Cotton gone: Fearne leaves Radio One

Fearne Cotton - who, with her Very work is very much the Marshall Ward of our times - is leaving Radio One:

"I have had the most incredible decade broadcasting on Radio 1, meeting wonderful people, helping break artists and watching live music from the world's best," she says.

In her ten years on the station, not a single record or live performance she introduced was anything less than "really, really, fantastic".

Fearne's replacement is, surprisingly, Simon Bates. "I did this show before and I absolutely ruled," explained Bates at a press conference, "and I'm delighted to be returning to my spiritual home." The press conference broke up when he realised he was speaking to an empty room, and that the call from the BBC had actually been a dream. A beautiful dream, but... a dream nevertheless.

Clara Amfo is actually taking over the slot, and this feels like a significant moment. With Zane Lowe also moving on, it looks like the era when Radio One recruited by picking high-profile names off TV and dumping them on the air is now behind it. Amfo - despite already having landed the chart show job - is so (relatively) obscure that she doesn't yet qualify for a little box on the side of her Google search results, and her Wikipedia page is a bit of a mess.

I suspect that won't be the case much longer.

Sony Radio Awards: Cotton on

Really, Radio Academy? With all the hours of radio programming, most of which is dedicated to music, you've decided that the gold standard of music broadcasting is Fearne Cotton? That is the pitch to which all other music broadcasters should be aiming?

In other prizes, Danny Baker won a broadcaster prize, which feels right and proper - although he's so far ahead of his peers, you do wonder if they should do a second gold betting without him. And a good night for Liverpool, with City FM and Juice FM picking up station of the year in their respective categories.

Those winners in full, then:

Breakfast Show of the Year (10 million plus) - KISS Breakfast with Rickie, Melvin and Charlie

Breakfast Show of the Year (under 10 million) - Real Radio Breakfast with Gary and Lisa

Best Music Programme - Fearne Cotton (Radio 1)

Best Specialist Music Programme - Dave Rodigan (Radio 2)

Best Entertainment Programme - Betty & Beryl (Radio Humberside)

Best Speech Programme - Stephen Nolan (Radio 5 Live)

Best Sports Programme - Keys and Gray (TalkSport)

Best News & Current Affairs Programme - 5 Live Drive

Best Breaking News Coverage - PM (Radio 4)

Best Live Event Coverage - Royal Wedding (World Service)

Best Community Programming - Face To Face (National Prison Radio)

Best Internet Programme - Science Weekly: Sounds of the Space Shuttle - An Acoustic Tribute (The Guardian)

Music Radio Personality of the Year - Chris Evans (Radio 2)

Music Broadcaster of the Year - Jools Holland (Radio 2)

Speech Radio Personality of the Year - Danny Baker (Radio 5 Live)

Speech Broadcaster of the Year - Victoria Derbyshire (Radio 5 Live)

News Journalist of the Year - Mike Thompson (Radio 4)

Best Interview - Eddie Mair interviews Julie Nicholson (Radio 4)

Station Programmer of the Year - Andy Roberts (Kiss)

Best Use of Branded Content - Danny Wallace's Naked Breakfast (XFM)

Best Single Promo/Commercial - Geoff Lloyd's Hometime Show - The Complaints (Absolute)

Best Promotional/Advertising Campaign - Wimbledon (Radio 2, Radio 5 Live & BBC Local Radio)

Best Competition - Two strangers and a wedding (106 JACKfm Oxfordshire and glide FM 107.9 Oxfordshire)

Best Station Imaging - 1Xtra

Best Music Feature/Special/Documentary - Feeling Good - The Nina Simone Story Part 1 (Radio 2)

Best News Feature/Special/Documentary - Child of Ardoyne (Radio 3)

Best Feature/Special/Documentary - Walking With The Wounded (Smooth)

Best Comedy - Mark Steel's In Town (Radio 4)

Best Drama - On It (Radio 4)

Best Use of Multiplatform/Social Media - Now Playing @ 6Music

Station of the Year (Under 300,000) - KL.FM

Station of the Year (300,000 - 1 million) - 107.6 Juice FM

Station of the Year (1 Million plus) - Radio City 96.7

UK Station of the Year - 6Music

Special Award - Classic FM

Gold Award - Nicholas Parsons

The official list, complete with production team names, can be found on the Radio Academy website.

Bookmarks: Fearne Cotton

As John Peel's record collection (or a tiny slice thereof) goes online, Newsbiscuit announces a similar project:

The record collection of legendary disc jockey Fearne Cotton is now available for fans to peruse online. Uploaded by ‘The Void’, an Arts Council funded pop-up site, from today music fans will be able to browse Cotton’s overwhelming collection of over seven records.

