Every radio presenter knows that at some point, they will leave their radio station. Some see it coming. Some don’t. Some get to broadcast a final show to say goodbye, others don’t.
Today XFM’s breakfast show host Jon Holmes broadcast his final show for the station. His goodbye, I think, was a model. It wasn’t a total goodbye as he will be the weekend breakfast show host of the all new Radio X which replaces XFM a little later this month, but even so I think the way he did it is a lesson to any radio presenter who has to say goodbye to an audience they have built up over a period of time.
We can all think of examples of presenters who seem to think they are more important than the station that has seen fit to employ them, and embark on self indulgent rants about how awfully they’ve been treated. Dave Lee Travis is the obvious one that comes to mind, when he resigned from Radio 1 “live on air” back in 1993. But there have been plenty of others.
Professionalism takes many forms, but staying classy to the end is one way to demonstrate it.
I doff my presenter cap to Jon Holmes. He’s a class act and I look forward to listening to his new Radio X show.
