Is going to spend more time with his family, leaving his radio 2 afternoon slot to be replaced by zero personality Scott Mills. Not his choice it appears
Not necessarily a fan of Mr Wright, but who is now left in the daytime schedule who was on the BBC in the halcyon days of the 70s and 80s?
Johnny Walker? Gary Davies? Tony Blackburn? But all in weekend slots. I believe DLT, Simon Bates etc are clogging up the North Norfolk Digital airwaves, Simon Mayo left the BBC earlier this year.
* Steve Wright will continue his dreadful Sunday Love Songs show
I really think his time came, and went, at least a decade ago.
Mind you, I’ve been decorating a lot recently with a crappy little radio for company. When Radio 4 has back-to-back politics on Saturday afternoons, I switch over to R2. And I’d rather listen to Wrighty than to Rylan. {shudders}
Which decade is that? The 1970s? Yes, I agree. Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful.
His show always struck me as the ideal radio that you don’t actually have to listen to. Good for in the background with the occasional good tune.
If you actually listened to it though…*shudder*
Ken Bruce.
Yeah, was thinking more of Radio 1 DJs. He replaced Wogan when he went to TV right?
Chinny-wag with Wayne Carr in the afternoon!
How he’s lasted this long is a mystery to me.
How Jeremy Vine endures is a greater one.
The last time I heard S Wright must have been in the seventies on Radio 1.
Never listen to Radio 2 so I’ve never heard Viney.
The last time I listened to Wunnerful Radio One was believe it or not when I left the UK almost exactly 41 years ago
Not listened to him since the mid 80s but he always struck me as a DJ who regarded 3 minutes of music as an opportunity to set up his next skit or piece of bantz rather than the breaks being opportunities to introduce more music.
From my limited recent exposure the routine is exactly the same as it was in the 80s, and the music is still pretty awful.
Have you ever heard his “serious jocking” sessions, where he DJs like a wedding DJ. It is excruciating.
I was surprised to see how much Wright gets paid. I can’t remember the figure, but it made my eyes water and was one of the highest salaries at the BBC.
One of the best paid DJs and one of the worst. Definitely overdue a move
Gary Davies is still around isn’t he?
“Ooh Gary Davies if you please.”
I saw Gary Davies play in a charity football match at Sheffield United FC. Radio One v Radio Sheffield or something. Gary Davies took some merciless stick from the crowd. They were even giving him stick as he got stretchered off!
Did he hurt his bit in the middle?
Awful. Awful Awful. Fuckin twat no G
Jockin’…no G. That’s the calling card.
“Serious jockin, no g…” made me contemplate spending money on firearms. And I always thought he seemed to find music something that got in the way of him speaking.
That’s old school Radio 1 for you. a lot of the old-school Smashey & Nicey types (see above) had no interest in music whatsoever. Bruno Brookes famously didn’t actually have a record collection.
Jeez. Even the old guy Adam Ant held up in “Stand And Deliver” had a record collection..
Likewise Hairy Cornflake and convicted sex-case DLT:
https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Dave_Lee_Travis
I read somewhere that the only band Noel Edmunds liked was 10cc. I like 10cc and it put me off them a little bit.
I once heard DLT stop playing Pick Up the Pieces (the record itself rather than just the jingle) so that he could start it again from the beginning because he was enjoying so much. Even a stopped clock etc
I remember DLT getting all serious once, pointing out that he’s a serious music fan and even though they play all the latest chart hits on Radio Wacky, he prefers more serious bands. He said it all seriously. So now he’s gonna play a track by one of his favourite serious bands, Pink Floyd.
I’ll have been about 19 or 20, and it was a summer’s day and I was say on the lawn in front of the nurses’ home with some of the girls out of my set. After putting up with Kylie and Rick Astley, or whoever the current popsters were, I thought it was brill that we were about to get a Floyd track. I thought it would be Money, or Another Brick in the Wall, maybe One Slip, as I think that had been a single a couple of years earlier. Either way it was going to be a treat. And then he played Dogs of War. All the great tracks he could have chosen and he plays Dogs of War, possibly the worst track from a mediocre album. But in a way that we were supposed the think he was a real muso.
