I've been intending to do a post about Nick Grimshaw's breakfast show for some time now, the problem being that until now i hadn't reached a conclusion.
There is no denying that Grimshaw was going to have a massive challenge to take over from arguably Radio 1's most successful breakfast show and the cracks started appearing very quickly. The decision to only have Nick's voice on air most of the time was quickly overturned when it became clear he needed somebody to bounce off. It is difficult to actually sound like you're having fun on the air when you're alone and regardless of how much Ben Cooper wanted to get shot of the zoo format, we soon found that nothing sounds as lonely as a socialite with no friends. The result is that we now regularly hear the voices of the producer and broadcast assistant, which aids things greatly.
One thing i liked about Chris Moyles was his ability to admit when he'd changed his opinion on something. Quite often he'd criticise records on their first play, but would then openly admit it had grown on him. Compare this to Grimshaw who heavily criticised Swedish House Mafia's "Don't You Worry Child" on his first play and declared he was "never going to play that again", yet did several times before the end of the week without further comment. If you're going to have opinions, they need some weight to make them mean anything.
Anyway, i hadn't intended for this to be a complete hatchet job. The 08:45 quiz Showquizness is quite entertaining, although does wear thin when it becomes clear that they've got a very limited number of clips of the Showbot, a robotic voice that theoretically poses the questions in the quiz. It is effectively a pale immitation of Car Park Catchphrase with a recorded voice interacting with the DJ, except that the interaction isn't as well planned and feels a lot more clunky.
The show branding has been completely changed to fall in with the general station imaging and spoken jingles stating "Radio One's Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw" which suggest that he is pretty much interchangeable with any other name they wish to put in there. It doesn't scream longevity to me.
Another factor that doesn't endear the new show to the higher aged demographic is the fact that we've had three excruciating weeks of hype about the Teen Awards which seems to require One Direction to be mentioned at least every three seconds. To be honest, i've been able to put up with these short term distractions (Teen Awards, Brits Week, Big Weekends) because they're only there for a little while before being forgotten about again.
In truth, i'd been a bit meh about the whole thing and had neither found anything to really like or dislike about the whole package. That came to an end this morning when i decided to switch off. The ignorant fashionista twat came out when Grimshaw declared Television Centre (where he's hosting an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks) to be "like an 80s hospital" and complain because he couldn't get a phone signal in there, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the building has been there for a lot longer than him and is arguably the second most important building in British television after Alexandra Palace.
I could quite easily bang on for hours about TVC being the field of dreams, the blank canvas on to which artists paint pictures and bring them to life or a portal to another world where anything is possible... but i won't. But then again, i won't cluelessly dismiss it as "something off of the eighties". I want to be entertained by people who either amuse me, broaden my horizons or both. Grimshaw does neither, so after getting on for nine years i'm looking for a new breakfast frequency.
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