By and large, you come across two kinds of radio broadcasters. There are those who see the medium as a means to an end, to discuss what’s important to them: electronic music, world politics, the discs you would take to a desert island. Then there are people such as Greg James, the host of the Radio 1 drivetime show for the past six years, who have a passion for radio itself. Once upon a time they were called anoraks; he prefers the term “radio nerd”. He is highly invested in the production of the show. His heroes are Terry Wogan, Alan Partridge and Ricky Gervais – he can still recite links from the latter’s Xfm show 13 years after it was last broadcast.
Even when he started to do endurance challenges for Sport Relief – in 2013 he was part of the group of celebrities who faced the rapids and crocodiles of the Zambezi river; in 2016 he completed five triathlons in five days – what attracted him was not, he says, thrill-seeking but bringing excitement back to his show. “I just want to make great event radio. I hate the idea of getting to the end of a show and there’s nothing to remember.”
For his most recent effort, the #Gregathlon, James, 32, was going to climb the three tallest peaks in England, Wales and Scotland, and cycle the 500 miles between them in five days. Even by the standards of these kinds of big TV challenges, it sounded extremely tough. Still, you got the feeling that the preamble about James being not sure if he would be able to manage it and Olympic champion cyclist Chris Hoy saying there was “no way” that he would try a challenge so “mad” was probably just producers ratcheting up the tension before an emotional but inevitable triumph.
What they couldn’t have predicted was the worst week of British weather for years. The “beast from the east” and storm Emma brought perilous conditions and deep snow just as he was setting off. “I started with Mount Snowdon. It was like an episode of 999 with Michael Buerk. My foot would go into the snow and it was going up to my knee,” he says. The cycling, which was supposed to be done on a road bike, had to be done on a mountain bike in flurries of falling snow. All the while, James was trying to host his show from a microphone strapped to his helmet.
After the second mountain, Scafell Pike, James was told that conditions were too treacherous and he wouldn’t be allowed to continue. He seemed distraught. “It just felt like a real balloon being popped. You obviously know you’re on the radio so you want to get the emotion across, but I became genuinely choked up.”
Two weeks after Greg’s return, we are sitting in his manager’s office in London. In his jeans, T-shirt and jacket, he looks a bit like how a child might draw “a man”. Soon he’s going to head to Radio 1 to do his show, then up to Scotland to tackle the challenge again (listeners heard him complete it live on air Friday afternoon – as he finished he learned that he had raised more than £900,000).
He was determined to finish what he started but says the disappointment of not being able to do it in one go struck a chord with the purpose of the stunt, to raise money and awareness for mental health issues.
“It was the perfect metaphor for the whole week because we were going: ‘Don’t ever feel frightened to say that you’re feeling like shit because there will be somebody you know that has gone through it.’”
He says he’s been overwhelmed by the honesty and emotion from listeners that has come from opening up the conversation about depression and anxiety, which I am sure is true. But I say I’m cynical about how much brands have been “raising awareness” about mental health during the past couple of years, often suggesting people find someone to talk to. While that is an important first step, it doesn’t necessarily help the millions of people who are suffering from serious mental health problems, for whom NHS services are getting worse.
“Yeah, that’s the downfall of everything that gets in the news cycle; people jump on bandwagons. But I’m very, very careful to not do those sorts of things for the sake of it. Most people sliding into the DMs [direct messaging on social media] were just kind of going: ‘I’m a bloke, I’m 24, I feel like I’ve got to pretend to be a lad, and I don’t know how to talk about these things, but hearing you talk about them helped.’ Also, we raised a load of money to fund those sorts of projects. But my next step is do something with mental health groups that is a bit more sustainable, maybe with an organisation that needs someone to chat to young blokes, for example. I would like to do that.”
It is true that James has a unique skill, even among Radio 1 DJs, for connecting with ordinary young people. He feels, I say, like the torchbearer on the station for a certain kind of normal university lad: someone who goes to the gym, doesn’t take themselves too seriously, wouldn’t mind dressing up in a tutu and goes to clubs where they play cheesy music. Other hosts on the station are hired because they are from the in-crowd and can tell the listeners what’s cool. He seems to have been hired because, like the listeners, he doesn’t really care.
“I wouldn’t say I was a lad, I’m not the beer pong guy. But I think you’re right, I really do feel like I know the listeners. I don’t want anyone to feel excluded. I’m phobic of the celebrity world. I’m a big music fan, but I’m not the music impresario. So yeah, I take that as a huge compliment because I feel like, once you join the circus, you can’t take the piss out of the circus.”
James’s devotion to his audience comes at a time when young people are increasingly turning away from radio. Radio 1’s total listenership has fallen from 11.8 million in September of 2011 to 10.5 million in September 2017. When the last round of figures were announced, Radio 4 went to ask a bunch of schoolchildren whether they listen to Radio 1 or had heard of its breakfast presenter Nick Grimshaw. None of them had.
“Well, these things can be quite cyclical,” says James. “It doesn’t mean just because one generation of kids are like, ‘what the fuck’s that?’ that you can’t reinvent it again.” He says the station went through a confused period when it wasn’t sure which audience to aim at and there was a feeling that it had to shed older listeners at any cost. “I think things have stabilised a bit more since then, which is to say Radio 1 appreciates that if you get the mums and dads, then you have people like my niece and nephew who are eight years old, and I think it can start again like that. When we were going through the Lake District [for the Gregathlon] and there was a dad on the front doorstep with his two sons and he was like, ‘Go on Greg!’ and the kids were like, ‘Yeahhh’. I am literally cycling past the listeners of Radio 1: ‘Good morning, good evening, make sure you’re listening tomorrow from 4pm.’ It’s campaigning.”
