I never expected that I would need to have to write this.
Wednesday January 6th 2021
will go down in history as one of the darkest days in the history of
American Democracy.
A group of domestic terrorists invaded
the Capitol building in Washington DC. How they got in there is
almost irrelevant at this point, though it will not be irrelevant
later, there will have to be an investigation into just how that
happened. For now, there are more important things to be dealt with.
This is act of terrorism, and as much
as I hate using that word, it is truly what it was, an act of
terrorism, and it was committed by a bunch of criminals, who called
themselves “Proud Boys”. They have nothing to be “proud” of.
They just committed treason and sedition. They all need to be
rounded up, tried for these crimes, and then locked up for the rest
of their natural lives, without any hope of parole.
Those that fomented this, ranging from
the Conservative commentators and media organisations that allowed
these commentators to spread their traitorous comments, to the very
congressmen that encouraged it, and even the “President” himself
who practically ordered this sedition to happen, also need to tried
for these crimes, and also locked up for the rest of their natural
lives, without any chance of parole.
Even now, Conservative media
commentators have been trying to put the blame elsewhere, some of
them even going so far as to try to blame some mystical “Antifa”
organisation, for what happened. No evidence has been presented that
there were any anti-fascist infiltrators, just like there has been no
evidence for any of Trump's baseless claims about the election being
rigged against him. These organisations and commentators need to be
deplatformed immediately. They have no business being part of public
discourse on the airwaves, whether those airwaves are delivered by a
satellite, a cable or a transmitter.
And what of the politicians who
actively encouraged this to happen? They need to barred from
politics for life. If they are sitting congressmen and women, they
need to removed from congress immediately. The “President” needs
to be impeached, and convicted, and removed from office. It doesn't
matter that he will no longer be President come the 20th
January 2021. He has just demonstrated in the clearest terms
possible, that he no longer has any business leading a school board,
never mind a nation like the United States. But because the process
of impeachment and conviction can take quite a long time, then the
Vice President has to seriously consider using the 25th
Amendment to remove Donald John Trump from office. Whether he can do
that though, will depend on just how many members of Trump's cabinet
he can get to agree to it. Nonetheless, those discussions need to be
happening, if they aren't already.
I already said they need to be tried
and locked up for these crimes, but first we need to remove them off
the political stage.
Democracy in any country, be it the
United States, or indeed our own, depends not on how dark these kinds
of days are, but in how we as a people respond to them. We must be
willing to draw a line in the sand, and say “No, this was wrong”,
and we must never allow ourselves to go back to these dark places
ever again. And we must make sure that those who could take us
there, are never allowed the power to do that again.
So Twitter decided to ban a number of users, and limit a whole bunch more over a little something called QAnon, which is a conspiracy theory about a "deep state" within the Beltway, who it is claimed are actively working together against Donald Trump. Apparently it kinda spun off from Pizzagate, which was another idiotic conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theories have actually been around a lot longer than you think, going back to the 16th century, and the whole idea the Protestant Reformation, was a deliberate conspiracy against Catholics. But for so many years, conspiracy theories were regarded, correctly, as carackpot ideas that nobody took seriously, and they didn't spread either, because, well, instant communication wasn't a thing back then.
Perhaps the first conspiracy theory to actually get mainstream attention, so much so that a 1979 US congressional committee even ended up giving it more provenence, was the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't actually kill JFK, but a second shooter actually did. That's just one of a bunch of conspiracy theories over JFK's assassination, but that one somehow garnered enough mainstream attention, that in 1976, The US House of Representatives, actually set up a committee to investigate both the assaninations of JFK and Martin Luther King, and controversially, said that JFK was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy.
Since then, we've had absolute tons of conspiracy theories about nearly everything, from the deaths of Elvis Presley and John Lennon, to 9/11, to Sandy Hook, to even the current Covid-19 pandemic, and there have been some absolutely crazy theories put forward about that.
Anyway, back to Twitter, and this is a good first step, well, second step, after removing Alex Jones and Infowars from the platform, but honestly, they and Facebook both need to do more to take down these conspiracy theorists, who use social media to spread deliberate misinformation, and they know they're spreading deliberate misinformation, and we know why they're doing it too, they're doing it to deliberately undermine people's trust in the media, and in official sources of information and to a degree it has worked. But the fightback is on. And people on social media are standing up to these stupid conspiracy theories, by demanding proof.
That's how you take them down nowadays. You can't ignore them anymore, they can spread like wildfire on social media, so you have to demand proof every time. So I say this, Twitter, Facebook, work with us on taking down conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists. Lets make social media a safe place for the truth.
So, a day earlier than expected, The Russia Report finally gets released to the world, and whilst there's nothing that is a smoking gun, what is says is potentially more damaging to the British government, moreso to David Cameron's administration of it, than the current one, though their reluctance to actually publish this is very notable as well.
Whilst it doesn't actually say if Russia interfered in the EU Referendum, and let's be honest, we know they did, the Russians are truly the only ones to actually benefit from the UK leaving the EU, so of course they would try and interefere, it fits their style, it fits the whole KGB-esque way that Vladimir Putin has run things during his time as President, the fact that it criticises the UK government for not even trying to investigate if such a thing was happening, is way more damning.
The report does say that Russia has been engaging in influence campaigns targetting British Politics using things like social media campaigns, wealthy individuals and other means. Evidence of this dates back to 2014's Scottish Referendum on Independence, yet apparently, there was no attempt to discern if such behaviour was being done during the Brexit campaign. Spoiler Alert: Yeah, there was, we saw it with our own eyes on social media.
Bias by deliberate action is one thing. But bias by deliberate inaction is worse. And allowing interference in internal affairs by deliberately avoiding investigating, is frankly unforgivable. This government as a whole needs to resign, on mass. Yes, I know, we don't want another general election, we've had so many in these last few years, but frankly, that would be a small price to pay.
Unsurprisingly, The Kremlin has dismissed all this as "Russophobia", but I would say, there was no "Russophobia" until Putin started showing he was still doing things the old KGB way. Coincidence? No way!
Russia interfered in Scottish Independence, they interefered in the EU referendum, they interfered in the US Presidential Election in 2016, they've interefered plenty since, and now the world is finally realising just how low and sneaky and downright dispicible Vladimir Putin has been, the fact that he has been running Cold War style campaigns of disinformation for the purposes of not just growing Russian influence and power in the world, but also to generate outcomes that will favour his country, it is going to get a lot harder for Russia to continue that kind of influence peddling. They're already being called out for it on social media everytime they try. And then, there's what will happen in 2024, when his second term in office comes to an end. Plus, what is happening with the global pandemic in Russia currently. Politics in Russia is going to be very interesting in the next few years, especially after the constitutional amendments he got voted in earlier this month, giving him the power to effectively veto candidates for the Prime Minstership, before they even stand for office, and stating that Russian law supercedes international law. That is not going to go down well globally.
This was not closure on this issue. We might not get any closure on this until Putin is out of political office and maybe not even then. But the more we know about what Putin is doing, the more it makes him look like a wannabe global dictator. We must be on the look out for more Russian influence peddling and trying to influence public opinion on social media, because that's the only way we can effectively counter what is going on.
This sounds unbelieveable. Texas, a state that has been firmly Republican territory for a long time, this year, could go to the Democrats?
