Shuffling the pack...

Radio 1 is having a reshuffle in September, of which details have recently been released. I have no opinions on this.

Not really.

Weekday early mornings: Dev replaces Greg James
Greg James has been doing a sterling job on early mornings. I know this because when he hasn't been on the early morning slot and i've had an early start, i've found whoever has been on instead profoundly irritating. Dev has done a couple of short stints on early breakfast and sounded like a fish out of water. He also started hosting weekend breakfast two weeks ago, plugging it as an "entirely new show", obviously already knowing he was due to move on within three months. It seems like the revolving door of R1's weekend breakfast slot is still alive and well, the slot struggling to hold anybody for more than a few months as well as being the breeding ground for some truly awful "talent".

Perhaps Dev will adapt to the slot and settle in, but at the moment he sounds short of ideas and devoid of anything interesting to say. He'd be a perfect presenter for a Kiss daytime show.

Weekday breakfast: Moyles, Vitty, Byrne, Prideaux, Jones, Jones and (to a lesser extent) Fincham retained.

Chris Moyles and his exceptional team dodge the bullet with a one-year extension to their tenure on the breakfast show. Given that the show has sustained excellent ratings despite the printed media's attempts to push Moyles off air, this is entirely justified. I personally hope that the show continues to stay on air for as long as it remains fresh and popular.

Weekday mornings: Fearne Cotton replaces Jo Whiley

Jo Whiley has been a stalwart of Radio 1 for getting on for two decades, first as part of the seminal Evening Session (with Steve Lamacq) during the 90s and later moving to daytimes. Whiley has retained her love of the alternative and off-beat throughout, introducing many tunes to listeners who would otherwise have not heard them (including myself - i'd probably never had bought a copy of Sebastien Tellier's "La Ritournelle" had i not heard it on Whiley's show) and many will miss this aspect of her presenting.

Her replacement, childrens TV presenter Fearne Cotton, is probably making a very shrewd career move. It is particularly notable that since plastering herself with tattoos, the fickle TV industry have been less willing to book her as a mainstream presenting face, so a full time radio slot is a solid career choice that you can't argue with. Hopefully Cotton will show more dedication to this than she has done to the weekend breakfast and late afternoon shows she has co-hosted for the past couple of years with regular co-host Reggie Yeates, where other on air talent has been heard to refer to it as "the Fearne or Reggie show".

Having heard Cotton cover for both Whiley and Edith Bowman before, i'm not enthusiastic about her as a replacement for Jo, but she's aeons better than some gushing, guffawing idiot like Annie Mac or Nick Grimshaw whose scripted enthusiasm is just painful. Given that R1 are clearly moving to reduce their average presenter age, Cotton isn't the perfect choice, but it could have been far worse.

Weekday afternoons: Greg James replaces Edith Bowman's Film Show

Edith Bowman has been living on borrowed time since the departure of Colin Murray from the afternoon slot. The re-branding of the show as a film-centric vehicle proved to be the final redirection under Bowman's control. I've commented in the past about some of the features on Bowman's show (such as "My Life in Music") which are badly scheduled for the target audience and i stand by this, so hopefully Greg James will bring across the energy of his morning show to some new output in this slot. James has been developing excellently since starting out on R1, not sounding out of his depth when covering for Scott Mills, even if he does sound like he needs somebody to bounce off every so often.

Weekday drivetime: Scott Mills retained

Now, while researching this i discovered that Scott Mills is actually the same age as Chris Moyles, having always assumed him to be younger. Anyway, the output of Mills' Drivetime show has been consistently good over the past couple of years, with the only possible weakness being the Friday 6pm "Friday Floorfillers", which specialises in sub-Kiss levels of bad dance remixes of songs which don't benefit from the Four-to-the-Floor treatment.

Weekday evenings: No changes yet publicised.

Weekend early breakfast...
Whoever decided the "specialist" shows should overspill from the night before until 7am is making a serious mistake. We're not all into Annie Nightingale's brand of slurred twaddle about how Dubgrime&bass is going to be bigger than Jesus (although Sunday morning's Ras Kwame is considerably better).

