I will freely admit that I am a complete and utter TV addict. There is a relatively short list of things that I won't watch.... Soaps, This Morning, Lorraine Kelly, Songs of Praise, and especially Jeremy Kyle...(I would rather have my eyes sucked out by an upright vacuum cleaner then watch JK)...
Anyway, back to the point... I don't listen to much radio, so I would have to say that I am no expert in the field of local audio broadcasting, but last week I was quite taken aback when I found out that the lovely Lara King morning show on Radio Humberside was being axed.
Lara King
I usually listen to RH when I'm in the car...(I like the traffic reports)... and I cannot stand commercial radio so over the last few years I've become accustomed to my morning dose of Lara.
So there I was, listening the other morning, when Lara made her
little announcement... it was her last week on the show.. She was really professional, quoting from the official BBC press release that her move was part of a larger reorganisation and that she would still be working for Radio Humberside..(as part of the news team or something)
So how do you think I felt when they said it was David Burns taking over on the weekday morning slot? well after picking my chin up from off the floor I began trying to find out why they were moving the presenters around, and what was going to happen to Lara, but to no avail.
The HDM web site reported the move saying that Simon Pattern, managing editor of BBC Radio Humberside, said: "Lara King has done an excellent job for us for the past few years and will continue to play an important role across the station's output."
OK, so the Lara King show wasn't unmissable. She's had some criticism in the past about some South Bank bias in her views, but that is just because she's Lincolnshire and Proud... Nothing wrong with that I say... I always though her show was lively, entertaining, and good fun. The only thing I found wrong was that she lacked a bit of edge sometimes, but it's just a matter of opinion.
So what about Burnsy? He's definitely had his moments as the RH Head of Sport... so called exclusives that have turned out to be wrong, and even managed to get Radio Humberside banned from Hull FC press conferences after comments made on air, but this is who he is. I've had many a happy journey between 6-7.30pm listening to Sports-Talk's mix of news, anecdotes, views and the groans and moans of the numerous sports fans calling, texting and emailing the show. This was a great show, so why break up the very successful sports team?
David Burns
It doesn't matter what anyone may say about the sudden move of Lara King out of the morning slot, but I will say that Burnsy is a brilliant sports reporter, and should be kept on the 6pm sports programme.. The BBC has said that David Burns will remain the official RH Hull City reporter, so will still be part of the sports team.
Anyway, how is the new boy doing now that he has to get up in the morning? Well to be honest I'm not a fan. His show sounds awkward, and laboured, you can tell he'd be more comfortable arguing with Gwillam Lloyd then interviewing the grandma with bowel cancer that has just done a 24hour splash boat marathon for charity.
So what on earth were the powers that be thinking of when they made this decision? Because let me tell you, this is a bad move... They do say, you don't fix it if it aint broken. Ok, Lara's show was maybe in need of a bit more oomph, but all that Burnsy is doing is making a bad job even worse.
In the end this leads me to believe there is more to this move then the BBC are letting on, and there may be some internal politics at work, but this is of course only conjecture.
Anyway good luck Lara with what ever you end up doing, and Good luck Burnsy with the task at hand, I'm still waiting to be won over.
Images courtesy of BBC and Wikipedia
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