This seemingly wild idea, actually comes from a site that is not known for it's wild, unsubstantiated ideas. This comes from Real Clear Politics, who are usually somewhat conservative, at least in a cultural sense, when it comes to election predictions. By comparison, Politico, NBC News, CBS News and CNN are still firmly placing it on the Republican side, although Politico, CBS News and CNN are all saying that it's only leaning Republican right now.
The current scorecards for the race to the White House are very interesting. All of them have Biden leading. Real Clear Politics makes it 222-115, with both Florida's 29 Electoral College votes, and Texas' 38 Electoral College votes up for grabs. If Biden were to win both of those states, then Trump has no way to win.
By comparison, Politico scores it 268-203, NBC News scores it 231-201, CBS News 248-188, and CNN scores it 232-205. As of writing this, neither ABC News or FOX News currently have a scorecard for the race to the White House.
It would be completely shocking, if the Democrats did indeed take Texas, even by just a handful of votes. The Republican Party losing their single biggest block of Electoral College votes? To many of us seasoned political observers, it seems to be anything from unlikely to impossible. But Politico have noticed something.
In 2012, Mitt Romney won Texas by 16 points. In 2016, Trump won it by just 9 points. It's getting closer and closer. Currently, Real Clear Politics has it listed as a tie for this year at 45% each on their polling average, but that just means that right now, it's too close to call, which considering Texas' history as a Republican and their one reliable source for a big pile of Electoral College votes, the fact that it could, just could go to the Democrats, will shake everything up if that happens. We'll just have to wait and see.
This is not something that has suddenly happened this year, this has been something brewing for a number of years, and I'm really beginning to more than question the accuracy of the polls. I'm actually beginning to think that the whole process of opinion polling may now be fatally flawed, or at best compromised badly.
Now, there have been some changes to what is prompted by the questioners, but in my view, that is not the big problem. My feeling is that the biggest issue right now with opinion polling is the way it is conducted right now, and how they select the people they interview.
Some pollsters now use a regular group of volunteers polling them on the internet. Then they weight the results based on demographic information. This I feel is seriously flawed, because it is open to manipulation. Anybody can volunteer to give their time to the polling companies, and often, I suspect that some parties might try to get their operatives to volunteer to load the system up with representatives of a particular party. The weighting aspect of this method is also flawed, because it's based on a lot of assumptions that don't actually always play out as you think they would.
Those that still rely on telephone calls to canvas potential voters, are also somewhat flawed. Calls from polling companies are often cold calls, and as such are not treated well by respondents. The idea that you can get an accurate idea of opinions from a bunch of random cold calls, is a seriously flawed idea.
The net result is reflected in the actual results of the polls themselves. Since Boris Johnson took over as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister, he has stumbled so many times that he makes his predecessor Theresa May look actually competent. He lost almost all of the key votes in Parliament in the short time he was in there as PM, he lost a battle in the courts over an illegal prorogation of Parliament., and he's been losing and poorly performing in TV debates already. Yet, this week, a poll by Opinionum for The Observer, put Boris Johnson's Conservatives 19% ahead of everybody else.
This does not add up. Public perception of Boris Johnson is not a good one. He's seen as an incompetent blunderer, full of bluster and Brexit, full of sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing. Even within his own party, he's not seen as a great politician. Yet somehow, his party has a massive lead in the polls? How on earth do you square that circle of hell? Nothing about that adds up at all.
Jeremy Corbyn hasn't been viewed as a competent leader of the Opposition. This is despite him inflicting more government defeats in his time as leader of the Opposition than any previous opposition leader in the modern era. And whilst some of his decisions have been questionable, any lack of competence he has shown pales into insignificance behind the incompetence of both Boris Johnson, and his predecessor Theresa May as PM.
To my practiced eyes and mind, something isn't adding up here, and not all of this can be blamed entirely on the media, as much as many might like to believe that to be the case. Sure some of it can be blamed on media bias, but the Tory press is a dying medium right now, they are losing readers, they are losing money, and they just can't be the only factor. A contributing factor yes, but not the main one.
And as Sherlock Holmes would say, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth. So, we must look to the polling methodologies themselves, and how flawed they are, and as I've already stated, they are seriously flawed, compromised beyond reasonable expectations.
Even the Exit Polls of the two previous elections in 2015 and 2017, which are done face to face, rather than over the phone or by internet, have been a bit off the mark when it came to actually predicting the result. Granted they weren't as far off the mark as they were back in 1992, when they completely screwed up, but it's far enough for me to question their reliability. In other countries, exit polling has been much more accurate in predicting the result. It does leave me wondering how we on the UK aren't able to get it right when other countries pollsters can.
That's why I question the weighting that is given to polls. It seems to be at least a bit out of sync with actual reality.
Overall, I have to believe that something is serious wrong in the world of opinion polling, and yes, it might be broken, maybe even broken beyond repair.
For a while now, we've been watching the slow and painful disintegration of both Donald Trump's regime in the White House, and the Republican Party in Congress, and wondering when exactly the final cataclysmic explosion of both was going to happen.
From reports I'm seeing online, it truly looks like we are at the beginning of what we know from the James Bond films as the big final fight that leads to the final cataclysmic explosion of the villains base, and the death of the main villain, although in this case, it's the destruction of the Trump regime and the Republican Party with them.
At this point, Trump can only count on his base to support him, and his base isn't anywhere near as big as it was. His base now only consists of extremists on the far right of the political spectrum. Even Moderate Republicans, along with Independents, Centrists and Democrats, are now seeing Trump for who he really is, and they don't like it either.
But the Republican Party in Congress haven't caught up with this, and they're trying their damnedest to either protect him or come up with successful distraction strategies, but they seem to be failing with both.
And what makes it worse, is that we are seeing the Trump regime revive the classic Republican trope of the circular firing squad, and try to take each other out in order to avoid getting taken out themselves. The amount of panic in the Trump regime is growing exponentially and the net result of all this is what we are currently seeing.
In the ongoing public impeachment hearings, several Trump administration officials have repeatedly given testimony pointing to Donald Trump's guilt and that's causing mass panic in the Republican camp and in the Trump regime. Donald Trump even managed to take over Fox & Friends on Friday morning to claim that this impeachment is going great for him, and he's looking forward to his trial in the Senate, in an hour long rant that even the hosts were feeling somewhat uncomfortable about at some points. Then Republicans in Congress began parroting this same idea, and some people actually fell for it.
However, this was all undone by the end of the day when reports came out from inside the White House via the Washington Post and the New York Times, that Trump was "miserable" in the White House and was finding the whole situation "intolerable". It was then further undone when Trump called Republican senators to Camp David to 'persuade them' not to convict him. If you honestly thought that the Impeachment proceedings against you were going well for you, then why would you call your buddies from the Senate to persuade them not to convict you? The answer of course is that you wouldn't. So, that totally destroyed the narrative that you had set up earlier in the day.
This is just adding further hard evidence against Trump. It shows just how corrupt he is and that he thinks he can somehow subvert the whole process. However, he fails to recognise the underlying truth about all Republican politicians in both the House and the Senate. That truth is that when it comes to making sure they get re-elected, the President of the United States has absolutely no say in their decisions, because it isn't about protecting him, it's about protecting themselves. If the numbers in their state or their district say that convicting him is their only course of action, they will convict him. It's not the extremists that win elections, it's the moderates on both sides, and the Centrists and Independents. If a Republican thinks they can win more votes by convicting him, than by not convicting him, they will do it, and the numbers generally look like that's more likely to happen than not.
