TV Cream

Radio 1: The Jocks

BURNETT, Paul

The Pee Bee Squad membership in fullMULTI-PURPOSE one-size-fits-all occupant of whatever slot happened to be vacant, like a more restrained version of the ‘Welly Boot’-era Big Guns yet always more than happy to join in some bit of multihanded unfunny noveltyness with them, most notoriously the wretched parody-of-a-parody Convoy GB by ‘Laurie Lingo & The Dipsticks’ (ie him and DLT, in ‘disguise’).

10 Comments

10 Comments

  1. Glenn Aylett

    June 13, 2009 at 7:34 pm

    I quite liked the comedy slot he did at 1.00 in the afternoon, but he is the sort of DJ people don’t remember much about. PB ended up as a stand in for David Hamilton on Radio 2 for a couple of weeks and then vanished. A friend told me he once did a roadshow in Glasgow, most of the crowd turned up in Radio Clyde T shirts, which annoyed him big time, and PB stormed off at the end.

  2. Matthew Rudd

    July 23, 2009 at 2:20 pm

    One of the nicest chaps I’ve met.

  3. Glenn A

    November 21, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    I always found him to be quite a good presenter, and maybe because he wasn’t so in your face, that’s why he’s not remembered as much as his contemporaries. That record was quite funny for its time, though.

  4. Nick O. Teen

    July 22, 2010 at 12:19 am

    Always sadly under-rated, IMHO. Not so well remembered, perhaps, not just because, as Glenn says, he wasn’t ‘in-yer-face’, but also because he never enjoyed the telly exposure of his contemporaries in the ’70s. (Rare was the Thursday evening that Burnett did TOTP, and he never did Seaside Special or any of that nonsense.)

    The worst of it was that Paul got the elbow from Radio 1 so as to make room for Mike Smith. Whose daft idea was that???

  5. David Rose

    January 24, 2011 at 6:15 am

    I rather liked Paul Burnett’s afternoon show and wasn’t too pleased when he was eased aside to make way for Steve Shite

    First heard Paul Brunett on Radio Luxembourg

  6. Phillip Robinson

    July 23, 2014 at 6:40 pm

    I totally agree with Nick o Teen, Paul was sadly so underated, I stopped listening to Radio One,when he left in Sept 1982, deemed to old..38 at the time, Mike Smith..Mr Bland.
    I have been listening to a Radio One Roadshow, from Bude Aug 1978, hes at the top of his game!..entertaining the audience in fine style!

  7. Glenn A

    January 31, 2015 at 7:03 pm

    Burnett probably lacked the ego to really make his career last at Radio 1 and was rarely seen on the television, unlike Noel Edmonds who built up a huge television career by using his success on Radio 1. His fall from grace was pretty sad, ditched from the station, a couple of stand in slots on Radio 2 in 1984, an attempt at a comedy record about Rambo that flopped, then never heard of again nationally after 1985. However, his lack of a really in your face personality like Steve Wright and the new wave of DJs that arrived at Radio 1 in the early eighties counted against poor old PB.

  8. ciaran flavin

    February 26, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    great dj was paul burnett.
    is he broadcasting anywhere now?
    he was not in your face thank goodness

    • Glenn Aylett

      July 30, 2018 at 10:17 pm

      Hello, Ciaran, he works on BBC local radio now, hosting a vintage Top 40 show, but Paul has done more than I thought as he hosted a gplden oldies show on the BBC World Service for 7 years, which probably had as big a reach as his Radio 1 show and kept the wolf from the door. At least his fall wasn’t as cruel as that of Simon Dee, who ended bankrupt and living in a semi derelict cottage.

  9. Droogie

    February 4, 2021 at 1:10 am

    There’s a fascinating clip of Paul Burnette debating with Tony Wilson and Steve Morris on yoof TV show Something Else about Radio 1 playlists and why Joy Division weren’t playlisted on daytime radio.
    ( Now of course you’d never hear Joy Division on Radio 1 as it would be considered Dadrock to its’s listenership! )

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