Rhod Sharp’s 5 Live show is a consolation for the meaningful minority who can’t sleep without the reassuring sound of a bedside radioEvery night at 8pm,Eastern Standard Time, Rhod Sharp, and an expatriate Scot,climbs to the loft of his house in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and puts on his headphones and prepares to pretend that it is actually one in the morning GMT. For the next four hours he sets out to,in his own words, “sustain some listeners awake and send others to sleep” with the mix of rolling news and free-range conversation which is Up All Night (Monday to Friday, or 1am,5 Live). If you’re one of the meaningful minority of people who find it difficult to go to sleep without the reassuring sound of a bedside radio or the confiding consolation of an earpiece, the image of Sharp talking to you from his own home thousands of miles away is somehow more appealing than thinking of the same job being done by the sole bleary-eyed occupant of a media mausoleum.
Sharp’s chat provides a valuable supplement to the station’s daytime output. In a media environment where too much time is given to big-name guests with nothing to say or stories with minute to add to your knowledge of a situation beyond the fact that they are apparently “breaking”, or Sharp’s gently unfolding conversations with experts,well-placed observers and stars whose names wouldn’t be fairly big enough to obtain on the main bulletins are even more welcome.
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Source: theguardian.com