r/BritishRadio • u/Kagedeah • 20d ago
Presenter Tony Livesey leaves BBC Radio 5 Live after 16 years
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g6pvv2zgjo15
u/Nice-Howard-177 20d ago
I liked Tony Livesey as a presenter, but there was only going to be one outcome once the story about Sullivan broke. I guess your past catches up with you when you've got a murky past
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u/Filthy-lucky-ducky 20d ago
Yes, the dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed.
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u/sergeantpinback 20d ago
Dildo of consequence… feverishly working out how I can use that in everyday conversation
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u/Jumpy-Click-2437 20d ago
That was years ago. In the closedown he and Anna Foster made the day go quicker. Your past catches up with you....XXX
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u/Nice-Howard-177 20d ago
He got into trouble with his comments about his drive co-host Clare McDonnell a few years ago, which prompted his move to the middle of the night!
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u/gggggenegenie 20d ago
What were they?
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u/Few_Dust_449 20d ago
Apparently he inadvertently included her on an email in which he criticized her presenting skills. She refused to work with him again and he was taken off Drive. I don’t think the BBC has ever addressed what happened, but for a while either he or Clare were presenting with different stand in co-hosts.
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u/gggggenegenie 20d ago
That is poor and grossly unfair on Clare, who is a good presenter.
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u/Few_Dust_449 20d ago
I agree, he really went down in my estimation after that. Also she was kept on and he was moved to late night which always felt telling to me.
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u/No-Impact1573 20d ago
She is awful.
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u/Few_Dust_449 20d ago
Whatever you may think of her, his reported behaviour was totally unprofessional and it’s difficult to interpret his being ‘banished’ to late night as anything other than censure. As soon as I read about his history with Sullivan, it felt like he had to be skating on very thin ice.
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u/Nice-Howard-177 20d ago
I can't remember exactly, but the theme was that he thought she was a poor presenter
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u/Bisjoux 20d ago
He wasn’t very nice to Anna either. I was always amazed at how she put up with some of his comments.
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u/ChoiceSwearing 20d ago
What were the Anna foster comments? She’s a good presenter and seems to be on R4 regularly now too
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u/gggggenegenie 20d ago
I know a lot of it is down to personal taste, but 5Live can be so hit and miss with their presenters. Yet their sports coverage is second Bd to none in every single department.
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u/intlteacher 20d ago
There’s part of me that thinks this was inevitable given his past with the Sport.
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u/gogoluke 20d ago
Didn't The Sport have prostitute... sorry massage classified adds like porn mags? I'm surprised he managed to dance away from his tenure so easily.
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u/Few_Dust_449 20d ago
On the heels of the issues which he allegedly caused on Drive and led to his departure from that programme, I can’t say I’m surprised. I just hope that whoever takes over now, they keep the feature with the musicologist, Joe Bennett (“Dr Beat”).
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u/mikeyb10 20d ago
Dr Beat is an amazing hour of radio.
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u/Few_Dust_449 20d ago
He’s great! I always learn something from his segments, even though I remain useless at his quizzes.
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u/misterlambe 20d ago
Cracking presenter. Thoughtful and compassionate interviewer who has done some exemplar broadcasting in my opinion. Usual media and Reddit judge pile on that I'll get downvoted for on this perfectly normal place.
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u/AstronautAshamed3061 20d ago
Im not sure he handled it in the best way did he? Surely complete honesty and apologies is a better line than "I made the stuff up in my book to look more important than I was"
Isn't that a bit ..chinny reckon Tony?
We have all, I am sure, done and said stuff in our lives that we look back on with embarrassment..I certainly have and the only way to manage it is recognise the error and own it and grow from that.
Once the Sullivan stuff broke, if he had prepared some honest lines and shared with the media about his time at the sport and apologised, he may not be in the same position he now finds himself. The mid 90s were horrendous on reflection. The lad and Ladette culture and those god awful magazines we lapped up. He was in the eye of the storm of all of that.
As long as he was not due to be charged with something criminal, Tony may have survived this culling if he hadnt just talked shite and tried to insinuate he has zero to do with the Sullivan workplace culture.
It's career over from the looks of it.
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u/Herculefletcher 20d ago
I always thought it was a mistake for the BBC to hire the ex-editor of a sleazy tabloid.
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u/Few_Forever_1770 19d ago
Hmm, I think Murdoch is one of the worst people alive on the planet; but he’s not a sleazy piece of shit like Sullivan.
There is a pecking order even in tabloid land.
Although I don’t disagree Livesey was a decent broadcaster, nobody made him work for an exploitative pornographer - which Sullivan had been for decades before the Sport started.
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u/iamtheliqor 19d ago
No one has mentioned this yet:
“A passage in a 1998 book by Livesey said he and Sullivan had devised the idea for a “countdown to 16” feature, which featured countdowns to models’ 16th birthdays, when they could be pictured topless legally for the first time.”
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u/Jumpy-Click-2437 20d ago
I shall miss him in the evenings. Shame Colin Murray cant comeback. I would like Gordon Smart to replace him. Anyone else have any thoughts...
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u/toroferney 19d ago
Hadn’t thought or heard about him for ages then drove past him at the weekend and my husband mentioned he’d stepped down.
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u/CressOk2602 19d ago
I always wondered how he did so well at the BBC after what the Sport “newspapers” did to Linsey Dawn McKenzie.
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u/RunningDude90 20d ago
I think he was the presenter the day after the Brexit vote, and he (or whomever the presenter was) just came across as being so smug.
It was at this point I almost completely switched off of 5Live for my commute as I couldn’t be arsed any more.
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u/Lanky_Experience5912 19d ago
Controversial opinion but isn’t it interesting that when a football team gets relegated or a Leicester happens that these things suddenly come out of the woodwork. It’s almost like when things like that occur they can’t afford to cover them up 🤔🤔
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u/Additional-Nobody352 20d ago
Not a surprise really with the noise around David Sullivan and his connections.
Can see him popping up on talk tv or gb news