Absolute Radio 60s is On Air!

Go away and have a listen. Or find it on RadioPlayer.
During the pre-launch period, the station made a little bit of press because it banned Cliff Richard from the station. I’ll stay out of the argument about the rights and wrongs of this, except to point out that Absolute Radio 60s is trying to differentiate itself from other “gold” services offering a view of the sixties more in keeping with an Absolute Radio audience.
On Friday, Chris Evans on Radio 2 retaliated by playing non-stop Cliff songs in aid of Children in Need.
That’s interesting because back in 2005, I wrote about something that took place years earlier at Virgin Radio. At the time Chris Evans was on the breakfast show:
Due to some slight or other, followed by a “ban” on playing his records, we had fans camping out on the pavement in front of the station protesting. Virgin put out a statement that spoke about the station banning his records. Of course it played out wonderfully for the PR, since Virgin banning Cliff is a bit like Virgin banning Wagner – completely meaningless. Still you did have to step around the tents on the pavement to get into work, and they did stay out for about a week.
Here’s what BBC News reported at the time. And I can’t help noticing that Radio 2 refused to playlist his single the following year.
Clearly Chris Evans has patched things up over the last ten years!
And some things will always generate PR…
Read more about the launch day here, and read Pete Mitchell’s thoughts on the station here.


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