"I'm eating a sock because of a bet I lost. Scott in Cumbria" (Radio 5)

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	Radio 5
Date:	10/03/09 (94 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smart radio, funny callers, decent hosts

Disadvantages: No music, can get repeptitve

Where would we be without Radio 5...ok I'm going to be frank, as I'm deciding long winded reviews about my true feelings on things are often critisised (including my venting rant cum review at the job centre becoming locked...), so lets be honest most of you lot don't listen to Radio 5. Well I do, and believe it or not I enjoy it, whether it's the live football, riding in my grandads car, the rare boxing they have on or more often than not Fighting Talk, I love Radio 5, in fact I guess I love talk radio.

Radio 5 is a 24 hour radio channel (unlike some local ones) and has a regular time table of shows (a link to the schedule can be found at the bottom of this article). Though mostly it's a political update and news broadcast station with lots of sports on, which means it's not really for everyone. I know most folk would rather listen to music than Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode discussing the merits of the newest film releases (maingly as Kermodes a but of a tit in my opinion), but I like a bit of simple honest talk, random phone calls and discussion about anything.

Some of the shows do seem to be a bit of a new show wanna be (Morning Reports) and some interest me as much as a dead frog by the side of the road, (Wake Up to Money would be the prime example). Though on the whole the shows have good presenters and discuss interesting (not always important but usually interesting) topics often on some sort of news story (Monday this week had Victoria Derbyshire discussing the government statitsics that shows 1 in 5 adults in the UK believed a man should be allowed to hit his wife or girlfriend).
Admittedly things like this case were a bit biased, with only 1 caller (that I heard I was on the way to an interview) saying it was fine and that he'd done it himself after being hit with a pan of potatoes (Ms Derbyshire didn't enquire...). But even with the bias, it's often good to listen to.
The bulk of the evening broadcasts are sports dominated, be it live football commentary, the monday night club (just generally talk about sports and calls from famous people in the sporting world), and 6-0-6 (a football fans call in show). This is where I'd usually go to if I can't find a TV or an online stream, as it's often fair (though with bias to british clubs), and often with some good commentators.
Later on theres shows with people like Richard Bacon or Steven Nolan who are brilliant and slightly more edgy than the earlier shows, willing to ask pressing questions and often have callers who resemble the typical youtube comment maker. Although for some people to hear right wing buffoons saying that their shouldn't be anyone but english folk in the uk (I swear I heard someone say that) may be painful, to many of us it's more humour and allows us a cheap giggle at their ignorance. The arguments on these shows are often some what heated which makes great radio, and their often Caller V Caller or Caller V (supposed) Expert which can be entertaining if rather pointless at midnight.
Up All Night (I've not actually listened to to the show in a while) used to be hosted regularly by Dotun Adebyo (sp?) who was a rather intellectual type of chappy, imagine a Nigerian Stephen Fry and you've now pictured Dotun, a lovely smart guy who never seems to speak down on either his guests, listeners or callers.
A regular feature of Up All Night on a Friday night is "The World Football Phone-In" which is for you football nerds, and often looks at world football, where obscure players are mentioned in their plenty, with BBC sports correspondents from every corner of the earth being utilised to feed back to the public.

One thing that must be noted, is that music on the station is very rare and only really done if the program has on a musician and plays a few of their songs to try and let the listener know who they are. On Monday for example they had Keane (I think) who have a new album out trying to interview the band and hype up the CD. So don't come on here if you want your fill of Ne-yo or Chris Brown or any of that supposedly "gud music" (that IMO sounds like someones trying to verbally assualt my poor innocent ears). The station doesn't appeal to a wid audience because of this, and much like it's 4th brother (Radio 4 >_>) it's aimed at the intellectual or the socially knowledgeable amongst us who want to know whats going on in the world as a whole, not the charts and general pop culture.

A host of local BBC radio stations (Radio Cumbria being one) join the Radio 5 Broadcasts at around midnight (if I remember correctly) as Radio 5 takes on the available FM frequency (as it's MW or DAB only the rest of the time).

Links:
Online-http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/fivelive.sh tml
Schdeule- http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/schedules

Note:
The title for the review comes from a text I had read out on Richard Bacons show

Summary: For the wanna be smart ass in me