Of course this leads to the next question, which is will enough voters switch to vote for a Republican if they do convict him. This at the moment doesn't look so clear cut, and the possibility of Republicans losing what had previously been considered to be fairly safe seats is a not insignificant one. At the moment, there doesn't seem to be enough of a swing against the Republicans to wipe them out in the House, nor enough to ensure a clean sweep of Democrat victories in the one third of Senate seats that will be up for grabs. But that could change, and based on what is currently happening, it's a change that could hurt Republicans even more than it already is.
For instance, there is Trump's personal lawyer, Former New York Mayor and walking 9/11 meme, Rudy Giuliani. He's already in a boat load of trouble, and it got worse this past week, as not only were House Republicans more than ready to throw him under the bus to protect Trump, but also when it was revealed in the New York Times, that the Feds has subpoenaed a Pro-Trump Super PAC in an investigation that is about 3 people. Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman... and Rudy Giuliani. Parnas and Fruman are associates of Rudy's, and Parnas was even born in the Ukraine, when it was still part of the Soviet Union. Fruman was born in Belarus, so both are immigrants, which further adds another level of hypocrisy to the Republicans' anti-immigrant stance.
Now, Super PACs rarely get subpoenaed, so this is in itself, quite a big deal. A PAC is a Political Action Committee, which is basically a group that pools campaign contributions from its members and donates them to campaigns for candidates, or ballot initiatives, or legislation. In the wake of the Citizens United decision, a new kind of PAC was created, known as the Super PAC. Whilst PAC have set limits on what members can donate, Super PACs do not, and they can engage in political activity independently of the campaign they are supporting. However they are barred from making actual contributions to candidates or parties.
Now, it seems likely that these subpoenas relate to donations to that Super PAC from foreign donors, which is illegal under US Electoral Law. Parnas and Fruman are already in some trouble for sourcing illegal foreign campaign contributions, so it's very possible that these subpoenas might relate to funneling foreign money through the Super PAC to Donald Trump, which as I've already pointed out, Super PACs are barred from making contributions. If this is the case, then Parnas, Fruman, Giuliani and Trump are all potentially in boiling hot water. Parnas has even said to CNN that he's willing to testify to Congress about the roles of Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, and Republican Representative Devin Nunes's roles in the whole Ukraine situation. Not only could this throw both Giuliani and Trump under the bus, but it also opens up the possibility that Republican politicians in Washington are in this whole mess up to their eyeballs, and if that's the case, then that could lead to further revelations about othe Republican politicians in Washington and their connections and it could compromise the whole of the Washington Republican establishment, and that could really spell trouble for the Republican Party.
And that's the just the tip of the iceberg. A grand jury in New York has the Trump Organisation firmly in its sights at the moment in relation to Trump's hush money scandals, and looks likely to indict not only Donald Trump himself, but also members of his family as well, on State charges, which Trump cannot pardon himself for.
Then there's Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo, who was just sold out by State Department officials, who were forced to turn over materials relating to the Ukraine situation to a court. A judge had ordered these documents turned over before Midnight Friday. But then it was revealed that Pompeo had leaked to the media that he was going to resign from the State Department to run for the US Senate in Kansas, which might be a pipe dream considering he too is up to his neck in the whole situation, and could well be arrested.
And there's probably a lot more that we don't yet know. But this is very much what happens when a criminal conspiracy is unraveling before you. Normally the best move would be to stick together, try and ride things out together. But the old saying about there being no honour among thieves, is one that is proven true time and again, because individual players will start thinking about what will protect themselves, usually in a panicky state, and will often make the situation for themselves and everybody else in the conspiracy, because these panic moves usually backfire.
To seasoned observers of Washington politics, this is following predictable patterns of behaviour to their logical conclusion. We've been witness to a party that has actually been slowly disintegrating since the days of Watergate, and now, we're seeing what could be the start of the final disintegration of the Republican Party as a political force, via the corrupt dealings of the Trump regime. Something else will come along to replace it unquestionably. This happened before in the 1860s, when the Republican Party itself emerged out of the ashes of the Whig Party in the US. But this could be even more damaging than the Whig's self induced implosion, which didn't have a trigger for it on a scale anywhere near this big. What would happen in the aftermath of this, is very much uncharted territory, and it will be interesting to watch it play out. Right now though, it is kinda fun and kinda painful, to watch both the Trump regime and the Republican Party hit the self destruct button repeatedly and to see the whole situation blowup, just like watching the villain's base in the James Bond films get destroyed in explosion after explosion.
So Radio Today are reporting that Bauer stations are dropping the Vodafone Big Top 40 show at the end of the year, and Global as a result have decided to stop offering the show to the rest of the industry as a result.
I mean that in itself is slightly weird. It doesn't have sound like Global sulking and taking their ball away from the rest of the industry, so that only their clique can play with it.
But, for me, this is absolutely a good thing. Global now have stations just about everywhere in the UK, they are the biggest radio group in the UK. So, if they were going to stop offering the chart show to other stations at some point, maybe they were just waiting for a convenient excuse.
Many smaller stations across the country have not been taking the chart show. The likes of Radio Plymouth, Radio Exe, The Breeze, and others have managed to work just fine without the show, and other than for just heritage reasons, there was sometimes little reason for a station to be still taking the show, such as Pirate FM has been since 2012, when Heart Cornwall replaced Atlantic FM, which had not been airing the Big Top 40, and started airing it, meaning both commercial radio stations in Cornwall were simulcasting the programme between 4pm and 7pm on a Sunday.
Bauer just provided the necessary excuse for Global, but it still sounds like they're sulking and taking their ball away from the rest of the network in response.
So, it seems that we've got the beginning of the end of the BBC Local Radio evening show. BBC Radio London dropped the show some months ago, and next Monday, BBC Radio Cornwall also drops the show, with Tiffany Truscott taking on the Evening Show slot. BBC WM are also dropping their remaining airings of the show on Mondays & Thursdays, to replace it with local evening shows on those days, whilst Tuesday, Wendesday and Friday evenings are dedicated to local sport.
Other stations that have already dropped the show, include BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, BBC Radio Humberside, BBC Radio Kent, BBC Radio Lancashire, BBC Newcastle, BBC Radio Sheffield, whilst BBC Radio Stoke have just one hour of the show on a Friday evening. Other stations have hours of the Local Radio Evening Show substituted for sports coverage and BBC Introducing, amongst other things.
This is a very piecemeal way of dropping the show. Individual stations are deciding when they are dropping it, rather than having a confirmed cut-off date, where the show officially ends. Where I live, I can pick up both BBC Radio Devon and BBC Radio Cornwall, and whilst Cornwall is starting their own evening programme next week, Devon is sticking with the show, except for some Tuesday sports coverage. Also, it seems that each individual station is now doing it's own thing in the evening slot, rather than the regional arrangements we've had before. Some stations are including BBC Introducing shows in the evening schedule, and specialist music and content shows, others are just doing one long evening slot. This is the first time ever, outside of sports coverage, that BBC Radio Cornwall has gone its own separate way for the evening slot.
