Sometimes you want to say something publicly, but you think it might seem a bit harsh or unnecessary and you certainly don’t want to offend the media.  It is always great in such a situation when somebody in that organisation says what you think.  I used to love listening to certain commercials on radio stations, listening to music, the charts, etc, and of course there is a part of me that would grow out of that, but there was another part that was put off, as radio became a lot more of simply presenters reading out of the latest gossip magazines as to what Kim Kardashian and her husband are doing – which is perhaps for males, or perhaps just for me, extremely boring and of no interest – I am really listening to a music station because I want to hear music and possibly would be more interested in what album is about to be released by a pop star than the comings and goings of the various people who have used amateur sex tapes to build a name for themselves.  

Gareth Cliff leaving 5FM led to some amazing, but very honest comments in the Sunday Times as part of an interview he gave and what he said of 5FM is that, “People talk about content, but if you distilled 5FM down to 2 hours, you would find station ID’s, DJ’s saying their own name, saying nothing interesting to callers and going ‘thanks for your opinion’ you would probably be left with about 10 minutes of real content, most of which, at this point would consist of DJ Fresh’s laugh … but nobody has to be captain to this dull, unimaginative world that FM Radio’s become.”  Maybe Gareth Cliff is also getting old, but I just got to a point, many years ago, that I could no longer listen to the absolute nonsense that the presenters talk and they really are not of the calibre that they once were, whether that was Alex Jay or Mark Gillman, who was hated by many listeners because of his commentary on the South African political scene.  He did tell me, during a chat that I had once, when he left 5FM, it was because he could no longer identify with the young audience and maybe that is why I don’t listen and maybe that is why Gareth Cliff is also moving on, but I still think that it is not just because we all are getting older, but because that particular station really has changed.  It is not as if I want to listen to music of the 80s and 90s – I like modern music, I just don’t want to listen to drivel.