[47yellow]

Hi,

Newbie to the site. Hello everyone!!!

I've been a long term listener to the CM show and recently it feels to me like it has lost its 'edge'.

I tune in because I really enjoy the talking and banter. I found it funny when the producers got tetchy when no music was played.

What has changed? Music Seems to be played like clock work, I'm sure that only 2 songs per half hour was played not the 3/4 they currently play.

Has something changed or is it just me!?

Robert

[The Deadly]

It has changed because of the new direction of Radio 1. It's not a change everyone agrees with but a changed show is better than no show.

[DarroM]

Yeah, it has changed in certain ways like the exclusion of Tedious Link & CPC now! Only feature they do now is the Monday Night Pub Quiz! I see myself listening to less of the current shows and more of the older shows since I never heard them before and find them more enjoyable than the current product! Been this way since late last year pretty much with the odd moment of entertainment here and there! The changes are something not all of us will like but we have to live with it!

[Candyman]

Yeah, it has changed in certain ways like the exclusion of Tedious Link & CPC now! Only feature they do now is the Monday Night Pub Quiz! I see myself listening to less of the current shows and more of the older shows since I never heard them before and find them more enjoyable than the current product! Been this way since late last year pretty much with the odd moment of entertainment here and there! The changes are something not all of us will like but we have to live with it!

I agree, the show is not as good anymore. More crappy music less banter, after 9am was my favorite time of the show with ramble etc, now its a bore of a quick chat and too much music. Thanks Rhys for f-ing things up and helping me lose love for the show

[Nicola_Red]

It has changed because of the new direction of Radio 1. It's not a change everyone agrees with but a changed show is better than no show.

It has changed and I also don't like some of the changes, but I agree with this.

[Travis Bickle]

It has changed because of the new direction of Radio 1.

I am not saying you are wrong, but other than the song before 07.00, what evidence do you have of this?

A lot of why the show has changed for me is that Chris is bored with sections of the show and he is also a different person to the one he was before. But I guess it does depend how far back we are going when comparing the change. Are we talking about a change over the past six-months or so, or are we talking longer than that?

[The Deadly]

I'm basing the opinion on the shift towards attracting a younger audience. Chris and the producers now have to incorporate that into everything they do and up until recently it's not been the case. Correct me if I'm wrong but radio 1 and it's obsession with youth only started in 2010 which is when I noticed the show changed a little.

[Nicola_Red]

I think a lot of Aled's answers in Ask Aled indicate this. And yeah, I think it's within the last year that the changes have really been evident.

[Travis Bickle]

Are we saying that is why Raspberry/Where am I, Tedious Link and CPC have been dropped then? I just got the impression they were dropped because Chris didn't want to do them any more. I think the evidence of that is pretty clear with CPC by the way he has treated it for ages now with not playing it properly and keeping many contestants on for several days and even weeks in some occasions.

I don't see how dropping any of those features can have anything to do with targeting the youth audience. As far as I know the show is now the only one on R1 daytime that doesnt have any features at all other than the weekly pub quiz.

[The Deadly]

It could be argued that the features that have been dropped have no appeal to a younger audience. Tedious Link would mean nothing to a 17 year old a lot of the time due to them not knowing the references Dave makes or knowing what the song is at the end of it.
As regards CPC I think it's just died a natural death. Time to bring back Viaduct.

[Nicola_Red]

Exactly - appealing to a youth audience means not playing one of Dave's dance classics from 1992.

[Emmy]

I'm not sure what is behind the dropping of so many features, but whatever the reasons are it's a bad decision in my opinion. The thing that really annoys me about it is the fact that there has been little to no referencing to the fact that it is happened at all. For a show that (for me anyway) has always prided itself on being very open and honest with its audience to have just very quietly got rid of key features in a kind of sweeping them under the carpet/let's pretend they never existed way feels very disappointing.

[Travis Bickle]

I think if that is the reason they dropped tedious, it is a pretty flimsy one. You could just tweek it a bit and play more recent songs. They do that with the golden hour, and anyway, the whole strategy of R1 isnt to appeal to 17-year-olds. The target age range is 15-30.

[mcmahonman]

I hate to say it but I think the show has just become rather lazy.

[Nicola_Red]

I think if that is the reason they dropped tedious, it is a pretty flimsy one. You could just tweek it a bit and play more recent songs. They do that with the golden hour, and anyway, the whole strategy of R1 isnt to appeal to 17-year-olds. The target age range is 15-30.