Weekend breakfast: Dev departs...
As usual, the "exciting new" presenter of Weekend Breakfast departs after a few months, so perhaps we can expect another couple of months worth of Chappers and Dave with their Motorway Service Area related features. I've got my fingers crossed. The show has desperately needed a stable presenter since Spoony left (since replaced by Nihal, Fearne & Reggie, Nick Grimshaw, a Chappers & Dave stint and Dev)

Saturday morning: Vernon Kay retained.
Sunday morning: Sara Cox retained (the Lie-in show).
Vernon Kay's Saturday morning show continues to be entertaining, with Kay also managing to occasionally fill in for Moyles on weekday mornings whilst gelling well with the rest of the team. Sadly, Sunday morning's Lie-in show has been completely wrecked by Sara Cox whose abrasive, self-obsessed presenting style doesn't fit in with the laid-back attitude of the show, nor does the often painfully bad music chosen since she took over. Regular readers of this blog will know i love Chappers & Dave and their tenure preceeding Cox was exactly what the Lie-in show needed - relaxed, enjoyable radio playing a much better variety of music. I can't help feel that somebody with the musical knowledge of Jo Whiley would be much better suited to taking over the Lie-in slot than....

Weekend afternoons: Jo Whiley replaces Nihal.
Nihal has carved out an interesting niche in weekend afternoons, providing a well refined and well paced show. It is a shame therefore to see a man who is on top of his game replaced by somebody who might find it difficult to adjust to a completely different slot to the one she currently fills. It is obvious that Nihal is currently one of the hardest working men on radio, having often been on Radio 1, Five Live and Asian Network all within the same week, so perhaps he is looking to calm down his schedule a bit.

Weekend early evening (Request/Chart): Reggie Yeates goes solo.
As Fearne Cotton departs to the Weekday morning show, Reggie Yeates takes over the two weekend shows singlehandedly. Out of the two, i think Yeates will struggle more with going solo as his style seems to struggle more when he doesn't have his playmate to bounce off.

So then Smartarse, what would you have done?
Well, some aspects continue to be pleasing, particularly that the supposedly trendy oaf George Lamb still isn't allowed anywhere near Radio 1.

If we go in order, i'd have kept Greg James on early breakfast as he is very good at it.

When Moyles does step down from R1's Breakfast show, i personally think his replacement should be Zane Lowe. I know it sounds nuts, but think about it - Lowe's style is the complete opposite of Moyles; where Moyles can be lethargic, Lowe is a comparative Duracell bunny. Where Moyles is often accused of not playing enough records, Lowe not only plays them but massively enthuses about the music he plays. Lowe's two bank holiday breakfast "takeover" shows have both been solid listening and demonstrating massive potential if Radio 1 wants to be taken seriously as a music broadcaster.

For weekday mornings, i'd be struggling to nominate somebody to replace Jo Whiley. Radio 1's daytime programmes have been notoriously difficult to get right. There have been some classics (such as Mark & Lard's afternoon show), but these are almost always remembered at the expense of some utter turkeys (Emma Forbes, anyone?). Perhaps Andy Parfitt could just admit he made a mistake and get Colin Murray back for the slot - at least then those who are complaining about R1 moving away from promoting cutting edge music might be satiated.

Again, the afternoon show is a difficult one to call. If Radio 1 want to continue the film obsession theme of the show, perhaps they should just go the whole hog and employ James King as a full time presenter.

Of course, it is taken as something of a given that when Moyles leaves breakfast, Scott Mills will take over. As Mills has been very entertaining when Moyles is on leave, i can't fault this as a strategy, but it doesn't really push the envelope very much. Greg James is almost sure to be promoted into Mills current drivetime post when it is vacated.

And what of the rest?
Well, i'd like to see Nihal retained in some form for mainstream broadcasting.
New talent for R1 also needs to be recruited from sources other than 1Xtra.
Presenters need to be recruited on account of them being passionate about what they do, not just fashionable.
I'd also like to hear a show where music criticism is allowed as well as praise - at the moment, Chris Moyles is the only presenter far enough above the line of fire to be able to do this. Perhaps a weekly, hourly show concerning additions to the playlist and an uncensored panel of critics would be a good route to take. I'd volunteer to be a panelist in the pilot.