Rob86

It’s Jamie’s dream of a lifetime to be a full time Radio 1 presenter apparently, but he can only do it 2 or 3 days a week.

Jamie Laing out of the schedule for Going Home today - Lauren Layfield in with Katie Thistleton.

Katie’s posted on Insta how she’s poorly at the mo (bad cold by the sounds of things). Vick is off all next week and no way could Jamie possibly present solo (imagine!). So if Katie can’t present on Monday be interesting to hear what they do. Suspect they’ll be asking Matt Edmondson if he’s available, but not too many obvious options at all.

Lauren Layfield is in with Katie on Going Home next Thursday. Vick and Jamie both off.

And it’s now just Matt, no Mollie next Saturday and Easter Sunday. The trail playing this weekend has Greg saying it’s Matt Edmondson only in for him on Monday, so very last minute changes.

It is definitely a failure and they’re both going to lesser slots, whatever the spin. Grimmy leaving Drive was his decision after a long successful stint at Radio 1. It seemed pretty random to me when the appointment was made. They’d never done a show together. Vicky had no regular slot on Radio 1. And when you pair people up, it so often doesn’t work - it really needs to be trialled first. The people involved have got to be great broadcasters and genuine friends. Vicky just seems to giggle at everything. I’ve always found it really hard to listen to and that’s so rare for me to say about a Radio 1 show. But it has me turning off. Roll on July.

Katie on her show yesterday: “Jamie’s just hilarious, brilliant, doesn’t really know what’s going on, Vick is one of my best friends in the world and just an incredible broadcaster and I’ll be there to balance them out maybe, to be somewhere in the middle of those two things”. She obviously didn’t mean it in a bad way but quite funny her contrasting the “incredible broadcaster” Vick with “doesn’t really know what’s going on” Jamie. If Jamie’s been trying hard to get on Radio 1 for 8 years it doesn’t massively show, it sounds like he doesn’t know anything much about radio at all.

It really give the impression of panic after Jordan’s news, suddenly realising the weekday afternoon line-up is pretty weak and needing to sort it asap. But big fan of Katie and Matt and Mollie so it’s good news. One other thought - I wondered a while back if a stumbling block for Jordan getting breakfast might be a lack of co-presenter (Vick not wanting it, Katie in Manchester) and that’s why he was presenting Breakfast with Mollie a few months back, to try the paring out (when Katie was available and presenting Going Home). But Katie is clearly more than prepared to move to London and it would not of been an issue at all. Makes me wonder why Jordan did present with Mollie that week - did they think Jordan and Katie together was too northern or something?!

I would say moving Sam and Danni to be that slot would be the most likely option. They’ve been sounding great recently. I’d even put them as favourites for next Breakfast hosts now Jordan’s left (not for a while though). For weekends they do like putting people together so it could be another seemingly slightly random combo. I’ll have a random punt at Nikita Kanda and James Cusack.

Katie’s Insta post almost made me teary - she’s so great. And when she says how much shock she’s in - plus how shocked she was at the Jordan news, makes me think this has all been done very, very quickly. Last week she was on holiday, this weekend she’s still doing her usual shows. Really feels that with the Jordan news they’ve realised they quickly need to sort weekdays. It’s a very unusual time of year to be making big changes - they normally wait till September. And weekdays do now look much stronger. But now they need to sort weekends. Not looking forward to three days of Nat and Vicky - is that really a good idea?

Big shout out to you for saying this 20 hours ago - looks like the bosses agree

Really great news I think. After Jordan’s exit weekdays really need strengthening. And it is weird that the weekend afternoon programme is clearly stronger than the weekday afternoon programme (IMO). Dean and Vicky IMO hasn’t worked and they really now need to ensure they keep all their strongest presenters - including Matt and Mollie. BUT weekdays could sound very London/southern - Greg, RMC, M&M, then Jamie Laing too. Unless they might be thinking of moving RMC and replacing with Katie? I like RMC though. Fascinated to know if there may be other changes coming…

Arielle and Sian weren’t presenting with Matt earlier though were they? They just came in for the game. Vicky, Nat and Ore are trying to present the whole show together - and failing badly. Unlistenable.

From what I’ve heard - this Nat, Vicky and Ore show is a really horrible mess.

Jordan last did it in October with Mollie. And he had a week in August with Katie. After October the next time Greg was off was first week of January when Dean covered. I did wonder if the Mollie pairing was a trial for a future Breakfast partnership - perhaps because Vick doesn’t want to do it and Katie’s in Manchester with lots of other commitments. It would be fascinating to understand how this has all played out over the past few months. It really felt like he was going to succeed Greg but now it’s all unravelled.