The conditions that made Ken Bruce’s move from BBC Radio 2 to middays at Greatest Hits Radio a national news story for the past three months would be hard to replicate in North America. Bruce came from 37 years at the UK’s non-commercial behemoth, which is still practicing full-service AC in a way long forgotten here. He moved to Bauer’s fast-growing national network, which has brought Classic Hits on FMs to numerous markets, including London, over the last five years.
James Cridland wrote a good summary of Bruce’s career in January, after the move was announced. He also covered the day-of excitement, which included a feature story on BBC-1 TV, and followed up with this after Bruce’s first half-hour. Cridland describes the 71-year-old Bruce, who was making nearly 500,000 USD a year on Radio 2, as “amiable, quick witted,” and agreeable, but not galvanizing. Like Radio 2 in general, Bruce reminds me of AC KVIL Dallas in its ’80s Ron Chapman heyday; that station was the essence of personality-through-brushstrokes in a way that sometimes seemed to be nothing special, especially when all of mainstream music radio was similarly structured.
Cridland notes that Radio 2 is a franchise that has already survived the recent departure of several high-profile personalities, including Greatest Hits co-worker Simon Mayo. With publicity about both Bruce’s move and the rise of Boom Radio, a personality-driven soft-oldies station that has generated excitement similar to our KDRI (The Drive) Tucson, Ariz., Radio 2 head of music Jeff Smith took to the UK trades last week to reaffirm Radio 2’s commitment to its ongoing modernization (comparable to New York’s Lite FM, still going back to the ’80s and occasionally further, but with some surprisingly edgy currents).
For its part, Bauer is using the move to promote not just the station but its premium, commercial-free tier, targeted at listeners who came from a commercial-free station, although if you were listening to Radio 2 it wasn’t for wall-to-wall music. I heard the first two hours of Bruce’s first show on Monday morning, April 3, on the Greatest Hits outlet for Manchester. Bruce launched with “Come Together” by the Beatles, but most of these notes are from the second hour as he settled in.
Ken Bruce talks between almost every record. The feel of the Radio 2 show is intact. Greatest Hits has had name talent from the start, including former Radio 1 countdown host Mark Goodier (who moves to weekends). UK radio is inherently more listener/personality-driven because of the BBC influence. You could write a similar story about any Radio 2 host, and I have. But Greatest Hits did not start out with this pacing, so it is still worth noting that it did not bring Bruce over to have him talk four times an hour over the intros.
Ken Bruce engages with the music in a way rarely heard here anymore. Throughout the hour there were a lot of little asides and comments about various songs of the sort that were once normal stock-in-trade for air personalities. Most are hard to reproduce out of context, but when Bruce played “Summer Nights” as part of a movie-songs feature, Bruce mentioned the surprise of seeing Grease and finding out that John Travolta could sing. There was a beat, and then, “No, he’s not Pierce Brosnan.”
There are numerous small benchmarks throughout the show, but the big one is music trivia. The second hour of the show had the movie-songs feature, a love-song dedication, and a tease for a Tuesday feature on short songs, but the first hour had Popmaster, Bruce’s signature feature, in which two listeners each get a different battery of music-trivia Qs. As Cridland noted, it was a big deal that Bruce was allowed to bring the feature to a rival station with its name intact.
The first, audibly nervous contestant, got 13 out of 39 points and was unable to name the Police from a clip of “King of Pain.” She also didn’t know how many ways to leave your lover Paul Simon sang about. The winner, Richard Todd, got a perfect score, although he was sort of a ringer, having hosted an online Sunday UK throwback countdown that was my Sunday compliment to American Top 40 reruns on Saturday. (Todd identified himself here as a former club DJ and didn’t mention the countdown, although he seems to be the same person.)
Greatest Hits does have a big-money, text-the-keyword-to-win national contest. Listeners are eligible to win 250,000 GBP and only have to answer the phone if called to win. Unlike our national contesting, listeners are actually paying two pounds to enter. Despite this, Popmaster was clearly the showpiece.
Some Ross on Radio readers undoubtedly wonder how they would fare on Popmaster. Here’s the battery of questions that Todd aced. (I’ve slightly rewritten a few that were audio questions.) Answers are below.
- The New Seekers had a top 3 hit in 1972 called “Beg, Steal or ________”
- The Color of My Love and Falling Into You were both No. 1 albums in the ’90s for which Canadian born singer?
- In 1974, this brother and sister act achieved their first hit duet with a revival of a 1964 hit by Dale & Grace. (There was an audio clip of “I’m Leaving It [All] Up to You.”)
- The song title that was shared between Simple Minds in 1986 and T.A.T.U. in 2003.
- “Good Morning Judge” and “Art for Art’s Sake” were both top 10 hits in the ’70s for who?
- What was Status Quo’s only No. 1 hit? (Hint: No. 3, 6, and 9 were all from a category of audio questions called “ups and downs.”)
- In 1987, “Labour of Love” was the top 10 chart debut for what act?
- In what year was this week’s top 3 “Informer” by Snow, “Oh Carolina” by Shaggy, and “Young at Heart” by the Bluebells?
- Name the performer who had two top 40 hits in 1976, including “Uptown Uptempo Woman”?
- The band Cutting Crew had its only top 10 single in 1986 with which song?
When Bruce wasn’t talking about the music, he was reading listener texts. One was “since your last broadcast, I’ve had hip replacement surgery.” One came through with no content, prompting Bruce to quip, “If you haven’t got anything to say, keep quiet. That’s always been my maxim, and I do my best to abide by it. Why am I still talking then? Never mind.” Normally, that’s the sort of break that program directors try to get their veteran air talent to stop doing. But I’d already bought in.
There has been a lot of talk in recent years about high-profile personality as radio’s most important differentiator in the streaming age. I recently reported on a convention panel where programmers made it clear that they were looking for personalities, not disc jockeys, but Bruce is an important reminder that sometimes the best way to become the former is by being accomplished as the latter.
As acknowledged, the Bruce scenario is hard to replicate in the U.S., where there are few nationally recognizable talents and few national platforms, although Martha Quinn on KKSF (103.7 80s+) San Francisco could be that if iHeart created a national Classic Hits brand. (For now, her MTV co-workers on SiriusXM ‘80s on 8 may be the closest.) But I still like seeing an air personality become a national story. And I like hearing an air talent who would either be retired or “retired” in the U.S. still talking about the music, not yesterday’s celebrity news.
Here’s the hour of music itself from 11 a.m.:
- Blondie, “Heart of Glass”
- Maxi Priest, “Wild World”
- Billy Preston & Syreeta, “With You I’m Born Again” — the day’s Love Song dedication
- Curtis Mayfield, “Move On Up”
- Daryl Hall & John Oates, “Maneater”
- Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta, “Summer Nights” — a film-soundtrack song for the “Monday Matinee”
- Simply Red, “Stars”
- Frank Wilson, “Do I Love You? (Indeed I Do)” — the 1965 Motown obscurity that became a Northern Soul classic (and a recent Bruce Springsteen cover)
- Phil Oakey & Giorgio Moroder, “Together in Electric Dreams”
- David Bowie, “Let’s Dance”
- Elvis Presley, “Way Down” — the beginning of the noon hour, when it kicked off a 1977 feature. There was also an “oh wow” song coming later that hour.
Popmaster answers are:
- “Beg, Steal or Borrow”
- Celine Dion
- Donny & Marie Osmond
- “All The Things She Said”
- 10cc
- “Down Down”
- Hue & Cry
- 1993
- Randy Edelman
- “(I Just) Died in Your Arms”
