I’ve been listening to Radio 1 since I was about 12 years old. It shaped my taste in music, it forged my love of radio, and its voices, in-jokes and jingles – just as much as its playlists – have soundtracked decades of rushed mornings and slow afternoons and big nights.
Tuning in now, to the Greg James breakfast show, gives me a nostalgic connection to the past – when Radio 1 was cool, anarchic, and unmissable, a way to be part of something bigger, connected to a scene that felt like another universe from everyday, suburban tedium. I know how formative radio was for me as a teenager and in my twenties, and how long this was a cultural force to be reckoned with for the generations that came before. So it’s not easy for me to say this. But I think it’s got to give up chasing the young.
Yesterday the station announced a big shake-up of its schedule, resulting in six presenters leaving – including Melvin Odoom, Rickie Haywood-Williams and Dean McCullough. Among those added to the line-up are TikTok stars GK Barry and Charley Marlowe, which has prompted the now familiar outcry about influencers being appointed to jobs that ought to go to experienced, skilled DJs who have risen the ranks and earned it.
