good morning,working world

VICTORIA Derbyshire (right) believes the two million listeners who tune in to her news-based breakfast show on BBC Radio 5 Live between 6am and 9am are media-literate and would feel patronised by the catch- phrases and gimmicks used on commercial stations.

"The tone is much more informal than the Today programme, but we don't take things flippantly. We try to have fun. I couldn't get up at 4am if I didn't have fun. And most days we really do have a laugh."

Having presented the show for two-and-a-half years, she now feels at ease and confident in her role. " I came from local radio in Manchester. In the first six months I was so nervous I hardly said a word. Then I started to relax and enjoy it.

"My introduction to radio was with Toxteth Community Radio, a pirate station in Liverpool. It was based in the back bedroom of a lad's house. I was this fairly nave, white, middleclass girl who turned up on a Sunday afternoon to do the news. I still have the tapes and I sound dreadful."

Following university she studied for a postgraduate diploma in broadcast journalism. After a spell as a freelance reporter, she joined BRMB, followed by stints at BBC CWR and BBC Greater Manchester Radio.

She joined BBC Radio 5 Live in 1997.

She says she has become accustomed to the early starts and that lunchtime has turned into her evening.

"It's about the only radio station that I have worked on that I enjoy listening to."

And the future? "Ideally, I would like to combine radio with TV work."

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A qualified research s c i e n t i s t , S a n d y Shah's interest in radio was awakened when he sat in with a friend doing production work at BRMB in Birmingham. Shah (right) gained experience behind the mike doing voiceovers at Radio XL, joined Asian Sound as a presenter and then last September moved to Southall-based Sunrise Radio, where he presents The Sandy Shah Breakfast Show.

"The programme is mainly geared to professional and semi- professional Anglo-Asians. It's very much an English style of presenting, with Asian music," he says.

He has around five million listeners scattered throughout the UK, Africa and Asia.

"There is such a vast variety of Asian music. It's not the kind of stuff you hear in Indian restaurants. Your average listener tunes in for 30-45 minutes while they are in the car.

"We do lots of funny stories and gags - anything really to get people going. If I have competitions I have to work the programme around them while making sure they don't dominate the show. A lot of people like the horoscopes.

But it's a nightmare reading them. I do 12 in one link."

WHILE you are probably still fast asleep at 5.30am, Martin Jay (above right) is preparing for another working day.

And when you are grabbing that piece of toast, rummaging for that shirt, getting the kids ready for school or cursing the morning traffic, he will be behind his desk, cracking jokes.

As co-presenter of The 2 Tuns of Fun Breakfast Show on Choice FM, Jay's is one of those chirpy radio voices that helps ease you into another day.

"I've known someone to crash their car listening to us. We constantly make people late for work," he grins when we meet at the Choice studios in Borough High Street. His programme, between 7am and 10am, is very bubbly and fast and aimed at a young audience.

Why the name? "We call it 2 Tuns of Fun because I'm 17 1/2 stone and Geoff Shu-mann (above left) is 23 stone. I wanted to be able to laugh at our size.

We use it to our advantage. We try to keep the show as entertaining as possible. We're forever receiving emails saying: 'You guys make our journey to work brighter and take the pain out of having to sit in traffic jams.' " To keep up to date with his 30,000 listeners, Jay reads piles of magazines and newspapers as well as surfing TV channels. "You have to be in touch with what's going on in the outside world.

Anything that the youngsters are into, we want to be in tune with. We want to be seen as their older brothers or uncles."

Jay first worked at the station 10 years ago when he presented a weekly programme while still working as a solicitor's clerk.

"I picked up how to work the desk as I went along. I had always been seen as someone with a strong radio voice. I sent in my tape and within two months I got my first show, in 1990. Geoff is the creative one in what we do. I am more technical: time checks, weather checks, do this at the right time."

BY day, Bob Perry (right) is an administrative assistant for an internet company but on Sunday mornings he presents The Music Machine at Radio Northwick Park, a hospital radio station with which he has been involved for 16 years.

"We are aware that we cater for all ages, but our average age is between 50 and 55, so we lean towards easy listening and oldies rather than chart stuff.

Occasionally I visit the patients and get some feedback."

So, does he want to turn professional? "At the beginning I thought about trying to get into mainstream radio. I had always been interested ever since the days of the pirate ships. But now I am just happy with the fulfilment I get."

Copyright 2001
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