Late-night radio has a kind of romance about it. We think of the DJ. A single light in a darkened studio. A lone voice into a microphone, musing, wondering, complaining, banging on. Riffing on obscurities, posing questions and unpicking answers. Perhaps playing a few choice tunes. But mostly talking, because talking is what’s needed in the middle of the night. Talking, and someone listening to what’s being said. Although what’s often special about late-night programmes is that it’s the presenter who is doing the listening, the listener, calling in, who speaks.

There are a number of stations with a strong tradition of good late-night shows: LBC, BBC Radio London, TalkSport, XFM (now Radio X). Most big cities will have at least one, local, post-10pm programme that attempts to connect with an insomniac audience. But if you listen really late at night – after midnight – you’ll find far fewer specialist late-night broadcasts than there were even 15 years ago. Budget cuts mean that local BBC stations can’t afford to employ presenters, producers or engineers between the hours of 1am and 5am. Instead, they broadcast 5 Live or the World Service, or run repeats of programmes that have already been broadcast during the day. Commercial radio often runs shows across the entire network, rather than ones made especially by regional teams. You have to pay people to make them want to give up their sleep.

Late-night programmes can seem almost private. Show hosts will reveal more of themselves

The internet, too, has changed things. Scheduling is less important than it used to be: a show can be put out in the UK at night, but listened to simultaneously by people in North America or Japan during their daytime.

You can catch up with a programme at a time that suits you. Often people choose to listen to podcasts at night. Certain podcasts seem to be made for the small hours, such as Love + Radio and the longer-form interview shows. Resonance FM’s esoteric broadcasts seem peculiarly designed for after sunset, though almost all of them also go out during daylight hours. (Sleeping Dogs Lie is an exception: “presented” by Miguel Santos, who doesn’t speak, just plays purely ambient music, designed to get you to sleep.)

Audiophile Ed Baxter runs Resonance FM. He says that daytime listening is “half-listening”; we’re multitasking, checking into a radio programme while doing something more important. But as night closes in, we stop doing so much. “You’re lying in bed, concentrating on the sound, the intimate nature of the source material,” he says. “Whether or not you feel you’re being directly addressed, it’s always a bit like eavesdropping.”

Daytime presenting is a tame beast compared to its night-time counterpart. During the day, shows are geared around the hour, the half-hour; guests are vetted professionals; producers check details. Everything and everyone is on a tight rein. Breakfast shows, especially. Think of the Today programme, of any news-based breakfast show, the feeling that we listeners are being broadcast at, rather than to. There’s a kind of pomp about such shows: if you visit them in real life, they are heavily populated by producers, experts, speakers. Busy, busy, busy. But with a night-time show, there is often only the presenter in the studio, and one other person manning the phones. Sometimes the presenter is completely alone.

No wonder there’s more intimacy at night-time. Late-night programmes can seem almost private. Show hosts will reveal more of themselves. Callers will tell all. We’re into the lonely hours. “There’s a vertigo of urban loneliness that late-night radio addresses,” says Baxter. And the-late night phone-in, especially, seems to help. Regular callers become semi-celebrities, and speech becomes more free, less monitored. You don’t have to have broad knowledge about a topic; you can just phone in because you’re happy or sad or angry and want to tell someone (everyone) about it. We’re listening.

Many late-night shows have a pool of devoted followers: taxi drivers, factory workers, bakers, breastfeeding mums. They develop a relationship with their chosen show, whether or not they ever call in or make themselves known. As with podcasts, late-night radio is often listened to on headphones, as people work, or lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. The sound of a voice in your ear, telling a sad or dramatic story. Perhaps just being silly, teasing someone else for being daft. Or sympathetic, helping another human through a crisis.

And the weirdest thing about listening to radio at this time of night? The constant pull of your mind towards sleep. Gradually, music and speech morph into ambient noise. There’s a point when you’ve stopped paying attention to what’s actually being broadcast and instead you float in the sounds. Late-night radio might start off shouty or clever or crass, but it often lives most vividly on the threshold of our consciousness, looping in and out of our minds, a living dream.

Iain Lee: ‘It’s for the lost, lonely, battered’

Late Nights With Iain Lee, TalkRadio, 10pm-1am, Mon-Fri

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Iain Lee at his desk in the TalkRadio studio: ‘I could be mean-spirited. I’m more kind now.’ Photograph: Sonja Horsman/The Observer

There aren’t the shows there used to be: there’s nowhere for the weirdos and freaks to call in, the fruitcakes phoning up with their dead nan sitting at the end of their bed. When Ian Collins was on LBC [he still is], me and Mackenzie Crook would get pissed and we would phone him up. One time, there was this guy who had auditioned to be Ronan Keating on Stars in Your Eyes, and he phoned up all upset because they hadn’t picked him, they’d picked a different Ronan Keating. So I called in and said, I’m the Ronan Keating that was picked, I’m the winning Ronan Keating. And there was me and this guy arguing about who was the best Ronan Keating for about half an hour. Ian Collins let us get on with it. It ended up with us having a sing-off. He sang a Ronan Keating song and then I said, listen to this, and sang a Ronan Keating song. And Ian Collins just said, well that’s obviously much better, even though I was terrible. It was a joy.

