Brett Davidson : In your ear
Faced with a rash of new radio stations as competition, 5fm has once again spruced up its image and its line-up.
The major change, it claims, is that for the first time in the station’s 22-year history, all the DJs are African.
No – the station hasn’t abandoned its brash commercialism for political correctness. All it means is that there are no more British accents -at least no more genuine ones.
The trump card in the new 5fm lineup is Mark Gillman, formerly of Cape Town’s Good Hope, who has bumped Alex Jay off the prime morning slot into the less glamorous 9-12 zone. Gillman is touted as irreverent, with a mission to “rise up to slay the sloth, the pretentious and the fat. There are no sacred cows.”
After that kind of boasting, one expects big things. Only the real thing is a bit of a let-down. Not that it’s all Gillman’s fault.
The morning show is so packed with signature tunes and promotions and adverts and competitions that there’s hardly time left for a programme at all. Gillman has a reputation for technically sound radio and he comes with a cult following. There is some lively and varied music, and Gillman is funny from time to time, certainly irreverent – like when he asked boxer Gary Murray why he was so ugly (fortunately for Gillman, Murray was on the phone). He relies on personality – he comes across as a chatty oke who delights in being naughty – a bit like a young child who says “bare bum” and giggles uncontrollably. So, he talks about black kids whose heads stick to velcro walls.
No, definitely not PC, is Mark Gillman. Nor is night-time jock Sasha Martinengo, judging by a recent joke about new movie titles planned by the “faggifying” Disney corporation, but it’d go down a whole lot better if they tried to offend everybody, not just blacks, freedom fighters, gays and women.
The female DJs seem to have been restricted to weekends. The best of them, Michelle Constant, can only be heard late on Fridays and in a two-hander with Alex Jay on Sundays. Constant is serious about music and a great supporter of homegrown sounds, although on 5 that means Amersham and Springbok Nude Girls rather than Ringo and Mahlasela.
But if rock’s what you like, there should be enough on her show to keep you happy. In addition to Constant there’s the laid-back Phil Wright for the hippies, and Barney Simon for those who like to look depressed and wear black.
For the more pop-minded, there is the smooth-voiced Martinengo, who can be heard six days a week, in a programme packed with loud bangs and other electronic noises. He plays a wide selection of boppy music, and keeps the cyberkids happy with e-mail messages and internet news. Martinengo’s programme best illustrates the station’s new direction, which leans more and more towards the lower end of the station’s 16- to-34-year-old target group. After all, this is a station where “classics” means hits from the 1980s.
Overall 5fm’s useful for keeping up with what’s on the top 40, there’s so much great music being played elsewhere these days that it merits but a short visit as you flip through the frequencies on the remote.
– 5fm can be found in Johannesburg and Pretoria on 98.0FM, Cape Town 89FM, Port Elizabeth 89.2FM, Durban 89.9FM and Bloemfontein 91.6FM.