From Popmaster to the Open Line – my personal connection to radio

Radio2 without Ken Bruce is like a fish supper without chippie sauce. Unthinkable.

So, come April, I’ll be joining the legions of fans shifting the dial to Greatest Hits Radio for my daily quiz fix.

Every show and every broadcaster has a shelf life, but I’m struggling to get my head round why Radio2 would willingly lose one of its cornerstones. They can fill the airwaves with a great new voice who brings new ideas, but they won’t have Popmaster - Bruce owns the rights to it, which must make him a shoe-in for the ‘Canniest Scot Ever’ award - or its audience.

And that’s a mighty big hole to fill.

It recently parted company with Steve Wright, and the reaction was the same - a mix of sadness and shock at the need to shake the tree quite so vigorously.

I wasn’t a fan of Wright’s style, but he too had a huge audience. Scott Mills is doing a fine job in that slot, but I’ve already drifted away to Absolute Radio and, now, I suspect, Greatest Hits - though I loathe its wiping out of the identity of local radio wherever it goes.

I think the bit the beancounters miss - in our industry as well as radio - is that personal relationship to the station you tune into, and the paper to choose to buy.

I grew up with Radio1 in its heyday of DLT and Noel Edmonds, discovered great rock music thanks to Tommy Vance, and spent hours listening to Annie Nightingale, Paul Gambaccini and John Peel.

Locally, I grew up with Radio Forth and can still recall Bill Barclay’s weekend shows, and the Sunday phone-in dedicated to ultra local issues. It was miles ahead of today’s witless, polarised ‘debates’ which have sunk Jeremy Vine’s Radio2 show below the hull.

I can still hear those great DJs such as the brilliant Jay Crawford, and the astonishing, often off the wall rock music played by Chris John.

And then there was the Open Line, a phone-in show for the lost and lonely which was heartbreaking, heart-stopping and utterly compelling.

We were too young to go to the pub, and too cool to hang around street corners, so the Open Line was our connection to the outside world.

It ran into the wee sma’ hours as the assuring voices of counsellors Hazel, Ron and Andy gave folk space to talk. Some had had a wee drink and just needed a blether and be coaxed from their armchair to their bed, but others were on the very precipice. We’d sit in absolute silence as the trio tried to save someone’s life.

Radio is a powerful and very personal medium, and Radio Forth got that with shows like the Open Line, but there isn’t a commercial radio station around now that would dedicate hours of airtime to one voice lost in the darkness. The bean counters wouldn’t allow it. They have turned the industry into a generic background noise, and we’ve all lost something special.

Popmaster lives on - may it never wither.