From
The Sunday Times of London
Radio Waves:
Gerry McCarthy: The grey power
November 5, 2006
By Gerry McCarthy
We live in an era obsessed by youth. But if it’s really so dominant, why is radio still a haven for grizzled veterans? George Hook, Tom McGurk, Vincent Browne and Eamon Dunphy, say, have had remarkable success ...
You could argue that these cunning survivalists are a select band. ... Does the fiftysomething male have some secret weapon to attract listeners? The answer is obviously “yes — character and personality”. Hook (The Right Hook, NewsTalk 106 FM, Mon-Fri) is a prime example. ...
Hook can be cringe-inducing. ...
But he is simply the Irish variant on a universal type: the blustering, forceful, larger-than-life radio figure ...
...
He can inject life into a topic as dry and technical as electronic voting. When Hook interviewed Douglas Jones, a professor of computer science in Iowa, it could have been as boring as a bucket of silicon chips, but he refused to let it lie down.
Jones made a casual comment about “technologically ill-informed local officials” being to blame for previous e-voting cock-ups. Hook pounced. He asked the professor to repeat the phrase, word by word. He then glossed it himself, whooped and snorted, and announced that it encapsulated everything there was to be said about the subject.
Did it? Certainly not, ... But it spoke volumes for Hook’s energy, ... Above all, it resonated with personality.
By contrast, most of the media’s bright young things either don’t have any personality worth talking about, or can’t decide which one to wear ...
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.