Gordon in the morning: Good news for Chris Evans

Colin Robertson files for Gordon with details of a deal done:

MOTORMOUTH DJ Chris Moyles will clock up a DECADE on the Radio 1 breakfast show after signing a £1.25million new deal last night.

The 2½-year contract will take the 37-year-old presenter up to New Year 2014 and will end with his tenth anniversary on the show.

It's a bad contract if it's guaranteed him the breakfast show for the next thirty months. And it seems to be less about any enthusiasm for Moyles than the lack of any obvious heir:

While emerging R1 names such as Matt Edmondson and Greg James are seen as possible heirs, they are said to be still too "green". Fearne Cotton, who follows Chris at 10am on weekdays, has also been talked about as a contender. Scott Mills, 37, would love the job - but he will be too old by 2014.

If you're seriously thinking about Fearne Cotton, you've got a tremendous succession problem.

Glastonbury 2011: View from the sofa - Various bands

This year's BBC coverage from Glastonbury seems a little flat this year - the first slew of bands shown on BBC Three seemed to floating away, over the heads of the audience.

Two Door Cinema Club plugged away bravely but ineffectively, like a Public School headmaster trying to stop a fight in a borstal; Fleet Foxes could have been trapped in the old Whistle Test studio for all the sense of a live audience there was. Biffy Clyro at least worked up a bit of a sweat and a bit of audience reaction, but even then it was clear you'd have been much better off being there, and everyone would have been better off in a smaller venue with a back wall.

The stage that's working best on TV is the Introducing stage, mainly thanks to the cameras being right up the band's noses. Noah And The Whale have never looked more like two 11th Doctor cosplayers flanked by a pair of Jarvis Cockers, but they sounded great.

The BBC coverage is a mixed bag. First - at least so far - there's very little of the tedious films of "this is Jocasta's first Glastonbury, we gave her a camera" variety. That's a good thing.

Secondly, 6Music is doing brilliant work - although did I really hear it right that they're burning performances to CD and running them across the to the makeshift studio in order to play them out on air? Can that really be the case? Let's hope the CD burner keeps going, or else by the end of the weekend Shaun Keavney's going to have to stand in the front row with a Dictaphone in his outstretched arm.

The trouble with the swathes of 6Music coverage is that most of the presenters who you'd like to see on TV are busy or knackered - it was well past midnight before I spotted Lauren Laverne and Mark Radcliffe on-screen, for example. Which means BBC Three is being anchored by Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates.

Now, it's possible to argue into the face of the Daily Mail that the number of BBC staff sent to Glastonbury is justified by it being one of the UK's premier cultural events. It's a bit harder to make that case when Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates are given the job of anchoring the thing.

The studio - certainly for BBC Three - feels a bit distant from events, too. We've come a long way from the time when, by law, any coverage of Glastonbury had to be anchored from a studio containing hay bales, but it might have been nice if there'd been at least some sense of connection with the events being anchored.

Still, for all these quibbles, it's lovely to able to dip in and out of the festival. Thank you, BBC.

Gordon in the morning: Woman wears dress

A new low today - actually, that's unfair, it's more a further bump along the bottom - as Gordon struggles to write something, anything, to make it look like there's a reason to run photos promoting Fearne Cotton's catalogue shopping business.

Is that a Cotton dress Fearne?

Ouch. Mind you, it's good news for Helen Viscose-Polyester as she embarks on her showbusiness career, as there's now something to aspire to.

Oh, and it's only a couple of weeks since Gordon generously ran another adv... sorry, story, about the Very range. Featuring Cotton in some clothes.

Brits announce this year's ill-starred duet

It's become a tradition of the Brit Awards - the slapping together of a duet between two artists which doesn't even manage to scrape together looking good on paper.

This year, the names drawn out the hat at random are Florence And The Machine and Dizzee Rascal. It's expected to follow in the footsteps of The Gossip & Mika and Klaxons & Rihanna. So prepare to say goodbye forever to the pair of them.

Nominations are being unveiled tonight on ITV2. Fearne Cotton will be holding up a microphone and trying to think of something to say.

Gordon in the morning: Happy Halloween, ladies

Don't ask. Just don't ask.

Gordon in the morning: A fair swap for a Ginster's pasty

Wow. Whatever will we do when we have to scrape together the cash to pay for Gordon Smart and his good works?

After all, I'm sure most of the world would rather starve than miss out on the story that Fearne Cotton is no longer dating Jesse Jenkins.

Just imagine, Rupert - if you could get a pound from everyone who cares about that, you'd possibly have had enough to pay someone to have at least airbrushed out the bit about Shakira that must have been on the cover of wherever this picture came from:

You really can see why Rupert thinks Bizarre is just like the Wall Street Journal, can't you?