In the Mid 80's BBC Radio Bristol supplied evening programming between 6pm and 8pm with Al Read presenting, but that disappeared shortly before Late Night Sou'West laucnhed in 1987 with Chris Langmore hosting from 10pm. Then BBC Radio Bristol supplied the evening output with Chris Mills between 7pm and 10pm. Later, Devon, Cornwall, Guernsey and Jersey would split away from Bristol, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, and have their own evening show, then later on all the stations came back together for a while where all post 7pm output, including the late night show, was shared between all those stations. then later Duncan Warren hosted an evening programme on Devon, Cornwall, Guernsey and Jersey, with somebody else hosting the late night slot.
Now, you'll have Tiffany Truscott hosting just for Cornwall, and the only shared output, will be David Shepherd's Late Show. Very much not what I expected, I was expecting to see more regional output between 7pm and 10pm, but more local is good. Maybe it will help remind commercial radio that they should be more local than network.
So multichannel broadcaster UKTV is in the midle of a spat with platform provider Virgin Media over... something, something that ultimately doesn't really matter. I believe it might have to do in part with the fact that UKTV VOD (Video On Demand) is on Netflix and Amazon Prime, but not Virgin Media. I also hear that it might be in part due to the amount that UKTV charge Virgin Media for their channels, including ones that are available free to air on Freeview and Freesat.
As a result of this, all the UKTV channels, including the free ones, have been pulled from Virgin Media in both the UK & Ireland. If you go to where the channels are meant to be on the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide), you'll find different channels in their place, many of which do not offer similar programming to the channels they replaced.
One side effect of this is that in the UK, Premier Sports has been added to the XL pack, alongside the existing BT Sport and EuroSport channels, and the recently added FreeSports, which means for Virgin Media customers there is more live sport available without having to add the premium Sky Sports. If you include all the HD variants, there's 19 channels of sport available from around the world, including At The Races, Sky Sports Mix and Sky Sports News.
Neither side in this debacle looks good. Virgin Media have basically replaced a lot of channels that provided high quality programming, with a few channels that provide high quality programming and others that are not so high quality. And UKTV looks greedy for asking for probably more money than they should, for a product that whilst it is high quality, is far from a premium product. UKTV is mostly shows that have already been shown elsewhere, with a small sprinkling of original content.
Both sides are trying to hurt each other, but in doing so, the reality is they are only really hurting their loyal viewers, who are now unable to watch the channels on cable, and will now have to either subscribe to Sky for the UKTV channels, or will have to make do with the free channels on either Freeview, or ,if they're particularly sneaky like yours truly, on Freesat.
Not that I am particularly interested in watching anything that UKTV does currently. About the only thing I was remotely interested in was repeats of new Doctor Who from the 2005 series onwards. Oh, and the occassional live sport that was on Dave, and I can still get that on Freeview and Freesat, when they get the rights to show such events, but ITV4 gets more live sport than Dave does.
Overall, I am much happier that I now get Premier Sports as part of my subscription, which now means I have more accesss to live sport than ever before, which I think is an amazing bonus. This will probably end when UKTV finally agree a deal, but for now, I'm taking advantage of the situation, and enjoying the extra sports.
It's incredible to think that since James Bond's first on-screen appearance, only 7 actors have portrayed him on screen. Doctor Who has been around almost as long and 22 actors have at one time or another regenerated into the Doctor's body and shoes. With only a couple of exceptions, every version of James Bond has been memorable for great reasons, and this list is going to explain my own personal ranking of the James Bond actors going from worst to best.
Some James Bond fans might have quirked at my statement of only 7 actors having played the part and say, "Wait a minute, you're forgetting Barry Nelson who played the role in the 1954 CBS TV adaptation of Casino Royale in the anthology series "Climax!"", to which I say, No, I'm not forgetting about him, he is disqualified from this list, because he isn't playing James Bond of the British Secret Service, Barry Nelson played Jimmy Bond of America's 'Combined Intelligence Agency'. It may well be the first appearance of the character that Ian Fleming wrote, but in all honesty, Barry Nelson's performance was about as far away from James Bond as it was possible to get, so even if I count him, he's at the bottom of the list, but because it's not James Bond of the British Secret Service, it doesn't count.
So with all that pre-amble out of the way, let's get into the list proper, and bring you the full list of the James Bond Actors, from Worst to Best.
7: David Niven
If I were just judging this list on quality of performance alone, David Niven would be much higher on the list than this. But it isn't judged solely on quality of performance, so David Niven ends up here . But why?
There's no question that David Niven gives a great performance as Sir James Bond in the 1967 parody film, Casino Royale. A film that by the way, scores a 5.2 on IMDB, whilst Rotten Tomatoes score it much lower, with the critics score or tomatometer being only 28%, whilst the audience score is a little better at 35%.
Yes, Casino Royale 1967 (as I refer to it to differentiate it from both the 1954 TV show and the 2006 official entry into the James Bond movie universe), is not a great film. Sure there are some great moments there, and the production design is amazing, and the cast is something approaching insane in terms of star power, but the convuluted plot and the messiness of changing looks and plots and directors, just drags it down painfully, and as such also drags down David Niven's wonderful performance, which is unquestionably one of the better things in the whole movie, along with Woody Allen's performance.
Sadly, as great as the performance is, there is very little about it that is identifiably James Bond, even in a parody sense. Not in the physicality, not in the characterisation, not in any way at all. And that is really what marks him down, and drops him to the bottom of the list.
It feels a little harsh to be putting such a great performance so low on the list, but the reasons why are sound, and honestly, it's more important to embody the character, or at least, give me something that feels like James Bond, rather than this, which is basically, David Niven playing David Niven once again.
You see, this is one of the things that some actors can get away with, is just playing themselves time and again, and David Niven, as wonderful as he was to watch, was one of those actors who always played himself.
He basically played himself in The Pink Panther film in 1963, when he was cast as Sir Charles Lytton, or as I prefer to call him, Sir Charles Phantom, the notorious Lytton. He basically played himself in the 1950 film The Elusive Pimpernel, when he was cast as Sir Percy Blakeney, also known as The Scarlet Pimpernel. He basically played himself in the 1956 film Around The World in 80 Days, when he was cast as Phineas Fogg. And he basically played himself in the 1978 film Death On The Nile, where he was cast as Colonel Race.
He did the same thing in Casino Royale, but in that film, as in all the ones I previously mentioned, David Niven's performance ranged between great and outstanding, and it didn't actually matter to your enjoyment of the film, that David Niven just played David Niven for the umpteenth time.
So, ultimately, that is why David Niven comes in at the bottom of the list.
6: George Lazenby
George Lazenby only played James Bond once, in the 1969 film 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', and whilst that film is excellent in so many ways, the film scores 6.8 on IMDB, whilst the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer sits at 82%, and the audience score is 64%, one of things that does drag it down, not the only thing, but one of them, is unfortunately George Lazenby as James Bond.
For almost the entirity of the film, George Lazenby is completely wooden as James Bond, there's little sense of personality, very little in the way of actual performance there, it is painful to watch him here as 007.
The only thing that really saves him here is his physicality in the various fight scenes and action scenes. He puts a very creditable physical performance into the fights, though they are not helped by some god awful dubbing that was done to make the fight scenes sound almost comically bad, yet mute the sound, and purely looking at his physical work, it's very good in the action sequences, and it rescues him from the bottom of the list, but only just.
