A LIFE IN MUSIC bY DANGUM B L E Words

It’s hard to shake the sense of familiarity that pervades when Dermot O’Leary joins Headliner over Zoom. As one of the best known and best loved faces of TV and radio from the past two decades, the feeling that you’re catching up with an old friend or acquaintance is almost palpable. The warm smile, enthusiastic cadence, and reassuring presence that have been his stock in trade for so long are immediately disarming...

“Sorry there isn’t anything interesting to look at,” he laughs, almost apologetically. “We’re renting a little house next to ours which we are doing up, and that’s quite stressful this close to Christmas. We don’t really have any rooms, but I’m just glad we have a roof over our heads!”

At times, the humble, chatty, and occasionally self-deprecating personality that emerges over the course of our conversation seems almost at odds with his standing as one of the most recognized and successful broadcasters in the UK this side of the millennium. Few broadcasters can lay claim to the kind of 21st century pop culture ubiquity that O’Leary has achieved. Following a stint on Big Brother’s Little Brother during the reality show’s early ‘00s heyday, as well as a regular spot on the fledgling XFM (now Radio X), his time presenting The X Factor cemented his place as one of the nation’s most bankable presenters. Since 2004 he has also had his own Saturday show on BBC Radio 2 and, amongst many other high-profile gigs too numerous to mention, hosted The BRITs, Comic Relief, Children In Need, Sports Relief, the National TV Awards and This Morning

Yet in spite of the vastly varied nature of his work over the past

20 years, music has always been the driving force in his career. In addition to his weekly radio show, he tells us he is consistently looking for new and exciting ways to tell stories from across the musical spectrum. His Reel Stories series on BBC2 has seen him conduct candid chats with the likes of Dave Grohl, Kylie, Noel Gallagher and Robbie Williams about the highs and lows of their careers, while his latest project, Radio 2 All Stars, which ran from December 26-29 on Radio 2 and the BBC Sounds app, found O’Leary talking with some of the most iconic names in broadcast, as they share stories from their time in the business.

“I saw an ad for the Match Of The Day podcast,” he says, explaining how he came up with the idea for All Stars, “and I don’t listen to many sports podcasts, but it was this lovely warm fireside between Gary Lineker, Ian Wright and Alan Shearer just talking about their favorite strikers, and it hit me that we have all this amazing talent at Radio 2, people who have these amazing anecdotes about musical legends, and we never hear them. I thought we were missing a trick.”

Which begs the question, who are some of O’Leary’s personal ‘all stars’?

“Well, on the broadcasting side there was Terry Wogan and Jonathan Ross, just because of how great they were. And then Chris Evans and Johnny Vaughan.

“In terms of meeting artists, Springsteen and McCartney are hard to top. They are just incredibly magnanimous, giving, smart, wise… to spend time in their company was amazing. Then latterly, people like Dave Grohl. We did a Reel Stories with him, and Foo Fighters and Radio 2 go back so far, from when he was starting that band and coming out of the members of Nirvana.

“One of the great things about working on The X Factor was that we’d put all the effort into the Saturday show because it was the big bells and whistles, entertainment spectacular, and then Sunday was almost like Top Of The Pops. You’d have a recap of what happened last night and then on Sunday it’d be like, ‘holy shit, Gaga is on tonight! Or Rihanna, Beyonce’… it was extraordinary.”

Having settled into a comfortable role on Big Brother’s Little Brother , O’Leary says he was initially hesitant to make the leap across to The X Factor. However, it didn’t take too long to realise that snubbing the chance to front a bona fide TV phenomenon was never seriously an option.

“I was a producer on Little Brother and it was such an exciting time to work on Big Brother ,” he recalls. “Then they offered me the transfer to the Premier League and there was all the pressure and everything that comes with that, but I knew I had to take it.

“The first show was a complete sensory overload,” he continues with a laugh. “Mrs O – Sharon Osborne –had two of her artists in the bottom two and she just threw her shoes off and shouted, ‘I’m off’! And I was like, ‘what? You can’t just leave’! But she refused to choose between the two. And there was a great quote afterwards where she told the producer, ‘you want reality, this is f***ing reality’, and slammed the door! It was a lot of fun to do. I know people can be sneery about it, but think about the amount of really good artists it has launched over the years. It’s done a good job.”

Alongside the charming, breezy manner, there is a discernible passion and excitement for his work that reveals itself at various points, particularly when recalling his X Factor days. It’s also evident when discussing many of the more music-oriented jobs he has undertaken so far. As he explains, music has been his first love since childhood.

“I grew up in a house of music,” he says. “And growing up in the ‘80s going into the ‘90s was a really exciting time for music. Having the charts and Top Of The Pops and the Saturday pilgrimage into town to buy records set the torch alight. But I was a million miles away from even thinking about working in music and being a broadcaster.”

After a spell working at WH Smith – “I thought I was going to be behind the record counter but ended up on pens!” – and a year spent traveling after completing a degree in politics, O’Leary landed a job as a runner at a documentary production company.

“I was super interested in broadcasting,” he states. “I love politics, but it wasn’t something I saw myself pursuing a career in. I wanted to work in telly but didn’t know if that was possible. I sent out about 200 letters and ended up getting this job as a runner. Then I just grafted, made myself indispensable and loved every minute of it.

“After about six months they asked me what I fancied doing. I told this guy I’d like to do something in front of camera. He took pity and gave me a gig for a pilot. Nothing came of it but at the end I had a showreel and an agent. Then you have your tools to go into battle and try to get some work.”

While his CV is overflowing with all manner of highprofile presenting roles, the one constant in his career has been his Saturday show on Radio 2. Having cut his teeth in radio in the very early ‘00s with XFM, which at the time was home to a wealth of up-and-coming talent that included Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington, he was keen to return to the medium after a two-year spell working solely in TV. His decision to join the BBC is, he tells us, one of the best of his career.

“

T4 had a loose affiliation with Global, and when they worked out I loved indie they invited me to do some tests for XFM, which I was over the moon about because it was such an exciting place to be,” he says. “They gave me a three and a half hour show on Saturday morning… and my producer was Karl Pilkington! It was an unbelievable time to be at XFM. The line-up was Zane Lowe, Ricky Gervais, Christian O’Connell. I really enjoyed it, but after a couple of years the workload got a bit too much with the TV stuff, so I had to knock it on the head. But after a couple of years I was missing radio and my agent got me a meeting with Radio 1 and 2, and it quickly became apparent that Radio 2 was the right fit. And I’ve never looked back.”

The advent of streaming since the show began in 2004 have reshaped the music industry in ways unimaginable at the time. But for O’Leary, the role of radio has remained largely the same.

“In the same way that books haven’t gone away because the Kindle came along, radio hasn’t gone away because streaming has come along,” he asserts. “The real test for me was during the pandemic. You realize that radio is still a huge part of people’s lives and the fabric of the nation. To be able to play some music and provide those who couldn’t go out with some company and normality was such a privilege.”

Dermot O’Leary’s Saturday morning show airs from 8-10am on BBC Radio 2. All the shows are available for 30 days on BBC Sounds.

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