You’re always better off with Kylie rather than Pink Floyd…
Except as a human shield..
Absolutely…should’ve factored that in.
Although he nearly ended up owning Bob Harris’s collection.
Hey Nick don’t you mean “money spennin, no g” me old mate?
Think you mean Priti Patel who”ll soon be spennin’ a lot more time on the back benches
Absolutely terrible and should have gone decades ago. His lack of interest in music of any kind is reflected in his style – talking all over the intros of every song, chopping the ends off, (i.e. poor timekeeping,) or, worse still, singing over the end of a record. He is unqualified in the absolute basics of being a radio DJ.
There is something else…………..
No, I wouldn’t be surprised if some skeletons unlocked the cupboard from the inside.
I’ve got no good reason to find him really creepy but I do – I hate it when I happen to hear him. The picture that accompanies the article makes him look how I’ve always pictured him!
He was a breath of fresh air back in the 80s. Easy to forget how ahead of the curve he was with his posse, the characters, he was must listen funny. Now he’s unfunny, tired, shot of ideas and frankly embarrassing. Should have gone instead of Mayo.
I made the serious error of judgement of listening to his show a few months ago while I was doing some decorating. It was exactly the same schtick he was churning out 30 years earlier and was frankly excruciatingly dreadful. Sadly there is no irony in his constantly quoting all the listeners who tell him they ‘love the sheeowww’ when they surely must be taking the piss. He should have been booted off the air years ago, along with the appalling posse of sycophants who clap and cheer him on.
Probably the sycophants were recorded years ago and just remixed to sound ‘fresh’.
When I was at The North Oxfordshire Technical College in the 80s they had a coach laid on back to Oxford and the driver always had Steve Wright on full blast with his characters, and here’s the old woman, all screeching, hysterical voices. The posse, zoo radio, all that moronic, noisy shit that became ubiquitous. Innovation? Of a kind. A kind that made popular broadcasting decidedly worse. I just wanted to talk to my friend Camilla whose uncle is the writer Julian Barnes (not relevant who her uncle is but adds a bit of colour and sounds vaguely impressive). I resent that Wrighty git so much. Later on radio 2 he mellowed, he was still a twat but just about tolerable.
Wasn’t that whole posse thing started by Howard Stern in the US before it got taken up in the UK
Wasn’t everything started in the U.S.? There are exceptions – Morris Dancing, gavottes, snoods …
DONOVAN
*light, complicit laugh*
I think Nile Rogers invented Donovan
So undignified and pathetic, calling it “the posse” in a dated bit of cultural appropriation from 80s hip-hop.
I can’t be the only member of the Massive who thinks that.
But there were posses in the Wild West, so did hip hop appropriate the concept from the cowboys? 🤔
Yes, but I hardly think the Mr Angry Hitmaker was trying to cast his cupboard of badly-paid sycophants as The Magnificent Seven. More like when LL Cool J goes on stage and with him there’s half a dozen other gadgies not doing much apart from striding around in big coats pointing and going “Yeah y’all!”
Coats on, on stage. Reminds of me what my Mam used to say to anyone who came in to our house and kept their coat on for some reason.
‘Are you not staying?’
“When you get outside again you won’t feel the benefit!’
“What’s Jethro Tull got to do with this?”
etc
Underrated post.
The amount of coverage this is getting made me think he’d died !
He once stopped a Depeche Mode record after about 20 seconds, declaring it “boring”. What a twat.
He does have some talented comedians writing for him though. There was a very funny running gag featuring two daleks having a mundane conversation that quickly escalates into conflict.
Third dalek then enters the fray, commanding them to “leave it!” . It’s pretty much the same joke as the “calm down” Scousers on Harry Enfield.
My opinion of him just went up 😉
🖕(good natured)
He opened my school fete once when he was a Radio 210 DJ. He gave away some records. He gave me a Dennis Brown single. I was happy with that.
