Jeremy Vine chats happily away to millions of us every day on the television and the radio, but admits he finds his own teenagers much harder to talk to. ‘My daughters are 15 and 12. If you talk directly to them, it’s a no-no. Like a complete invasion of their air space. But if you’re both sitting in the car staring forwards, that’s OK.’ The broadcaster and his wife Rachel Schofield, a newsreader, live in Chiswick, West London, with their girls Martha and Anna. ‘Walking by the river with them is joyful. Then you can have a conversation.’
Both Jeremy Vine’s shows depend on viewers and listeners taking part through the likes of Twitter, but Vine has also described social media as ‘a massive brain experiment’
The girls are used to Dad leaving home very early in the morning for the North London studios of Channel 5, where Vine hosts his bright and breezy news and current affairs show, Jeremy Vine, with audience members and celebrity guests. It used to be called The Wright Stuff, until the host Matthew Wright quit after 18 years last spring, saying the show had given him post-traumatic stress disorder. ‘I don’t quite know what went on there,’ says Vine, who will celebrate a year in charge of the revamped, renamed programme this September. ‘It’s a bit mysterious.’
What Vine does know is that after doing live telly he has to get on his push-bike for a mad dash through the London traffic to reach Wogan House for his second massive show of the day: two hours of Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 from noon, playing music, interviewing prominent people and taking calls from some of his seven million listeners. Despite this frantic schedule, Vine looks relaxed and relatively fresh when he arrives at our photo studio in the early afternoon, bike clips on the ankles of his dark blue suit and dressed in the natty floral shirt he wore on screen this morning. Tall, slim and relentlessly chipper, Vine speaks in the energetic, slightly breathy voice that impressionists love, and insists he feels no pressure.
‘Broadcasters love to broadcast. The most pressure you can have is not broadcasting. If you’re sitting at home and there’s no microphone, there’s no red light, that’s pressure. So no pressure. I think this set-up is fantastic.’
But when this 54-year-old father of two is not busy holding two big conversations a day with the nation, he is determined to find ways of chatting with his daughters. ‘You have to develop an interest with each of them. I took my youngest one to see Bohemian Rhapsody the other day, and she came back and learnt the first minute of the song on the piano.’
Both his Channel 5 and Radio 2 shows depend on viewers and listeners taking part through the likes of Twitter, but Vine has also described social media as ‘a massive brain experiment’ we’re carrying out on our children without any idea what the results might be.
‘It’s scary. Their sheer number of hours on screen is my chief worry. But also: “What are they doing?” I can’t bring myself to insert spy technology to check every key stroke. So I’m trusting them.’
Vine knows a tricky question when he sees one, having been a hard-nosed reporter himself for a long time
The girls don’t quite see it that way. ‘I joined Instagram so I could follow my eldest daughter. She immediately blocked me! My youngest daughter won’t even tell me the name of her account. At the age of 12, I don’t know whether she should be on it.’
Social media can bring out the worst in people, he says. There’s something in all of us, a spitefulness that’s unleashed when people are cloaked with anonymity, which is a desire to see others feel pain. It’s quite dispiriting.’
His daughters might point out that Dad has 700,000 followers on Twitter, where he posts enthusiastically about everything from the best one-liners by his younger brother, the comedian Tim Vine, to the perils of cycling through London. Vine wears a camera and posts videos of taxi or lorry drivers cutting him up or pedestrians behaving madly. One clip of a man stepping into the road and nearly being mown down by a lorry was captioned sarcastically: ‘Because of course cyclists are the danger, aren’t they?’
He loves the cycle in to work through empty streets at 5.30am, ready for the complicated schedule that makes it almost possible for him to be in two places at once. First, he records the tail-end of his TV show. Then he goes live on air from 9.15am. The recorded parts are played out from 10.30am, when he says goodbye to his team and cycles the 1.2 miles to Radio 2, a journey that takes 11 minutes on a good day. ‘Someone said I’m one traffic jam away from missing the show, but actually there’s no such thing as a traffic jam when you’re on a bicycle.’
Vine has got to be there in time to prepare for a live chat with Ken Bruce about what’s coming up at 11.30am, so time can be tight. As a militant cyclist, would he ride on the pavement to avoid a delay? ‘No, I would not. That question is just a gaping hole in the floor for me to fall into!’
Vine knows a tricky question when he sees one, having been a hard-nosed reporter himself for a long time. He grew up in Surrey, went to Durham University and trained at the Coventry Evening Telegraph before joining the BBC, where he reported on politics at first and then from all over Africa including war zones. So he won’t mind if I ask him about money… ‘Oh God! We’ve been through so much pain.’