I also wonder what he thinks about how Radio 1 is responding to increased pressures at the BBC for greater diversity. He is part of a daytime lineup of three white men, along with Scott Mills and Nick Grimshaw, and one black woman – Clara Amfo. But Radio 1 also has a sister station, 1Xtra, with black daytime hosts playing music by predominantly black artists. Does it make sense in 2018 that there is basically a white Radio 1 and a black Radio 1?
“Enormous question … Yeah, it does. There are lots of examples of the stations working more closely together and they do help each other out, but they should help each other out more. I totally see your point about having this station for this kind of person, and this station for that kind of person, but shows such as Charlie Sloth’s are on both networks and it’s not an issue. There should be more cross-pollination. I was on Dotty’s [rapper Amplify Dot] breakfast show talking about the challenge and actually, we had that conversation. I was like, ‘Why haven’t we done this more?’”
One area in which the station has had major success is on YouTube where viral videos, such as James singing with Taylor Swift, have views in the tens of millions. But in that space, Radio 1 is competing for young eyeballs with a huge number of vloggers, a medium that for many in that age group is the new radio. The station has made attempts to bring these internet stars into the fold by giving them shows or other segments. But Greg is distrustful of the way they flog products in their videos to make a living.
“Influencers are absolutely in my crosshairs in the minute. The disdain some of them have for their own fanbase is mindblowing, just selling crap to them the whole time.”
So he never wants a free weekend at Babington House in return for a few tweets?
“Ha! It would be a hollow weekend, that’s the thing. I like paying for things. I like paying tax. I think there are quite a few people in the public eye who don’t like paying tax and don’t like paying for things. It’s nice to pay tax because that’s a nurse or a teacher. I’m quite righteous about that.”
It’s not just their rapaciousness that he finds offensive. As a radio perfectionist himself, he seems stunned by the content itself. “It’s terrifying, watching some moron bake a cake and it gets 5m views. But shit stuff has always been popular. Lots of people on YouTube need a boss to tell them when they’re being bad. I’ve had producers and amazing writers saying: ‘Woah you need to refine those ideas.’ But they have not got that. No wonder it’s awful.”
So he’s not worried they might rise up and steal his show? “Hopefully, it works itself out, maybe people will grow out of it and go: ‘Oh why did I watch that person make a rainbow unicorn cake, that was embarrassing.’ Fingers crossed. Either that, or I’ll be doing infomercials with Zoella.”
James was born in south London in 1985, his parents both teachers. Growing up, his two loves were cricket and radio. He played for Hertfordshire under-18s, and, after hearing that his future colleague Mills started out on hospital radio, found the local station and tried out a show there. He followed up on university radio at the University of East Anglia, obsessing over editing and creating his own jingles. He was soon discovered by Radio 1, hosting his first show for the station the day after he graduated. It was the early breakfast slot, starting at 4am.
“I loved that show so much because I was completely fearless. It was the happiest I’ve ever been. Then I moved to afternoons and I was really miserable because I didn’t know what I was doing. I was young and just moved to London and [was] just getting drunk all the time and a little bit famous. I used to panic a lot about it all. I used to worry about someone else getting a job, thinking: ‘Argh, why haven’t I got that show?’ or ‘Why is he doing so well?’”
He moved to drivetime where he says he found his groove and, in the last four years has felt comfortable enough to try other projects. He hosts a cricket podcast for 5 Live with Jimmy Anderson and is writing a series of children’s books, Kid Normal, with Chris Smith, who hosts the news on his show. “We worked really hard on them because we didn’t want it to be: ‘Those two twats from the radio think they can just do a book now.’” It’s paid off – the first book was the bestselling children’s debut of last year.
He is also co-hosting Sounds Like Friday Night, the BBC’s sort-of Top of the Pops replacement. Ratings for the initial run were solid, but there was something a little off about it. The sketches were flat and James and co-host Dotty seemed to feign naivety about the music they were introducing in a way that felt at odds with their radio personas.
“It wasn’t a disaster and it’s coming back for another series. But it’s hard, it’s really hard to land a music show where you’ve got Stefflon Don in the slot where A Question of Sport was the week before. I think we’ll make the show feel looser and not overthink it too much. The reason I wanted to do it is because I could show off, do interviews, run around, interview the audience and have a laugh. It didn’t quite happen in the first series, so I want to do that for the second.”
We have been talking for more than an hour and there is something strangely unflappable about James. While he might have had struggles in the past, he now seems content in every part of his life. I tell him that I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who seems to be so sorted.
“Yeah, it’s probably boring for you, but I do feel quite content. It’s only happened in the last year or so that things have slotted into place. I have found peace with my love life, feel happy with my friends and I am looking after my family. It’s made me funnier on air and better at my job. The moment I stopped overthinking it, when I realised that I don’t have to go to that party, or get to that place, I realised there was nowhere I wanted to get to. Radio is my skill, it’s like plumbing, and now I’ve learned that I get to try other things and enjoy that.”
Two days later, I am at home listening to James power through a 120-mile cycle in relentless rain. He sounds in pieces, saying it’s harder than even the first part of the challenge. Still, he finds time to guess the age of some local children, have a conversation about teen mental health and do an extended link about farts. You’ve got to say, it’s pretty good radio.
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- This article was amended on 19 March 2018 to correct an error. It originally stated that James had travelled along the “Zambezi river in Uganda”. The Zambezi does not flow through Uganda.