Haven’t listened to him in 40 years mind – it wasn’t good when I was 15.
Did he give you an avuncular pat on your curly little head?
No. But that does remind me of the time Jimmy Saville gave me his autograph when I was 7…
*shudder*
If he gave you the Dennis Brown single free, then you probably still had some Money in your Pocket.
But then it might have got stolen from you by the wolves and the leopards
I have never liked Steve Wright, but whether he is a terrible D.J, presumably depends on what you want from one. If you are happy with some reasonably familiar tunes interspersed with the sort of thing Wright does then I guess you will think he’s fine. I see that a couple of years ago his show was getting 8million plus listeners, which is reasonably impressive given the range of choice nowadays.
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups”* to keep people in their employment long after they have ceased to have any merit.
*George Carlin, I think.
Is he still going? It’s like hearing that the Mini Metro is still in production. Surprised to hear that he’s still on air let alone on BBC national radio. I left the UK in the eighties and he was sounding dated even then.
DJs that talk are a bit of a marmite issue. Good chatty DJs are very rare, examples being Wolfman Jack, some of the guys on the Cruisin’ comps. Of UK DJs I think the greatest and most innovative was late 60s early 70s Kenny Everett. Steve Wright for me was just annoying and pales in comparison. In this example Everett can’t contain himself as he’d got hold of the Beatles’ latest. Virtually every link he talks about the music….
Wow, I know exactly where I was on that day. I was in a Special Care Baby Unit, or whatever a 1969 equivalent was called. I was ill at 3 days old and that’s pretty much been the story of my life!
sorry for duplicate
I can only agree with alll the down votes here for “Wrighty”.
I think that Maconie & Radcliffe are good examples of DJ chat that actually serves the music (or if not music-related, is actually amusing slash interesting).
They’ve released the BBC salary figures today. In first place Gary Lineker, with £1.35m (which he’ll top up whilst moonlighting for other broadcasters and flogging crisps – he likes his money does old jug ears!), second is Zoe Ball, with £980k and then Wrighty comes in third, with £450k. Not bad for playing a few records and talking bollocks.
I’ve never heard of 3 of the top 10.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/62122985
The only one I had never heard of is Stephen Nolan, a radio presenter and apparently the highest BBC salary in Northern Ireland, which is an extraordinary achievement as his Wiki photo suggest he was born without ears.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Nolan
Yup, he was the only one I didn’t know. The release of these figures, along with the annual banning of “Fairytale of NY” will give the usual blowhards the chance to vent. Meanwhile, BBC Studios just booked a record revenue of £1.6bn. Should permit a decent farewell card for Dorries.
I’ve never heard of Scott Mills or Greg James either, but Wikipedia tells me they are Radio One DJs, which explains my ignorance.
What!! Vanessa fookin Feltz? Is this list from 30 years ago? how has she still got a bleedin’ job?
Who’s at 11, Gordon the bastard Gopher??
She spilled my pint in 1995 and didn’t buy me another. You’d have thought she could afford it.
Doesn’t surprise me. She’s leaving now, perhaps she doesn’t like the great unwashed knowing how much of their money she gets paid for whatever the fuck it is she does.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jul/28/vanessa-feltz-leave-bbc-radio-shows
Is there a list of all UK broadcaster’s salaries? I bet there aren’t many BBC employees in the top ten.
And, the list above doesn’t even cover the whole salary paid by the BBC to the presenters, only that paid directly. Shows made by independent production companies or BBC Studios, e.g. Graham Norton, Top Gear, Strictly, EastEnders, are not included.
So Claudia Winkleman’s Radio 2 show income is listed, her (much higher) Strictly fee is not.
It’s always been a huge mystery why newsreaders/presenters get paid so much. They read an autocue. I’m not saying it doesn’t require some level of acuity, but anyone who’s done a media-related course could do it. Huw Edwards earns more than double the salary of the Prime Minister. If he wants to chance his arm in the commercial sector, good luck to him. As long as his replacement can read and talk, the News at 10 won’t suffer.
