Vaughan's gone

Has it really been eight years? Johnny Vaughan has been doing the Capital breakfast show all that time, but not any longer:

Johnny Vaughan is leaving 95.8 Capital FM after nearly eight years as the London station's breakfast DJ.

Vaughan's co-presenter Lisa Snowdon will continue to front the breakfast show with stand-in Greg Burns from Monday, with a replacement full time co-host to be announced by the Global Radio-owned station in due course.

It might just be me, but does anyone feel that it's somewhat sudden for a departure to be announced on a Friday lunchtime, with some seatmeat dropped in to fill the slot the following Monday while the search for a replacem?

The real worry, though, is what this means for the advert featuring Snowdon, Vaughan and those bemusing breakfast biscuits. The ones that thought there was something so unusual about eating a biscuit in the morning that the concept needed to be explained incredibly slowly. What will they do now? (I'm assuming the answer is 'desperately try to flog the remaining stock through Home Bargains for 25p a box'.)

Johnny Vaughan's Next Top Model

We're given to understand the press release for this story came with the words "we give it six months" written in invisible ink all over it: Lisa Snowdon is to co-present Capital's breakfast show.

We say co-present; that would imply some sort of interaction and chemistry between Johnny Vaughan and her.

Vaughan has put together some sort of statement:

"I'm delighted to have Lisa as my new co-host. Her enthusiasm for her new role is self-evident and she's a natural behind the mic. Lisa is a great addition to the Capital breakfast show."

Which, Global GCap executives agree, is saying all the right things. Even if there's nothing there to make the casual listener think "wow - that sounds like a double act I can't miss..."

Snowdon:

"I couldn't think of a better way to start the day than with Mr Vaughan and the breakfast gang. He keeps me on my toes and has me in stitches for the whole four hours.

"I have grown up with Capital and having the opportunity to work with Johnny on London's most iconic breakfast show is a dream come true for me."

Is Johnny Vaughan's the "most iconic" breakfast show? Even if you allow for there being degrees of iconism, if you say 'breakfast show presenters in London' isn't Tarrant still the first one that springs to mind? And Baker, even though he's in the afternoons now, is still more iconic than Vaughan, surely?

And is 'listen to Johnny make me laugh for four hours' as compelling an offer to an audience as Snowdon seems to think?

Could they be in any way connected?

On Thursday, the latest radio audience figures reported that Johnny and Denise's breakfast show audience is down 7.6% year-on-year.

On Tuesday, Denise VanOuten reveals that the early mornings are making her ill and that perhaps her contract - due to run until next February - might need looking at again.

Capital try to prop up sinking breakfasts

As the Johnny Vaughan breakfast show sinks faster than a Christmas Pudding in a lead-lined box, dragging the rest of Capital Radio with it, the Mail is suggesting that management are trying to add Denise Van Outen to his show.

Really? Clearly, the idea would hope that the old Big Breakfast magic would still be there, but - as anyone who saw Passport To Paradise would warn - that's not very likely to happen. Admittedly, there aren't many people still alive who saw Passport, but that in itself should count as a warning.

The Mail reckons that Van Outen is going to get six figures alongside Vaughan's seven figure salary - the image in our mind is of good money being thrown after bad. They'll be trying to get Zig and Zag to do the news by Easter at this rate.

Local radio station reshuffles

Another bunch of fiddling with the line-up at Capital Radio, as the new management reverse the big idea of nine months ago, letting Bam Bam and his "hilarious wind-ups" go again.

New MD Paul Jackson insists that there's nothing wrong with the programme as such:

"Bam Bam's best position historically is breakfast, and for him to do his thing best he needs a breakfast slot. He has done nothing wrong, but we have Johnny Vaughan in breakfast," Jackson added.

Actually, we'd say one of the few things Bam Bam had going for him was not being Johnny Vaughan. It's interesting that the new management didn't try to do something to address the problem of breakfasts dragging down figures for the entire station, but perhaps Vaughan's contract would make it expensive to try something genuinely new. Instead, Jackson is reduced to shuffling a somewhat limited portfolio about to no great effect:

"In a straight choice between Lucio's lifestyle show and Bam Bam, who's got a great act but it's more chatty and breakfast-style, you've got to go for Lucio's show every time."

I don't generally feel much empathy for commercial radio management, but when a man is having to make a straight choice between Lucio's world of Craig David popping in for a chat and The Hoosiers playing live, and Bam-Bam doing "wind-ups", you'd have to feel for him.

Bad Headlines

The Spice Girls' comeback single is achieving the dubious distinction of shaming both them and Children In Need. Indeed, it's managed to pull of the feat of being the lowest-selling CIN single ever, which - considering its antecedents include Shane Richie doing I'm Your Man and Johnny Vaughan singing with Denise Van Outen - is quite a thing.

On the other hand, nobody really much wanted anything new from the Spices anyway, and the single sounds like an offcut from the disappointing third album.

Next year, get John Simm in to do something from the Spices back catalogue in character as the Master. Stop, perhaps.

Vaughan gets an extra hour

Johnny Vaughan's Capital Radio breakfast show is being extended by an hour, to end at 10am instead of 9. Rather than make him work harder, the plan is to fill the first hour of the show, between six and seven, with the best bits of the previous day's programmes.

It doesn't say how they intend to stretch three minutes' worth of material to fill an hour, but we're sure they've got plans.

Is it just us, or is Capital basically giving up? After removing all DJs from XFM, it's now fighting the most competitive breakfast show market in London by padding the show out with repeats. Surely breakfast is the time where you want your radio to be at its most up-to-date and timely? Who is actually going to want to hear Vaughan being fairly witty about, erm, yesterday's papers? And will Mondays start with an hour of stuff nearly three days old?

Vaughan's gorn

As part of the current belt-tightening at the Sun, Johnny Vaughan has had his film column axed. Now movies will no longer be able to strip out things he hasn't said about films he hasn't seen to put on the posters, what next?