.
Television is very good at creating events. Staging programmes that attract attention, become appointment to view affairs and provoking comment afterwards. For the last fifty years radio has almost been the silent partner in all of this, generating hour upon hour of programming but without ever being subject to the same popular or critical attention as its bigger media brother. Here for a change was something different, a proper radio EVENT. One which was on the front pages of the newspapers due to what it represented, one which had news crews lining up outside for the chance to see it happen and one which had a huge audience across the world all converging onto our radio station just to hear what these two men had to say for two hours. When I pressed the button last night to play out the show, I wasn’t just preventing dead air. I was playing my own part in a broadcast that just for a change was wallpaper, wasn’t part of the background or part of the daily chatter of peoples lives. It was something people had gone out of their way to hear, something that they would all have an opinion on later and something they would come back to again and again. It was the simplest of jobs, but far, far bigger than any of the other events I’d been a part of in the past.
Some people in the office wondered just why we were bending over backwards to persuade two busy stars to make a radio programme for us given that we weren’t exactly short of ways to fill the schedule. At that moment I understood perfectly well why we were doing it and still have to marvel at the brilliance.
So was it worth it? Well if you missed the show, you can still get hold of a copy. Just click below for the exclusive and official podcast of Brand and Gallagher on talkSPORT. If you ask nicely and for the right fee, I’ll even come round and press ‘play’ for you to add to the authenticity.