He does do one scene very well, which is the last scene where he is cradling a dead Tracy whilst talking to a policeman on a motorcycle, and he really pulls that off, but everything else just feels painful to watch, and because of that, George Lazenby ends up just off the bottom of the list.
In fact George Lazenby's best performance as James Bond isn't even in a James Bond film, and he isn't credited as James Bond, because legally they couldn't. He was credited as J.B. But he was driving an Aston Martin DB5, with the same box of tricks, the licence plate was a simple J B and there were plenty of references to James Bond films and lines, such as On Her Majesty's Secret Service and shaken, but not stirred dropped into this car chase sequence, just to hammer home the fact that it was James Bond.
The cameo was in the 1983 TV movie, Return Of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair and was designed to play up the fact that Ian Fleming, James Bond's creator, had initially been an uncredited consultant on the original TV series in the very early days of the show, in the creation process, and Napoleon Solo was very much based on the James Bond character. It just goes to show that with some time, and experience, George Lazenby might have become a better James Bond.
5: Roger Moore
A lot of Bond purists will point to the fact that Roger Moore's performances as Bond are almost as far away from the book version of the character as it is possible to get, and whilst there is some truth to that, there is a lot about Roger Moore's version that does feel right for Bond, even if a lot of his performance isn't very Bondian.
There are very powerful moments that Roger Moore delivered that were very much James Bond, such as in The Man With The Golden Gun when he meets Lazar for the first time, and his entire interaction with him, very much feels like James Bond. The same can be said for most of Roger Moore's performance from For Your Eyes Only, which I feel is a very underrated Bond film. The film scores 6.8 on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer scores it 72% whilst the audience score is 64%. My score for the movie though is above 80%, because even though Moore reportedly hated the darker tone, he pulled it off so well that it may well be one of his best performances ever anywhere.
But equally, his films did a lot of stuff that really wasn't very Bondian. The infamous gondola sequence in Moonraker is a sequence that really doesn't feel very Bondian, and isn't very good on many other levels as well. Also, the infamous sequence in Octopussy where Bond is being hunted by Kamal Khan, and he tells a tiger to "sit!" ala Barbara Woodhouse, and do a Tarzan yell while swinging through the trees, again just emphasises how un-Bond-like he could be.
Rather like David Niven, you rarely got character work from Roger Moore, it was mostly Roger just playing himself, although there are some notable exceptions, such as in For Your Eyes Only. But again his performances were often so enjoyable, it made up for things that just weren't that good, except for the gondola sequence, nothing could save that from infamy...
Sorry for inflicting that on you, but it is god awful.
Roger's performances were often light hearted, and the humour felt wrong for Bond, and that is one of the reasons why Roger Moore comes in at this level.
4: Daniel Craig
If I'd done this list back in 2011, Daniel Craig would have been number 5 and Roger Moore would be in this spot, but the two most recent films for Daniel Craig have elevated him into the number 4 spot and for good reason.
His performances in both Skyfall and Spectre were so much better than his first two attempts in Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace.
In Casino Royale 2006, his performance was somewhat one note, in the sense that he did dark, mean and moody well and everything else just didn't come off very well. In Quantum Of Solace, his performance was literally one-note. He literally only did dark, mean and moody in that film, nothing else, and his performance was awful.
Thankfully, in 2012's Skyfall, Sam Mendes managed to direct a great performance out of Daniel Craig. His performance was diverse, multi-faceted, and very good, and then Spectre was almost as good in terms of his performance, and much more like classic Bond, and it saw him rise up in my standings to take the number 4 slot away from Roger Moore.
However, if Bond 25 is a dud, he could slip down the rankings once again.
3: Sean Connery
Oh, I bet a lot of people are gonna hate me for this, but yes, Sean Connery comes in at number 3, not number 1. But it's not as though there's a massive gap between number 3 and number 1, in fact, there's very little seperating number 1 from number 5. It's only George Lazenby and David Niven who are really significantly worse than the others.
Sean Connery had some amazing performances in his first 4 films as James Bond. It's generally accepted that his best performance is Goldfinger, even though James Bond is imprisoned for almost half the film. He does more in Thunderball, From Russia With Love and Doctor No.
It's with You Only Live Twice that his performances slipped. He seemed to be just going through the motions on that film, and not really putting much effort in. When he was brought back in Diamonds Are Forever, the performance was better, but still not up to the standard of those first 4 films. There were moments though in that film where he was obviously just going through the motions, but he did have some better moments in that film.
However, his worst performance was in the unofficial film, Never Say Never Again in 1983. It was clear that he had absolutely no chemistry with both his Bond Girl, Domino Petachi, played by Kim Basinger, nor with the villian of the piece, Maximillian Largo, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer. He did give some great moments, especially with Felix Leiter, played here by Bernie Casey, but so much about that performance was off-key and off-kilter, that a few good moments couldn't rescue it from the bottom of the pile as far as Sean Connery's performances go.
But overall, Sean Connery set the standard for James Bond in those first four films, and he's only been bettered by two other actors in my view, so it's a high number 3 for Sean Connery.
2: Pierce Brosnan
Now I can hear what you're saying now, how can you put Pierce Brosnan above Sean Connery? Sure, Brosnan was excellent, but he had one really awful film in Die Another Day. To which I would say that Brosnan's performances, even in Die Another Day, were consistently high quality. Yes, his best film may have been his first, with two mediocre films before a truly awful one, but Brosnan's own performances in all those films were remarkably consistent, and amazingly good.
His performance in Goldeneye set the new standard for Bond in 1995. He damn near perfectly embodied the darkness that existed in Bond from the very first film, yet he managed to seem both damaged and the embodiment of coolness, at the same time.
His performances in both Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough managed to bring in some appropriate humour responses, and bring in aspects of Roger Moore's Bond, without making it feel out of place, or indeed inappropriate.
Even in Die Another Day, he kept up the same quality of performance, it was just a shame that the material he was given was weaker than tea that has been made by a single quick dip of a teabag into a mug of hot water.
He sold himself as Bond in Goldeneye's pre-title sequence, and you never doubted him all the way through his films. He was Bond. It's just that one other actor, managed to embody the character of James Bond, just a little bit better.
1: Timothy Dalton
Okay, I know some people are going to question me putting Dalton up here when I put Daniel Craig down at number 4, but in both of his films, Timothy Dalton was James Bond, without question. In fact, he was the book version of James Bond, perfectly brought to the screen.
He was sold to me as Bond in that pre-title sequence in The Living Daylights, and his performance during the rest of that film was perfect. Every mannerism felt like it had weight behind it, and meaning. Even something as simple as blowing cigarette smoke out during the debrief scene with General Koskov, had meaning behind it that played into the character beautifully.
In Licence To Kill, Dalton's prescence and charisma was mixed with Bond's darkness in his quest for vengeance on Sanchez, creating a memorable and stunning performance that just oozed cool and yet never lost the edge to the darkness that was needed for this film. Bond was brutal here, but unlike in Casino Royale 2006, the brutality was not gratuitous and that just elevated Dalton to the number 1 spot.
So yes, Timothy Dalton is my number one James Bond actor. Do you agree with me? I'm pretty sure most Bond fans won't agree with Dalton at number 1 but what is your best James Bond actor? I look forward to finding out.
So, we finally have an announcement that the second national digital radio multiplex, Sound Digital, is expanding its transmitter network to include the main areas that are currently lacking coverage, including Devon & Cornwall, adding a potential 4 million extra available listeners to the stations on the multiplex.