The BBC has been torn apart by the issue of equal pay in recent years, and in May his colleague Emily Maitlis revealed that she once went on a secret strike after discovering that Vine and other men were earning far more than her during election coverage. How did he feel about her going on strike because of him? ‘Well, she didn’t say that actually,’ says Vine carefully. ‘She referred to election coverage, where I was paid more than her, which I didn’t know. She moved from that to talk about the rates on Newsnight. It was the Newsnight part of it that she stopped doing.’
OK, but Vine reveals that he was so worried after reading the interview that he got in touch with Maitlis to check their relationship was still all right, which it was. And it’s true that when the BBC was forced to reveal the pay deals for its biggest stars in 2017, Maitlis was nowhere but Vine was in the top five on a whopping £749,000 a year. ‘That was not quite correct. It doesn’t matter. At the time I was doing five jobs: Points Of View, Panorama, Eggheads, election graphics and Radio 2. That’s quite a lot of work. Each of those was negotiated separately and this was the first time anyone had added them all up. It’s not like a salary. You’re paid for these jobs and if you don’t do them you’re not paid. But to see it was a painful thing. I think I was number four.’
He was. Behind Chris Evans, Gary Lineker and Graham Norton. ‘I’ve dropped like a stone since then so I guess I shouldn’t be pleased about that.’
Claudia Winkleman was the only woman in the top ten, earning a quarter of a million pounds less than him. Maitlis wasn’t on the list, as she was getting less than £150,000. ‘I should say I really was appalled at the disparity with my female colleagues, because I did not know anything about that.’
In 2017 he earned £440,000 from the BBC and last year it was £290,000, although he does much less work for the Beeb now and doesn’t have to reveal his Channel 5 salary. Did he choose to take a pay cut or was it an order from on high? ‘No one said: “You have to take it.” I just wanted to take one. My contract was coming up. They clearly wanted me to take one. I can’t remember who raised it first.’
Maitlis is now lead presenter on Newsnight, earning £260,000 a year. There are more women among the top earners. But this issue has been rumbling on for years, so does he believe the Beeb is finally getting it right? ‘My female colleagues have got together a very powerful WhatsApp group and they’re campaigning, led by Jane Garvey [the Woman’s Hour presenter] and one or two others, so I’m just following that lead. If they were to say it’s sorted, I would believe it’s sorted. They haven’t said that yet.’
Vine presenting his show on BBC Radio 2. On politicians, Vine says: ‘They don’t have an answer to any questions, it’s extraordinary. Politics is an utter disaster’
After many years on TV as a journalist, it was his appearance on Strictly Come Dancing in 2015 that made him a household name, despite a certain stiffness in his hips. ‘Someone who reviewed me on Strictly said there was not a bat squeak of sexuality in there. I thought, oh great, thanks a lot. I had a message on my Facebook page saying: “I am a movement and rehabilitation specialist and I think you need help.” Genuine message, that was what was so awful about it.’
Still, Vine lasted eight weeks and loved every moment. ‘Well, I became great friends with Karen Clifton, which is a lovely part of it.’
He admitted to developing feelings for her, as others have done with their partners on Strictly. ‘I thought, gosh, I can see why this happens, because you go into a completely different space,’ he said on his Channel 5 show last year. ‘Suddenly I’m seeing someone who is like a goddess: super-human. The power and the strength and grace of that person, then you are spending eight, nine hours a day within two inches of them. It’s a powerful thing, that’s all I can say. I thought, I don’t know what I’m feeling here.’
Some Strictly partners end up snogging of course, like Seann Walsh and Katya Jones. So did they? ‘Oh God, no! That’s impossible.’
Vine on Strictly Come Dancing with Karen Clifton. ‘Spending eight hours a day within two inches of someone is a powerful thing. I thought, I don’t know what I’m feeling here’
His wife Rachel was ‘cool’ about the possibility and apparently put him in his place with a quote from Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers: ‘For goodness’ sake Basil, do you really think a woman like that would be interested in a brilliantine stick insect like you?’
Did Strictly have any lasting effect on his life? ‘I worry the answer may be yes! One of the things that is beautiful is that it gives you a connection with people who are properly young. Kids, young teenagers, who watch with their parents.’
The surge in his profile – as well as his firm grip on current affairs – led to an approach from Channel 5 when Wright quit. Wright now appears on Talk Radio every afternoon. Does Vine now understand how his predecessor came to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?
‘I don’t really. I’d be guessing, but he had a change of producers and he’s talked about how that transition was very difficult for him. Maybe he was coming in to work at four in the morning or something. I feel very sorry if he’s got PTSD from being a TV presenter. That’s terrible. He seems to be happier now though.’ Vine says he takes a ‘serious tabloid’ approach on both his shows, but in truth he is more likely to interview Cabinet ministers on the radio, and soap and reality stars on the TV. The host admits he had to take a crash course in reality TV when he got the job, given that so many of its stars appear as his guests.
