Everything Also Complain

From ‘Trend of multiple radio DJs sacrifices that old personal touch’ 24 April 2012 and ‘More on what’s wrong with morning radio’ 25 April 2012, ST Forum.

(Victor Khoo): WHY does a person listen to the radio? Apart from getting information, news and music, a radio listener wants someone to keep him company; a proxy for personal, warm and friendly one-to-one companionship.

For the radio listener, that companion is the deejay on air. So the test of a good radio deejay is to be able to communicate with his listeners in a manner that replicates a personal, face-to-face encounter via the restricted confines of audio contact. This is not easy.

…Unfortunately, the new trend among local radio stations is to have two or more deejays hosting one show for reasons fathomable only to these broadcasting stations. I say unfortunately because this trend robs the station of that personal touch.

More often than not, the listener ends up literally as a passive eavesdropper on a bunch of men and women talking and joking among themselves in a cacophony of chatter.

(Chow Hon Meng):…I have concerns as well about radio stations, particularly the morning show on Gold 90FM, hosted by Brian Richmond and his son Mark, who have been joined by MediaCorp actor Gurmit Singh.

Why must the peak-hour morning time slot have an advisory warning that parental guidance is needed for listeners? Isn’t it obvious that a morning show covers the period when families are having breakfast together before leaving for school and work?

I am no prude, but should we ‘licence’ radio deejays who wish to swop raunchy jokes at 9am? Surely, there are more appropriate time slots for a round-the-clock medium like radio?

Gold 90FM’s tripartite father-son-actor deejay format makes listeners like me feel like eavesdroppers because of the family-show slant. The Richmonds try to regale listeners with grandfather stories, literally at times; there are also occasions when a grandson or son calls in or one of the three is busy reading a personal SMS from his wife.

Three's a crowd

I’ve ever only heard the Richmonds hosting a show together a few times and though not exactly a hoot, it was amusing to have the younger Richmond tease the elder veteran with the latter lacking any sort of comeback whatsoever. Brian’s velvety baritone doesn’t seem appropriate for the sort of wacky humour you would want to wake up to or end the day with. It’s like laughing at Barry White or the Pope and I suspect the old man would be overwhelmed by Phua Chu Kang joining in the fray. Perhaps this a desperate plea for ratings, and it’s a shame that the homely, orange-juice and cereal vibe of the Richmonds show has to resort to cheap morning antics by adding an obvious comedian in. It’s like lathering waffles with condensed milk. Over the top.

Trios in  shows mean more banter, less music, as each presenter tends to wrestle for attention, and to me, three’s a definite crowd. But somehow it’s the duos that crank up the sleaze, especially around the time when the kids are packing their school bags.  You also don’t hear of all female DJ teams because you always need a male to bear the brunt of jokes or dispense toilet humour. Morning shows are notorious for bawdiness and DJs getting fined or sacked  for it, whether it’s  asking boys about white panties, getting people to moan like they’re having sex on air, mocking Indian accents or getting beauty contestants to strip off their bras without exposing themselves. Even the titles of such shows are dead giveaways for the kind of ‘no holds barred’ content that attract listeners: Morning Glory, Five Guys and a Girl, Rude Awakening etc, which all sound like titles of 90′s porn VCDs. But put a couple of men or opposite sexes together long enough and eventually you’ll have to stumble on a sexual topic somehow or other. Or at least a fart joke, or politically incorrect discussions on male-female stereotypes. Otherwise it’s traffic on the PIE and headlines of the day. You might as well tune in to a recording of yesterday’s Toto result announcements.

There could be a few explanations as to why Mediacorp is dropping the ‘personal touch’. Jokes and anecdotes are always funnier shared, and a DJ unleashing those while alone in the studio, without the satisfaction of a human response, is like a stand up comedian trying to tickle a wall. It also helps that laughter is contagious, and we’re more likely to laugh along if another DJ laughs at his partner’s joke than if the latter cracks one alone, or if he/she does at all. When someone else laughs, we acknowledge that a joke has been made. When someone laughs at his own joke, we wonder what’s so funny. We’re no longer the lonely souls who want Brian Richmond or William Xavier to coddle us with their rich, chocolately voices and tuck us into bed anymore. We don’t  need the ‘company’ (the Internet provides too much of that already), we just want to be entertained. Sometimes it’s not so much the content of the banter, but the power plays lurking within that’s captivating, like how one DJ tends to dominate another, or trying to tease apart the rapport from the filler. In a way it is indeed like eavesdropping on a couple of roommates bitching, and trying to guess who wears the pants in the relationship. But what’s wrong with that?

Today’s listeners crave for gossip, weird news and quirky facts, not just because they’re light-hearted and entertaining, but because they feed our cries for attention whenever we relay such information to our friends, family and co-workers. Radio gossip and jokes empower us socially by enhancing our watercooler small-talk skills. It weathers those awkward silences during those long drives in your boss’s car. Not that a solo DJ can’t deliver these with aplomb (it takes great talent and charisma), but humans are more attuned to heated conversations than a lone ranger telling us which important person’s birthday it is today or asking us whether we’ve had breakfast or not, even if he or she has the perkiest, rosiest, maple-syrupy, dewiest, morning sunshine voice in the history of radio.

Filed under: 2000s, 2012, Local radio DJs, Sex | Tagged: local DJs, local radio, Local radio DJs, Sex | Leave a Comment »