This might have passed you by, what with all the other news to savour/slog through/weep over, but Ken Bruce is now the most popular DJ in the UK. Yes, that Ken Bruce. The gently avuncular Radio 2 mid-morning veteran bagged the highest number of listeners in the latest Rajars (the official measure of radio audiences).
Bruce’s station compadre, Zoe Ball, also did well: with 7.5 million listeners, she hosts the most popular breakfast show in the country. But that’s just a warm-up for the biggest radio show out there. Bruce’s 9.30am-12.00pm weekday programme is listened to by 8.7 million people, 1.2 million more than Ball; the largest audience on UK radio.
The 71-year-old has been at the helm of his show for 34 years (apart from a two-year hiatus between 1990 and 1992), so this lurch into the limelight might seem a surprise. Bruce is used to playing second fiddle to larger personalities (the much-adored Terry Wogan, bumptious Chris Evans). But times have changed, and audiences too. The 1990s rave/indie generation have got older, cast aside their cool and remembered their love of classic pop. If they’re spooked by Radio 6 Music’s recent changes, or irritated by commercial radio’s unadventurous playlist, then the non-annoying parts of Radio 2 remain. And Bruce manages not to annoy most people. Which might sound like faint praise but isn’t. “What I like about him,” says one devoted fan, “is that he doesn’t do irritating gush. He doesn’t talk over the tracks. He respects the music, you can tell.”
There are other factors. The pandemic has changed morning listening habits. The peak time for radio listening (around 8am) has become less of a peak, more of a table-top that plateaus from 8am to 10.30am. Home-schooling and a lack of commute during the first, March 2020, lockdown started this trend, and radio schedules were rejigged to reflect our indoor lives. Schedules have been back to normal since autumn 2020 but listeners’ habits haven’t completely shifted. (Bruce’s show isn’t the only mid-morning affair that’s now bigger than breakfast: on LBC, for the first time ever, James O’Brien’s 10am-1pm show narrowly beat Nick Ferrari’s breakfast show listener figures.)
The pandemic also highlighted listeners’ desire for warm, comfort-radio, at which Bruce excels. His rumbly Scottish tones might have some people running for the off button (“too smooth”, “too golf club”, “the precise accent of a middle class geography teacher who’s very disappointed in your efforts this year”, according to some non-lovers), but his energy is more upbeat than you might expect, his timing crisp, and many find him soothing. More: they actively respect his presenting style.
“He’s a real DJ,” says long-time fan Bob Stanley, from Saint Etienne (the band like Bruce so much that they featured him on their 2017 album Home Counties). “It’s what he’s always done. Radio 2 has had a move towards celebrities being DJs for a few years now, and they can grow into the job, but this is what Ken Bruce does and he’s really good at it.”
Off air, Bruce is acknowledged as a good guy: a friend who’s written jokes for Radio 2 says he’s “very up for a laugh”, and a sound engineer who worked across Radio 2 and Radio 4 for 20 years informs that he is universally liked at the BBC. On air, Bruce is noticeably good at dealing with the public, especially during Popmaster, the hugely successful pop quiz on every weekday between 10.30 and 11am.
What do you mean, you don’t know Popmaster? There are spin-off books and board games. Just type #popmaster into Twitter to see how popular it is. People stop work to play along with a cup of tea, they write down their daily scores; they have family Whatsapp groups to compare results. Some of them even enter, and play live on the show against another listener, to win a DAB radio, plus a great deal of music-nerd kudos. Many don’t do as well as they’d hope. A friend tells me, with some sadness: “My average is 33, but when I went on I only got 24. I was beaten by a very difficult tie break.” The Fall’s Paul Hanley has Popmastered (he got 21). When I tell Stanley that a mutual chum has been on Popmaster twice and won both times, he is noticeably impressed.
And, you know, once you’re Popmastering, you may well start listening to the whole show, and start clocking the more-out-there-than-you-might-imagine music choices (the Kursaal Flyers, Boz Scaggs, the Babys). Join the millions who are grateful he’s still there, gently Ken-ing on. As another friend says (I never knew so many mates were Ken Bruce fans before writing this): “He’s always been there. Steady, reliable, upbeat, charming, self-deprecating and never a show-off. That consistency, especially during the pandemic, means a lot to us.”