On paper, Nick Grimshaw seems like the perfect candidate to steer Radio 1's breakfast show, which is, first and foremost, aimed at 13-16 year olds blearily getting dressed for school in the mornings.
He's (fairly) young, he's cool(ish) and he is friends with Harry Styles. He knows about emojis, Celebrity Big Brother, and Rihanna's Instagram exploits. He seems to genuinely have a passion for pop music, as evidenced in this rather embarrassing photo of him meeting Girls Aloud back in the day.
The thing is, he has lost 300,000 listeners. That's quite a large amount. That's almost the population of Doncaster (doesn't sound quite as impressive as I thought it would) GONE. Vanished. Tuned out.
Nick Grimshaw took the reins from the burping, foul mouthed, narcissistic tosser that is Chris Moyles and his sidekick 'Comedy' Dave in September last year, and many rejoiced, myself included. Not because I listened to the show, as listening to Moyles even for two minutes gave me the severe urge to saw my ears off, but because I was glad his tyranny was over. He was upended off his throne. Good.
I didn't really know who Nick Grimshaw was at first, apart from the fact he was friends with shit celebrities like Kelly Osbourne and Pixie Geldof, and had stupid hair. But he seemed harmless enough, and he couldn't be any worse than Moyles. Could he?
Well, no. Nobody is. But Grimshaw's show is still a self-indulgent smorgasboard of "I went to this crazy club last night with this famous person and this other famous person whilst you were at home eating a Tesco ready meal for one", and doing things which would probably be funny if you were actually there as opposed to just listening to it alone hundreds of miles away; the ghost at the feast.
I've seen some suggest that the listeners Grimshaw has dropped are the Chris Moyles fans, and that this is a good thing; the stubborn ones who refused to switch dials until, depressingly, they were forced to admit to themselves they don't quite 'get' this internet-fuelled, celebrity-referencing LOL brand of humour which Grimshaw anchors his show with.
This is possibly the case, but those who championed Moyles can't make up that 300,000. The thing is, Grimshaw has 13-16 year old One Direction fans in the palm of his hand. However, those tricky, tricky 16-24 year olds are just not biting.
Unsure as to why, I asked some of my Twitter and Facebook 'friends', all ranging from 21 to 25, to describe their thoughts on Grimshaw in three words. Unsurprisingly, the overall view was negative. "Silly hair twat", "plastic, manafactured puppet", and "really fucking annoying" was just a selection of the opinions offered. It didn't hellp.
The thing is, 16-24 year olds are the disinterested market Radio 1 and Grimmy are attempting to force themselves upon. And it's not working. Why? Because when you get to 16, you start to explore music a little more. You expand your knowledge, and develop your taste. By the time you're in your 20s, you don't need the radio.
We've got Spotify, countless music sharing websites and blogs. We've got all the music we want; we don't need someone choosing it for us. As for radio 'banter', well, we've got our friends, who are actually funnier.
Older listeners have headed to Radio 2 and Radio 4; young people have given up on radio, save for occasionally tuning into Radio 6. Radio 1 have lost their niche. Who exactly are they aiming themselves at, and what does the future hold for them? It's difficult to say, but one thing's for sure - Grimshaw's not exactly the problem here. Eventually, he will be replaced in misplaced judgment, and the cycle will continue.
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