Beginning tonight at 7pm, the regular return to Radio 2 for Tony Blackburn with The Golden Hour.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b087nx9j

A thread discussion for this programme. Obviously it's anyone's guess what the year will be for the first show.

Is it definitely a "guess the year" format then?

Few clues from the listing but I'm presuming the hour will be a full hour of hits from only one particular year and that it will be left to listeners to guess the year, or maybe there will be two separate years of a half hour each which is how I seem to recall it being done years ago with Simon Bates on Radio 1.

Thought it was just a hour of hits, no set year?

That's the impression I have.

Yes me too, as the Freeview guide says "no playlist but Tony plays an hour of his favourite oldies"

Random oldies is not quite what I tend to associate with something cited as The Golden Hour, which is what anybody who remembers this originally will associate with specific years playing and trying to work out when exactly. Also I think that associated newsworthy stories used to be read out too.

We will soon find out. I tend to agree that the listing makes it sound like a mixture of old hits chosen by Tony.

They may be using the term loosely now though.

Think Heart still does a GH between 9 and 10am but they only seem to go back to the 80's and 90's so I gave up on it as I'm a 70's man mainly.

I'm sure he said weeks ago that they would be starting with 1974

Not chosen by Phil Swern hopefully.

Fantastic start by the master, welcome back Tony, - I need more than 1 hour though Move over Steve Wright Sunday love songs, this would be a great start to the Sunday schedule !

A great show and great music perfect for a Friday night.....but,

Does anybody else feel that the title of this show has proved rather misleading? I certainly do.

Also, okay so it's an hour, a golden one at that, as per the show title, however it's far too short and needs to be at least 2 hours. I'd only just warmed up listening to it and it was over. I suspect Tony felt much the same. The show reminded me of his New Year's Eve shows.

Quite honestly, giving Tony just one hour per week is an insult, just like his original removal was.

Yes Yes yes...Its great to have Tony Blackburn back on Radio 2..but what a disappointment 'the format' was.Just random oldies!!!( Tony;s favourites-many of which are peddled out time and again on his Greatest Hits show..),...With Blackburn reading a few facts out uncomfortably like he sometimes did on Pick of the Pops,ju stifying Phil Swern's involvement in the programme
It may be called Tony Blackburn's Golden Hour but even he can't claim to have invented the 'format' (an hour of oldies with no current tunes,because this would have been happening in America way before the pirate ships..
-. Blackburn was thanking the audience for'all the texts coming in,but I;m sure he didn't once actually give the number out..It's such a shame they couldn't come up with a new twist on the format.Simon Bates has got nothing to worry about with his activities each day between 9 and 10 on BBC Devon...
As for Blackburn's actual performance,well it was extremely lame and I felt he was trying far,far too hard.Thats a real shame because at his best,he can be utterly brilliant quite a lot of the time.-I speak as a massive fan of his from the seventies onwards.
It so sounds like a 'treading water' show.....I also would mention the fact that he's already done three hours of BBC Berkshire this morning,so maybe wouldn't have been as fresh as he might have been if that hour had been the only hour he'd done that day.
Maybe he was feeling a bit 'knackered' a term he used on a hilarious,creative phone call on BBC London in recent years...All in all a great talent,not used in the right way this evening...let down severely by the production.
And as for what it says in Radio Times about the format 'Tony challenges listeners to tell them when they were released'...I appreciate that they were keeping the 'format' under wraps (and again.there was no format).well it seems the Radio Times prints anything these days...because DID HE HELL..
Rant over....

The text number 88291 and the email address were listed on the radio 2 facebook page. I texted in myself to what was a thoroughly enjoyable show. The only thing wrong with it as that it was too short!

Really enjoyed the show. Great music too.

As Busy_Lizzie says above, it wasn't long enough.

I agree with all of this. It wasn't exactly an 'appointment to listen'. Cant see this lasting more than six months.

What's the point of the show? Yet another one just playing oldies you can hear anywhere any day of the week,.

The way I see it was a similar show to Desmond Carrington in the way it was a hour of golden oldies chosen by the presenter. However this show would have attracted a slightly younger audience to Desmond's and some music would appealed to a slightly younger audience than Desmond's show. Tony would have attracted a slightly younger audience but it still appeals to Radio 2 audience mostly the over 45's.

This show is probably a foot back in the door for Tony and I think he will moved to 2 or 3 hour show on a weekend within a couple of years.

[quote=phildunk1986;85080530]The way I see it was a similar show to Desmond Carrington in the way it was a hour of golden oldies chosen by the presenter. However this show would have attracted a slightly younger audience to Desmond's and some music would appealed to a slightly younger audience than Desmond's show. Tony would have attracted a slightly younger audience but it still appeals to Radio 2 audience mostly the over 45's.

Spot on. It is an updated version of Desmond's show and fitted in well.

No complaints from me. If folk want Tony in his full glory then his Thames Radio 4 hour soul show on Saturday evenings will be to their taste.

I have to agree with you David and TUC. Much as I like to hear an enthusiastic Tony Blackburn on national radio and with some excellent song choices, which the show was, this "Golden Hour" show just feels like the sop it is from the BBC, the crumb they were prepared to offer him in return for dropping legal proceedings regards his dismissal by the DG last February. It's a weird time slot and a contemptible show length. It's not even a golden hour when you factor the news into it, but a mere 57 minutes.

The show needed a focus and a reason for being there in the schedule in the first place. It wasn't even the golden hour concept that many of us were expecting.

Even though I think Paul is doing a great job on POTP and I enjoy listening to him doing it, let's get some common sense on Radio 2 and give Gambo back his America's Greatest Hits and Tony his rightful Pick Of The Pops.

Only if Hall goes will Tony be back on POTP. I agree that his new show is just a compromise to stop him suing.