Ken Bruce has said he won’t play Taylor Swift songs on his show until she “writes something that isn’t about her ex-boyfriends.”
The 73-year-old broadcaster took his BBC show PopMaster Quiz to Greatest Hits Radio last year and attracts 3.8 million weekly listeners.
But he won’t give in to Taylor Swift’s mania and will play the 34-year-old’s music.
She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘All her songs are the same. I’ll put her on my station when she writes something that’s not about her ex-boyfriends. The great radio songs have three beats and then they go straight into the song, not those long intros she does.
“We are a radio show from the 70s, 80s and 90s, as our main audience is older.”
Ken Bruce has said he won’t play Taylor Swift songs on his Greatest Hits radio show until she “writes something that’s not about her ex-boyfriends.”
His comments come as the Shake It Off singer leaves the UK to embark on the European leg of her $1 billion Eras Tour, before returning for five more shows at Wembley Stadium in August.
Swift’s arrival in the UK earlier this month transfixed the nation: Scotland renamed a lake in her honor and Capital FM dedicated an entire station to her music.
But Bruce has agreed to only play very short clips of his music occasionally on his PopMaster Quiz show to maintain a variety of genres.
He said: ‘For our audience, we play music from the 70s, 80s and 90s. We play early 2000s and 2010s (not a lot), but we hope people will know some of the recent and current music, although only the biggest names.
Bruce claimed that Swift’s songs had intros that were too long for radio play, but admits to playing very short clips of her music occasionally on his show PopMaster Quiz to include a variety of genres.
‘We also ask questions from the 50s and 60s. Our core audience on Greatest Hits Radio is older, so they should be able to answer most of the questions.’
Bruce revealed on air last year that he was leaving Radio 2 after three decades, saying that while he “loved working at the BBC” he wanted to “try something else”.
But his show was canceled a month earlier after it became “essentially free advertising” for his new position at rival station Greatest Hits Radio.
It now presents the 10am before lunch slot on GHR and has grown its audience from 2.2 million a week to 3.8 million.
