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By neilt0
#512804
Tina Daheley: ‘Young, female, brown – I wish there were more of me at the BBC’

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... _clipboard

"Few shows have changed the working culture of the BBC quite like Radio 1’s Breakfast Show, but it took Prince William to point it out before one presenter took stock of the past decade.

“The first thing he said to me was that he was such a fan and that he’d been listening to me for years,” Tina Daheley, a former Newsbeat host, told the Observer. “The second was: ‘I’m really pleased that some presenters now aren’t as mean to you now as other presenters’.”


"“When I think about my audition with Chris Moyles … it was just, what, eight years ago? You just wouldn’t get away with it now. At the time, that was the culture: laddy, brash from the top down. He wasn’t politically correct and he had diehard fans. But that’s just how it was, and you got on with it. It was only later on you think, ‘Ooh. Hmm. That was, erm, interesting’.”

On air, Daheley was picked on for how she looked and became a running joke as a potential date for visiting pop stars. “There was an assumption based on the music I liked, so Chris would try to set me up with Tinie Tempah or another black guest,” she said.

She credits Nick Grimshaw, who succeeded Moyles as the frontman of the Breakfast Show in 2012 – not “producers, editors or managers” – for “normalising” Radio 1, doing away with hierarchy and “a culture where the star is untouchable”.

She marvels at how different things were when she started out. “Put it this way, when we did our final [Moyles Breakfast Show] and could invite friends and family, I wouldn’t have dreamed of inviting my 6ft 5in dad in a turban there. Maybe that was down to me, trying to play down my otherness, but it was about how you would be perceived. I used to think it was a compliment that people assumed I went to public school and would tell me I spoke so well. Argh! Go on, finish that sentence; you mean you speak so well for a brown person,” she said."
Last edited by neilt0 on Sun Oct 28, 2018 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#512806
That's really sad she had that experience. Her tears in the final show seemed genuine and I didn't feel she was treated any differently to anyone else - look at the stick Aled, Fincham, Rachel and Carrie got. Dave, Dom and Chris took plenty of ribbing themselves. But you can't know everything listening in.
#512823
This is really interesting. I didn't pick up on those vaguely racist elements, like trying to set her up with the black guests, but of course she's right. And particularly interesting that she feels Grimmy, who was criticised for having 'pop star mates', was the one to normalise the culture. I think him being gay and therefore possibly more aware of the issues facing marginalised staff may have played a part in that. I wonder what Chris thinks of her criticism - I think he would probably be quite defensive about his actions, because nobody likes being called out for playing a part in racist culture, however small. But our job as white people should always be to sit down, listen and learn, so hopefully he might do that.
#512827
So, as we never have really got the real reason as to why the Radio 1 show was wound up......do we suspect at all that this may have been one of the straws that broke the camel's back? That alongside a deteriorating relationship between Dave and Chris and the bosses thought it best to pull the plug? It would certainly make some sort of sense.
#512828
fatboydave73 wrote:So, as we never have really got the real reason as to why the Radio 1 show was wound up......do we suspect at all that this may have been one of the straws that broke the camel's back? That alongside a deteriorating relationship between Dave and Chris and the bosses thought it best to pull the plug? It would certainly make some sort of sense.


I remember listening to the announcement live that Chris was going - so did he know the show was finishing so he did Jesus Christ or was it the other way around?


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#512831
Kylerickards1974 wrote:
fatboydave73 wrote:So, as we never have really got the real reason as to why the Radio 1 show was wound up......do we suspect at all that this may have been one of the straws that broke the camel's back? That alongside a deteriorating relationship between Dave and Chris and the bosses thought it best to pull the plug? It would certainly make some sort of sense.


I remember listening to the announcement live that Chris was going - so did he know the show was finishing so he did Jesus Christ or was it the other way around?


Looking back we knew he was doing the musical and the fact there was never any confirmation of how the show would work during the tour should've been a giveaway. I think Chris had expected he'd end up doing the 10 years on breakfast he'd wanted to do (remember he'd signed a contract until 2014).

From what we got out of the Nolan interview it suggests he didn't have any notice. From memory he had a meeting after the show with his agent and Ben where Ben said it was time to finish the show and Chris thought they'd get another meeting in the diary to work out how to wind it up turns out they wanted to announce it in the next news bulletin! His agent went ballistic etc. he managed to persuade Ben to let him do the announcement (and he wouldn't leak it etc) the next day.
#512833
Chris never mentioned Tina's heritage on air. Not once. For a show that ran for 3 hours a day for years, that's pretty impressive.
The quote about not inviting her father to the last show may be telling.
#512840
Genuinely did not realise she was Indian. Or if I did, I quickly forgot it.

I assumed she was mixed race from pictures.

Not once did Moyles mention the fact she’s Indian did he?
Listening back to old shows, as I have been recently, it’s never comes up.

He dug her out for having “crap taste” in music, and said she’s “mental” for having mayo in a bacon sandwich. None of which mentioned her race?



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#512841
The article feels inaccurate tbh, even by Tina's recollection of events although I obviously only know about on-air stuff.

I don't recall her being picked on for what she looked like. On the show she got picked on for her terrible signing voice, her taste in 90's R&B and being a high maintenance girlfriend. There was a running gag about her family being rich but that was because she was living in her parents annex and seemingly nothing to do with her heritage.

It's strange she mentions Tinie Tempah when Marvin from JLS was a running gag for Tina to hook up with, granted he's still a black man but I'm pretty sure she offered up the fact she fancied him, albeit off air which then got brought on air.

Her heritage was brought up once though, they were discussing something from Indian culture, it could have been cusine, and either Dave or Aled asked Tina for clarification prompting Chris to argue why Tina would know as to pretend not to know she's Indian, or rather that that sort of assumption could be insulting based on her skin colour.

To put it in perspective though, and not to dismiss her comments, she did have a rough ride like all the woman did on that show however Aled had to put up with the most, especially in the early years. I find a lot of the homophobic ribbing really uncomfortable listening in 2018.

Show is up, and platinum: https://archive.org/dow[…]