This answer from Aled seems to indicate that they're focussing on the younger end though, dontcha reckon?

this is about keeping the walls down to new young people joining the show and keeping the churn of listeners consistent. Rather than having a fan base who've one way or another got into the show and are growing up with us. We can only keep 30+ listeners if we continue to keep a high percentage of young teens that listen to radio listening to us...we can't be complacent. And with each year we stay on breakfast that's an extra year that our wide listener base adds to their age. if the BBC Trust are really that focused on the 'average age' of the listener being a particular number we have a choice of stopping 30+ listening (like what happened in the 90's at Radio 1 - and something that none of us want) or we provide every opportunity for more and more young people to tune in.

[Travis Bickle]

I think if that is the reason they dropped tedious, it is a pretty flimsy one. You could just tweek it a bit and play more recent songs. They do that with the golden hour, and anyway, the whole strategy of R1 isnt to appeal to 17-year-olds. The target age range is 15-30.

This answer from Aled seems to indicate that they're focussing on the younger end though, dontcha reckon?

this is about keeping the walls down to new young people joining the show and keeping the churn of listeners consistent. Rather than having a fan base who've one way or another got into the show and are growing up with us. We can only keep 30+ listeners if we continue to keep a high percentage of young teens that listen to radio listening to us...we can't be complacent. And with each year we stay on breakfast that's an extra year that our wide listener base adds to their age. if the BBC Trust are really that focused on the 'average age' of the listener being a particular number we have a choice of stopping 30+ listening (like what happened in the 90's at Radio 1 - and something that none of us want) or we provide every opportunity for more and more young people to tune in.

Yes, absolutely, but at the same time they have to keep the rest of their target range happy as well though. I know they wont be aiming at people my age, but even listeners in their mid-twenties are going to struggle to be interested in what motivates a young teenager to listen to the radio.

I just don't see anything about Tedious Link that could justify it being dropped because of age concerns. Even less so with the absence of a 07.15 feature and CPC. Surely they aren't saying that teenagers have never heard of catchphrases? If that is what they ARE saying, then they may as well just hand the station over lock stock and barrel to teenagers and ignore two thirds of their own target audience.

Yes, what Aled said makes sense, but surely they aren't going to get rid of literally every single reference that a teenager may not understand?

[The Deadly]

But they are focussing on a young student age audience. They might say 15-30 but I think it's more 15 to 25. My opinion is that we (people over the demographic) are not important to radio 1 any more and we just have to accept that. The CM show itself tries to be loyal to us but it has one arm tied behind its back by upper management and I think it's something that can't be changed by us.

[chrysostom]

[Yudster]

Precisely.

[Bas]

Last week was the first time i didn't try my utmost to tune in when i had the opportunity, as i knew it would be all 'Hackney this' & 'Hackney that' even pre 7am.
And when listening on playback a couple of days, i was right.
Thats fair enough though, its a big thing for the station, its happens every year with the Big Weekends , but usually as soon as it over we get back to normal.
I'm well outside the demographic & realise that the show isn't aimed at me (though i always had the feeling that Chris didn't give a f**k about that, it was for whoever enjoyed the show regardless of anything else) but i could always rely on half an hour to 45 minutes of genuinely funny & at sometimes hilarious radio as I got ready & went to work.

Now we're lucky to get 20 minutes - as by the time the news & sport ends & the Cheesy song is over its sometimes damn near 20 to 7 - before some excreble chart crap is inflicted on my aging ears.

It may not be a big thing to R1, but the chat pre 7 used to set me up for the day.
And now if i've turned the radio down or off while sitting on the bus, i find it less & less worth turning it back on if i'm going to be assailed by constant playlist music with less & less humour & features.
This is just a personal thing. i know, but if R1 have used their focus groups & surveys & find that urban youth wants more pap & less fun, than thats the way it has to be. i hope the future rajars bear that out, for their sake.

Without coming over all Chrisjames ( & God, how i wish i'd wrote that last line differently now ) i do think that Chris' time at R1 maybe be drawing to a natural close within the next year or so. And i hope wherever he moves to that it will be somewhere that i'll be able to tune into on a normal radio as radio coverage here in NI is shit.

And before anyone shouts me down for that last bit, thats just a gut feeling based on no evidence whatsoever.

[The Deadly]

I think they will give him the courtesy of allowing him to see out the remainder of his contract and to be honest he probably should go due to what radio 1 has become. Can't see him doing another regular radio gig for any other station though. He has fingers in other pies.

Just personal opinion.

