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Why Nick Lost The Show


Ever wanted to know exactly why Nick's familiar voice one day 
suddenly disappeared from the airwaves of Virgin 1215? Well 
here's where you can find out!

There are many different opinions about exactly why Nick Abbot was taken
off the radio phone-in show, and demoted to playing music only on Virgin
Radio.

The official reason given by Virgin was that they wanted to concentrate 
more on the music aspect of the radio station, and no longer felt that 
a chat show fitted in with the station's policy.

However, his relegation happened soon after the station was forced by the
Radio Authority to pay a £20,000 fine after Nick allowed a caller to 
recite an urban myth that "his friend" picked up a girl and as they were having 
sex he was so drunk that he threw up on her and passed out. She, in a fit of anger then squatted over
his unconscious frame and took a dump on his chest.

It was not his first fine, as the Radio Authority had previously enforced
a £5,000 fine on Virgin after the presenter took the piss out of 
Robbie Vincent from LBC, and a number of other complaints were also upheld
against him (Read article - Slime ball DJ was my Sex Pest).

After each of these incidents, Nick was suspended (or sent "holiday" as
listeners were told), and after their last big fine, Virgin decided enough 
was enough.

Nick went off on another 2 week 'holiday', and when he returned we
found that he was no longer on the familiar 7pm-10pm phone-in slot, but was 
instead on between 11pm and 2am playing only music marathons!

Many of the show's listeners think that it was a big mistake on Virgin's part
when they moved him to an earlier time slot. The talk show was originally on 
between 10pm and 1am every night, but the directors at the station decided 
for some reason to bring it forward into the earlier part of the evening.

To fans of the show, this move seemed completely unjustified, as the 
well-publicised DJ's short fuse and often agressive and offensive manner was
well known, and even though they told Nick to tone-down to suit the new
pre-watershed time-slot, the directors could not seriously have expected him
to do so.

This obviously meant that many more people heard it, and consequently the 
station received many more complaints in addition to the considerable amount
which they had received about Nick Abbot before the move, from people who
were not content with simply switching off their radio when they heard 
something they did not like.

The move was the first step towards Nick's downfall, the fines the last.
It is just a shame that a minority group of moaning do-gooders are able to
spoil the enjoyment of many others.

A spokesman for Virgin Radio said:

Virgin have been fined twice and it has cost us a lot of money, but we support
the Radio Authority and we do not beleive that offensive remarks belong on
commercial radio.

Since then, Nick has been moved twice, back on to the late night slot playing 
continuous 'music marathons', and then on to the 'drive-time' show where he was
allowed to talk more and play short clips of some of the old calls.

Then, however, he went on a two week holiday, and when he returned, he found
there was no job for him. His show on Virgin had been taken over by Nicky Horne.

Virgin boss Mark Storey commented:

When you broadcast close-to-the-edge material, sometimes you are going
to fall off. Virgin is a more-music-less-chat station, and for this reason 
we currently have no plans to bring back the phone-in show. Nick and I have 
decided that his talents are best suited to talk radio


Nick Says:

After they ditched the show I have had a lot of people ask what happened to
it, and it's meant a lot to me.

Right now the main man is working on Virgin Megastore Radio (VMR). This is the 'in-store'
radio station that's broadcast from the megastore in London via satellite to all the other 
stores in the U.K and Ireland.

He is also doing some cover work for Talk Radio, on 1053 & 1089 AM.

(1071 AM in this area - DAN)

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