John Revell proves to be a perfect foil for Chris Evans, as Claire Beale
discovers
You know that old saying about dogs and their owners, well, on first
meeting, John Revell seems so like his business partner, Chris Evans,
that you feel as if you know him already.
Mind you, my first experience of Chris Evans was an insistent: ‘I don’t
speak to journalists, I’m not speaking to you.’ On the other hand,
Revell is furiously doing his bit to bolster the PR of their company,
Ginger Productions, by playing Mr Nice and talking to any journalist who
will listen.
What the pudgy-faced 37-year-old chief executive of Ginger is keen to
talk about is its involvement in a consortium that is bidding for the
new London FM radio licence. Ginger has teamed up with Michael Caine to
propose a new service, the Edge, targeting 15- to 24-year-olds with a
mix of contemporary music and fresh personalities.
This is just the latest in a series of ventures Ginger is carefully
considering as it gears up for expansion. The production company is
already responsible for the phenomenal success of the Radio 1 Breakfast
Show (audience: 7.3 million) and for topping and tailing Channel 4’s
Friday evening schedule with TFI Friday (audiences: 2.5 million for the
early evening slot and 1.5 million for the late night slot) which won
Best Entertainment Series at last week’s British Comedy Awards.
Ginger is currently looking for a bigger partner with deeper pockets to
provide financial back-up in return for a slice of the action. Then
there are plans to bid for a second radio licence in the North-east of
England, another in Sydney, Australia, and expansion across Europe. But
Revell sees the London FM licence as the prime building block in
Ginger’s expansion scheme.
‘It means a lot to me. For the bigger plan of Ginger it is very
important. We want to get into media ownership and radio is something we
think we’re pretty good at. It is where Chris and I started and we have
a natural affinity for it,’ he explains.
Revell began as a DJ on local radio; he then persuaded Richard Branson
to launch an in-store radio station for Virgin Megastores, with him in
charge. Revell moved to launch GLR for the BBC, where he produced Tommy
Vance, Emma Freud and Janice Long, before leaving to join Chris Evans on
the Big Breakfast. After a stint as programme director at Virgin 1215,
he jumped at the chance to spend his mornings with Evans again, this
time on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show. His TV credits include devising the
original format for Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush and he is also
associate editor of TFI Friday.
Now Revell is quite happy to entertain the idea of becoming a media
mogul but, he says, ‘We’ve got to work out what that moguldom would be
based on.’ Revell’s role centres around formulating future strategy but,
for those of you who find Chris Evans a little, how shall I put it,
nauseating, don’t worry. This is not about Chris Evans appearing every
time you turn on the TV or radio.
‘What we have to offer is the Ginger culture,’ Revell explains. ‘Chris
drives that culture along, but this company is not about just providing
new platforms for Chris Evans. We’re already developing programming
ideas that don’t revolve around Chris, we’ve got people like Danny Baker
working with us to do that and we want to develop new talent.’
But with Evans (and increasingly Revell himself) being fair game for
tabloid journalists searching for the latest celebrity expose,
protecting what is an increasingly ubiquitous brand will not be easy. It
is a delicate balance between popularity and tedium that Revell himself
is well aware of.
‘We’ve taken a strategic decision that we are an entertainment-based
company, so we are not going to go off and set up an airline or
something that doesn’t fit in with our core business which is TV, radio,
publishing and maybe music. That’s the bedrock we’ll build on,’ Revell
explains.
The company has just pulled out of lengthy discussions with the beer
group, Firkin, for the launch of a beer brand, Ginger’s, but the door
remains open: ‘It’s obviously the sort of thing we would consider doing
but the fit has to be spot on,’ he insists.
But for all Revell’s professed business acumen, it is Evans who picks up
the awards, the women, and the most money. Does Revell ever feel
obscured by the shadow of Evans’ success?
‘It’s never entered my head,’ he maintains. ‘I don’t see Chris and me as
creative rivals. He’s light years ahead of me creatively and I’m
enjoying this side of the business more, to be honest.’
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The Revell file
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1982 Radio York, tea boy then DJ
1984 Launched Virgin Megastores’ in-house radio station
1986 GLR, producer
1991 The Big Breakfast, producer
1993 Virgin 1215, programme director
1996 Ginger Productions, chief executive (joined 1995)
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