Ken Bruce has revealed he was intoxicated when the idea for PopMaster came to him.
The quiz, in which competitors answer musical trivia questions, was first broadcast in 1998 as part of Bruce’s Radio 2 show and later became a six-part TV series for More4 when he left the channel.
The radio host, 73, admitted he had been drinking wine with two of his BBC colleagues, Colin Martin and Phil Swern, as they brainstormed ideas for the radio quiz show.
Bruce said the group came up with a “great format” and “drank up” before heading home. However, when they woke up the next day, they realised they’d forgotten the idea they spent the evening working on.
“None of us could remember what we decided,” he said.
The radio presenter said when he, Martin and Swern met for another lunch they didn’t drink any alcohol until they had written their idea down.
Speaking on the Fingers On Buzzers podcast, he said: “We wrote it down, and then we had our two bottles of wine. And it’s been the same ever since.”
When the presenter left Radio 2 in 2023 after 45 years at the BBC, it was announced that PopMaster would go with him.
The More4 TV treatment of the programme followed the same format as the radio series, where contestants were quizzed on music ranging from the 1950s to the present day, before being asked three top chart hits for a specific artist or group.
Bruce said: “After all these years we are finally bringing PopMaster to the telly where we’ll be challenging music lovers from around the country to not only recall a range of facts and stats about chart toppers and beyond over the decades but to do so under the glare of studio lights and with the added pressure of television cameras.”
Radio 2 lost a million listeners after Bruce left the station. Meanwhile, Greatest Hits Radio has doubled its listenership since he joined to an audience of 4.1 million.
In a new interview with The Times, Bruce hit out at BBC management over their choice to change his radio show from a mid-morning slot to an unfamiliar late-night timing during his long stint at Radio2.
“I thought, I haven’t done anything wrong here and it’s all working. It was a political decision,” he said.
