Heather Davies

Late night phone ins. Where have they gone? A decade ago just about every area of the UK had one, they were often inspirational, funny, dangerous and were part of the fabric of the local society.

Is OFCOM to blame for coming down hard on those jocks who stepped over the line? Have managers just bottled it when it comes to night time radio? Why won’t they take any risks with talk jocks anymore? How much has social media and the internet affected the talk show?

Pete Price (Radio City / City Talk) and Scottie McClue give an impassioned defence of the late night phone in, and Martin Campbell (formerly of OFCOM) joins us to give the regulator’s perspective. Trevor Dann is our inimitable host, and we are grateful to the Guardian for use of their studios.

This edition of RadioTalk was inspired by a blog written by John Myers. You can read the full post here.

You can listen to the podcast on The Radio Academy website, through iTunes, or on my Soundcloud:

This week’s podcast was a bit more of a challenge to arrange due to the the lack of proper old-school late nighters.  Many commercial stations now run playout throughout the night, with a few notable exceptions such as LBC and Absolute (both based in London).  As a result, our icons of late night radio were based in Liverpool and Scotland, meaning that they were both on ISDN.  Juggling two guests down-the-line can be tricky, but I think we pulled it off!