CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: Snobby BBC execs have wrecked Radio 2 - just like the axing of Paul O'Grady and Simon Mayo, listeners were cheated out of the last 18 months of Steve Wright's life

The anger is real. BBC staff are seething at Radio 2 boss Helen Thomas for her tribute following the death of DJ Steve Wright — when she was the woman who sacked him.

Even by the standards of Beeb executives, the hypocrisy is eye-watering. Praising Wright, who died on Tuesday aged 69, for ‘bringing brilliant stories to our listeners,’ Thomas said: ‘He was a consummate professional whose attention to detail was always second to none.’

Then she revealed he had been her mentor. ‘Steve was the first presenter I ever produced more than 20 years ago, and I remember the pure amazement I felt sitting opposite this legendary broadcaster.’

Small wonder Steve felt so betrayed and shattered when, in September 2022, Thomas unceremoniously ousted him from the afternoon slot that had been his home on the airwaves for more than 40 years.

Though he rarely made public statements outside his show, that day he told reporters sadly: ‘Sometimes people want you, sometimes they don’t . . . That’s the way it goes.’

Steve Wright’s cheerful banter, cheesy jokes and passion for trivia have been part of the British soundscape for more than 40 years

If he was the only star to be treated so callously, it would be hard for the public to forgive. But this has become a pattern at Radio 2, with beloved presenters either being shown the door or made to feel so unwelcome that they have little choice but to quit.

Not only are their careers damaged or destroyed, but the millions who have grown to love and trust their voices are robbed of something irreplaceable.

Presenters such as Steve Wright, whose conversations and gentle banter have lightened our days for years, become like old friends. And it appears as if they are being summarily banned from our lives, for the crime of being ‘pale, male and stale’.

We get no say in this. Neither do they.

Some of the best-loved voices on the Beeb have been shunted off Radio 2, including Simon Mayo.

Listeners are expected to tune in to their replacements, such as Sara Cox, without noticing the difference. That’s a measure of the snobbery of executives, obsessed with diversity and ‘the youth demographic’.

I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them don’t listen to the shows, because they regard Radio 2 as ear-filler for the superannuated.

Well, we do notice.

Wright’s cheerful banter, cheesy jokes and passion for trivia had been part of the British soundscape since his afternoon show was first heard on Radio 1 in 1981. His chatter made him wonderful company.

It’s hurtful to realise that more than six-and-a-quarter million people who tuned in daily to listen to him have been cheated out of the last 18 months of his life on air. Though he was allowed a Sunday morning shift and a podcast as a consolation prize, he never broadcast in the afternoons again.

Paul O’Grady was similarly mistreated — axed from Radio 2 in August 2022 after refusing to share his slot with comedian Rob Beckett. Never one for diplomatic silence, O’Grady let rip: ‘I was disappointed, because I’m a great believer in continuity. Radio 2 has changed, it’s not what it was. They’re trying to aim for a much younger audience, which doesn’t make sense because you’ve got Radio 1. Radio 2 was always for an older audience.’

He, too, died not long after being dropped. How much happier everyone would have been if he could have kept on with his much-loved On The Wireless show until the end — everyone, that is, except a few overpaid suits on the top floor in Broadcasting House.

Ken Bruce has found a way to fight back at the expense of the BBC with a switch to the commercial sector, joining Greatest Hits Radio

Some of the best-loved voices on the Beeb have been kicked off Radio 2, including Simon Mayo, above

Ken Bruce, sensing which way the wind was blowing, chose his own time to go, to the chagrin of BBC bosses who probably didn’t want him anyway. When he announced his departure, they told him sulkily that they’d been about to offer him another three-year contract — though it hadn’t been mentioned before.

His leaving present was a small hamper from Fortnum & Mason, a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers. You can be quite sure that some executives at Broadcasting House, earning six-figure salaries in excess of the Prime Minister’s pay, give more extravagant gifts to their cleaners at Christmas.

This high-handed attitude to their stars is one of the reasons that staff have reacted so angrily to the BBC’s two-faced attitude. Any eulogy for people whose jobs were axed is bound to sound cynical, but Helen Thomas has provoked genuine disgust.

‘It was utterly disgraceful,’ one staffer told the Mail. ‘It really would have gone down better if she had said nothing at all.’

To add to the insult, the BBC has announced digital ‘spin-off stations’ to supplement Radios 1, 2 and 3. These include a version of Radio 2 with ‘much-loved expert presenters’ playing hits from the 1950s to the 1970s. One of those much-loved experts in line to spearhead the station, which will air via digital radio and online, was expected to be Steve Wright.

The irony, then, is breathtaking. Helen Thomas and her colleagues have wrecked the most popular radio station in Britain, by dumping some of its favourite DJs and forcing the rest to play dross that listeners don’t want to hear.

Then they backtrack, by trying to recreate what they have ruined, and pretending this is some kind of forward-looking ‘digital policy’.

All this is done, of course, at the expense of you and me as licence-payers.

Along with Simon Mayo, Ken Bruce has found a way to fight back. Both have switched to the commercial sector, joining Greatest Hits Radio (GHR). Mayo draws a healthy 2.5 million listeners, but Bruce’s morning show is the big winner with 3.7 million, many of them loyal fans from Radio 2, where Vernon Kay’s morning show has seen ratings plunge.

When Bruce was in charge there, 8.2 million tuned in. That figure has dwindled to 6.9 million. Overall, Radio 2’s audience has dropped by a million in just one year.

Charlotte Moore, the BBC’s ‘Chief Content Officer’, claimed she was ‘delighted with the flying start Vernon Kay has made to mid-mornings’. It’s fair to say that, if she was a passenger on an aeroplane losing altitude as fast as Kay’s radio show, she wouldn’t call it ‘flying’. That’s more like freefall.

Other presenters on the failing station include Scott Mills, who replaced Wrightie, as well as Rylan Clark, Michelle Visage and DJ Spoony. They aren’t only up against GHR. Amazon’s Alexa Radioplayer accounts for 14 per cent of listeners at home, using algorithms to find music users might like.

At the other end of the technical scale, there’s the veteran ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton and his contemporaries on Boom Radio, including Roger Day, Simon Bates and Nicky Horne — familiar voices all, whose presence can be a comfort.

The importance of a voice we know was underlined last week when the Boom Rock sister station launched, with the gravelly tones of Tommy Vance giving its jingles gravitas.

My generation grew up listening to Tommy’s Friday Rock Show under the bedclothes on a transistor radio.

His annual countdown of the ten greatest heavy anthems was a national event, even if we did all know that Layla by Derek And The Dominos, Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zep’s Stairway To Heaven were guaranteed to comprise the top three.

The thing is, Tommy died in 2005, aged 64. His voice has been recreated by Artificial Intelligence, and it’s indistinguishable from the real thing.

‘Rock,’ he growls from beyond the grave. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

The BBC needs to cherish its old troupers, not kick them out of the door. Because if they keep losing listeners, it’ll take more than AI to revive Radio 2.