Hoo-bloody-ray! Finally!
Sometimes, the process of getting things to happen is slow and laborious, but finally, I'm glad they've taken notice of people like me on Twitter, and Jan Davies, who started a petition when Planet Rock left D1 for Sound Digital complaining about the loss of the station in her area.
Not every station that's on D2 is something I want to listen to, but there are plenty of good stations there that I know will enhance my listening pleasure, such as Mellow Magic, Jazz FM, Absolute 80s, TalkSport 2, Virgin Radio and Talk Radio, which I can hear online, just like all the other D2 stations, but can't take with me on my portable radio, and soon I will be able to listen to those stations on the go, and I will be very happy to have those stations to choose from alongside Pirate FM, Absolute Radio, Classic FM, BBC World Service, Smooth Extra, Gold, Radio Plymouth and many others on DAB, DAB+, and FM.
You know when sometimes, you scan around and just can't quite find the right station to suit your mood? Well, there's a better chance of finding that station with this news.
We don't as yet have confirmed names of transmitters to be equipped, or a confirmed start date. However, we do know that 19 transmitters overall will be equipped, and I suspect that at least in Cornwall and Devon, the transmitters that will be equipped will be...
Caradon Hill
Redruth
Plympton
Huntshaw Cross
Beacon Hill
Exeter St Thomas
That covers most of the around 1.5 million people in Devon & Cornwall who currently can't receive Sound Digital transmissions.
Also, on Twitter, Arqiva were asked about the time scale of the expansion...
UK claims Russia used a nerve agent on it's former spy. Russia claims they've destroyed all their chemical weapons and have an OPCW ceremony backing that. And all this taking place just before a Russian Presidential Election. Ian Beaumont smells a rat.
Admittedly he thinks that a second referendum would kill off the "remoaner" campaign to undermine Brexit, and certainly if a referendum happened, and it went 55-45 or greater in favour of Brexit, then certainly it would kill off any further campaign to remain, but the evidence at the moment suggests otherwise.
The most recent poll, done by ICM in December actually gives Remain a 3% lead, 46 to 43. ORB International's Brexit tracker, puts disapproval of the Prime Minister's handling of Brexit at 63%. Neither of these are great indicators that a second referendum would deliver what Nigel Farage is looking for.
Of course, he does have the radical extremist right wing press on his side, which he thinks can deliver him the vote he's looking for. But the influence of the press continues to diminish and as their losses mount up, they try to get louder and louder to encourage people to take notice of them, which is in fact having the opposite effect. Plus, campaigns like Stop Funding Hate are having an impact on these company's bottom lines, by persuading advertisers not to advertise with these brands that have decided to align themselves with hateful messages.
I'd actually quite like a second referendum to happen, but I don't expect it to. Theresa May already bungled one major gamble with last year's general election, and I don't see her going for another big gamble in a second referendum, but I've been wrong before.
So let me get this straight. Donald Trump posted footage from WWE, from
Wrestlemania 23 to be precise, phtoshopped to replace Vince McMahon's
head with a CNN logo, footage that showed him beating up on "CNN".
That's low. That's dispicable. That's sad. Using one fake thing,
professional wrestling, to accuse CNN of being fake, and showing how he
wants to beat up on them. Sadly, his fans just eat it up.
The rest of
us know that he has sadly demonstrated that he does not respect
the media, which we already knew, but that he also does not respect the
office of President.
This is not reality TV, this is not a ratings
war. He is supposed to be the President of the USA. Instead, he is
nothing more than a cult leader, destroying the United States, under the
Cult Of Trumpistan.
He's too stupid to resign, and his cabinet is too
in his thrall to dump him. Somebody needs to do something to end this
travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two
mockeries of a sham of a presidency.
Somebody in the Congress needs to
do something, soon, whilst there is still something of the United States
left to salvage.
My first thoughts in this situation, are the same this time as they always are, they are with the families and friends of the victims. There are no words right now, that will soothe their pain, or ease them through what will be one of the hardest, toughest times they will ever go through.
My second thought is the same one I have every time somebody uses one of the T words in this kind of situation. The T words being terror, terrorist and terrorism. Whether the crime fits the definition of terrorism or not, I will not used the T words to describe it. This was a crime, an act of premeditated murder. Even describing it that way is emotive enough. The fact that the perpetrator committed suicide in the act, just means that it saves the expense of a trial and the ongoing cost of keeping him in prison. Rather than face human justice, the perpetrator convicted himself in the highest court of all, and all he did in the process was to allow the gods and goddesses to send him into his eternal damnation much sooner than originally planned.
My last thought here is simply this. Carry on as normal today. Don't let this or any other criminal act of this magnitude change who you are or what you do.
We are getting ever closer, inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, to a moment like this one...
...and believe me, there will be whooping and hollering around the world when he does go down.
The announcement that a special counsel has been appointed to investigate the reported meddling in the US Presidential Election by Russia and whether Trump campaign associates or the campaign itself, collaborated with the meddling, has invariably thrown a spanner into the barely functional works of this White House.
We've heard a report that apparently Donald Trump went into his White House accomodations earlier on today, and apart from food and drink requests has not emerged since. If he has any sense at all, which is unlikely, he'd head for Moscow on the first flight he could charter, and leave everybody else behind and go into hiding. Unfortunately, he's too much of an egomaniac and spotlight hog to want to go into hiding for very long.
The strangeness here, is although in the history of the USA, there have 15 people impeached at the federal level, the two presidents impeached, were both acquitted in the Senate, and both were Democrats. Andrew Johnson in 1868, and Bill Clinton in 1999. Richard Nixon was never actually impeached. Articles of impeachment had been agreed by the House Judiciary Committee, but Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.
Whatever happens now, we are in territory that is reminiscent of Watergate, but also way greater than a bungled break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic Party. The words "high treason" are being used in intelligence circles right now, and those words are not used lightly, or even at all. But they are being used now. This is a situation that may have to call for a completely new response, including possibly an election re-run, or a brand new election. Nothing at this stage should be ruled out or in, Everything is still on the table.
The only real question remaining is whether Trump's self-preservation instincts will overtake his grossly inflated ego, and make him head for the hills. I'm not sure his ego will allow him to see how deep the quicksand is, or even that he is sinking in it. And if that is the case, his whole administration might just go down with him.
So, at this year's Eurovision Song Contest, the UK's entry placed 15th, scoring 111 points. Not as bad as I feared, but also not as good as I expected.
Half the juries gave the UK points, ranging from the 1 point awarded by Austria, Greece and Norway, to the 10 points awarded by Slovenia and the 12 points awarded by Australia.
4 countries awarded points in the televoting. 3 of those countries were not countries that had juries awarding points. Only Australia awarded points in both the jury stage and the televoting stage, but the televoting only brought 3 points, compared to 12 points from the jury. The rest of the points came from Spain (1), Ireland (4) and Malta (4).
99 points from the juries, just 12 points from the televoting.
Now obviously politics, in the form of Brexit, played its part with the public in Europe, but considering the juries rated us so highly, putting us in 10th place overall in terms of jury scores, it makes the televoting look worse. The televoters had us in 20th place, hence why we ended up with mid table mediocrity at 15th.
