Revolution jock leaves over silence row

Mid-morning presenter Alan Nield has departed Oldham station 96.2 The Revolution after apparently falling out with management when they decided against airing 2 minutes silence for Armistice Day on Friday.

Alan – known to listeners as ‘Big Al’ says listeners had complained via text message and on Twitter, blaming him personally for the non-existent tribute to fallen soldiers.

The Oldham Chronicle reports that he voicetracked the rest of his show and left the station, later receiving a call from station owner Steve Penk telling him he was sacked.

Al told the paper: “I am amazed that they took issue with me leaving the studio when the station often runs prerecorded shows yet they said nothing about the Armistice Day issue. I am just sad that I will not be able to speak to the listeners. I wanted to take the heat out of the Armistice Day issue and give us all time to consider a response but that opportunity is not going to arise.”

Station manager John Evington told RadioToday.co.uk that three weeks ago they had decided to run a silence on Remembrance Sunday, along with a produced feature on 11th November (Friday) reflecting local and national events rather than just ‘opening the IRN fader’. This was communicated to staff in advance.

He added that the station was in no way disrespectful. “What we did on the day sounded fantastic and, as Steve has said, we are hugely proud of what was a terrific team effort,” said John.

John told us: “In terms of public response, it’s always difficult to please all the people all the time. We received 12 negative text messages on the morning of the 11th from people who felt we should have ‘gone silent’. (4 of them from the same factory in Rochdale) . Since then, however, as the story becomes increasingly twisted, we have received additional feedback from people who didn’t actually hear what we did. Much of this has been venomous, hurtful and offensive in the extreme.”

He added: “Both Steve and I made repeated attempts to resolve things with Al but he was not prepared to speak which gave us no alternative.”

Alan has told RadioToday.co.uk that neither Steve or John had made any attempt to contact him, and said that the voicetracking of the remainder of Friday’s show was authorised by John at the time.