Please don't tell me I can't say why he is close to the mark Bangla but you'll still carry on regardless.

That's interesting, though I'm sure Landis will be along soon enough to back up their assertion

Nick Ferrari was censured by the Broadcasting Standards Commission in 2003. Because this is such a serious and knowledgable corner of the forum I did not refer to Broadcasting Standards Commission/Ofcom. If that was naughty - I apologise.
Ofcom is/was a unification of three Regulators....including the Broadcasting Standards Commission.

According to the Guardian, a listener complained that he encouraged listeners who made racist comments. The complaint was upheld by the watchdog.

Yellow card seems like a reasonable analogy, if we are to believe that further (upheld) complaints would have consequences.

Why so shy Billy?
If you come on to a public forum making a bold statement then you surely must have something to back it up?

13 years and probably around 3,000 shows since he transgressed. A show that demands quick thinking and detailed knowledge to keep up to date with breaking news. Compare and contrast with the next shows who sets his own topics, and stifles debate that challenges him, but whose show got the station found guilty by Ofcom in 2014 of the serious offence of trying to subvert democracy.

It's funny but there are a few posters on here who would think the same thing of NF. I certainly did back in the day.

Years ago, (I can't remember exactly, probably from around 2010), I used to really dislike NF for many of the same reasons other posters (who currently don't like him) have said: the shuffling of papers etc. Prior to 2010 he also used to do this really annoying pronounciation of the word "billion". Gawd, it used to annoy the heck out of me. Instead I used to listen to Nicky Campbell on BBC 5 live more often. Then at 10am I would switch to JOB.

I can't remember when JOB joined LBC but I liked him as soon as I heard him. He was, to coin a cliche, insightful and thought-provoking. I really loved how he could turn a subject on its head. Then slowly something changed in his presentation that I started to find him really irksome. There were a few posters on here who were little-by-little already voicing their dislike of his presentation (e.g. they noted things such as his pet hates he liked to constant bring up every time the moment reared their head in the media etc) - I think the change really came when the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition began their austerity budget measures, but I can't remember the exact period (around 2010 when the cuts really began to bite. Certainly not before then, I don't think). Anyway, slowly but surely he grew more and more angry and agitated. It wasn't as *vicious* back then as it is now - well, not enough to turn me off completely. It was this point I started to intermittently tuning into Victoria Derbyshire's show instead. It kind of depended on whether JOB was on one of his pet peeves (gay marriage was one of them, I think) that caused him to go off on some below-the-surface festering rant. (It's gone full nuclear since Brexit, at least to me anyway.)

Then in late 2010/early 2011 (it could be earlier, I can't remember) there was something George Osborne said that made me realise what an absolute thick arrogant power-mad crazy idiot he was turning out to be (or already was. Yeah, yeah. OK. It took me that long to realise. but hey, I got there in the end, didn't I? Cut me a little slack here): he mentioned "benefit scroungers with closed curtains" while others were on their way to work. The numpty fool obviously doesn't account for those workers on a night shift returning to home to get some sleep.

Anyway, the real point I'm making here is that, it was at that moment I finally realised what really turned me off listening to Osborne/the coalition and JOB (and NF prior to 2010): it was their lazy use of language to make their point. It was so packed full of generalizations, abuse and the degrading of those human beings who didn't quite fit into or adhere to their worldview. Sadly, it's come full circle during the EU ref and with Brexit: I tend to switch stations when any Brexit topic rears its head now (stay, don't stay; go, don't go - I'm getting to the point where I don't care anymore ). So it was BBC 5live I tuned into listening for the weekday mornings. Or chat-free Jazz/classical music.

Then Victoria Derbyshire started to go all JOB on the air with her own pet topics but minus the ranting (notable ones were paedophiles and child abuse and domestic violence and eating disorders). Now don't get me wrong, there were really informative to me, she did a really good job highlighting the issue. But it got to the stage where she talked about her pet topics at least once a week. Then her show metamorphised to this misery fest for 3hrs, 5 days every week. You know for me, this was not good time/period to listen to talk radio (2010-2014). It was either austerity doom and gloom hour (Nicky Campbell) or barely contained anger hour (JOB) or misery/slit your wrists to hour (VD).

I remember some posters (Makeba certainly comes to my mind) who baled out on LBC and debunked to BBC London, especially for Vanessa Feltz. Ken "I mean, when I was mayor ..." Livingstone was ok: he offered something different (though as a sole effort, boy, did he love to big-up his time as mayor like it was going out of fashion. He feasted on it like a Steve Allen tripping on his cat pill joke that stopped being funny the 1000th he told it. Seriously, by then it was verging into some unfunny tale of animal abuse). Yet the Ken 3hr show came into its own when David Mellor married himself to Ken. Over time you could tell who was the husband and wife in this unlikely partnership: David fell in love with his own voice, Ken gave up bigging himself (and boring the rest of the world) with his old mayor stories of yesteryear (more like the world and his wife no longer cared to listen: tales of BoJo the clown, where unbeknownest to him most people laughed at him than with him, was far more entertaining - after all, those pesky lazy-butt closed-curtains benefit scroungers had to get their laughs from somewhere in this austere times). Still, Ken/David was a relief in this dark period.

