To wonder who cares about the activities of people phoning radio stations

[Gooseinthewood]

Why do radio presenters ask people where they are going, what they are doing etc? I barely care what my family and friends are doing this weekend, never mind Stacey and John from Worcester going up to Derby for a wedding.

I station hop because ADHD has blessed me with a short attention span so I do just turn it off before anyone suggests it.

I just wonder if there are people out there who excitedly tune into Radio 2 / Heart FM or whatever and turn the radio up, so they get to hear that Colin is off to work as a window cleaner today or Jayne met her husband in 1982 when working in Safeway.

Totally agree. Drives me insane so I switch over too. Even worse when kids are interviewed.

I cannot stand it. Especially the "I'm 'sat' in my car waiting for my kids to come out of swimming club..." Inane nonsense, frequently appalling grammar. I couldn't give a shit about what they're doing! Radio 4 is much better.

My instant sprint for the off button is callers dedicating a song to their darling wife/husband of eleventy-hundred years - tell them I love them so very much. Tell them yourself. I do not care.

It's ok to put all their daily life on Facebook though and on here.
Oh the irony 😆

You sound about miserable.

I said this yesterday! People phoning in to sing in a car park!!! Just why??

Oh yes indeed. Tedious in the extreme!

I do a lot of overnight driving, I love it.

Dark road, no one for miles and I love the silly little chatting, makes me feel not alone.

I actually punched this into ChatGPT recently to find out why anyone would be interested hearing how Gary first met Bev down Shelly’s Disco in Margate in 1975 and they’ve never had a night apart since and have four children and eleven grandchildren blah blah fucking blah.

It is so tedious and utterly boring. Chat GPT said some people must like listening to it or they wouldn’t do it, but hating it doesn’t make me a sociopath 😆

Indeed! Also, play it for them yourself at home at a time when it’s convenient to you both?
Does the husband make the wife sit by the radio for the 3 hour slot in case she misses the surprise dedication?
I suspect the majority of those are just made up because otherwise who is doing stuff like this?!

We had a slight obsession with a now-defunct drivetime quiz show we referred to as the Stupid People Quiz (sample question: ‘Name a European country whose name in English ends with a vowel’. Answer: ‘Em — Paris?’) in which the presenter asks detailed questions about everyone’s dinner plans, including side dishes, shepherd’s pie recipes etc.

Why is it ironic? Are you saying that ducking puts her daily life on mumsnet? It seems unlikely.

LOVE Absolute radio 90s. Also partial to 6 music which I guess tells you what my rough age is!

I quite like on 6 music when it’s say Guy Garvey on a Sunday asking people what they’re doing and it’s always something relaxing cosy and wholesome like making a stew, been for a dog walk and now got the fire on. That’s the sort of phone in I’m interested in.

Ha ha. I always think this too. Martha is ringing in to tell us about her favourite hat. Barry is going into great detail about the one pasta meal he has on repeat.

We have radio 2 on at work and I HATE it with a passion. Dan and Andy driving to meet Steve in Porthmadog, “I’m just waiting outside scouts for my son”, and Sunday bloody love songs “can you tell the person I’m married to and I live with that he’s really great” - tell him your bloody self. However I was a fan of Alan Robsons nightowls on metro radio circa 1992.

Eh? People don’t talk to their colleagues about what they are doing? I work in a large open plan office and people of all ages are extremely chatty about all aspects of their lives.

I'm the same with TV quiz shows, I don't remotely care where Brenda is from, what she does for a living, who she's married to, what her grandkids names are or what she likes doing in her spare time. Bizarrely enough I do like to know what they would spend the money on though! It's usually a holiday, so any deviation from that is almost interesting. Each to their own 💁‍♀️

Sounds much like most of the stuff posted on social media!

Totally agree. Even Mastermind has started to go down the backstory route. I don't want the backstory - I especially don't want to hear about a funny thing that happened to you in Tesco's car park last week and that you're going on the show for your Gran's neighbour's budgie who died four years ago.

I just want to get on with the quiz so I can shout the answers at the telly and feel smug if I'm right or mildly embarrassed if I'm wrong.

God I'm totally with you. Puts me off most radio stations. I know I'm probably a grumpy old cow but I really don't care the someone has been married for 25 years and wants to tell their husband they love them very much, or that Colin and Jean are off to Ireland in their motorhome for 5 weeks. Honestly, other than filling air time I really don't get why radio stations do this.

And don't get me started on the travel news on Radio 2. Do I really care that there is a hold up on the M6 when I live in the south west? Their travel updates are so highlevel it is totally pointless.

And breathe!

I just marvel that people on these shows, upon being asked what they were doing, say: “Not much.”

If you have gone to the bother of calling in, sitting on hold, being vetted by producers etc, would you not want to say something more interesting than “nothing doing”?