Zara McDermott, Love Island star and presenter of BBC's Three Murders at the University of Idaho Photo: BBC
We live through the second coming of Smashy and Nicey. When Matthew Bannister ran Radio 1 in the early 1990s, he famously purged a generation of sportsmen cruelly ridiculed by Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse.
A Walk with Dave Lee Travis. Grooming with Bruno Brooks. The excellent documentary Blood on the Carpet: A Walk with the Disc Jockeys captures some of the gloom of the old regime as the drums approached.
The page of history was turned, and we were promised that the victory would be final. Men aged around 30 will no longer patronize the teenage audience.
Bannister's slogan, his rallying point when describing his new generation of radio performers such as Mark Radcliffe, Joe Whiley and Kevin Greening, was «real». Unlike the fakes that came before.
Thirty years on, Radio 1 viewers could be forgiven for thinking history is moving in circles. Radio star Jordan North, one of the hosts of the evening show Going Home, is leaving for the capital at the age of 34. A lucrative afterlife awaits perhaps the most threadbare exit move yet for a young DJ aging gracefully. came out.
Jamie Lang's latest Radio 1 contract
His replacement will be Jamie Lang, best known for his role in Made in Chelsea. Lang is also a player in the podcast world, having found great success with his show NewlyWeds and weekly interview podcast Private Parts. He has since founded JamPot Productions to produce more shows. He is also 35 years old. If he lasts as long as North, he'll leave for Capital at 45.
How did Radio One replace North with a new face who was a year older than him? The short answer is that the world that gave birth to Joe Willie's generation no longer exists. In 2024, if you run a youth media brand and want to be heard amid the cacophony, you may have no choice but to hire a familiar face from an existing franchise.
Of course, this shouldn't apply to Radio 1, which has both government funding and a mandate to find new talent. But increasingly, it is the lucrative level of reality TV, populated by the likes of Lang, that becomes the breeding ground from which the product of “celebrity” can be forged for the first time. The commissioners and production companies that put on shows to seduce them are prisoners of a vicious ecosystem.
This ecosystem has been layered for some time. Even such a product of the previous decade as documentary presenter Stacey Dooley, herself began her career as the heroine of a reality show called Blood Sweat & T-shirts. Now that Dooley is aging out of the youth documentary program, TV is scrambling to create a replacement from the likes of Zara McDermott.
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McDermott has so far made documentaries for BBC3 about «revenge porn», «rape culture», «eating disorders» and Ibiza. She's a Love Island graduate (Class of 2018) who went on to Finish School Made in Chelsea (2019-2020) — which is confusing because she's a Havering girl, and as Essex as they come.
In the coming weeks, McDermott will be tackling a new topic for BBC Three: the University of Idaho murders. “Zara McDermott heads to the small town of Moscow, Idaho,” the press release promises. «To uncover the story of the social media frenzy that followed the tragic murders of four University of Idaho students.»
Those who haven't been following the trajectory of the media may be puzzled as to why Season 4's «Love» Islander was hired to tour a small Midwestern town and contact former friends of murder victims.
The answer is that the people who book TV, radio and podcasts can't afford to have their shows potentially flop. With so many media products out there now, the likelihood of a big-money show completely disappearing without a trace has never been greater. Moreover, the commissioners want the stars to be profitable so that at least they can avoid accusations.
Podcasting is a good example of how this new world works. Pitch your audio documentary to major distributors—Apple, Amazon, Audible, Spotify, iHeart—and the first conversation will often be about the potential host's social media bona fides. How many followers? What platforms? Oftentimes, executives won't entertain hosts who have less than a quarter of a million followers. And knowing this, agents typically market their clients by first selling their social media influence.
Former Love Island contestant and popular podcaster Olivia Attwood Photo: PA
The tactic may be cynical, but it works. At the time of writing, the number one podcast in the country is Olivia Attwood's So Wrong It's Right, produced by Bauer Media, the conglomerate that owns Absolute Radio and Empire Magazine, among many other properties. Attwood, who has 2 million Instagram followers, is another Love Island (2017) alum who has strengthened her brand with The Only Way Is Essex (again, which is confusing as she only went to private schools in Surrey). Unfortunately, So Wrong It's Right isn't even that bad, it's actually good.
Attwood also produced a four-part series for ITV about “the new world of selling sex online.” Another Made in Chelsea star, Sam Thompson, starred in the film Sam Thompson: Is It ADHD? for channel 4.
Meanwhile, Made in Chelsea's Spencer Matthews has become something of a media knotweed, producing no less than two weekly podcasts for Global, the makers of The News Agents: Spencer & Vogue and Big Fish. Are his insights really that sharp? Asked why he signed up for BBC walking reality show Pilgrimage, Matthews said: «Pilgrimage is walking around and sleeping on the floor of a church and eating dead rats and all that stuff, which I'm looking forward to.»
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We were promised that the Internet would provide a democracy of talent: more outsiders would be able to climb the ladder from rougher starting points. At lower levels this is often what happens. But after a certain point, the oligarchy of agents and human brands becomes even more effective than ten years ago. In a system that is now driven by clicks per mill, micro-focused engagement metrics, and boardroom pie charts they distribute like rocks, and the drain jobs go to the likes of Lang.
There are always good reasons behind these decisions. Lang is in no way suitable for this role. He's an enthusiastic pathos that exudes the light-hearted nonsense that is the hallmark of daytime Radio 1. Plus, for a BBC still struggling to find a younger audience, tapping directly into its podcast subscribers must have appealed.
But this Reality Class rule is a sign that the media is creatively exhausted and lacks self-confidence. Because almost by definition, as Matthew Bannister might say, these people are not “real.”
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