However, at almost 4 hours long just for the final, the Eurovision Song Contest is proving to be a difficult sell now, especially as in Kiev, where the event was taking place, it was almost 2am when the show finished. The fact that the show starts at 8pm UK time, means its 9pm in most of Western Europe, ecxept Portugal and Ireland, and 10pm in most of Eastren Europe. It's getting too long and unweildly to be just one show.
And indeed it isn't. You have two semi-finals, one on Tuesday, one on Thursday, and it's been that way since 2004. And in my view, the semi finals are not serving the contest well.
First off, you have the big 5, who get automatic byes straight through to the final. The Big 5 are the biggest monetary contributors to the EBU. The year's host nation also automatically qualifies, and then from however many countries beyond those 6 have submitted entries, they are split into 2 pools, and have to go through a semi final each to qualify. The top 10 from each semi-final get through to the final, leaving you with 26 finalists.
Each semi final though goes on for about 2.5 hours, with somewhere between 15 and 20 songs per semi. It makes the total investment over the whole week about 9 hours. And again, in a place like Kiev, it's past midnight when the shows end.
There has to be a better way to do this, and perhaps there is.
Get rid of the semi-finals, and have all countries competing in a new Eurovision Weekend. It starts on Saturday night with the entries, performing for the juries and the audience. This process is going to be long, but during a Eurovision party, it's really the songs that matter, that's the main thing that brings people together, the music. So, let the music take centre stage, start the event earlier, 7pm UK or 7.30pm UK rather than 8pm, and everyone can have their Eurovision party and enjoy the music.
The juries would then meet up on Sunday morning to award the points for each country, and from after the performers have finished on stage, the lines could then open for televoting. Then, like the X Factor and Britain's Got Talent do, have a Sunday night results programme, where the country representatives can announce the jury points, and their countries televoting points, and then we end up with a winner. So for instance, if one country was awarded 12 points from each of the other 41 country juries, and 12 points from each of the other 41 countries televoting, their final score would be 984 points.
Currently, the juries watch their own performance, untelevised, on Friday night, and they finalise their scores before the live broadcast ever happens. Where as televoters get mere minutes to make up their mind and cast their own vote. Leaving the lines open all through the night, into Sunday and right up until the beginning of the results show, would leave much more time to get the votes in, and you can still have some performances to start the show off well, before the results get announced.
Whilst Saturday night's programme is still likely to be about 4 hours, the new Sunday night programme would be only half that at most, and the combined length is less than the current 9 hour time investment that we are currently asked for.
So, being reported by The Irish Times, and coming to my attention via the Media Boy Blog, is a report that TV3 has offered to collaborate with RTE on a best of Irish TV channel for the Irish diaspora.
Premature? Remember, this is the company that part owned Tara TV between 1998 and 2002.
There hasn't been a TV channel aimed at the Irish abroad since then. There hasn't been a true best of Ireland TV channel since then.
RTE has not only RTE 1 & RTE 2, but also RTE News Now and RTE Jr. TV3 has of course TV3 and 3e, and UTV Ireland when that deal gets completed, and what ever that becomes. Some have suggested it will get closed down, others think it will become 3u, and what a horrible name that is, but whatever happens there, the idea of RTE and TV3 teaming up for a channel is a great combination.
Think about this. TV3 already have Ireland's only local breakfast TV show in Ireland AM, so they could start the ball rolling at 7am. Have live news from TV3 at 12.30, 5.30 and 8.00, with live RTE News at 1.00, 6.01 and 9.00. That already gives a collaborative channel a great structure of live news to work from. Adding in Xpose, The Seven O'Clock Show, Midday and Tonight with Vincent Brown from TV3, and Today and The Late Late Show from RTE, and you have the basics of a great channel that would showcase the best of Irish TV.
RTE should rethink the whole rejection of TV3's idea as it is a good one. What's more, they should be looking to get RTE News Now onto Sky in the UK, Freest in the UK and Virgin Media in the UK as quickly as possible.
So, I'm doing my regular skimming around the various forums, looking for interesting posts, and I spot something on Digital Spy that actually got me thinking.
I know, something on Digital Spy actually got me thinking, that's a first!
The poster posed a question about BBC Local Radio as a whole. Has it, as an idea, had its day? Indeed, some of the commenters there raised very valid and accurate points about the state of BBC Local Radio.
BBC Local Radio as a whole has over 8.5 million listeners every week. That's not a shabby performance, especially when you consider the nearest thing to a comparable commercial network, Heart, gets over 9.1 million listeners per week, and other than Heart, the only stations that score higher, are BBC Radios 1, 2 & 4. By those standards of measurement, surely BBC Local Radio's future as a whole is secure.
But start digging just below the surface of those numbers, and the picture looks a lot different.
Just in the last year, BBC Local Radio as a whole, has lost over 400,000 listeners. That's not so good. The overall share of listening is also down slightly.
And when you start looking at individual stations, it doesn't get much better.
Let's start with BBC Guernsey. In a market where you have two main local stations, one BBC and one commercial (Island FM), you'd think that given the way the BBC is always portrayed by commercial radio companies as being dominant that the BBC Local station would be the runaway leader here, and you'd be wrong.
In a market that has only 53,000 available listeners, BBC Guernsey scores 20,000 whilst Island FM scores 32,000. In the last year, BBC Guernsey has lost 4,000 weekly listeners, whilst Island FM has also lost listeners, just 1,000 of them though. Obviously national radio in Guernsey has gained listeners compared to the local stations.
But even with losing 1,000 listeners, Island FM has still seen its share of listening go up from 45.7% to 46.1% in the past year. Not too shabby. By comparison BBC Guernsey's share of listening has dropped, from 20.9% to 20.5%. So how does Island FM do so much better than BBC Guernsey?
Some could put it down to the fact that Island FM is a more music service, but that's too simple an explanation. If that was all it was, commercial radio as a whole would be outperforming the BBC and that simply isn't the case. BBC Radio 4 outperforms every other station and network, except for BBC Radio 2, so the amount of music clearly isn't the deciding factor here.
When you listen to the output of Island FM, one thing stands out immediately. It has a very community-based feel to it. They talk a lot about local events and promote local causes. Live local programming hours are greater than on most mainland local commercial stations, from 6am to 10pm on weekdays, 7am to 6pm on Saturdays, and 8am to Midday on Sundays, their Sunday afternoon show is voice tracked, according to their public file, although when listening in myself, I couldn't tell that it wasn't live. It's also one of the few remaining local commercial stations to feature a sports show on a Saturday afternoon.
If anything, it's a mixture of having a good mix of music, familiar enough, yet with enough variation that allows you to discover tracks you might not have heard before, combined with the community feel, and a professional imaging that doesn't make the station sound small and you have what I consider to be the perfect balance of elements to make great commercial radio.
The news on the hour doesn't feel too long, at 3 minutes, and you feel briefed, rather than feeling like you've not been told enough. Radio news itself is another whole separate issue that I could talk about in another long article, but I'll save that for another time. Suffice to say, Island FM's news feels about right.
Okay, so I can hear the next question forming in your minds. "That's in a one BBC versus one local commercial situation, but in my area, there are 2 or more local commercial stations up against one BBC local radio station. Does BBC Local Radio do any better there?"
Well, let's use BBC Radio Cornwall as an example. BBC Radio Cornwall has traditionally been one of BBC Local Radio's better performers, so if that is leading, then maybe the picture isn't quite so bad.
