When a high-profile radio presenter leaves your station, it often poses a particular point of dissent between the website editor and the station management. “I want him off the website”, the edict will inevitably be. “Delete every single image of him.” And that’s understandable. But, sometimes, not the right plan.

During my time managing the content of the Virgin Radio UK website, I had a number of these events. Presenters came and went; some under a £75,000-Ofcom-fine-shaped dark cloud (hello, Jon!), some after a period of much publicised absenteeism, and some because they wanted to move to a different station.

It’s hard to set a standard policy for these types of events. Some events are mired in bad publicity, so the harm done to the brand by still containing content from that presenter needs to be carefully weighed-up – and you’d normally want to err on the side of caution here. Some events, however, are nothing more than a radio presenter resigning his job at Station X, because Station Y has offered him more money. And it’s then that you can think a little harder.

Your programme controller will want to get rid of the traitor. Naturally. Radio is not permanent – it’s always transitory. Remove a presenter today, and never talk about them tomorrow. Most people don’t even notice that a presenter has gone.

On the web, however, permanence is key – and honesty is even more important. And so, this is what I’d recommend, if you ever find yourself in this situation – based on how we treated Pete Mitchell‘s departure.

1. Remove Pete from the list of presenters – but only at the end of his last programme. (Be respectful of your talent: you never know when you’ll work with them again.)
2. Don’t put big links to interviews and content featuring him on your website. He is no longer a part of your onair talent, so is no longer a part of your radio station. Remove his image from all main index pages, and in any place that a typical user would, in a normal journey, see him. (In fact, in Pete’s case, we did leave some video and audio from “Pete and Geoff’s last show” for two weeks: using it as an excuse to promote Christian O’Connell’s show which started a month later.)
3. Notwithstanding the above, don’t delete any of the great content. If it’s a great interview with Coldplay, it isn’t doing your listeners a service if you remove the interview simply because the presenter who did it is now out of favour with the station. Chris Martin is bigger than anyone on your station. You might, though, want to ‘date’ the content by saying, for example, “Pete Mitchell interviewed Chris for Virgin Radio in 2005″, rather than “Hear an interview with Virgin Radio’s Pete Mitchell”.
4. Add a search tip for this presenter’s name, for your internal search. Most search engines, particularly Google’s search appliance, allows you to return specific information when a search is done. It should read something like this: “Looking for Pete Mitchell? Pete left Virgin Radio in November, 2005.” (No, you don’t need to say that he moved to BBC Radio 2.)

Your listeners aren’t idiots; and by treating them with some intelligence, you can retain the permanence that the internet gives you – and some great and fantastic content – while, removing that presenter’s name from any “normal” use of your website.

Sometimes, it’s not always appropriate, however. “Sorry, but we cannot find any page on the Virgin Radio website with ‘Chris Evans’” was a part of my work I’m less proud of; but SMG’s legal action with Chris meant that we even needed to airbrush him out of some of the station’s history for a while (as with any disciplinary or legal action). I’m pleased that, even with Chris, we were able to return him to the website at the end of the court case; recognition of the fine work he did at the station existed on the website (indeed, mentioning that he was now working at Radio 2), until the end of Virgin Radio.

Photo: Alfons Hoogervorst. Used under licence. Apologies for the fact you can’t currently comment on this post – for reasons I’m sure you understand. While this is a topical entry because of current events, the current situation is not, in any way, similar to the issues I faced at Virgin.

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