Jon Gaunt feature

[faceless]

Hail, King Jon
The Sunday Times
January 27, 2008
Paul Donovan

It has not been a happy time for radio presenters. Andy Kershaw (Radio 3) has been sent to jail, with the BBC yet to decide if it will have him back. Kevin Greening (Smooth) has been found dead, and was buried at a secret funeral nine days ago. Grooverider (Radio 1) has been charged with possessing cannabis and pornography in Dubai. Rob Ellis (Galaxy) has been disciplined for referring on air to “spackers”, a term derived from “spastic”.

Yet for one man, the year could not have started better. Jon Gaunt is king of the road on Talksport, which is white van man’s radio, having just emerged as the most complained-about radio broadcaster of 2007. Definitely no relation to John of Gaunt, the 14th-century Plantagenet, the commoner “Gaunty” hosts the station’s morning phone-in and last year attracted 48 protests to Ofcom from listeners, who accused him of bias, offensive language and commercial plugs. This is quite an achievement in commercial speech radio, which always seeks to generate more heat than light, and therefore feasts hungrily on any controversy.

“Chris Moyles was his nearest rival in terms of complaints, with a measly 22,” says Talksport’s proud spokesman. (These figures, incidentally, come from The Radio Magazine, a weekly periodical indispensable to the industry, but largely unknown outside it.)

Gaunt, who has robust views on bogus asylum-seekers, illegal immigrants and what he calls “the great unwashed”, has had complaints upheld against him in the past. One followed remarks he made when (on BBC Three Counties Radio) he threatened to go round to a listener’s house with a baseball bat. It should be said, though, that none of last year’s 48 complaints about him was upheld. Nor were those about Moyles. A great deal of this area turns on opinion, rather than fact, and usually entails some degree of subjective judgment.

None of the complaints about Radio 1 (45), Radio 2 (42) or Radio 4 (75, which made it the BBC’s most contentious network) was upheld, either. But, before people conclude that Ofcom is becoming too lenient, it is worth remembering that it has reprimanded Moyles in the past, and that Radio 1’s breakfast host is considerably less offensive now. In addition, five of the 140 complaints made last year about Talksport as a whole were upheld. Three were against its weekend host, the Respect MP George Galloway, for attacking a political opponent on air. No regulatory setup is perfect, and human beings, being intrinsically flawed, can always be unfair. Yet the complaints system does help to keep things decent and reasonable, acting as a check on nastiness.

I admire Gaunt’s energy, the speed with which he thinks on his feet, the resolution in his soul that has pulled him from juvenile delinquency to the national airwaves. I agree with much of what he says, and his analysis of the BBC’s left-leaning culture is wholly accurate. Yet he has the most awful voice – rather like that Midlands spiv Matt Crawford in The Archers – and appears never to be troubled by any doubts about his view of the world. Sometimes it is difficult to detect much of a sense of humour. But he is a star, as well as a rabid columnist on our co-owned newspaper The Sun, and stars can be very strange.

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45 complaints in a year? We get more than that!

[MWalk]

That's because people can complain at you directly. I bet if people could personally give Gaunty a bollocking, he'd get a few million.

[major.tom]

So Gaunt threating to show up at an audience member's home with a baseball bat is ok, but Galloway criticizing a political opponent is out-of-bounds?

That sounds fair.

/sarcasm

[nekokate]

[major.tom]

[nekokate]

[major.tom]

You must have me mixed up with someone else. I wasn't picking fights (though I did see that thread you're talking about).

I guess I missed that quote when I read it last night. My mistake.

[faceless]

Major's one of the old-skool! That other person last night was a new member who didn't know the lay of the land...

[nekokate]

[faceless]

Gaunt's on Question Time tonight - and only 2 minutes in he's bellowing like a stuck pig... what a bore/boar/boor

[Stone]

Very strange that someone like Gaunt would back the Firefighters.

[Colston]

[luke]

good that he is backing them, there aren't many in the media who are ... james o'brian is one of the few i've heard

James O'Brien of LBC radio launched a ferocious assault on LFB's lies and propaganda regarding the firefighters' strike yesterday. It's a fascinating exposé

[faceless]

Gaunt's started a new podcast. It's the same old shit. In fact, I'm listening to the latest one (15) and he's referred to council nazis, the very thing that got him kicked off talksport

http://www.jongaunt.co.uk/