BBC Radio 6 Music's Shaun Keaveny unveils his new afternoon show – and explains why he had to leave breakfast
The presenter is excited about not having to get up too early, and tells fans not to be worried about the new show: "this has come along at the perfect time for me"
This January, radio presenter Shaun Keaveny starts a new 1pm show after 11 years presenting the BBC 6 Music breakfast show.
But what does Shaun think of the new time slot (and not having to get up so early)? And what plans does he have for his new show?
Find out more from the man himself below...
- 6 Music listeners bid a begrudging farewell to Shaun Keaveny as he hosts his final breakfast show
- Zoe Ball’s move to Radio 2 is big news – and so is the enduring appeal of radio
How does it feel to finish with the breakfast show and move to daytime?
It’s a very unusual experience. I was talking to my Dad on the phone yesterday funnily enough, about just general life and it all sort of poured out, I think I was a bit tired and broken, you know? Because it’s two things at once isn’t it? Three things in fact. It’s exciting and it’s terrifying and it’s sad because when you build a radio programme, it’s unlike anything else, I think. Television doesn’t come close to it in the sense of building relationships with audience.
Why not? What's so special about radio?
I’ve thought a lot about this over the years. It’s like... I don’t know... you know, if you’re like a big film star or something and you do a film, it’s a huge splashdown isn’t it? Everybody in the world wants to speak to you and everybody knows who you are, but with radio it’s just like lots and lots of tiny ripples on the pond every day. It creeps up on you. And before you know it, it’s sort of meaningful to you in some way.
How different will a middle-of-the-day show have to be?
Well, glad you asked. It will be very high-energy. There will be a lot of veracity to my statements, everything will be well researched, I will be ‘up and at ‘em’, smiling constantly. Raining down good vibes and general bonhomie...
I honestly don’t know how to answer that because we’ve worked pretty hard on trying to reposition it. My current listeners will be slack-jawed to hear that we’ve even tried to come up with a couple of new features. But we’re carrying some of the old favourites across.
The thing is, what you begin to realise is that 80 per cent of any good radio programme is just what comes up on the day between you and the listeners. You can’t synthesise or predict that. It’s like trying to predict what’s going to come up in a conversation with your friend at the pub next Wednesday night. It’s absolutely pointless in a way.
I suppose one obvious change that’s going to happen is you haven’t got to get up so early in the morning...
Yes, it hasn’t crossed my mind actually. No, that’s disingenuous. I’ve thought of nothing else for the past nine months! If I’m completely candid, I would say that for the sake of my family and my sanity, I had to change the time at which I got up. And so this has come along at the perfect time for me.
Right. How old are your children?
Ten and eight. So you know, they’ve known nothing else apart from their dad being a tired and broken man. So I think it’s an opportunity to give them another aspect of me, really. In the past I’ve taken take time off work just so I can take them to school really and enjoy that horrible maddened panic that every other parent has at that time of the morning. I’ll look for socks and lunchboxes for a couple of weeks.
What about the actual music you’ll be playing? Any adjustments there?
I think that inevitably, one of the things I’m looking forward to is getting out more. A combination of getting a bit older and having kids and getting up early means that it precludes you from doing a lot of stuff in the evenings, and that’s when all the music happens. So, we are really looking forward to getting out and about more and seeing more bands. The knock-on effect of that will be I think we’ll be able to inject a bit more passion into that side of things than we’ve perhaps been able to do in the mornings.
So your gig going experiences will inform the programme?
Yes. That exactly. Also we’re going to get one session per month as well which is perfect for us. We can pick some of our favourite artists and have a little live session and chat with them. So that’s going to be really cool. We’ve already got a few good ones lined up. So that will be a nice new thing for us.
Shaun Keaveny's afternoon show on 6 Music kicks off on Monday 7th January at 1pm
