Ken Bruce on Greatest Hits Radio: One month on, how is his move from Radio 2 shaping up?

The blow was immediately softened by two further revelations – he would be taking his talents to Greatest Hits Radio, and would be taking Popmaster with him. Phew. That halted in its tracks the potential for riots and a revolution, but still the news took a bit of getting used to.

And just when we started counting down the days, with not a little trepidation, til the late March day Ken was due to do his last stint behind the Radio 2 mic, we were rocked again. The man himself told us he had been asked to leave early – and in fact the first few days of March would be his last.

It was a poor move from the BBC. Clearly they didn't like the fact they were continuing to employ someone whose new role was, quite rightly, being heavily promoted by his new employer.

Everything stopped for Popmaster – then even Popmaster stopped.

GHR were going to town on becoming 'the new home of Ken Bruce' but did the Beeb do itself any favours by cutting short Ken's final few weeks, or did it simply make itself look petty? The latter, in my book and that of many other listeners.

It all meant we Popmaster devotees had the endure the whole of March without our daily fix. With each other's help, we got through. We devised our own quizzes for one another, we replayed old editions of it where they could be found of BBC Sounds, we counted down the days to April 3 and Ken's GHR debut – with the help of his new station itself, who gave us updates on how many hours and minutes were left before Ken and Popmaster would go live once more.

Fast forward to May 3, and we are one month into Ken in his new home. And I have to admit, his Radio 2 show seems like a distant memory. It really does.

From the first minute of his first show, Ken has been on top form. And, it must be said, sounding different to the old Ken.

On GHR, his tone is - subtly - more upbeat, his pace of delivery just a little quicker. He sounds like a choir boy who's been allowed out for his annual night at a school disco. He sounds free – he sounds, well, very much at home, like he’s been drinking Coca-Cola instead of cocoa. Happy to be back among us; perhaps relieved to have made the move he did.

From a man who spent hour upon hour of his early radio days perfecting his language, delivery and tone, this gentle change of style should come as no surprise. Clearly, from the moment he knew he was going to GHR, he'd have listened intently to the station, studied its output and audience and worked at perfecting his approach to it, thinking and crafting how his chatter to the listener would sound.

On debut day, that first Popmaster for a month was comforting – not least because, apart from new title music and a different robotic voice counting down from five for contestants taking their time to produce an answer, it was exactly the same. Of course it was.

The same pre-quiz chat, the same flow of questions and bonuses, the same 'ooooh you're one year out' ot 'oooh yes' responses to the answers given to the 'Which year?' teasers, the same agonies listening to ‘3 in 10’ when the caller can't think of more than two Beatles or Ed Sheeran song titles.

But either side of Popmaster, Ken's three hours on air each weekday – that's half an hour more than he used to have, incidentally – have a different feel to the old show. Not upsettingly or jarringly different, but different.

We get the Greatest Love Song instead of the Love Song, we get the Golden Years, Buried Treasure and different daily features like Monday Matinee, Wednesday Wisdom and Friday Firsts.

It's all soundtracked by the music of the 70s, 80s and 90s, with the odd 'Secret 60s' track thrown in or maybe even something from the early 2000s if the bosses aren't listening. And it's all sewn together by Ken's homely patter, itself aided by listeners' texts with their observations on the day's subject matters, many of them turned into one-liners by Ken's perfect timing and delivery. Some of the links are a little corny, but that's part of their appeal.

There will be listeners who have moved from R2 to GHR with Ken who are irritated by the adverts – understandable. I am not in that bracket – I have always listened to a fair bit of commercial radio and am used to them, and in any case you can sign up to subscribe to GHR Premium and get extra tunes instead of ads.

There will be some who miss some of the contemporary music Ken used to play on 2. Personally, if I want to hear modern-day stuff I know where I can do so. But at that time of the day, the music of my three favourite decades is just the job.

And while Ken makes himself, and his listeners, at home, what of Radio 2? His replacement, Vernon Kay, does not arrive until Monday week, May 15, and in the meantime Gary Davies has been keeping the chair warm. I am a big fan of Gary, having been a keen Radio 1 listener in the 80s when he was one of its biggest names, and I do think it was a bit of a hospital pass when he was asked to do the R2 morning show for the two months in between Bruce and Kay.

Ten To The Top is the replacement for Popmaster and it was a tough listen in its early days. Their mistake, I think, was to come up with something that was in some ways similar to Popmaster and put it on in the exact same time slot, 10.30am. Why not do something completely different and stick it on at 10.20, when GHR listeners might be tempted to switch over from Ken's first ad break of the show?

Radio 2 will of course live on in its post-Ken era – and happily, older presenters like Johnnie Walker, Tony Blackburn, Bob Harris and Paul Gambaccini have not been made to feel unwanted, at least not to the extent they have left. And I notice Steve Wright has been making rather more appearances on their daytime schedule than they probably planned for him when they replaced him with Scott Mills last year. An admission of a mistake, maybe? One thing is for sure – the next set of listener figures for Ken on GHR and the show he has left will make very interesting reading.

But for those of us now so used to the idea of the great Scot on commercial radio instead of the BBC, there's a question worth mulling over: Could Ken's move from Radio 2 to Greatest Hits Radio turn out to be his own greatest hit?

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