He may be starting a new chapter in his broadcasting career, but for Dave Moore (Today FM, weekdays) old habits clearly die hard. Presenting his first show since the end of his double act with Dermot Whelan, Moore sounds as chirpily confident as ever. Even so, it’s notable that he recruits not one but two temporary sidekicks from the Today FM roster for the occasion, roping in his station colleagues Ian Dempsey and Pamela Joyce as inaugural competitors on his new music quiz. Having spent 21 years behind the microphone with Whelan at his side, Moore seems, understandably, to be itching for an on-air partner, just as an amputee can still feel a newly missing limb.
For all his radio experience, Moore is trying to, ahem, find his feet during this first week of the post-Dermot & Dave era. Never the most understated of broadcasters, he sounds overeager to the point of frenzy as he sets out the stall for his midmorning show. Key elements include a rotating “guest announcer” drawn from listeners – “In other words, I want to do less work,” he quips – and, more ambitiously, a daily “cup of tea and a chat” with a celebrity, though one suspects that, as the weeks progress, the definition of fame will become ever more elastic.
First up is Nicky Byrne, who counts as actually famous, whatever one may think of his musical output. The likable Westlife singer and sometime 2FM presenter puts Moore at ease, even giving gifts to his hitherto slightly nervy host. “I presented a radio show a million years ago, so I know about the slumps and the highs,” Byrne says, unsubtly emphasising his multitasking primacy.
By Wednesday Moore is already visiting the shallow end of the celeb pool, as he talks to the podcaster and online impressionist Al Foran. The encounter initially revolves around decidedly exclusive interests, namely the pair’s shared hometown of Portmarnock and passion for Manchester United. (The English team also feature during Moore’s conversation with the former Republic of Ireland footballer and fellow fan Stephanie Roche: “We both bleed red,” the host says, as though this were a distinguishing feature.) In fairness, Foran displays his skill as a caricaturist to good effect. But the spectacle of a presenter riffing with an irreverent mimic echoes Mario Rosenstock’s venerable Gift Grub slot on Dempsey’s breakfast show, hardly the kind of fresh image one expects from a new programme.
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Of course, there are going to be minor quibbles in the early stages of any show. And Moore has much going in his favour. He has an infectiously upbeat style, which along with his matey manner and dad-at-a-party humour – he retains his trademark “bad jokes” segment, which lives down to its name in suitably groaning fashion – helps create an appealingly easy-going atmosphere. And, after a successful partnership with Whelan that yielded Today FM’s second most popular programme, with 216,000 listeners at last count, Moore surely deserves a shot at the slot in his own right, now his erstwhile wingman has departed to concentrate on teaching meditation.
But Moore’s show is a markedly different beast from the Dermot & Dave franchise. Most obviously, it lacks the zippy chemistry he struck up with Whelan, in which he was more the straight man than the jester. The host jauntily interacts with peers like Dempsey or regular contributors such as Seán Reidy, but so far his programme lacks the mischievous (and occasionally merciless) banter he enjoyed with his former co-presenter, who brought a skewed comic sensibility to the equation.
And while the duo staked out a distinctive space for themselves when they arrived at Today FM in 2014, to replace Anton Savage’s talkshow, Moore now finds himself ploughing a more well-worn furrow, as a perma-sunny middle-aged male jock in the mould of his daytime stationmates Dempsey and Ray Foley. Nothing wrong with that, especially on a commercial, pop-heavy operation, but his USP is less obvious. The coming months will tell whether Moore makes the slot his own.
With Today FM’s weekday schedule increasingly following the same formula, Matt Cooper appears more and more like an outlier. On the face of it, the presenter of The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays) is an unlikely wild card: he’s less swashbuckling than solid and steady, occasional expressions of exasperation notwithstanding. But amid the sea of peppy jingles and listeners’ quizzes cramming the rest of Today FM’s output, Cooper’s wide-ranging brief and expository approach practically render him a subversive presence.
With the political world not yet fully cranked up after the summer, health matters dominate Cooper’s agenda: he has in-depth discussions on psychosomatic illness, Caesarean sections and bariatric surgery. The latter item highlights the host’s ability to guide his audience through specialist subjects, as he examines the number of people who have died after weight-loss procedures abroad, particularly in Turkey.
Speaking to Prof Helen Heneghen of St Vincent’s University Hospital, Cooper drills down into the data, hearing of a threefold increase in patients reporting complications from these trips. But he avoids any xenophobic pitfalls, pointing to the costs and delays that prompt people to go abroad in the first place, as well as the (low) mortality risks inherent in such surgery anywhere. And while Heneghen is surely correct that such life-changing procedures require months-long multidisciplinary methodologies, the host cites anecdotal evidence commending the foreign medical path: “I know people who’ve done it, who regard it as transformational.”
That Cooper can take complex, potentially problematic material and transform it into a piece of stimulating yet informative radio is a tribute to his clear and deceptively casual style. Calm yet incisive: any surgeon would be proud.