At some weird point though - baffle me stupid and don't ask me why - I started listening to the one presenter I could not stand back in the day: NF - if you don't take him seriously ... and you switched off your brain for the next three hrs (hey, NF is basically tabloid mischief hour). He just made me laugh. Also probably because starting one's day with this delightful 4 course breakfast cocktail of Nasty Steve Allen w/o his strange Alice-in-Wonderland friends (and yes - baffle me stupid and don't ask me why, part II - pre-Credit Crunch I used to like and find him funny, even with his weird Mad-Hatter's tea party friends (what the hell was that all about?!) like Susan "Soap Spoiler" Spence and Boney M - or whoever that was - and "Our Man in Greece" before the Euro, Merkel and the IMF finally did him in. Or is Boney M and "Our Man in Greece" one of the same person? I don't know.), followed by doom and gloom austerity hour (Nicky Campbell), followed by honing-in-his-future-rant-a-gob-skills-in-preparation-of-Brexit/Farage hour (JOB), and ending with torture-by-a-thousand-cuts hour (VD) was misery overload. I honestly can't remember the last time I listened to BBC 5live.

What was really interesting though during this time were the regular LBC chit-chatters who've slowly and surely but sadly dropped off the radar. Those who come to my mind - and I know some are not completely off the radar, they pop in now and again - are Chinchin, Makeba, CC, HTTHG (sp?), Johnny. VQ went awol for a bit. Oh, before SA and JOB became the love-to-hate topics on this thread, their pre-decessors were "I hate the LBC Clique" and LBC Foamers (don't ask - I have no clue, this thread is that weird) were de riguer. Of course, many a LBC presenter have come and gone during this period, some of whom I had real problems warming to:

Nick Margerrison: Gawd, he gave me bad dreams at midnight. If I fell asleep listening to him, somehow I will find myself waking up with a headache from some nightmare in the early morning. It was so strange.

Jeni Barnett: Batty Barnett more like.

Julia Hartley Brewer: It was her "rat-a-tat-tat" way of speaking that put me off. I swear that woman must have the lungs of a blue whale: she could shoot off her mouth for two minutes on any topic pulled out of a hat w/o taking a lungful of oxygen.

Larry the Lamb: aka what Jeremy Corbyn would've sounded like if he was a radio presenter instead of an MP.

James Max: Mostly because he became an early onset JOB and Victoria Derbyshire - i.e. a Pet Topic Radio Presenter.

Anthony Davies: I used to really enjoy listening to him, and then one day I realised why I prefered to listen to him on Jazz fm: he didn't talk as much, and his music choices were a lot more varied than his talk radio topics.

Petrie Hoskins: Nicey Shelagh Fogarty's Angry twin sister.

Despite all of this, I know radio presenting is not an easy job to do, and the presenters do their very best. Deep down, I do appreciate all of them regardless, and they have both informed and entertained me in equal measure for which I'm grateful.

Sorry for the long post, Billy: your comment just got me reminiscing. In all that time that Credit Crunch and Osborne's austerity were the topics of the hour, day, week and month, who would have thought Brexit and Trump was just round the corner with Cameron, Osborne and Clegg dumped and forgotten. Weird. weird world.

PS: When poor old Ken ran out of mayor stories, he dug deep and farther for those GLC anecdotes to regal us with us. When he ran out of those, he dug even deeper and even farther - to the 1940s - and pulled out his Hitler tales, which finally got him the chop. It was kind of sad, really, I was so looking forward to his other Tales of The Unexpected: his time with Rasputin, Ivan the Terrible, Genghis Khan, Emperor Nero ...

Look on the bright side, Martin, tonight you'll see what you've won and then Holby City


Not yet, but give him time. Just in case and for future reference, I now trademark the following names that JOB may freely resort to use in the coming weeks and months: Nutty, Nutcase, Nut At All Right In The Head, Nutjob, Nuts, and when JOB is feeling more charitable, Nutella.

For many years J O'B was my second favourite presenter, after Nick F. His Saturday morning show was lightweight and funny. He carried this on when he got the 10-1 slot, mixing serious news with daft stuff like the time he had a rapper in the studio, teaching him how to rap (see link) There was a lot of listener participation in the humorous stuff. Then, when Global took over from Crysalis, it sobered up and morphed into what we have today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ2vfR_6d4I

Morning all.

Katie reporting from Cuba. I wonder who's paying for that - the Daily Mail? Castro's funeral is certainly attracting a mixed bunch. Jezza has sent Emily Thornberry to represent the Labour party!

Typical Right winger Nick Ferris asking the Unite union representative about the Post Office strike, but not allowing him to answer. Typical Fox News tactics.

Good morning Banglers, [and all]
I might go back to listening to O'Brien again for a short time so I can post some links on here highlighting his pathetic biased rants, this way I would be then in a better position to question you for comments on them.
I wouldn't find it an easy thing to do on my part because he makes my skin crawl hearing him but duty comes first I must defend British democracy even at this terrible cost to myself listening to it.

