Still using his old LBC pic I see.

It's a new frotier in broadcasting ...... The Two Mikes in for JHB next week.

At Iain and Kath's Film Ring I met some of the other talkRADIO producers, including Cornelius (from Jon Holmes and JHB), Rud (from Jonny & Ash and George Galloway) and Ricky (from Drive). I congratulated Cornelius on the brilliant Jon Holmes show and got him to say "start your message with the word talk". Jon and JHB get on fine in reality.

Poor Howard Hughes on his Unexplained show last night. He had some American chap talking about the case of missing Amelia Earhart from 1937, who began by being very grateful to be given a chance to air his conspiracy theories to the British public and sounded affable enough. Then halfway along and for no discernible reason on Howard's part he simply turned on him and became quite touchy and nasty, saying he was not being allowed to tell his story as he wanted to do and saying Howard might have an agenda. It was pure nonsense and Howard suddenly found himself on the defensive and in a serious spot of on air bother with this chap, who had no basis for his grievance. It was clear that Howard Hughes was absolutely furious with him but biting his tongue. Somehow he managed to get past the skirmish but I think that did it for Howard and he finished with him sooner than he would have done.


I see that the name James Max got mentioned on here. Yuck! I remember him doing some overnights a few years back on TalkSport and he was absolutely awful as a listen. One of the worst overnighters ever, and there's stiff competition with the likes of Steve Berry and Matt Forde for that one. TalkRadio won't win over many listeners with him as a stand in. Is this station already turning into an LBC-lite or something?

Paul Ross, Hartley Brewer, Jon Holmes, Iain Lee... all ex-LBC.
There was always going to be comparisons to LBC.

Are any of our Scottish correspondents going to see Jon Holmes today? He said on Friday that today's show was going to be coming from Edinburgh. Can't find any other details though so it may be somewhere private so you can't actually see the radio show.

Jon and Ginger Producer Dave Cribb filmed 9 seconds of their Virgin East Coast First Class service

https://twitter.com/davecribb/status/767449503951622145

Perhaps it is only going to be possible to see him this evening where he promotes his book. He's already mentioned the book quite a lot on the radio show.

The studio banter on the Jon Holmes show is usually great and the last week has been awesome. The last week we have had Victoria "appraising" Ass Prod Cass

http://talkradio.co.uk/funny/jon-hol...ass-1608163031

and then on Friday Cornelius sent an email from "Sex Luke's" account to Cass asking for a date. When it was read out on air, Luke couldn't get into the studio fast enough. Luke will probably ensure he locks his computer when he leaves his desk in future.

http://talkradio.co.uk/funny/i-got-p...ius-1608193154

James Whale is a guest right now with The Two Mikes - it's on Facebook Live and Periscope as well - reunited with his ex-boss Porky.

How wonderful to hear James Whale again on TalkRadio!

I wonder if there's any risk of him taking over the 10pm slot at some point in the future?

I'd love to be privy to the conversations he'll have in the building off air.

Edit! Whale was just asked if he may ever come back to Talk Radio and said, "never say never..."

I hope not, but Iain has been asking a few times on air whether Whale could come back, which some of us have taken to be a hint that Whale might be sitting in for him when he's on holiday. Obviously the last week wasn't an option as he was stuck in the house but Iain's got a couple more days off in the next few weeks, 30 August and 9 September if I remember correctly.

Realistically, I think it's quite possible that James Whale could replace Iain Lee on TalkRadio in the future, perhaps with Lee being offered a move to weekends. Weekends are pretty weak on TalkRadio at the moment. I seem to recall there was once a drivetime presenter on another station who joined on a multi-year contract when it launched but was moved to a Friday evening slot to see out that contract after the station decided to overhaul drivetime to get more listeners.

Replacing a holidaying presenter (Iain Lee) with virtually costless best-of repeats on such a new station just after the first set of Rajars is hardly an encouraging sign. Given that these repeats haven't even been compiled by the show's production staff, one has to wonder what they're actually doing when they turn up for work each evening to preside over a recording.

I would imagine any late night return of James Whale would include Ash returning as his producer & side kick, so no idea where that would leave Ed and Katherine Boyle. I do think it's a shame they don't give Boyle a proper show, especially since the management are happy for Asher Gould to be a presenter as well as producer.

