My role at DevonAir Radio was of no great consequence. I was, between 1980 and 1987, a loyal member of the station team – hard-working and grossly underpaid. We had built a radio station with local news and information in it’s core – it’s very foundation. My time at this once popular local station ended abruptly in April 87′ when I discovered my trust and loyalty had been seriously abused. It was an eye-opener and a very sad moment for me.
It was just before my ZBC Zimbabwe assignment (I was in a small broadcast training team funded by the British Council). I had an arrangement with the person running DevonAir Radio in 1987 for me to take 30 days off contract to enable me to fulfil this trip. This person reassured me my contract with DevonAir would be continued and was secure.
He (true to form as history has proved) then composed and signed a letter to me that I was suppose to receive on my return from Zimbabwe. It stated that due to ‘cut-backs’ and ‘lack of funds’ resumption of the contract between myself and DevonAir would not in fact be resumed. This guy infamously never ever had any guts and always relied on ‘mates’ to do his dirty work – on this occasion no ‘mate’ was available.
So one lunchtime I went into this guy’s office to drop off some paperwork. This person had left the offending letter on his desk addressed and signed to me for the world to see.
At the time I thought he was a loyal friend especially as I had stayed with the firm after the 1983 board/staff crisis during which many had resigned and he, sadly, had been appointed. I had even turned down a broadcast position in the same region (at Derry’s Cross in Plymouth) in 1984 because of what I now regard as my blind and quite stupid loyalty to DevonAir Radio. I have always deeply regretted this.
I was due on-air in the afternoon the day all this happened. Over lunch I discussed this with two DevonAir heads and both agreed I should resign immediately with no notice. Because of the general feeling amongst some of us remaining long-term employees at the time my colleagues suggested I should detail the problems that at the time we felt, were affecting DevonAir – particularly the reduction of local news and talks and the development of subsidiaries and diversities that some felt felt were to be draining the depleted budgets and ‘localness’ of the service. So, in my brief letter to this plonker running the station I told him I was leaving immediately and that the board and the then regulator would be getting a letter from me. The letter was sent to them after I returned from Zimbabwe based on the diaries I had been keeping over the years and the issues we had been having.
Anyway (phew!) – after I rammed my resignation letter on his desk, I said my goodbye’s to my work friends and made my way to the newsroom (I cannot remember who was there!). I told them I was off and suggested in the long-term they should do the same as DevonAir was about to be turned into a jukebox – which indeed is precisely what happened.
As a stupid revenge the order went out to wipe me. Any material with my voice (promos and so on) should be removed immediately. It was as if I had never existed as far as DevonAir Radio was concerned.
As a twisted conclusion … In the evening a certain weekend DevonAir presenter, local television luvvie and somebody who I had known since we were both at school phoned me to with a message from the guy running the station that the whole thing had been a mix-up and when was I returning? At which point I exploded with language that was more than colourful. Why the guy running DevonAir didn’t have the guts to call me is not a mystery (he’s got form in managing (mismanaging) people) – clearly he couldn’t face me even on the blower. Both these guys were to further knife me years later in 1993 – but that’s another long boring story.
The bitter pill
I actually started to really, secretly unlike working at DevonAir in my last few weeks especially. I had witnessed nearly everything we had built from 1980 kicked into the ditch. Our credibility and trust with the listener I know had evaporated – every squabble internally, relations with unions and the battle to keep a realistic and robust news operation was reported in the media. There was infighting going on as we were ordered to say less on air and play more and more bloody music.
I fell-out big time over this more music policy at dinner at my place one evening with an off-air person in programming. She was someone who was a friend at the time – when I tried to defend the importance of local speech and local news in the schedule we clashed badly – that friendship was never restored. The atmosphere at work from then on was terrible. I wasn’t even paid for my Head of Presentation a position I was handed years before (a stupid meaningless title in the end because it meant even more work and less involvement in where it mattered).
I want to be really frank here and I don’t care which ego I damage. All this crap has kind of stayed with me for decades. As a local lad on my local station it hurt me really bad. But my concern is the listener – the person we rely on where, if we are lucky, we are permitted to enter his or her personal space. The destruction of our popularity and admiration from the listener remains unforgivable. Looking back I find it hard to believe. To be straight – I know and the listener certainly is aware that DevonAir (although a shadow of it’s former self in the end), it’s franchise successor certainly and definitely the businesses that broadcast on those frequencies in Devon today were never any good, or as loved or robust as the station between 1980 – 1984. Go through the records (Companies House, public archives, audience research and more) – see for yourself. It’s a fact that those tiny few responsible for ‘pointing DevonAir downhill’ (to quote a recent comment), for stabbing not just me but several other hard-workers in the front and back, for vandalising what was good credible broadcasting will never be forgiven. They must, in my view, stupidly believe the listener is a mindless idiot who can be fed any old crap in the name of cheap local radio. And what’s been gained? A lasting legacy of something really good for Devon? Of course not. A few million slightly grubby pounds for the Directors? What do you think? Those responsible for pointing DevonAir Radio Limited ‘downhill’ into a ditch will carry that round with them no matter what old-age semi-retired gloss they put on it. But they don’t care and never did.
Shameful.
You can read about the history of DevonAir Radio here.