Lately, the dark side of reality television has come crashing in though. Two former Love Island contestants have committed suicide in the past year and The Jeremy Kyle Show was axed in May. A 63-year-old man who insisted in front of the Kyle cameras that he was not unfaithful to his partner failed a polygraph lie detector test and was found dead a week later. Has ITV behaved properly? ‘Well, Kyle has stopped, hasn’t it?’
Vine says there has been a huge shift in the balance of power between the audience and experts who appear on TV or radio
Yes, but reality star Nicola McLean suggested on Vine’s show that Kyle was pulled as a gesture to protect the bigger ratings winner. Vine frowns. ‘I don’t think they would be so devious as to destroy the Kyle show to save Love Island. The people on Love Island are, to a certain extent, television professionals. It’s not that they’re humiliated on the show, it’s that there’s a pre-fame moment, a fame moment, and a post-fame moment.’ That loss of fame can be tough to take, he says.
Vine says there has been a huge shift in the balance of power between the audience and experts who appear on TV or radio. ‘When I joined the BBC the policy was to employ the cleverest people in the country to explain things to people who it was assumed didn’t understand them. We now realise it’s the people watching the show who understand what’s going on. They are explaining it to us.
‘Technology is turbo-charging personal stories, so that someone who has been involved in a train crash is now as powerful as the chief executive of a train company. A woman whose knee was touched by the Defence Secretary is now more powerful than him, even if he’s got an army. It’s an incredible turning of the tables.’
Jeremy Vine’s very busy day…
Vine loves the cycle in to work through empty streets at 5.30am
4.50am Vine’s alarm goes off. Wash and dress then breakfast: All-Bran or porridge.
5.30am He leaves his home in Chiswick, West London, and sets off on the nine-mile cycle to the ITN studios on Gray’s Inn Road, central London.
6.15am He arrives at the studios to start reading and writing scripts, as well as getting up to speed with the day’s news.
6.30am First coffee of the day – decaffeinated!
7am The guests arrive and Vine chats through what is going to happen.
7.45am Quick clothes change and hair and make-up.
8.15am The last 45 minutes of the show are recorded as live (to be broadcast at 10.30am).
8.55am Record promo for next day’s show.
9am Quick breather and loo break.
9.15am The show begins – live on Channel 5.
10.30am The host comes off air and the pre-recorded sections are played. Vine updates his Twitter feed.
10.35am Vine jumps on his bicycle to fight his way through the traffic on the 1.2-mile journey to Radio 2 HQ at Wogan House near Oxford Street.
10.50am Vine grabs a coffee and goes straight into planning meetings with his Radio 2 producer who briefs him about the show to come.
11.30am Live chat on Radio 2 during the Ken Bruce programme about what’s coming up. Then a quick snack, usually fruit.
12pm Vine goes live on Radio 2 in a continuous mix of music, discussions, news and phone-ins.
2pm The day’s broadcasting is over. Time for lunch.
6pm Dinner with wife Rachel and the girls.
9pm Time for bed. Any later and the following morning can be ‘problematic’.
There is a downside, however. ‘It’s a little bit dangerous because it knocks experts sideways. People who’ve done enormously long pieces of work on data find that they can be just destroyed by a single personal anecdote.’
Those experts have often let us down, he says. ‘We’ve had 50 years of bad science on diet. We were told that fat makes you fat; now we know it’s refined carbohydrates and sugar. The sugar industry managed to work undercover for years in collusion with experts. And the banking crash, which was like a power cut caused by electricians – the economists didn’t predict that. So I think experts were due to be taken down a peg or two.’
He puts politicians in the same category. ‘Politics is like shooting fish in a barrel at the moment. They don’t have an answer to any questions, it’s extraordinary. Politics is an utter disaster.’
Vine with his wife, Rachel Schofield. Vine and Schofield, a newsreader, live in Chiswick, West London, with their girls Martha and Anna
Through it all, though, Vine remains calm and optimistic. Is that anything to do with the Christian faith in which he was raised by his parents? ‘I still have a faith,’ he says, then reconsiders. ‘Well, maybe not. I used to think you had to be really certain. Now I think doubt is faith. The people with the faith are usually quite doubting. And the people with certainty are usually the most ignorant. So I’m sort of embracing doubt.’
‘I don’t go to church every Sunday, but I do go – and as I get older I like that thing where the guy waves some incense. It’s quite high-church Anglican, exactly the opposite of how I was brought up, which was low church. I look at the light coming through the stained glass and I think: Yeah, I can deal with this.’
He looks content for a moment, but this is the always restless Jeremy Vine, always waiting for the red light to come on and the phone lines to open, so there’s a question. ‘We’re all looking for peace in some way, aren’t we?’
‘Jeremy Vine’ is on Channel 5, weekdays at 9.15am