Murdoch can't count on the Jackson family bailing him out, either: Jackson's kids are being banned from the internet. This is somehow going to protect them from finding out the grisly details of their father's death. I understand the RIAA is now looking to introduce legislation to save us all from the horror of finding out these details by putting a massive block on all the internet. "It's better we don't know."

Whiley, Bowman sidelined in favour of Kit Curran & Smurfette

The sound of the last tide of Matthew Bannister's Radio One washing away, then, as Jo Whiley and Edith Bowman are eased to one side in a new Radio One line-up:

The Radio 1 controller, Andy Parfitt, said: "BBC Radio 1 must continue to change to connect with a new generation of audiences and this is a significant move, promoting three of our up and coming broadcasters into the heart of the schedule."

Aha, so it's about moving out the older presenters for some new, fresh names, is it?

Not quite, as they're bringing in Greg James and Fearne Cotton to daily slots.

Fearne Cotton is 28, so only a little younger than Bowman; Bowman is 34 and actually younger than Chris Moyles.

To be fair, Whiley had started to turn into a fixture of the Simon Bates sort in mid-mornings, and probably is at the point of needing to move on. It's disappointing, though, that Radio One have chosen to abandon any pretence of being interested in music during the daytime in favour of a woman who feels much more Variety Club Showbusiness Awards than Camden Crawl.

Greg James is probably more surprised than anyone at this promotion, given that he actually has the words "sitting in for" on his driving licence. He's one of those people who crop up in radio a lot, with two first names and an ability to fill the unforgiving minute with just enough chat to take us up to the news, weather and travel. Adrian John. Paul Jordan. One of those.

It all makes for the most crushingly lightweight daytime Radio One schedule since Mike Smith and Gary Davies were alive.

Brits nominations announcer announced

A new round of awards ceremonies for a new year, and what could be more exciting than an announcement about the person who's going to read the autocue during the announcement of the people who are in running for the announcement of the winners of the Brit Awards?

Given that last year's shambles on ITV2 was handled by Kelly Osbourne, it was always going to be easy for whoever came next - after all, compared to Kelly, even Fearne Cotton would look halfway competent.

It's going to be Fearne Cotton.

Next year, surely, this announcement should, in its turn, be made on live TV - perhaps SkyReal Lives could bid? - with the name of the person supposed to deliver the clunky links being unveiled to a small audience of half-drunk journalists at one of the swisher branches of Costa Coffee near London's West End.

An ITV spokesperson, revealing the appointment of Cotton, looked worried for a moment and said "hang on a minute... was it her or Tess Daly that does Dancing On Ice?"

High re-entry: TOTP bounces back

Presumably in order to head off being told to do so by a double-headed BBC Trust and Daily Mail beast, what remains of BBC management has reversed its earlier decision to not do a Christmas Top Of The Pops this year.

Indeed, they're even going to do one on New Year's Eve, too:

BBC One controller Jay Hunt said: "With shows on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, Top of the Pops has never been bigger.

"The shows will form the centrepiece of a massive musical offering during the festive season that we hope viewers are really going to enjoy."

It's bigger than ever, although not if you include in your defintion of "ever" when it was on regularly each week in prime time and had a Christmas special.

There's supposedly been some sort of public outcry demanding the return of TOTP, although it's hard to imagine any sort of public outcry which would be satisfied by an announcement including the phrase:

"will be presented by Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates"

It's not often you find yourself thinking "surely this is a job for Moyles, Whiley and Bowman", is it?

You have to hope this is a gag... but it isn't

No, the announcement of another collaboration between Weller, Gallagher N and Gem from Heavy Stereo is not a gag.

James P wrote to tell us about DigitalSpy's spoof: Fearne Cotton being made head of ITV Entertainment:

Cotton said: "It's amazing. I can't actually believe it, it's brilliant. Wicked.

Sadly, though, DSpy have taken the page down since. Perhaps it was someone spoofing them rather than an idea that originated in their own offices.

Nelson Mandela: What has he done to deserve this?

Showbiz Zoe with the Zoe Showbiz in today's Sunday Mirror has words to strike terror into Nelson Mandela's heart:

Telly babe Fearne Cotton is preparing for her biggest interview yet - Nelson Mandela.

ITV bosses lined her up to chat to the South African icon at his 90th birthday after being impressed by the way she handled the Princes at The Concert for Diana.

Okay, so going "wow... wasn't James Blunt amazing" is hardly going to call for a Dimbleby, but who would choose Fearne Cotton above all other sentient beings as the perfect person to talk to the hero of the ANC?

One gets shaken

Radio One is about to embark on a fairly large schedule shake-up, most notable for granting Chris Moyles an extra two and a half hours a week - or, in other words, time enough for him to play two extra records. They're now starting the show at 6.30 in the morning, and while we'd have imagined three hours of Moyles a day was enough for any man, the audience seems to eat it up, so this is presumably a ratings-driven initiative.

