First Listen – Capital Breakfast
Jordan North slips into the hot seat
One of the things I intended to do when I started this newsletter, was detailed listens to shows.
I’ve done a few Ryan Tubridy listens on Virgin Radio and Wireless’s Irish stations, and now that he’s been on for a full Rajar / JNLR quarter, I might swing back around and take a listen to see if he’s settled into the impossible hybrid shift that he’s landed himself.
But he was off last week, so instead I turned my attention to Capital’s new Breakfast show, with ex Radio 1 presenter Jordan North.
Jordan North
Jordan seems like a genuinely interesting character, I probably first became properly aware of him through his hysterical stint on “I’m a Celebrity”, but he has a proper radio CV, having worked his way through various roles, on his way to Radio 1.
I haven’t spent much time with his podcast “Help, I Sexted my Boss”, but it does good numbers and it’s already into its twelfth season.
He wouldn’t have been the name I’d have expected to come up as the replacement for Roman Kemp on Capital Breakfast, so I was intrigued to see what he sounded like and how the show was going to work.
Capital Breakfast
Let’s just step back for a minute on the history of Capital Breakfast. Chris Tarrant remains the longest serving breakfast host who was in the chair for 17 years, followed by Johnny Vaughn, who had a good run before he landed into Radio X.
The 2010s saw a fair bit of chopping and changing, with Dave Berry, Lisa Snowdon, Lilah Parsons, George Shelley all passing through. Dave Berry has now settled into Absolute Radio breakfast, where he’s become a great fit for the station and a good listen.
I was surprised that Roman Kemp was on Capital Breakfast since 2017, it just doesn’t seem like that much time had passed, but he was a good presenter, engaging, human and entertaining.
Thanks to the wonders of social media, I’ve seen quite a lot of clips of Capital Breakfast and really admired the way they included things like video calls with stars into their output.
The addition of Chris Stark made good sense, he was an absolutely brilliant sidekick for Scott Mills, and brings a lot of wisdom and experience to any team.
Capital and Global, have always been brilliant at the ruthless long term planning game. You can set your watch, or maybe your calendar for the regular announcements about talent moves, they continually evaluate and adjust, without making any big fuss. I always get a sense that as a group, they have a plan.
The addition of Chris back in November and the gentle exit of Roman has been well managed and set up a perfect situation for Jordan to land into.
Jordan comes from BBC Radio 1, where he’d been on Drivetime, and after a bit of contractual wrangling he started officially on Breakfast last Monday.
Thursday 8am
I listened to the 8am hour on Thursday, with no expectation or knowledge in advance of what I’d hear.
The 8am hour opened with a really neatly put together news bulletin, which including weather and two audio clips came to 90 seconds.
The lead story was slightly odd – about the fact that there might not be a full triathlon at the Paris Olympics, because of pollution issues in the Seine, followed by the police reopening an investigation into charges against Caroline Flack, then a new pill for migraines, the fact that fake flights are the most common scams and Zendaya Audio from the Challengers premiere.
It was a great read by Lottie Morley, and it never felt rushed.
Then we’re into a big production jingle, for the All New Capital Breakfast, and a Jordan North good morning and an introduction to the crew.
The immediate feel of the show was comfortable and warm, there was no sense of nerves, and for a team that in theory had only worked together for 4 days, sounded very relaxed together.
The structure of the team dynamic is interesting, it is not Jordan North front and centre, instead, it’s a well-built team with Sian having a good and confident presence, while Chris sounds like the boss of the show, giving clear instructions as to what’s coming up and when.
It definitely speaks of a good period of dry running before launch, and a calm approach to integrating Jordan into an existing team, rather than a brand new or “All New” Capital Breakfast.
That’s sensible, if I liked the show as it was, I’m not too alarmed by the new guy, if I’ve come over from Radio 1 to see what my friend Jordan is doing now, he’s sounding happy and comfortable with his new mates.
They crank through the music, getting 12 songs away in the hour – I had a quick look at Radio 1’s log and they’re doing about the same – and they don’t have any ads (barring BBC trails).
The ad breaks are non intrusive, and the show has a good flow.
The Content Pieces
There were two major pieces of content in the 8am hour, the second of which was a relatively simple “getting to know you” game called Liar Liar. All three presenters tell a story about themselves and the listener / caller has to work out who is telling the truth.
The stories were well chosen to be equally implausible – Chris had auditioned for Blazing Squad, Sian had won a jelly eating contest with Dean Gaffney, and Jordan once threw his hair straighteners at a burglar.
Abbey in Leeds got to ask one question to try and crack the mystery – and she wanted more detail on Sian’s jelly contest.
It turned out to be Jordan who was lying, which led into a neat little tease, for the story about his experience with the burglar.
It was the other content piece that intrigued me though. Jordan had been eulogising his “invention”, which he called The Jordan, a breakfast roll which has three sauces in it – so your classic bacon roll, with ketchup, brown sauce and mustard.
It seems like a relatively slim point of difference, but they really went to town on a clever piece of promotional activity around it.
Clearly they’d been talking up the “Jordan” for a couple of days, and early in the 8am hour, Chris delivered one of the more implausible sentences I’ve ever heard on a pop music station…
“I’ve got the phone number of the CEO of Greggs”
If you’re not familiar with Greggs, they’re a national bakery chain in the UK who specialise in sausage rolls, bacon rolls, and other pastry based meaty treats.
And sure enough, one song later, Roisin Currie, the CEO of Greggs was on the phone, claiming not to have heard of the “Jordan” and wondering if it was possible that Greggs might get involved.
It’s clearly a shameless PR and promotional stunt, but somehow it sort of worked.
The stunt ended with Greggs giving away free “Jordans” at five outlets across the UK on Friday morning.
A neat and tasty way to launch a new breakfast show, and very few people apart from Chris Stark would get away with such a ridiculous piece of product placement.
So, what did I make of the show?
It’s a well built format, and cleverly they’ve added Jordan to the show and team, rather than upending everything and starting from scratch.
Jordan sounded good and comfortable in the slot, relaxed with his team mates and showed some signs that he’s got more in the tank – his story about the burglar and the hair straighteners was a good listen.
The show is very tidy, well organised and cranking out the music, even with ad breaks, and content pieces. It’ll definitely offer something for a Radio 1 listener who has followed Jordan.
It surprised me that there was very little listener interaction – some mention of texts in and one caller for the Liar Liar feature, but no voicenotes or greater listener presence in the hour I heard.
There also wasn’t much outside of the show itself – no real sense of day – in the 8am hour at least, but that’s probably because the team are still in introduction mode.
A good start and lots of potential.
This has been the 39th official edition of the RAudio Newsletter.
Apart from writing newsletters, I also consult to radio stations and podcasts, so if you have a question, or a project you need help on, drop me an email – liamathompson@gmail.com
And I specialise in monitoring shows and presenters and providing clear advice and actionable points to help you coach or make strategic decisions.
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