The days when adored presenters David Jacobs and Desmond Carrington died in the saddle at Radio 2 were over. It was trying to recruit a younger audience, seemingly without caring about the devoted listeners who’d been loyal to the station for decades.
Simon Mayo, squeezed out of his own show after being forced to ‘share’ with Jo Wiley the programme he’d hosted solo for eight years, packed his bags. Graham Norton headed for the hills. Craig Charles was given the heave-ho.
Unconscionably and incomprehensibly my dear friend, radio titan Steve Wright, was removed from his afternoon show despite stellar listening figures. Listeners were outraged. They’d grown up with Steve. We all had. He’d been our friend on the radio for 40 entertaining, unpredictable, enjoyable years. Steve, devastated and trying hard to keep a lid on his heartbreak, told me personally he was turfed out of Radio 2 with no show and no job and had to ask with a meeting with Director-General Tim Davie to request (he didn’t use the word beg) to keep on presenting Sunday Love Songs.
Tim Davie agreed Steve, who’d been at the Beeb 42 years, had been treated shamefully and overruled the decision. Steve retained Love Songs but lost his raison d’etre.
Stripped of his daily relationship with his audience, his gallery of guests, beloved posse and the outlet for his cauldron of creativity, he struggled to be positive. Along with his fans and friends all over the world, I was sad beyond words when he died on February 12, 2024. His last text to me said: “Hi hi V. You are a gr8 broadcaster, a beautiful person. And I am a fan. Wishing u only the best xx steve.”
The cull continued. To my horror, Paul O’Grady, indisputably a radio genius with an instantly recognisable voice, original turn of phrase and caustic line in sardonic humour no one else in the world will ever be able to emulate, was told there was no longer a place for him at Radio 2. The decision was ludicrous.
Paul had never been more popular. He was beloved and irreplaceable. He told me he was privately bereft. I’d loved Paul ever since I inherited his cast-off frocks when I succeeded him on the Big Breakfast bed. To my blushing delight, he called me the “Delphic Sibyl”.
I combed my vocabulary for effulgent epithets to bestow on him. I loved him and admired him boundlessly. His premature death at just 67 was a body blow to millions. He was worshipped the length and breadth of Britain. His kindness illuminated all he encompassed.
If Radio 2 no longer considered Paul O’Grady an integral star in their constellation, I was sure they’d be marking my card and I’d be next to walk the plank.
Jump? Or wait to be pushed? I know which I’d prefer. And I’d been circled by poachers from rival radio stations for years.
Last night a BBC spokesperson said: “It was always planned that Steve would continue to present Sunday Love Songs on Radio 2 and he continued to do so, alongside a variety of specials, as well as Pick of the Pops on Saturdays from October 2023.” The spokesperson insisted Radio 2 remained a “multi-generational radio station that serves a 35+ audience, a target audience” that hadn’t changed in decades.
- Adapted extract by Emmeline Saunders from Vanessa Bares All: Frank, Funny and Fearless, by Vanessa Feltz (Transworld, £22), published October 24. To order for £19.80 visit expressbookshop.com or call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on online orders over £25