Robinson's Radio Rant

My teenage self and indeed my early-twenties self would never believe that there'd be a time when I'd say it, but I don't really care about radio anymore. I find out about new bands not through hearing them on the radio, but through this medium - the internet. Posting to message boards, visting fans' websites (plus those of bands themselves) and belonging to mailing lists is far and away the most important way to find out about new acts and if I know the people who participate, as I sometimes do, then I also know that many of them will have tastes similar to mine.

Tom Robinson is not only a songwriter and broadcaster, but a songwriter and broadcaster whose time has past. Now I'm not maintaining for an instant that old is bad, but his relevance to the music scene was at its zenith circa 1978 and is probably close to its nadir now. Radio is still the most important medium for Tom, because it was when he was at the height of his career and he equates it with success. Rod Stewart was asked in an interview what his favourite website was and replied that he didn't know anything about computers. Tom Robinson is (I'd guess) of a similar age and still regards radio as all-important, while many of us have moved on.

? is this thing you call radio?

T.Robinson has been a fool since release of TRBII, as I recall ("If left is right then right is wrong" = stupidest line ever written in a song not by Bernie Taupin).

Tessa Jowell replies:

"Needless to say I have not actually listened to any of the radio you mention but from your outraged tone of voice Mr Robinson I agree it must be banned immediately."

Key phrase of doom in article: "too mainstream for Radio 1 but too edgy for Radio 2", followed swiftly by "the next David Gray". Argument thus rendered completely idiotic as David Gray did not get his ill-gotten fame until well-after Birtian branding ideas had been put in place.

Ill-informed nonsense, especially about GLR/London Live, ignoring the fact that listener pressure meant that the BBC's intentions - to replace GLR with an all-talk - had to be abandoned, and the hybrid London Live has shows by Coldcut, Bob Jones and Norman Jay. Just a little thing, but it suggests that Robinson had decided his agenda and then tried to skew the facts to fit

I found the description of GLR - heroically promoting breaking the Corrs, Dodgy and Morrisette in their formative years - bizarre. But is that just my perspective? Maybe many readers of the Guardian will think that TR is talking a lot of urgent (and key) sense.

I'm sure that DJ Martian thought it was a well-written and sensible piece.

Hey Tom Robinson, enough alliteration already!

The Tom Cox axis will, no doubt, Reynard. Personally I think he's talking out of his arse. Melodramatic piffle, emphasised by the cheesy list of artists for *each letter of the alphabet* hardly any of whom I like or am interested in. I can't say I care really.

Two other things: the era of UK radio he's romanticising had a few risk-taking shows that broke new artists outside the Top 40 (mainly John Peel) set against many, many predictable chart-based daytime shows, plus draconian needle-time restrictions etc. which had a great many people romanticising, in their turn, "underground" US radio.

And why *urban* 15-24-year-olds? Andy Parfitt hasn't specified such a thing, and I doubt whether he would.

Martian, after him :).

I don't suppose we'll be hearing The Pogues, Prince, Placebo and Primal Scream back to back on Radio 2 any time soon.

wouldn't surprise me

Yeah, come on, Martian. As Go West once said, I want to hear it from you.