Well, BBC Radio Cornwall does score a decent 141,000 listeners in a market of 463,000. That's a 30% reach, that's pretty good... but that's down 12,000 listeners in the past year. It's scoring decently on share as well, a none too shabby 16.1% share of listening... down from 18.3% a year ago. Oh dear, this picture ain't looking too great to be fair. But, if it's ahead of its commercial competition, then we can still call it more successful.
Let's start with the biggest national name in local radio, Heart. Heart do report their Cornwall service separately, so we do have a direct comparison. And they score... 117,000. 24,000 less than BBC Radio Cornwall, so BBC Radio Cornwall is still more popular. However, that score is up 20,000 on the same time last year. That doesn't sound so good for BBC Radio Cornwall, who have lost 12,000 listeners in the same time.
How does share of listening compare. Well, Heart are much further back on that count, scoring only 8.5% share, but that is up on the 6.6% of a year ago. However, it's still nowhere near BBC Radio Cornwall's 16.1%.
But although they may be the biggest name in local commercial radio nationally, Heart are comparative newcomers to Cornwall, as Pirate FM were Cornwall's first local commercial radio service, launching in 1992. How do they compare to BBC Radio Cornwall?
Well, on the reach side, Pirate FM scores... 165,000. 24,000 more than BBC Radio Cornwall, and that's up 5,000 in the last year. That's not so good for BBC Local Radio. However, on the share side, Pirate FM comes in at 11.7%, quite a way back from Radio Cornwall's 16.1%, and itself, down from 12.5% a year ago.
And those figures don't show how that compares to recent entrant NJoy Radio, who broadcast on DAB, and are not currently registered with RAJAR for ratings, nor does it show how it compares to the various community stations that broadcast on FM across Cornwall, Penwith Radio, Source FM, CHBN, The Hub and RSAB. And even then, because of broadcast area, we don't know how many listeners in the Cornwall area listen to other stations that are available in the area, but are not predominantly targeted at Cornwall, such as Radio Plymouth, BBC Radio Devon and Smooth Plymouth. Also, we don't have figures for two other DAB stations that Pirate FM produce. Pirate Oldies or Escape To Cornwall.
It's not clear cut by any means, but it is fair to say that BBC Radio Cornwall is amongst the best performers in the BBC Local Radio stable. Their next door neighbour, BBC Radio Devon, has had in recent times one of the worst collapses of audience I've ever seen. In just one year, they've dropped from 212,000 weekly listeners, to just 169,000. That's a massive 43,000 listeners deserting BBC Radio Devon. The figures for share of listening are no better. One year ago, 11.4% share. Today, just 7.6% share. That's a drop of a third overall. A 33.3% fall in share of listening, just let that sink in for a second. There's a third less listening overall to BBC Radio Devon in the past year. That's a big problem. A problem that is somewhat disguised by the fact that there isn't really a direct comparison available with Heart in Devon, or with Radio Plymouth, Radio Exe and The Breeze (formerly Palm FM). Also, there are no figures for any of the community radio stations in Devon, Soundart Radio, Phonic FM, The Voice or Bay FM. So it's difficult to know exactly where the listeners are going, and how BBC Radio Devon should respond.
But even if they did know, they are hamstrung by the dictats from London which limit what BBC local radio can actually do. The BBC Local Radio formula which was devised back in the early 1990s might have seemed like a good idea then, but the audience profile has changed so significantly, that BBC Local Radio these days sounds ridiculously old fashioned and out of date, a museum piece that needs to be brought up to date.
Whilst it's admirable to commit to local journalism, nothing that BBC local radio does in journalism terms even comes close to being worthy local journalism. This is a similar problem that has been facing local NPR stations across America, and they've come up with many different applications but the basic guiding principle has been the same. Don't go for the easy stories, the ones that are important, but basically dull. Also, don't go for the standard commercial fare, high on the interest scale, but lacking any importance at all. Find stories that are both interesting and important, and find new, more interesting, more compelling ways to tell them.
Indeed, I found one such story that I brought onto my own show, which had so many angles that I needed to give the whole story a lot more time. The basic story was the local food bank was having a public fundraising appeal to help pay for the bigger premises that they had to move into, because of increased demand for the food bank's help. But the food bank wasn't the only community service that was in the new location, there were other services that were sharing that building, so it made sense to me to cover the basic story, but also to talk about each of the services that were at that location.
The story also played into the two higher tiers in the Public Radio News Director's Guide. There are four tiers of news, according to the guide.
Tier One: Commercial Tier Two: Staged Tier Three: Local Impact/National Tier Four: Local Meaning.
The story was a local impact of a national trend, the growing use of food banks since 2010, so it fitted in tier three. But it also fitted in tier four. It was about something that was truly making a difference in the local community. It made perfect sense to do that story, and to give it more airtime than BBC or commercial radio would ever give it.
Unfortunately, most BBC local reporting still fits into Tier one or two on the scale. Very little comes under tier three or tier four. Also, a lot of the reporting can be summed up as worthy, but dull, and that does nothing for the appeal of BBC local radio.
Whilst it's understandable that commercial radio would stick pretty close to tier one and tier two, and indeed mostly does, there are occasions when even commercial radio will touch on tier three or tier four, and those are the times commercial radio genuinely surprises. BBC local radio on the other hand, rarely does surprise.
So, what does BBC local radio need to do?
Well, its local journalism needs to be more interesting, better presented and produced, and it needs to be less commercial, and more tier three and tier four, more relevant to the local area, more local impact and local meaning.
The music needs to be generally broader, and at times, there does need to be more music than talk. Not every hour should be more music, or more talk, or even all talk. What it needs to be is right for the time of day. Breakfast should always aim to be more informed, but that doesn't necessarily mean music has to be completely excluded. By enforcing a strict 70:30 ratio of talk to music during daytime and evening, it means that far too often, BBC local radio is just talking about stuff to fill airtime, stuff that really shouldn't be taking up that airtime, and stories that deserve more time, just aren't getting it.
Let the balance of music and talk work itself out for each station. Also, BBC local radio's reliance on phone ins to help fill the airtime doesn't help matters as often, the contributions go on way too long, and leave you begging for a producer to pull the plug on a phone call because somebody's spoken for far too long and said very little if anything of any use to the station or the listener.
What BBC local radio needs is a complete overhaul, but unfortunately, I don't see any such overhaul coming.
This is perhaps the most baffling, the most unbelievable, the most stupid reason I've ever heard for banning pornography, and the reality is, it won't change a thing.
And yes, this is a pretty thinly veiled attempt to ban porn, under the guise of declaring it a "public health crisis".
But it should come as no surprise. Back in 2009, a study showed that Utah had the highest rate of online adult site subscriptions in the US. And ever since then, the political nuts have been trying to take out the industry, no matter what.
But, no matter what those who favour censorship and restriction may try and do, they can never silence the people.
By trying to ban it, all they do, is make it more attractive. By trying to restrict it, they encourage people to watch it. By claiming it's about 'public health', they are really trying to avoid the reality that this is about the same old "we know what's best for you" attitude that conservatives have tried to force on people for years.
Internet firewalls put up by governments are regularly breached by individuals, the anti-censorship movement is as strong as ever, and the rights of people to watch anything legal in their homes, must be upheld, no matter what the pro-censorship brigade might think.
