Scott v Matt and Mollie

[R1Fan1]

Given that we are almost four years into Aled Haydn Jones’ tenure, and it has been packed full of schedule changes, it’s worth looking back at this point and seeing how well he has succeeded.

For reference, some of his big decisions:

1. Moving specialist programmes to start an hour earlier at 6pm, and moving Early Breakfast and Breakfast to start 1 hour and 30 minutes later respectively.

2. Removing Clara from daytime and putting her on Future Sounds.

3. Ending the evening entertainment show and moving RMC to daytime.

4. Letting Dev go.

5. Giving Arielle early breakfast.

6. Changing the Friday schedule so that Greg hosts breakfast five days a week and introducing a Friday EB residency.

7. Putting Vick and Jordan together.

8. Putting Dean and Vicky together

9. Replacing Jordan with Jamie Laing (presumably under timed conditions). 

10. Letting Chris Stark go?
 

obviously some decisions have presumably been made over him, E.g. Grimmy, Annie, Scott and Jordan leaving of their own accord.

so what do we think, has he made these decisions too quickly. Are there too many duos now? What’s everyone’s thoughts? 

[onlyME]

It's funny he is credited with ending the weekends on Friday, because I'm sure it was his decision as head of programmes to introduce them! 

In fairness to Aled he seemed to bring the Radio 1 family together for much of his time as boss, hopefully he can reunite them all again now.

Also worth pointing out he's been through the toughest period of any boss. Through a pandemic and homeworking!

[R1Fan1]

And of course there has also been budget cuts during his time as well.

[IamNotFromUK]

I believe most of the changes were for good during Aled's tenure. I saw someone accuse Aled of letting Jordan go, but I think that's highly untrue. He was already doing the second biggest R1 show, and putting him on breakfast would also be a bad choice because it would mean letting Greg go. All in all, I think Aled's working with what's available money and people-wise. I'm just not sure about recurring features such as missions for the presenters and the overuse of the Anthems format.

[AndyK77]

1 minute ago, IamNotFromUK said:

All in all, I think Aled's working with what's available money and people-wise. I'm just not sure about recurring features such as missions for the presenters and the overuse of the Anthems format.

I think there is a lof of truth here.  Jordan's decision will no doubt be partly money-driven (as is his right and all our rights to go somewhere for more money) and the BBC gets lambasted when it tries to compete for wages.

[BBCAaron]

I think like any controller of a station as big and with as diverse range of programming, reach and audience diversity like radio 1 it’s always going to be pros and cons. I’d say the BBC have the hardest stations to run and programme as no commercial station would have a rock show and a rap show  on the station.

Pro’s:

- extension of the stations introducing programming with creating programming reflecting new rock and dance acts

- creating new opportunities for new and emerging talent to contribute and be platformed by the station over the Christmas and New Year period and over set of Friday early morning show making firsts with first ever trans and non-binary people to present on radio 1 and having opportunities for blind, neurodivergent and wheelchair using presenters creating opportunities to access workplaces that otherwise have been hard to access.

- Launching the Annie Nightingale Scholarship programme giving opportunities to support the careers and new emerging female and non-binary talent in the electronic and dance dj and production scene 

- having more female presenters on air whereas previously the schedule was much male dominated 

- creating a brand with the specialist programming that the station has long been associated with in playing new music from established names and new talent here and abroad with Future Pop, Dance, Alternative, Soul and Artists. Fully fledging the Future Sounds and the Hottest Record as the flagship show to bring them all together

cons:

- reduction of hours of programme playing new emerging music from multi-genres and supporting alternative and less mainstream talent and reverting to playlist programmes that are akin to a streaming service or a commercial network 

- linking to the first con the increase of playlisted shows like Radio 1 Happy, Radio 1 Anthems, Radio 1 00’s and Radio 10’s to repeats of Dance Anthems programmes from a Saturday in the overnight slots on a weekday to Power Down Playlist Monday-Wednesday

- daytime playlist playing a lot more older music and the problem with hot re-occurents and overplay and repetition of tracks  

 

[BBCAaron]

1 hour ago, onlyME said:

It's funny he is credited with ending the weekends on Friday, because I'm sure it was his decision as head of programmes to introduce them! 

In fairness to Aled he seemed to bring the Radio 1 family together for much of his time as boss, hopefully he can reunite them all again now.

Also worth pointing out he's been through the toughest period of any boss. Through a pandemic and homeworking!

I actually think the four dayer was Cooper’s doing

[BBCAaron]

1 hour ago, R1Fan1 said:

And of course there has also been budget cuts during his time as well.

The budget cuts have frankly been bizarre. We can see how Radio 2/ 1/ 1X/ 6M/ Asia N’s London programmes coming from the 8th of NBH is a budget cut with selling up shop at Wogan house. But taking Dance new Radio 1 station to DAB and Radio 2 and 3 getting new stations and the doubling down on duos and going for celebrity names. Cuts have been bizarre. 

[IamNotFromUK]

52 minutes ago, BBCAaron said:

 doubling down on duos and going for celebrity names

If you compare presenter salaries published by the BBC, you'll see that a few years ago there were three R1 names: Scott Mills, Nick Grimshaw, and Greg James. Last year, there was only one - Greg. No one makes it even to the lowest £178,000 - £184,999 bracket, so I presume that two presenters on daytime cost roughly the same or even less than one in the past. But they're getting two presenters instead of one, and this means that they can do their shows on their own if someone's sick, which also saves money.

Also, some current presenters do only a few shows a week, and higher-paid weekday presenters are doing only Monday-Thursday, which I presume also saves money. I remember that Jordan was complaining some time ago that when he was doing only a few weekend shows a week, he was barely able to live in London. And now some shows are moving from London which also helps to save money, as the BBC can pay less to those people.

[radio247]

He never went through with Ask Aled which is a shame as he has been more pro-active than other Radio 1 bosses. I think the probing questions gave the PR people a heart attack, which is probably why it never happened. I am unsure of the Radio 1 PR machine after recent events. 

The good thing about Aled is how he rose through the ranks. He wasn't just put there without a clue about how the station works.