Sunday, 28 March 2010

Talked Out

With the end of the pro-life Catholic George Galloway's talkSPORT programme, there is now no voice of the Left anywhere on national radio.
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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous30 March 2010 at 08:58

    Latest from http://www.georgegalloway.com

    The Mother of All Talkshows - A statement by George Galloway MP

    After a run of more than four years the highly popular radio show - The Mother of All Talkshows - has been killed off by the TalkSport management.

    I believe this is a business mistake, but then I don't run the radio station and such decisions are not mine to take. I will always be grateful to TalkSport for giving me the opportunity to launch the Mother of All Talkshows, and particularly to Bill Ridley and Sean Dilley who got me started there. Both taught me a lot - and Ridley encouraged what became my trademark - a stand up delivery which gave the thing its public platform feel.

    The show became something of a phenomenon. An audience of hundreds of thousands of people switched off their televisions or gave up going out, on Fridays and Saturdays between 10pm and 1am. These impressive listenership figures nonetheless under-stated the audience. For statistical reasons the Friday night show was counted in with Ian Collins Sunday to Thursday audience then averaged out. Anyone who has heard Collins show and heard the Friday night MOATS will understand how seriously that must have skewed the audience figures. The show's huge popularity amongst minority ethnic communities was also difficult fully to catch with the blunt instrument of Rajar market research. And the substantial listenership in other countries on the internet was of course not counted at all.

    All in all the show became something of real importance to the people who listened and contributed, whether they agreed with its political thrust or not.

    It will be obvious that I consider its demise premature, and I am determined to try to keep it alive. It is unlikely that the TalkSport management will change their mind and re-instate the show - but you never know. They say they want me to stay at the station, but they have not said for what when or how. Other stations are interested but TalkSport's national platform is unique. The BBC doesn't allow presenters to have a point of view. For all its faults TalkSport was special in that, even if now all the points of view are of one particular kind. There is no-one left to speak up for the BA strikers, the Palestinians, or to speak out against the wars to mention just a few of the most obvious.

    That there IS an audience which either supports my views on these kind of issues, or that just wants to hear these views aired, is self-evident. So..

    I'm going to launch an internet radio station. It will be called Rebel radio, it will host the Mother of All Talk Shows as well as other shows by me and other rebel voices, including radicals from other sides in politics. It will be free speech radio, beyond Ofcom and the kind of fate which killed off Top Cat on TalkSport. It will be controversial, funny, campaigning, informative, it will be Talk radio for thinking people. It will be radical and above all it will never ever be dull. In the beginning it will have to paid for by donations or by subscriptions or by both, we're working on that. If we can build and show a substantial audience, advertisers and sponsors may be attracted. But one way or another we will launch this rebel radio. The radio insurrection will begin soon. Stay tuned register your interest and be ready. Its just over the rainbow. And we are all going to get there, together.

    George Galloway MP
    House of Commons
    March 2010

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