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There are 5.1 million "Togs" who wear badges and display car stickers with pride. |
For all the drones about the importance of satisfying "young, upmarket, urban audiences", the great success story in last week's radio listening figures was a roundish, balding, middle-of-the-road 60-year-old. Terry Wogan, with his dodgy puns and a weakness for playground nicknames, increased his figures to rake in 5.1 million listeners, making Wake up to Wogan the most successful breakfast radio show by far. That means there are 5.1 million "Togs" (they call themselves Terry's Old Geezers or Terry's Old Gals, and they wear badges and display car stickers with pride). Their loyalty to the Radio 2 morning show has younger, ostensibly more fashionable broadcasters chewing their fists with envy and frustration. There is even an unofficial Internet "shrine" to the Wogan show. If you have never listened to Wogan you may think you know what his programme is like: windy, Irish folksy, with some soft humour separating the news bulletins and the blasts of Elton John. That was certainly the perception I had until a few weeks ago when I finally tired of the endless politics and crossness on Radio 4's Today programme. In a Cotswolds valley where the wireless could pick up little else, I tuned to Radio 2. Suddenly it again became fun to wake up. Yes, Wogan plays records with recognisable tunes, and yes, some of the humour is Oirish. But Wogan is also sharply satirical and politically incorrect. If it is not indelicate to say so, he takes the Mick. He is better at mobbing up politicians than John Humphrys, James Naughtie and Co, and his "take" on modern life is more innovative and daring than any stand-up comic's. He teases mercilessly the fixation New Labour (and the BBC) have with focus groups. If Sir John Birt ever tunes in he must squirm. Wogan and his studio colleagues do arch German accents, poke fun at gays, have a go at homophobes, and pooh-pooh Islington trendies. No one is spared, especially their own listeners, and especially the powerful. It is all done with just the right amount of levity.
When he hits the pips, the celebrations kick off with Beethoven's Ode to Joy
Paul Walters, who has produced Wogan shows since the late Seventies and is one of the trio of voices in the studio every day, is cheerfully ignorant on the social breakdown of his audience. "I honestly can't tell you if they're A, B, C1, E5 or whatever," he says. The average Tog, he guesses, "probably drives a Volvo in the middle of the road at 60mph. Our listeners are probably also notoriously bad parkers and very good queuers." | Wake up to Wogan is a politician-and-pundit-free zone. Other than the presenter of the Pause for Thought religious slot at 9.15 (generally more commonsensical and less anguished than Radio 4's Thought for the Day) there are no guests. Wogan makes do with his sidekick Walters and with whichever of three regular news announcers is on duty. The three - Alan Dedicoat, Fran Godfrey and John Marsh - have become stars in their own right. Dedicoat, who also does the voiceover for the National Lottery draws, is known as "The Voice of the Balls", while Marsh, inevitably, is called "Boggy". The dulcet-toned Miss Godfrey, meanwhile, is the object of hundreds of cod love poems sent in by listeners and read out, glee-fully, by Wogan. "The listeners write most of the programme," says Walters. "Letters, faxes, and now e-mails pour in. But apart from that the show is unscripted. Terry and I have a cup of coffee at 7.15 every morning and then we just go and start the show at 7.30." The programme is full of running gags, such as Terry's desperate efforts to hit the hourly BBC pips cleanly (when he manages it the celebrations kick off with Beethoven's Ode to Joy).
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The previous night's television often provides material, and Wogan has helped to make a star out of Charlie Dymock, Alan Titchmarsh's ridiculously busty assistant on BBC1's Task Force. At the height of the Viagra story, a smitten male listener sent Wogan a fax asking: "Why doesn't the NHS simply prescribe Dymocks?" Perhaps the other question, as the corporation struggles to retain audiences, is "Why doesn't the BBC prescribe Wake up to Wogan to its schedulers and metropolitan corporate strategists?" If they listened to it for a week they might have a better grasp of what a huge slice of Britain actually wants in the way of radio entertainment.
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