And Huw Edwards always gives the impression that he is repeating what is being fed into his earpiece phonetically with no comprehension of what the sounds mean.
And he pauses ‘er, umm…’ so much mid-sentence. None of the others do. Why does he do that if he’s reading from a script?
Wow. John McEnroe gets between 180 and 185K for 2 weeks work at Wimbledon. I really expected that to be 10 to 20K which would be a reasonable pro rata amount
If you compare him with the other alleged talent on this list, he’s worth every fkin penny.
For 2 weeks work? He’s good but not that good
£180,000 for a fortnight’s comments on lawn tennis?
Where there’s grass – there’s brass.
Of course it’s a fatuous amount of money. I said “compared”. If they’re going to give £400K to Vanessa for a year or even frankly over a friggin’ lifetime…
And he is brilliant. I have almost no interest in tennis but could listen to him blethering on about it forever. VF I would struggle to listen to for ten seconds.
It’s all about me of course.
It all goes back to Dan Maskell’s original negotiation, where he was paid by the word. The Beeb were delighted with this arrangement, as Dan seldom mustered more than three “Oh, I say”s per match. Sue Barker gets paid loads, but it’s mostly to persuade her mate Sir Cliff to keep it on the DL when rain stops play..
You cannot be fucking serious!
I once heard of a BBC journalist heading into the gents toilets at Wimbledon just as MacEnroe was leaving. Being a conscientious reporter he put his bladder out of mind and said, ‘Hello John. Any chance of a quick word of camera for me and my viewers on the BBC?’ To which MacEnroe cheerful responded, ‘Fuck you, fuck your viewers and fuck the BBC.’
I can see how the thick end of £100k a week would change your attitude.
No mention of Kenny Everett. Disappoint.
Good discussion, that. For anyone who is happy to mock Steve Wright (and I’m not going to hold you back: I’ve never liked him) it needs reminding that it’s easy to forget how much of a skill it is to fill airtime with waffle that people actually tune in to hear and to keep things on course while playing records at the same time.
However, my main takeaway from that video is what a handsome silver stud Mark Ellen is looking these days! Doesn’t he suit a beard?? And his video call backdrop looks in a very similar state to mine, which makes me feel a bit better when I’m a source of comedy for my work colleagues (who all have tasteful minimal backdrops).
My late mother used to listen to his show because she liked the “facts” he presented
Factoids. Always turn the teeth grinding aspect up to 11.
Factoids, shankroids, the Voidoids.
Haemorrhoids,
That was the obvious one, but I thought that shankroids was more exotic. It seems like something a pirate would get.
I thought the most interesting thing from that clip was the revelation that Wright habitually asks guests a question, then walks out of the studio, leaving the surprised guest alone to fill the airtime. Trevor Dann said this was Wright’s way of showing the guest where the power lay and who was boss. It sounds thoroughly unprofessional to me and confirms what a total tosser the man is. Good riddance.
And now “Paul O’Grady quits Radio 2 show saying it’s the ‘right time to go'”
Having listened to some of his show in the car last weekend, I’d have said the right time to go was about 17 years ago.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-62479997
The BBC rarely indicates when radio material – or entire shows – are prerecorded. I can understand one-offs/documentaries/late night shows being prerecorded, but when poor old Cilla died, they played O’Grady’s show as normal. He was full of cheer and looked like a total tit, as his show was recorded days before Cilla died. A full week later, he was on with his tribute show to his great mate.
Steve Wright has regularly played the same tape twice (factoids, etc.).
And Diana Ross had to sing live. For shame.
I only listen to the occasional Johnnie Walker ‘Sounds of the 70s’ if I happen to be driving. Otherwise I never bother with Radio 2. Or Radio 1 or 6 Music come to that. I listen to the Today Programme on Radio 4 every morning though. It’s gone downhill lately.
Mrs F routinely mutters, as she jabs her soldier into a boiled egg, “Today is depressing”. Well, that’s the news, my lovely.
I wish the Today programme would play repeats. The show has really jumped the shark.