The extra half-hour for Moyles is being shaved off the 'early breakfast' show - although now that programme finishes so far before a winter's dawn, it's presumably going to have to change its name. This reduced fiefdom has been granted to Greg James, who's been doing little bits and pieces around the station for a while now. He has, you'll note, perhaps the most local-radio-dj name to have graced Radio One since Mark Page.

That strange arrangement where Zane Lowe's show is opted out of on a Thursday evening in the other nations is ending - now, all of England will be shouted at between session tracks from Albert Hammond Junior four nights a week; the national regions opt-out fandango gets shunted to midnights on Wednesday from where, we imagine, it will quietly disappear sometime after Christmas.

The In New Music We Trust strand is still there, unfortunately. But not part of the brave new world is JK and Joel, whose unloved double-actery is banished not just from early breakfast, but also from the Chart Show.

Before you get too thrilled by the idea of the Top 40 returning to a safe pair of hands, though - or two safe pairs of hands - it's now going to be presented by Fearne and Reggie. We're not sure when Cotton and Yates actually became a double act, but it seems to be fixed now. We're at a lost to the logic of giving the Top 40 slot to a pair who were part of the destruction of Top Of The Pops, mind.

The gap in weekend breakfasts opened by this promotion (they're also going to do a 'requests' show on Saturday afternoons - charts and requests; it's like someone doesn't trust them to pick their own records, isn't it?) is filled by Nihal, which is probably the only good idea in the whole spreadsheet.

Also getting demoted is Vernon Kaye - or, perhaps, "having his Radio One workload reduced in order to free up more time to remake Bullseye". His Sunday morning slot is now going to be taken over by... well, it says Dick and Dom here, but surely that can't be right, can it? Maybe three years ago... but in 2007?

The most horrific detail, though, is left for Sunday nights. Sunday Surgery - the long-running 'don't get the clap, and don't pickle your kidneys' slot is now going to be presented by Kelly Osbourne.

How did that happen? Did Radio One see her pisspoor performance on Project Catwalk and think "we should see if she's as bad presenting live radio as she is at recorded television, where - presumably - they must have reshot some of the pieces, surely?" and then looked around for something she could do? Or did they have a shortlist of likely presenters for the programme, and - after they'd all said 'no' - were reduced to thumbing through the phone directory?

Kelly Osbourne.

[Thanks to James P for the tip]

An uneven thing: The Diana concert

There were two signs that, for all the claims it was a 'prefect tribute', that the Diana concert fell short of capturing the imagination.

The first was that it was so short of top-grade talent Elton had to be dragged in to open and close it; the second was that the anchoring was done by Jamie Theakston and Claudia Winkelman. Clearly, the BBC felt that shunting an entire day of programming off BBC1 was its duty done, but it sent neither Huw Edwards, so it was an event of national significance, nor Jonathan Ross, so it wasn't a major entertainment event, either. They did have Fearne Cotton deployed to stand backstage going "wow... fantastic", like Cassie from Skins; but Cotton, for reasons we still don't understand, seems to be on every live TV event telling us how "amazing" everything is - she did the final of Make Me A Supermodel, so her presence hardly confers gravitas.

We're only human, so couldn't stand the whole thing, just dipping in across the day. With each peek, there was something totally different from what was going on before - some Classic FM style opera-light; Tom Jones beating up the Arctic Monkeys; Donny Osmond, Jason Donovan and that Lee bloke from Any Dream Will Do having a Hartnell-Troughton-Pertwee momen; Rod Stewart - who we missed, but did see Fearne attesting to to how "fantastic" he was. It's not an unprecedented mix - it's reminiscent of Radio 2's Sunday playlist from about a decade ago - but nobody was expected to sit through that lot from start to finish. And even they get Jonathan Ross to do presenting duties.

The end fell astonishingly flat - the delightful piano-playing princes came on and demonstrated all the ease and comfort when talking to the masses shown by their father (you'd better get used to this, William - you're going to be doing the State Opening of Parliament in a few years) did some mumbling and then, instead of a big finish, there was, erm, some cine film of Diana doing handstands as a child. "This is how she would want to be remembered" - flashing her knickers for the camera, apparently. I know the idea was to make us think of what a terrible waste such a photogenic and energetic life was snuffed out in such a terrible way, but I'm afraid the effect was more "private swimming pools and high-quality cine cameras in the 1960s - didn't exactly have a hard life, did she?" It was noticeable that people were filing out of Wembley before the end.

They didn't even give her brother a chance to do a reprise of his funeral rabble-rousing; instead, he was tucked away, far from the microphones. It was a miracle they didn't have him sitting in a cage of visual metaphor. He didn't look like he enjoyed it, either.