Currently, I notice, the logo on BBC Radio 5live’s website is festooned with a… Santa hat.

Paul Easton blogged recently about Christmas Day at a radio station. And for me in times past, Christmas was always a useful time to earn money and have rather more fun than the rest of the year.

When I started, as a lowly tech-op (playing radio commercials in Bradford for the likes of Keith Skues, Alan Ross and Peter Fairhead on Classic Gold Yorkshire) I earned £5 an hour – the same amount as the colleague next door playing out the Eurochart Hot 100 off tape and coping with entertaining backtiming issues. But the better bits – Bank holidays were double time, and Christmas Day was triple time.

Later, I got the “new presenter” shift of New Year’s Day Breakfast – a shift that was quite famous for launching the careers of many presenters I know. It didn’t launch mine, but I did do that shift a number of times.

But my favourite was Christmas Day itself. Doing the 0600-1000 shift on Christmas Day is a brilliant experience.

First, chances are that the music clock was no different than the normal breakfast show got. I got Daryl Denham’s music log when I presented Christmas Day breakfast at Hallam FM, and realised at about 0620 that if I carried on playing songs at the rate I was doing, I’d run out by 0640. Now, I -should- have looked at the previous night’s log and added more songs from that. But, this was Christmas Day morning, on a Hot-AC station: a time to break the rules if ever there was. So, a rummage through the library later, and I found all manner of ordinarily-banned songs. A bit of Bing Crosby? Nat King Cole? Doris Day (yes, Doris Day)? I played them all, including a rather splendid track from the otherwise cool Tom Petty. Ten minutes before the end of my shift, I realised the person coming next was… the programme director of the station. Would I get a shouting at for playing the most schmaltzy Christmas songs on the planet? Not a bit of it. “Hey, I like the music you’ve been playing this morning,” said Anthony Gay as he wandered in. Phew.

The second thing about working on Christmas Day is that you’re guaranteed to have a vocal audience, delighted to hear christmassy music, and only too eager to ring you at 0730 sounding slightly the worse for wear. You really feel close to your listeners on a day like Christmas Day – and chances are you’re reaching an audience who don’t normally listen.

Of course… this year, all this will be replaced by automation and voicetracking. No opportunities for new talent, and absolutely no Doris Day.

Pity.

Cartoon: Mike Flanagan. This cartoon first appeared on the front page of Media UK.

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