Ljs: A week listening to ? Absolute Radio

Absolutely sort of OK ? the channel formerly known as Virgin is somewhere between Radio 2 and 6 Music

For the past week I have been listening to nothing but Absolute Radio. Well, I did slip once. I had a long drive to Stoke-on-Trent on Saturday and staying tuned to Absolute beyond Northampton is a challenge that requires dangerous retuning, as depending where you are in the country the station broadcasts on a series of obscure medium wave frequencies. Yes, medium wave. This may be why their afternoon show is called Home Time rather than Drive Time. Listening to something on medium wave feels as counter-intuitive as wearing jeans to the gym or making coffee with a teapot. But there it is.

Absolute though is trying everything it can to be heard by somebody. There's iPhone apps and BlackBerry apps, you can listen on your PlayStation and they're one of the few UK stations who have realised that there's a very handy radio section in iTunes. You can also find them on digital radio of course, where they've spawned numerous offspring in the form of Absolute 80s, Absolute 90s, Absolute 00s and Absolute Classic Rock. On Frank Skinner's Sunday morning show he revealed that there were two further stations planned ? Absolute Avant Garde "music isn't just for fools" and Absolute Absolution "for estranged roman catholics, because sorry seems to be the hardest word".

Like a pizza company that promises to deliver your meal in 30 minutes much of Absolute's daytime schedule is branded under the banner of something they call "the no repeat guarantee" although there's no mention of what you get if you do spot them repeating themselves. Their trails and jingles ? all performed by actor and bon viveur Matt Berry in his finest Des Lynam tones ? are repeated rather a lot though. Currently they're plugging "faces for radio" tying together their three star presenters ? Christian O'Connell, Dave Gorman and the aforementioned Skinner ? as unpleasant looking fellas who make fairly decent radio.

Actually all three are pretty great, O'Connell is excellent when riffing with an idea ? last week bullying his producer into a spontaneous mission to the Monster Munch packing plant ? while Gorman and Skinner, who host Saturday and Sunday morning shows respectively use their time on air to ramble entertainingly. Thankfully, unlike your standard DJs, the contents of Gorman and Skinner's minds are very funny. Frank revealed that he had been the recent victim of a "drive-by egging" an event he wondered could be connected to his over exposure as the face of Walkers Comic Relief crisps. "I'm fed up with the whole crisp thing," he grizzled before recalling that last week he'd been at a football match where they handed out 8,000 free packets. After the game the streets were littered with empty packets with "my stupid face with my seven quid haircut just blowing around West Bromwich". Gorman meanwhile was fielding listener suggestions for people's names for their TV remotes of which "the telly commander" was the best. As has become gang show tradition (Chris Addison's 5 Live show is the worst offender), Gorman had several people in the studio laughing not very convincingly along to his jokes, which was a bit irritating. One of them, Danielle Ward, would have been brilliantly funny if she didn't sound as if she was reading her jokes from a notebook (lots of comedians on the radio fail to realise the difference between reading and speaking).

When Absolute is home to comedy people it's great fun ? although Ian Lee's late night show does give a frightening glimpse of what the world would be like if it was entirely populated by whacky students (one feature this week included a syncronised swimmer and a deep sea diver conversing to each other via dolphin noises ? yes it's that krazy). When it does football it's a bit Lidl FM with its combination of the worst Premier League game of the day and Ian Wright shouting about ARSE-nal. But when it's just about the music it's like an endless K-tel Father's Day compilation album. The lack of interference by their non big-name DJs is admirable ? one day I heard the full 10-minute version of Layla complete with lengthy fade out, you'd never get that on a BBC station.

After 48 hours my wife cracked, complaining that listening to Absolute had made her feel as if she was a 45-year-old man. A bit cruel, I thought, until I realised I was a 45-year-old man and therefore capable of withstanding far higher proportions of Paul Weller and Kings of Leon than any other demographic. You can go for hours on Absolute without hearing a female singer, let alone presenter, and when you do chances are it'll be Sheryl Crow ? a female artist who has somehow snuck under their bloke detector ? or a Weight Watchers advert.

Thankfully Absolute is available in nice podcast-sized chunks with all the Dad Rock and ads taken out. I'd recommend full exposure to Skinner and Gorman and bite-size chunks of the rest when you fancy something somewhere between Radio 2 and 6 Music. It's absolutely sort of OK.

Johnny Dee

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