Marnin Billy!
Aren't presenters supposed to give their opinions? Anybody either on the radio or anywhere else who gives an opinion one way or another can be accused of bias.
LBC don't want their presenters to be neutral.

Please don't feel the need to apologise for a long post Nihonga I couldn't have found anything more interesting to read while I ate breakfast if I been down to my local library and found their best available book.

Like you at first I liked O'Brien his show seemed different, lively and good to listen to but I quickly became aware he only believes in his own theories and everyone else's is wrong and stupid.

Normally I like listening to opinionated people even if I don't believe in their ideals [Galloway, Farage, Hopkins and Hartley-Brewer spring immediately to mind] but O'Brien is something different he's the Adrian Durham of current affairs. [Durham if you are unaware and why shouldn't you not be!!] is a football presenting wind-up merchant over on talkSPORT the premier league football station]
O'Brien is basically a wind-up merchant whoring his trade on the radio for listeners, it works, I'll never understand why but one of these times soon he'll over-shoot the mark and his head will be in the bucket.

Yea he's had his legs slapped [Corbyn] for his glowing warm heartfelt tribute to Castro, he must be gutted he's now had to send Thornberry.

As you say that was years ago when that happened, the story goes that he was talking to his producer at the time via talkback and they both missed a guy drop a racist comment. As a result they didn't dump it nor did they challenge or apologise for it as they weren't aware. A couple of people mentioned it on the show and there was still no apology because they didn't know exactly what was said.

As a result a complaint was upheld for him for prejudiced views towards Asylum Seekers. Ken Livingstone, then mayor of london then went on a campaign to get him sacked hence why it got so much press coverage.

Whenever O'Brien comes under any criticism, or may have committed a broadcasting offence, Landis trots out this completely untrue, utterly ridiculous comment that Nick Ferrari is supposedly "on a yellow card". That's not the way Ofcom works. People get censured and warned. If they commit several repeat offences in a very short space of time, the station can be fined.

Ferrari has been investigated by Ofcom twice since he started his LBC career. In 2003, he was found guilty of making hateful remarks, and given a warning. In 2015, he was investigated but found not guilty of breaching impartiality rules regarding his comments on the November 2015 Paris terror attacks.

The idea that because Nick Ferrari received a warning from Ofcom in 2003 means that if he is found guilty of anything now he will receive a "red card" is a ridiculous lie. The worst that will happen is that Ferrari might get another warning if he is found guilty of something else. He is not on any sort of "yellow card" and doesn't have to be "on his best behaviour".

To present over 10,000 hours of radio without incident since 2003 is quite some achievement, and Ofcom recognises this and would take it fully into account if Ferrari was ever investigate again. The punishment would only ever be just another warning.

Ian Collins last night was mocking people who "only vote for one party, the same party they've always voted for and who their parents voted for".

I wonder if Ian Collins has ever voted anything but Conservative?

Marnin Bangla,
Yes yes of course radio presenters are allowed to give opinions I have absolutely nothing against that at all. I like opinionated presenters and I listen to them all the time every single week transferring LBC, talkRADIO and BBC Radio 5 full shows to my MP3 player to listen to at my own time of choice and at my pleasure.

The problem is with O'Brien he's not like the rest [well nearly all the rest I listen to I will concede Galloway let's himself down a lot by ranting at callers he doesn't agree with] but generally the rest all give callers a very fair crack of the whip.

O'Brien doesn't, he rants, bullies and belittles callers he doesn't agree with, have a listen to last Sunday morning's Farage show on this station there were a heap of calls all against him, see how he handled it and if you find one single instance of him bullying, ranting or belittling his callers I will send one thousand pounds to a charity of your choice.



PS..
To save you time I wouldn't bother because you won't.

He's never owned up on air which political party he supports but he's not known as "Tory Boy" for nothing I guess.

I didn't think it was as cut and dried as had been made out. Many thanks for clarifying the situation.

Have you considered that Farage is in a different position to JOB?
Farage has to appear to be taking all views on board because he's a politician. JOB can be a lot more honest about it.
BTW Samuel.

Morning all
Nothing to say yet...apart from how irritated I was by hearing KH hollering from Cuba

Very interesting post (and thanks for the name-check!).

Whilst I share your views on JOB's descent, I can't share them on Ferrari, whom I essentially refuse to listen to and same with Ian Collins. I found them both so vile and arrogant that I had to turn them off forever, even though I used to enjoy both of them very much in the past. I remain amazed that people who criticise JOB don't lay into those two in the same way, but then as they are on different sides of a political fence, maybe I shouldn't be so amazed...

For me, the claims that Ferrari is funny, etc doesn't work for me. I just think he's utterly vile.

talkRADIO and BBC London, in general, now offer me much more intelligent, funny and balanced radio. Who wants to be angry all the time? (Well, maybe those weird Brexiter callers I referred to earlier - LBC is now their natural home!).

It isn't Ofcom's job to hand our yellow or red cards, but to judge whether something has breached their guidelines. Then it's up to radio stations to deal with offenders themselves. I suppose it would be possible to report offensive remarks to the police, who would then leave it up to the CPS to decide if a 'hate crime' had been committed.