Digital Dial: Rick Shaw
It’s easy to get carried away by a Rick Shaw vehicle. No really , this rock radio demi-god knows how to put together a package that literally accelerates the mid morning. Rick’s been presenting his Sony award winning show on Kerrang! (exclamation compulsory) since the rock music station launched back in June 2004.

Despite its famous brand name, the station stands separate from the magazine beloved of teenage rockers and Rick Shaw’s audience is made up of mid-morning listeners keen for either a distraction from work or home, or those looking for some Living Colour on a drab work day.

Rick’s a radio man with a pedigree. He’s got Sony awards and everything! But more than that he has ‘the nouse’. He knows what works between 9-12. He’s the master at making a ‘brunch time’ snack – sandwiching comedy in between the music – the bread and butter of the mid-morning slot. It's an unwritten rule in RADIO that music must take precedent over speech at this time of the day. The Breakfast show is speach heavy with 70% of the airspace taken up with the spoken word. And while other stations fiddle with the music format and offer 'listeners choice' in various formats, Rick sticks to his guns and interacts with his audience on a level beyond asking for their top tunes.

Rick told me: 'Kerrang!is different in that we don't take ourselves too seriously, we are able to poke fun at ourselves and often we do which I think endears us to the listener even more and galvanises our relationship'.
by Vikki Rimmer