4 Responses to “Virgin 1215”

1. Matthew Rudd says:

   July 31, 2009 at 5:30 pm

   I loved Virgin when it launched. “Classic album tracks and the best new music” – a tagline that was shunted off quietly after a year or so but stayed on billboards outside motorway service stations for literally ten years.

   Few people seem to recall that Evans was part of the launch team, doing a Saturday mid-morning show against DLT (“we have no-one here with beards!”) and a small boy used the racist ‘n’ word on his first day of broadcast. He lasted barely months before swanning off to do full-time telly and was replaced by Paul Ross and The Nescafe Big Red Mug Show.

   The medium wave nonsense added to its charm – especially as 1215 only applied to about 60% of the audience and so they had to keep playing drop-ins to tell people in certain areas where to find them (“if you’re on Teesside, listen to Virgin on 1242AM”). Lest we forget also the sheer awesomeness of Nick Abbot’s late night phone-in featuring the Mad Baker Boy and a very proficient delay system which was expertly deployed due to someone saying something deeply abhorrent at least twice per night.

   Some of it was gloriously amateurish – the gig guide read in by Janey Lee Grace over a hastily-cobbled extended intro of International Bright Young Thing by Jesus Jones, and the levels being shot to bits by weekend American jock Tommy Rivers whose links were brilliant but couldn’t operate a fader to save his life. Unless he was pre-recorded…

   Branson was a hit with the tabloids over his new station, who backed his quest to get all the available FM frequencies in localities to make Virgin as keen a competitor for Radio 1 as it could. The Radio Authority opted to allow local community stations on air instead and so London remained the only area to get Virgin on the FM dial.

   The 11 O’Clock Tick Tock. Russ ‘n’ Jono. Paul Coyte overnight. Tommy Vance. It was also the station which made Kevin Greening into a national presenter, for which we should all be grateful.
2. Steve Williams says:

   July 31, 2009 at 6:44 pm

   Course, when they got FM in London they had London opt-outs for a bit. Evans’ Saturday show was a straight continuation of his GLR show, right down to the fact it had a studio audience. I also remember in the first year or so, Jools Holland standing in for Russ’n'Jono but he couldn’t be bothered getting up early, so he was on 7-9 and Gary King had to do 6-7 and 9-10. And there was Encore, the Official Virgin Radio Magazine, which was supposed to be a rival to Q (slogan – “It’s Only Rock’n'Roll… but we like it!!!!”) and folded after one issue.

   This isn’t my observation but the openeing weekend featured The Virgin 1215, the 1,215 best songs ever – played in alphabetical order! Don’t keep listening to find out what’s number one, listen in to find out what they’ve come up with X and Z!
3. Matthew Rudd says:

   August 1, 2009 at 10:11 am

   Yes, the London opt-out meant the rest of us lost Paul Coyte on nights as he went on to the London drivetime opt-out and we got any number of jocks through the night. Howard Pearce, who doubled up as the voice of the Sky News and Sky Sports IDs, was an excellent nightshift presenter but only did weekends.

   It’s worth giving some kudos to Russ Williams, who is still on the station after 16 years. His breakfast show with Jonathan Coleman sounded both slick and utterly improvised at the same time, and for a couple of years I was hooked on it. I even won “Who Do You Do” once…
4. Sleazy Martinez says:

   July 31, 2010 at 1:16 pm

   I’m glad other people remember Chris Evans on Virgin before he bought the station. I had quite an acrimonious argument with someone about this, who didn’t believe me that Evans had a mid-morning show. We were in a pub, obviously.