Manchester radio can be upbeat, lively and sarcastic. If you're a listener what do you think of it?
A week listening to ? BBC Radio 1Xtra
A week listening to ? TalkSport
"Killing Spoke," says Justin Moorhouse to his drive-time posse on Key 103 as he reads out a listener's pun-based attempt to combine music and cycling. There is silence from Moorhouse's young compadres, who seconds ago had been laughing their toes off at an offering of You Can Ring My Bell ? and that wasn't even a pun.
"Killing Joke," explains the DJ and comedian most fondly remembered for the Phoenix Nights episode he spent with his face permanently made up as a tiger. "They were a band from the 80s, although to be fair I seriously doubt anyone who knows who Killing Joke are is listening to Key 103."
Well, I own a copy of Love Like Blood, Killing Joke's excellent 1985 single. And not only that, but thanks to the wonders of the internet, last week I was listening to Manchester's leading commercial station from "that London". Next up, Moorhouse guessed the age of a listener just by listening to her voice ? the fact that she had a sore throat because she'd drunk too many vodkas the previous evening was but a minor obstacle as he correctly plumped for 39.
It is rather odd listening to a local radio station when you are hundreds of miles away, unaffected by the travel and weather, unable to act on the special bargain deal of a facial for just �39 in King Street. But distance aside, Key 103 has much to enjoy, not least marvellous breakfast double act Mike Toolan and Chelsea Norris. Mike & Chelsea in the Morning's dynamic is familiar to many other breakfast show double acts but they make the business of being funny and upbeat at 7.30am on a Wednesday seem natural and easy.
Despite the insults they hurl at each other ? how many women would let somebody get away with calling them piggy featured? ? the pair appear to genuinely enjoy each others company. Dominating much of their chat last week was Chelsea's forthcoming wedding (to afternoon DJ Matt Spokes) - an event that their colleague Matt Haslam chose to commemorate with an innuendo laden ballad about his own adulterous evening with Chelsea at a local Travelodge where "I was David Furnish you were Elton John". Move over Mitch Benn.
Sadly, Chelsea is now off for a whole month but I'll listen again ? how can you not respect a woman who, rather than travel to London to attend the Commercial Radio Awards, went to see Neil Diamond with her mates. "We never win anyway," she reasoned before bursting into a couple of verses of Cracklin' Rosie.
Excellent Sunday evening pop-kid Chris Younie aside, it's obvious that nobody at Key 103 is particularly bothered by the music they play. Between breakfast and drive time, Key 103 goes a little flat, filling its "no repeat guarantee" hours with two-year-old pop alongside the occasional new release. After playing Coldplay's latest, mid-morning man Darren Proctor remarked excitedly "where else can you get songs like this? Nowhere!". Or indeed "everywhere!"
Over on the more sedate BBC Radio Manchester the first thing I noticed was that the same voiceover artist ? Craig Kelly of Queer as Folk and Coronation Street ? does both stations idents, which more or less makes him The Voice of Manchester.
BBC Radio Manchester is a lot more "local" than Key 103, but the music seems equally unimportant and, occasional Beverley Knight tune aside, identical to Radio 2's playlist circa 1985. None of this matters come early afternoon, however, when Broom Cupboard evacuee Andy Crane is on air. Crane is excellent; like a less annoying Jeremy Vine he straddles the serious and the friendly with ease. Although he does let some of his callers get away with murder ? after the government awarded the Thameslink project to German conglomerate Siemens rather than a company based in Derbyshire one elderly gentleman called in to say that "Germany had basically achieved what Hitler set out to do". Crane talked him down calmly then stuck on I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me by Nik Kershaw. It was all very sweet.
Also enjoyable ? if only it didn't share scheduling with Mike and Chelsea ? was Beswick at Breakfast, presented by the brilliantly deadpan veteran DJ Allan Beswick who I couldn't stop thinking of as Mark E Smith's friendlier older brother. "Put your hands up if you know what's going on at Stockport County?" he asked on Monday. "It's a football club," he clarified, "It's been taken over ? some bloke walking past with a fiver."
You don't get levels of sarcasm like that down south. So if you listen to local radio in Manchester what do you think of it ? and what decent shows did I miss?
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/jul/13/bbc-radio-manchester-key-103
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