For some time now I have been unable to shake the image of Radio 1’s mainstream weekend dance lineup repeating the history of fuddy-duddy dad-DJ inertia, viz:
Pete Tong = Simon Bates
Judge Jules = Steve Wright
Tim Westwood = DLT
But tonight as I listened to Tong and Westwood at length for the first time in months, I realised what has really been nagging me – for years now – is the tolerance of quite outrageous conflicts of interest across many of Radio 1’s DJs. I mean things like plugging their own club nights, DJ appearances, label releases, mixes and tracks by them, and mix CDs (stand up all three of the above, Goldfinger, the Dreem Teem, Bobby Friction & Nihal, Dave Pearce and no doubt others).
I searched ILM and Google for references to conflicts of interest, Radio 1, Pete Tong and Tim Westwood, assuming that this debate was ongoing. In fact it turns out Tong was publicly accused a long time ago of a conflict of interest in relation to playing London/ffrr records:
The only other relevant reference I’ve been able to find from this quick search was in the BBC’s own documentation of the Q&A session after a presentation of their 2001 Annual Report:
I don’t believe 2001 can have been the end of the debate (anybody know of more recent contributions?). The answers were so unsatisfactory!
Abramsky’s solution of vetting playlists doesn’t address scripted or off-the-cuff mentions of DJs’ upcoming club nights, tracks and mix CDs.
Parfitt’s argument that it’s almost impossible to find a DJ without connections that they will be able to exploit for financial gain on Radio 1 is specious. It’s all very well for a DJ to arrive at Radio 1 with connections; but it’s self-evident that they make even more lucrative connections by being associated with Radio 1. DJing on Radio 1 pays well and a clear policy – that A) restricts the number of plays of their own music/mixes/labels, and B) bans verbal promotion where there is a potential conflict of interest – would create the right conditions for a DJ to make the decision about whether or not to work for the Beeb.
Clearly this type of promotional activity is easier to accept on commercial and pirate radio (I’m guessing it came to the BBC with DJs that moved across from commercial to public service broadcasting). On the BBC I can’t believe it’s not an abuse of public money.
I’d suggest that the unwillingness of BBC management (made pretty clear in the way Huw Edwards closes the question above) to deal with the concerns about Pete Tong firmly and transparently at the outset has allowed what was initially a tolerance of DJs’ conflicts of interest to develop into what is now an everyday acceptance of DJs taking advantage of the BBC’s reach in a shameless, self-aggrandising and frankly, Jeeves, rather distasteful manner.
This is ‘conflict of interest creep’ – you start out as the label, but then it becomes acceptable to be the remixer, then artist and finally writer too, taking a higher and higher proportion of the income. You start out on £1000 for appearing at a club, but then you become the club’s PR and finally its promoter, taking a higher and higher share. You start out playing other artists’ music and helping them to make a living and you end up getting paid more than the artists you like so much, just for putting your name on the compilation CD.
This ‘creep’ has extended so far that Chris Moyles now crows about writing his own jingles and putting them on rotation because he receives songwriting royalties for every play. Would Judge Jules get away so easily with playing his own tune three times in a row?
I suppose this is really down to dance music, which has made it usual for the DJ to have the dual role of spinning and creating music, instead of being an awed fanatic. No-one better fits the latter description than the wonderful John Peel, whose death it’s taken to really wake me up on this subject. Of his many virtues the one that really stuck in my mind was that he was unpluggable. (Although I have no way of telling whether Peel played the records from his own shortlived record label on Radio 1 and, if so, what he said about it.)
Which is why, pluggable or not, I’m not sure I wouldn’t happily see the dinosaur guard of Tong, Jules and Westwood kicked out and replaced by Simon Bates, Steve Wright and DLT.
(sorry
just had to get that orf my chest )
Pete Tong = Simon Bates
Judge Jules = Steve Wright
Tim Westwood = DLT
But tonight as I listened to Tong and Westwood at length for the first time in months, I realised what has really been nagging me – for years now – is the tolerance of quite outrageous conflicts of interest across many of Radio 1’s DJs. I mean things like plugging their own club nights, DJ appearances, label releases, mixes and tracks by them, and mix CDs (stand up all three of the above, Goldfinger, the Dreem Teem, Bobby Friction & Nihal, Dave Pearce and no doubt others).
I searched ILM and Google for references to conflicts of interest, Radio 1, Pete Tong and Tim Westwood, assuming that this debate was ongoing. In fact it turns out Tong was publicly accused a long time ago of a conflict of interest in relation to playing London/ffrr records:
The only other relevant reference I’ve been able to find from this quick search was in the BBC’s own documentation of the Q&A session after a presentation of their 2001 Annual Report:
I don’t believe 2001 can have been the end of the debate (anybody know of more recent contributions?). The answers were so unsatisfactory!
Abramsky’s solution of vetting playlists doesn’t address scripted or off-the-cuff mentions of DJs’ upcoming club nights, tracks and mix CDs.
Parfitt’s argument that it’s almost impossible to find a DJ without connections that they will be able to exploit for financial gain on Radio 1 is specious. It’s all very well for a DJ to arrive at Radio 1 with connections; but it’s self-evident that they make even more lucrative connections by being associated with Radio 1. DJing on Radio 1 pays well and a clear policy – that A) restricts the number of plays of their own music/mixes/labels, and B) bans verbal promotion where there is a potential conflict of interest – would create the right conditions for a DJ to make the decision about whether or not to work for the Beeb.
Clearly this type of promotional activity is easier to accept on commercial and pirate radio (I’m guessing it came to the BBC with DJs that moved across from commercial to public service broadcasting). On the BBC I can’t believe it’s not an abuse of public money.
I’d suggest that the unwillingness of BBC management (made pretty clear in the way Huw Edwards closes the question above) to deal with the concerns about Pete Tong firmly and transparently at the outset has allowed what was initially a tolerance of DJs’ conflicts of interest to develop into what is now an everyday acceptance of DJs taking advantage of the BBC’s reach in a shameless, self-aggrandising and frankly, Jeeves, rather distasteful manner.
This is ‘conflict of interest creep’ – you start out as the label, but then it becomes acceptable to be the remixer, then artist and finally writer too, taking a higher and higher proportion of the income. You start out on £1000 for appearing at a club, but then you become the club’s PR and finally its promoter, taking a higher and higher share. You start out playing other artists’ music and helping them to make a living and you end up getting paid more than the artists you like so much, just for putting your name on the compilation CD.
This ‘creep’ has extended so far that Chris Moyles now crows about writing his own jingles and putting them on rotation because he receives songwriting royalties for every play. Would Judge Jules get away so easily with playing his own tune three times in a row?
I suppose this is really down to dance music, which has made it usual for the DJ to have the dual role of spinning and creating music, instead of being an awed fanatic. No-one better fits the latter description than the wonderful John Peel, whose death it’s taken to really wake me up on this subject. Of his many virtues the one that really stuck in my mind was that he was unpluggable. (Although I have no way of telling whether Peel played the records from his own shortlived record label on Radio 1 and, if so, what he said about it.)
Which is why, pluggable or not, I’m not sure I wouldn’t happily see the dinosaur guard of Tong, Jules and Westwood kicked out and replaced by Simon Bates, Steve Wright and DLT.
(sorry
just had to get that orf my chest )
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