Are the broadcasting beasts heading for obscurity?

Big stories bring out the best in our broadcasters, as the war in Ukraine has shown this week. With apparently little concern for their own safety, they place themselves in the midst of danger to deliver a running commentary on unfolding events for the benefit of those back home.

As a lowly hack who rarely ventures from behind her screen, they all have my unreserved respect and admiration. Who knows what motivates them, beyond long-honed instincts to be at the heart of the action?

So, this is not to cast aspersions in the sometimes noble profession, but genuine curiosity about the day-to-day grind: do top broadcasting talents enjoy the limelight? 

Is there not a causative link between being good at standing/sitting in front of a microphone addressing millions and relishing the prospect of standing/sitting in front of a microphone addressing millions?

I only ask because a rash of the biggest beasts on television have recently quit for relative obscurity. Andrew Marr, Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel have all left the BBC, their collective media home for decades, for positions at commercial radio station LBC. In addition, Marr is fronting a show at Classic FM, in the same stable, and Maitlis and Sopel will jointly host a podcast.

Without underestimating the popularity of LBC, or the growing success of its owner Global, these are platforms with less exposure than the BBC news channels the stars are abandoning.

Marr said when he left the Andrew Marr Show at the end of last year that he wanted to get his voice back. To outsiders, having a prime-time BBC programme named after you suggests your voice is already loud and clear.

But since the Beeb’s strict impartiality rules forbid journalists from speaking their minds, even the most senior employees like Marr must seek alternative outlets if it’s their own opinions they wish to air.

His new slot on LBC also carries his name, Tonight with Andrew Marr, and he promises it won’t be “bland, safe or predictable”. Crucially, he won’t, he told the Radio Times, be holding back on telling listeners what he really thinks.

The managing editor of LBC, Tom Cheal, confirmed this, saying Marr would now have “the freedom to share his views and broadcast in his own voice”.

This is all very well, but I wonder if the nearly two million viewers who tuned in to the BBC on Sunday mornings to catch Marr were bothered that they were hearing Marr the trained interrogator, not Marr the man.

It was his skill in winkling out revelations from his high-profile guests that made him unmissable. Who cared if we didn’t get his take on the issues of the day? He still set the news agenda for the week.

At LBC, he will undoubtedly enjoy greater liberties, and hopefully, he will be happy, but how many people will be listening?

Likewise, Maitlis is also said to be frustrated at the BBC’s attempts to silence her voice. She is vacating Newsnight which, though past its heyday, has made her a household name. Her interview with Prince Andrew in 2019 is TV legend, arguably driving the final nail into Andrew’s PR coffin with the power that only mass broadcasting events can exert.

But she frequently crossed the BBC line with her partisan monologues and tweets. Now, along with Sopel, her collaborator on Americast, the BBC podcast on the US elections, Maitlis can share her politics to her heart’s content without being rapped over the knuckles by Aunty.

But will there be a market for the Maitlis worldview? As with Marr, her appeal is surely based on her interviewing technique and what it elicits from her subjects.

As for Sopel, I expect his voice could be quite entertainingly strident if given free rein, but he was at his best in Washington when he dammed the Trump presidency with wry analysis and a raised eyebrow.

Before exiting the BBC, he was said to have been the frontrunner to replace Laura Kuenssberg as political editor, a job that is the pinnacle of a broadcaster’s trajectory and by far the most visible.

Why pass up the opportunity? Of course, there is the money, loads of it, which Global is reportedly throwing at the BBC broadcast exiles.

And they join esteemed company in choosing radio as their preferred medium. Today presenter Justin Webb, now more familiar to radio than television audiences, remarked during a Reaction talk this week that radio has had a resurgence.

Today still attracts almost seven million listeners a week and is a coveted berth for television high fliers (John Humphrys in his day, Nick Robinson, as well as Webb). Can the same be said of rival stations though? 

There is a danger that in escaping the ethical shackles of the BBC, its former leading lights will quickly become irrelevant media-wise.

Not only will they have to lure droves of new listeners to LBC to compete with the BBC, but they risk alienating diehard fans if they swap their stock in trade objectivity for punditry. 

Polemical presenters are as welcome as polemical actors hectoring us about refugees when we’ve come to watch Hamlet.

I hope I’m wrong about Marr, Maitlis and Sopel, but their sideways moves may prove to be career cul-de-sacs, with all leaving their best work behind them.