[ianpwilliams]

I'm not sure what is behind the dropping of so many features, but whatever the reasons are it's a bad decision in my opinion. The thing that really annoys me about it is the fact that there has been little to no referencing to the fact that it is happened at all. For a show that (for me anyway) has always prided itself on being very open and honest with its audience to have just very quietly got rid of key features in a kind of sweeping them under the carpet/let's pretend they never existed way feels very disappointing.

I agree with this. I'm amazed that they just seem to have stopped doing CPC (which I've always enjoyed, and still do), without mentioning anything about stopping it, and now they just play around with Roy Walker samples instead. It's ridiculous. And playing a song before the news because Rhys demands it just shows what Rhys knows, or doesn't know, about what the listeners want. As far as I'm concerned, the Chris Moyles show listeners want banter and features, because you can get the god-awful music on any radio station.

[DarroM]

I'm not sure what is behind the dropping of so many features, but whatever the reasons are it's a bad decision in my opinion. The thing that really annoys me about it is the fact that there has been little to no referencing to the fact that it is happened at all. For a show that (for me anyway) has always prided itself on being very open and honest with its audience to have just very quietly got rid of key features in a kind of sweeping them under the carpet/let's pretend they never existed way feels very disappointing.

I agree with this. I'm amazed that they just seem to have stopped doing CPC (which I've always enjoyed, and still do), without mentioning anything about stopping it, and now they just play around with Roy Walker samples instead. It's ridiculous. And playing a song before the news because Rhys demands it just shows what Rhys knows, or doesn't know, about what the listeners want. As far as I'm concerned, the Chris Moyles show listeners want banter and features, because you can get the god-awful music on any radio station.

To be fair though, CPC has been on a bit of a downward spiral for a while now ever since last Christmas when they had the two guys on and then doing the whole twitter thing there and just feel it has got worse since then with contestants being on far longer than they should be due to the fact that some days, they didn't bother doing it because they supposedly ran out of time, which is BS and just an excuse of having to play more music. Tedious Link just dropped off without any mention of it going away as well. I don't like the fact they just sweep it under the rug and pretend it never existed like what Emmy said. I think currently, this is the worst I have ever heard of the show since I started nearly 3 years ago and the whole Hackey and Olympic stuff (which I know has to be done) isn't helping matters either.

Will probably be the only one here that will say this but I may stop listening altogether if it continues with the format it is going with because it is turning into most of the other Radio 1 shows now with more music and less features. If I want that, I can just listen to any radio station or put on my mp3 player!

[ianpwilliams]

I don't know, I've always loved CPC, even now (or until it stopped at least), the contestants were really stupid, which always entertained me. I loved it when the didn't know the catchphrase, so the team would try to help them out, and they would venture a totally ridiculous guess. I was never too bothered about the tedious link, but I very much enjoy Rob DJ's Pub Quiz.

Anyway, whatever happens, I will keep listening until they stop, despite their boss's best efforts to ruin the show.

[Candyman]

To be fair though, CPC has been on a bit of a downward spiral for a while now ever since last Christmas when they had the two guys on and then doing the whole twitter thing there and just feel it has got worse since then with contestants being on far longer than they should be due to the fact that some days, they didn't bother doing it because they supposedly ran out of time, which is BS and just an excuse of having to play more music. Tedious Link just dropped off without any mention of it going away as well. I don't like the fact they just sweep it under the rug and pretend it never existed like what Emmy said. I think currently, this is the worst I have ever heard of the show since I started nearly 3 years ago and the whole Hackey and Olympic stuff (which I know has to be done) isn't helping matters either.

Will probably be the only one here that will say this but I may stop listening altogether if it continues with the format it is going with because it is turning into most of the other Radio 1 shows now with more music and less features. If I want that, I can just listen to any radio station or put on my mp3 player!

I'm listening less than I usually do, but the Hackney stuff is one reason, but that aside I'm listening a lot less of the show than I used too. Would I stop listening if this format continues? not sure, I don't want to but with this more music and less feature format I may not stop altogether but my listening time may be greatly reduced.

[/quote]

Without coming over all Chrisjames ( & God, how i wish i'd wrote that last line differently now ) i do think that Chris' time at R1 maybe be drawing to a natural close within the next year or so. And i hope wherever he moves to that it will be somewhere that i'll be able to tune into on a normal radio as radio coverage here in NI is shit.

And before anyone shouts me down for that last bit, thats just a gut feeling based on no evidence whatsoever.

I hate to say this, but if the current format stays as it is I'm afraid I agree with Bas. Maybe Chris should finish his remaining 18 months and come to a natural end after 10 terrific years.