Steve Wright R.I.P.

[Baron99]

On 15/02/2024 at 22:27, Top4719 said:

The BBC heaping praise on him now are the same BBC that wanted him gone from the airwaves, too old and white.

Nice tribute to him this morning from Tony Blackburn on his show.   

 

Part agree with your statement above in bold.  Not sure about the last part as Wright was replaced by another white bloke in his 40's as far as I can work out? 

 

Did find it nauseating that there was a gushing tribute to Wright in some of the papers the other day from the BBC executive who basically 'sacked' him at short notice from his afternoon show, last year. 

[ECCOnoob]

1 hour ago, Baron99 said:

Nice tribute to him this morning from Tony Blackburn on his show.   

 

Part agree with your statement above in bold.  Not sure about the last part as Wright was replaced by another white bloke in his 40's as far as I can work out? 

 

Did find it nauseating that there was a gushing tribute to Wright in some of the papers the other day from the BBC executive who basically 'sacked' him at short notice from his afternoon show, last year. 

They didn't 'sack him at short notice'. There were three months between the announcements and his final afternoon broadcast.  Behind the scenes the discussions regarding him stepping down, would have been going on even longer than that. Ultimately, he was still working for the network, getting paid by the network right up until the moment on other shows.

 

Wright had been doing the afternoon show in that timeslot since 1999 and even longer if you include the first generation of it on radio 1. He did not have some automatic entitlement to keep in post.

 

The network wanted to refresh, just the same as they did when Wright joined R2 and ousted  his own predecessor.  I do find it amusing that people slag off the replacements and go on about R2 dumbing down to the youth market. But the fact is Wright was in his mid 40s when he switched to the network just the same as Scott Mills was. In fact, Mills was equivalent slightly older than Wright when he joined. 

 

R2 knows its audience will evolve over time. R1 is certainly too young for a 50-year-old Mills to be an attraction to the tweenagers. So moving to R2 is a natural progression just like Wright himself did, Blackburn did, Walker did, Stuart did, Evans did...

 

Of course it's sad that someone with such a broadcasting legacy has died at a youngish age but ultimately his broadcasting career was always going to reduce. There is always fresh talent emerging and no one can cling on holding flagship programs. He might have been beloved by his loyal fans, but for many of the listeners and potential future listeners the self named 'big show' was an  outdated concept that really needed a good change.

 

His legacy, talent and skills should of course be remembered and acknowledged - but it doesn't mean that we cling onto it till it becomes stale. Broadcast is an extremely fickle business and has to keep moving on. 

 

[Top4719]

8 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

They didn't 'sack him at short notice'. There were three months between the announcements and his final afternoon broadcast.  Behind the scenes the discussions regarding him stepping down, would have been going on even longer than that. Ultimately, he was still working for the network, getting paid by the network right up until the moment on other shows.

 

Wright had been doing the afternoon show in that timeslot since 1999 and even longer if you include the first generation of it on radio 1. He did not have some automatic entitlement to keep in post.

 

The network wanted to refresh, just the same as they did when Wright joined R2 and ousted  his own predecessor.  I do find it amusing that people slag off the replacements and go on about R2 dumbing down to the youth market. But the fact is Wright was in his mid 40s when he switched to the network just the same as Scott Mills was. In fact, Mills was equivalent slightly older than Wright when he joined. 

 

R2 knows its audience will evolve over time. R1 is certainly too young for a 50-year-old Mills to be an attraction to the tweenagers. So moving to R2 is a natural progression just like Wright himself did, Blackburn did, Walker did, Stuart did, Evans did...

 

Of course it's sad that someone with such a broadcasting legacy has died at a youngish age but ultimately his broadcasting career was always going to reduce. There is always fresh talent emerging and no one can cling on holding flagship programs. He might have been beloved by his loyal fans, but for many of the listeners and potential future listeners the self named 'big show' was an  outdated concept that really needed a good change.

 

His legacy, talent and skills should of course be remembered and acknowledged - but it doesn't mean that we cling onto it till it becomes stale. Broadcast is an extremely fickle business and has to keep moving on. 

 

It hadn't become stale though as the many of the public tributes to him testify.