Man In The Morning

It is very rare you come across something on the net that can be described as "essential", "addictive" or without which you feel your life would be missing something very important. Well guess what, at the moment I am addicted to what has to be the most compelling, funniest and yet somehow utterly truthful blogs I've ever seen. Simply put it is the closest we will ever come to a Radio Babylon of our own.

"Man In The Morning" is told from the point of view of a veteran breakfast radio presenter. He's the long-standing morning host on a big market station Blonde FM, part of a network of similarly styled stations around the country but who, in his view is hamstrung by a tired radio format, incompetent management and the ditzy female co-host who was foisted upon him a few months ago. Although a work of fiction, the presenter and the station are a composite of just about every mainstream commercial radio station in the country and exist in the same universe as the rest of the industry, with regular sideways mentions to topical happenings at other stations and in the media as a whole.

Each daily instalment from the fictional Zac De Luxe is an enormously entertaining read. The blog is part soap opera, part satire and part polemic. Pre-planned storylines unfold, the writer(s) know where the tale is going and how they will get there. At the time of writing we are eagerly following Zac's attempts to bed his blonde Australian co-host, knowing that it will annoy the group consultant who parachuted her into the show and who is clearly already having an affair with her. Since January he's been exposed in the Sunday papers for an affair with an undercover journalist whilst the late night presenter has been arrested on suspicion of illicit sexual behaviour (cue sharp intake of breath by everyone who knows what that is a reference to).

At the same time the entries will take time out to skewer the UK commercial radio industry, the reliance on cliched promotions, appointing failed presenters as management and a fear of creativity in favour of taking the safe path towards what are good, but never great, audience figures and profits.

Everyone I know who works in radio has greeted it with delight and horrific recognition. Every scenario, every anecdote and every bit of nonsense spouted by the abusively named bosses draws gasps of wonder and nervous laughter that someone has had the nerve to say what deep down many of them have been thinking.

The sad thing is though, unless you actually have worked in radio programming, many of the references will sail over your head and the near genius of it just won't quite sink in. It is a shame that a blog so brilliantly well done has by definition an appeal limited to such a small subset of the population.

Nonetheless it is still very worthwhile. Nothing is safe from the satirical sword of Man In The Morning. The sheer concept of a radio station specifically and totally aimed at a composite 30-something housewife who probably doesn't exist in real life; reports from research forums that all without fail encourage bland conformity and "safe" programming; listener features and competitions that haven't changed in thirty years (why else would every radio station in the land still be running "mystery voice" or "guess the sound" promotions); the paranoia that all radio jocks have about their slots or their jobs given they all know they can be replaced tomorrow regardless of past performance; on that basis the idiocy of the RAJAR audience system which delivers inconsistent and inevitably wildly inaccurate figures which are either ignored or used as an excuse to fire you depending on which way the wind is blowing; the fact that as a breakfast presenter you end your day just as others are starting, yet will still be called for meetings at 1pm because that suits the people in sales; the nonsense of the Ofcom complaints system, how you can spend four months living under a cloud just because one person didn't find you funny; and best of all an impassioned and unrestrained hatred of X-Trax, the free glossy magazine sent to every radio presenter in the country which is 90% "on this day in history" nonsense and 10% puff pieces for a selection of presenters who happen to come to the attention of the company that prints it. Be assured at least that everyone I know looks through the Photo Album section to try to spot people they know and then uses it to prop up their monitors.

Beyond that there are the characters that everyone will recognise. The Head Of Music (and morning presenter) for whom Beverley Knight is a useful shorthand for the tastes of the target audience and thus all the playlist needs, the veteran Australian consultant who is sold as a radio genius but who believes that reading out birthdays and playing "battle of the sexes" games are all a station needs to connect with its audience. Zac has refused to do naff Leap Year Proposal features and at the time of writing has been despatched to Dublin for the obligatory St Patrick's Day outside broadcast, one which like all the others ignores that the only people in a Dublin bar at six in the morning will be the presenters and some bemused cleaning staff.

Lurking in the background too are Zac's greatest rivals, The Hairy Morning Bikers on Vixen FM who are everything he once was and would love to be again, if only he had the freedom. In a candid moment last week the blog broke the fourth wall and acknowledged that Vixen FM didn't exist in any form in this country but really should. So far the Bikers have posed as prank callers, got one of their number hired to replace the arrested late night presenter and hijacked the station, stolen the answers to the Mystery Voice competition, won the prize and then given it away on their own show and perhaps best of all have sabotaged the Blonde FM sign outside the building to read BOND in order to promote their live broadcast from the set of the new Bond film, with Daniel Craig as co-host.

Much of the chatter about the blog online has centred around speculation about who it could be that is writing it, given that whoever it is has to work in the industry. A few names have been bandied around, but by and large the consensus is that a team of people are behind the site, all feeding in their experiences and those of contacts they have elsewhere. To be honest I'd hate it if anyone was "exposed" for writing it, something which would surely kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. The story clearly has some way to run and there are still plenty of anecdotes and incidents to recycle and plug into the world of Zac and Daphne. All it will take is for someone to lose their job over the truth-telling and the magic will surely end prematurely.

For the moment though, whoever they are, I take my hat off to them. My day doesn't begin until the latest instalment of Man In The Morning has dropped into Google Reader and I am sure I am not alone. Despite the bullshit you sometimes have to wade through, I love working in radio and still dream of the day when I can work again for a music station (it is my other passion after all) and create something exciting and innovative rather than be a part of the homogenised mush that we have been sliding towards for years. If ever I do, I hope Blonde FM and its cast of characters are still around, for the ideal lesson in exactly what not to do.

Want to learn more? Bookmark http://breakfastdj.blogspot.com/ today. Just make sure you have a spare hour or seven before you start reading.