As planned, I had a gander at the Blood on The Carpet documentary
"Walking With Disc Jockeys" originally transmitted in January 2001.
The episode can be seen here on Youtube and I would recommend it to anyone here at Westminster and who has their sights set on radio, as it proves that the industry isn't as glamorous as it sounds on air.
It will also probably make a lot more sense than what's written below.
The documentary centres on the working relationship between the newly appointed Station Controller Matthew Bannister, and Music Producer
Trevor Dann who were hired in 1993 to transform Radio 1 due to pressure by the government and recently hired BBC Director General John Birt.
Many have their views on the changes and whilst my opinions have varied over the years, I feel that what Matthew did was right but it could have been done in a more gradual manner than what happened in the latter months of 1993.
Both of them had worked for Radio 1 earlier in their careers, Matthew being a newsreader and Trevor was the producer of Dave Lee Travis's drivetime show.
Both of them unhappy at the station, they went to work elsewhere, eventually ending up at BBC Radio London where in 1988 it transformed to GLR and completely re-defined the concept of BBC Local Radio in the London area.
Their success at GLR made them ideal candidates for the running of Britain's premier pop music station and Matthew took over from Johnny Beerling as controller around September 1993.
As mentioned before, I thought Radio 1 was sounding pretty good and up to date with presenters such as Simon Mayo, Mark Goodier and Nicky Campbell who were kept on through the culling, but Bannister did point out that there were a lot of presenters on the station older than the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The old age pensioner he mentioned was of course Alan Freeman, who was still presenting the Rock Show on Saturday Nights but his Pick Of The Pops revival was now hosted by the Man Ezeke.
However Fluff's replacement was also axed amongst the changes in 1993.
Dave Lee Travis had already resigned prior to Matthew's hiring but the most of Matthew's sackings did not go to plan with Simon Bates's "resignation" being a key point.
Bates himself mentioned in "The Radio 1 Story" in 1997 that if he hadn't had resigned, he would have been fired and that there was nothing worse than being booted from such a position.
That's probably what inspired this memorable opening scene from "Smashie And Nicey: The End Of An Era" which is regarded well by many radio and comedy fans.
Trevor Dann on the other hand was responsible for sacking several producers and behind the scenes staff at Radio 1, which I'm guessing included the presentation department.
This would probably explain why the relationship with JAM Creative Productions ended in such a nasty way with phone calls not being returned etc.
Whilst there was a clear explanation of what happened from both Matthew and Trevor, we didn't really get the other side of the story from the presenters themselves.
In fact the only one who was interviewed was Adrian Juste who I wouldn't say was the embodiment of Radio 1's success.
As expected he came across as rather bitter about the changes and still has those views to this day about the BBC.
I never really listened to his Saturday Afternoon show that much and probably heard him more on the station as the announcer of the Radio 1 Roadshow:
"Today! Live from Newquay with Stark Raving Maaaad, Steeeve Wriight!"
The way the programme was shot in places made it look like a horror film, especially with the opening music from Psycho accompanying the scenes of Matthew and Trevor in the corridors of Egton House where Radio 1's studios were based between 1985 and 1996.
That's what my Mum thought when viewing the programme orginally.
I liked how the music was used with some of the more downtempo parts accompanied by Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", and how the story about the changes of Radio 1's new music policy were accompanied by Status Quo's "Down Down" fading into "Rock And Roll Star" by Oasis from their 1994 debut album.
Matthew's initial programming plan didn't work succesfully to start with, with the promotion of Steve Wright to the Breakfast Show. I can understand that Matthew wanted Radio 1's most popular presenter at the time to take on the high profile slot, but to get the listeners to carry on listening throughout the day to the likes of Jo Whiley, Emma Freud and Danny Baker just didn't work and the styles clashed rather badly.
Steve ended up resigning in January 1995 and disaster was looming over finding a replacement.
This was until Trevor went for lunch at a pizza restaurant with John Revell who was a good friend of Chris Evans and this eventually lead to the man himself being hired as the new Breakfast presenter.
On the one condition however, that the show would be produced by his own production company which for Trevor Dann was a massive bite in a delicate place.
I never realised until this documentary that the way most people left the station around this time could be so hostile, with Adrian Juste's sacking in December 1993 being a major example.
Basically Adrian got a phone call from the fourth in command at the station with the bad news and declined a call back from Matthew, wishing him a Merry Christmas and asking him to "fuck off".
Chris Evans made his exit in 1997 in a very similar manner, only to Matthew Bannister's face.
The relationship between Matthew and Trevor started to show cracks during Evan's reign on Breakfast as Dann had no control over the content due to Ginger Productions running things.
Matthew in fear of losing him gave the green light to Evans' excessive demands causing Trevor to resign, but shortly after, Chris left the station himself
after Matthew refused his demand to have Fridays off to prepare for TFI Friday.
It wasn't all bad however as Matthew was promoted to the postion of the BBC's director of radio, whilst Trevor was given charge of promoting music output on television and radio within the corporation although both of them nowadays are working in other areas of radio.
Trevor, now the director of the Radio Academy happens to be one of the people I follow on Twitter and is a good friend of Matthew Linfoot having worked with him at GLR.
I'll have to get round to re-reading "The Nation's Favourite" by Simon Garfield, a well written account of Radio 1 during this turbulent period including interviews with the various presenters past and present which really would have added to the documentary.
The day after the programme was transmitted, it was pretty much a talking point at school the next day as a few of the helpers, familiar with my obsession with radio had also watched it and one of them actually referred to Bannister as a c**t which was rather full on.
It's still worth a watch and it gives a good understanding of how tough the radio industry can be from a programming point of view.
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