Most new radio stations have more than one major revamp during their first few years so I don't expect many of the current slots to remain after a year or two.

This all said, perhaps Whale couldn't care less about his old fun format at this stage, and would be more interested in doing a news-driven drivetime for bigger money.

"Best of Iain Lee" also replaces Anna Williamson on Saturday night when she's on holiday so I wouldn't read anything into it. Kath came into the studio each night last week and was quite bored so went on Periscope each evening, but she does have other responsibilities at the station. I would have preferred Kath to be sitting in for Iain but I can see the argument for having best ofs as not everyone has heard every minute of Iain's show since 21 March.

Ash is really Jonny's sidekick (hence the show being "Jonny featuring Ash") so arguably that's little different to Kath being Iain's sidekick, the difference being that Kath is not in the studio all the time, but then again Jonny and Ash don't have many calls so there's less need for a Kath-type role on their show.

Ed already works on Jonny featuring Ash as well as Iain's show so if Whale replaces Iain then I don't see any change for Ed. I would suggest Iain and Kath replacing Jonny 7-10pm would be a more likely outcome if Whale does replace Iain.

Good post Isambard. Regards the last line I've highlighted and I think James Whale is very much still interested in the format he used to have from 10pm to 1am. Why? Because he's been podcasting the James Whale Radio Show since late 2013 on a weekly basis with his sidekick producer on that called Rob.

James Whale is perfect for TalkRadio and should be on the national airwaves doing what he does best. Bring on The Whale I say. I was rooting for him to win on Celeb Big Brother. He was a classy addition and came over very well. He's actually a pussycat in reality, and seems a thoroughly decent and lovely man who talks an incredible amount of sense. He was also the only one I did not hear use the F word in that house.

Bring on The Whale TalkRadio. ASAP!

https://twitter.com/iainlee/status/767805550834884608

i didnt realise parry was ex management

I'd reckon the fact that Howie is now working for Rupert Murdoch was bound to rub certain people up the wrong way, he did spend 10 years saying the mainstream media is dead on his podcast.

Good point Maggie, but he still does his podcast too, so he has one foot in the mainstream and one foot out of it. Best of both worlds I suppose. I really think he wanted to let rip at that prickly guest he had on last night who began arguing the toss with him, but kept his professionalism up. If I had been Howard I think I'd have dumped him. Infact I was almost waiting for his guest to hang up on him anyway.

What did you make of his theory on Amelia Earhart being shot as a spy by her own country in 1944, rather than having remained missing ever since her plane vanished in 1937? This chap has been hawking this tale about for the past 30 years apparently.

He was one of the first people Kelvin MacKenzie hired:

http://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/1998/...ging-director/

Jon Holmes 30 minutes late so the two Mikes have had to cover. He's blaming the trains from Edinburgh.

He was probably on the 0730 from Edinburgh scheduled to arrive at 1151, which was cancelled. I did think he would be cutting it fine travelling back this morning.

He was indeed!

John Simons! He went straight to LBC as the new Programme Director and caused a right ruckus with listeners and in particular Clive Bull as he tried to make him change his name to "Mancow" but Clive wasn't having any of it.

I well remember a phone in when Steve Allen did the Morning Show and Simons took calls for an hour to explain his new policy, and one lady listener said angrily,
"Why are you trying to turn LBC into Talk Radio just cos they sacked you?"
And he got all flustered and said, "What's your point?" LOL!

Oh, if only the Clive Bull currently on LBC still had some real beef on the bone!

Instead, he's more like a jar of beef flavoured sandwich paste, best before April 2036. Once opened, keep in the fridge and consume within 4 days.


Hear, hear!

Ellie back doing hipster nonsense today.

I found it very interesting Rich, I knew of Amelia Earhart but only that she was a pioneer of aviation I knew nothing about the rest that this guy Mike Campbell went on about but like I say it was interesting and I might in the near future start researching the websites for stories about her.
On the spat between Campbell and Howard Hughes I could understand Campbell being upset at being constantly interrupted throughout the interview BUT i also understand modern day radio is all about making it a conversation and Howard was just doing his job so to be honest I saw both sides.