Everyone’s welcome on my show. I want to hear real people. I don’t want the competent, the media-savvy Iain Lee

My long-term plan used to be to get a late-night show on 5 Live but I did two overnight shifts and they were soul-destroying. I’d turned the act down to zero and they told me there was still too much personality in it. It broke my heart, to be honest. They had a guest on, a fitness expert, at 3 o’clock in the morning, and I said: “That guy’s awful, why do you use him?” And they said: “Oh, it fills an hour…”

My show is from 10pm until 1am and about halfway through we lose the daytime listeners and callers, and get the people on the fringes. I would say losers, because I’m a loser, but it sounds bad. Everyone’s welcome on my show. I want to hear real people having proper phone chats. I don’t want the competent, the media-savvy. There’s a real trend for radio presenters to say: “Can I just bring you back to the question please?” Whatever question they have, for the hour. I don’t want that. I hate it.

I asked for the slot I have on TalkRadio. I could have done breakfast or drive, but I didn’t want that structure, the news, travel, the focus. When I do the show, I turn all the lights off. It’s for the insomniacs, the people driving, working all night in factories. It feels different, it’s a different vibe. I do try and create that. It’s about allowing people to stay on for as long as they want, as long as they’re interesting. If someone comes on with horrible views, I’ll engage with them, explain why saying that is wrong and it’s bad, be slightly combative.

I used to love Tommy Boyd, Clive Bull, Mike Dickin. I’ve taken stuff from them and from other people. Who do I like now? I sometimes listen to the two Mikes [Graham and Parry] on TalkSport even though I hate football; they do make me laugh. I quite like Cristo [Foufas] on LBC through the night, he’s not afraid to have an argument.

I give callers a lot of breathing room. We have regulars, perhaps more than most, because we’re not a big show. I like the sense of community. Alan Caddick phones every day. The other night, we had a human moment. I said: “You don’t sound yourself, Alan, are you OK?” And he said: “My mum’s ill, she’s gone into hospital.” And my mum has just been in hospital, so we had a moment. When I was on LBC, I used to take the piss out of callers; I could be a bit mean-spirited. I’m more kind now. We have Nigel from Maidstone, he’s legendary, this old guy who is obsessed with Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan and he comes on and sing songs, and if he sings too loud, his mum will come and tell him to shut up.

With regulars, it’s a story developing over a period of years. We’re a drop-in centre for the lost, lonely and emotionally battered. Not experts, with well-thought-out reasons. It’s more like chatting at the bus stop or at a coffee shop, which is what I like to do anyway.

Hattie Pearson: ‘I might be the only voice my listeners hear at work’

Radio X, 1-4am, Mon-Fri

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘There’s nobody in the studio with me’: Hattie Pearson at Radio X. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

It’s like any radio job – you have to think about the audience you’re talking to. Radio X’s audience at that time are coming back from a night out. Or they’re ambulance drivers, cabbies, hospital cleaners, working on the tubes, bakers, milkmen, farmers... An interesting crowd.

At breakfast or other daytime shows, people listen for 20 minutes. But with my show, people are listening for a long time; they’re probably with you for your whole shift, so you’re able to take the listener on more of a journey. You can take your time over being creative. Someone might tweet me at 1am, saying hi, and then again when I clock off at 4am, saying, thanks, chat to you tomorrow. You don’t get that with many other shows. We’re a secret gang. There’s Phil the baker, Sammy the ambulance driver...

With talk radio, phone-in radio, you might want to engage people by having a debate, getting them agitated enough to call in, but with me it’s more about what do I want to share? I might talk about going to gigs at the weekend, sharing my experiences of that, talking around music in a way that’s relevant to people listening. My show isn’t a specialist show, it’s play-listed – I get what I’m given when it comes to music – but I think about the music we play, how I can engage with that. There’s a different vibe. You can get away with a more eclectic mix. There’s a flexibility at night – you can push boundaries a bit more. You’re naturally more relaxed and in your own groove as a presenter at night. You’re in control.

Social media is instantaneous, so you’re able to engage more because there’s no boss there… I mention people on air, I reply to tweets. There’s less volume, everyone feels more involved and valued, and I do too. Everyone knows it’s weird to be up at that time. I might be the only voice they hear at work.

I don’t have a producer in the studio with me. I work in Manchester, and there’s nobody there with me. I unlock the door, deactivate the alarm and let myself in, and then, when I’ve finished, I set the alarm and go out. I don’t see anyone. Sometimes, when I come over to do the odd show during the day, or some work, I’m like, oh my God, there are people in the office!

I get to bed at 5am and I’m up at lunchtime. I used to do 3-7am at the weekends and I found it a lot tougher. You lose your weekend completely. I like working at this time. I get there an hour and a half before the show, and in the afternoons I walk the dog, go to the gym, I have meetings. The only thing is I get that Sunday feeling really early, at Sunday lunchtime. But I get Friday afternoons. Friday’s like a day off for me. I actually think my slot is one of the best.

Pete Price: ‘I often go mad with people, I’ll cut them off’

Late Night City, Radio City Talk Liverpool, 10pm-1am, Sun-Thurs

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pete Price: ‘I was a standup for years, so I can go with the flow, I can argue back. I often go mad with people.’ Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

It makes me laugh when people say we don’t have free speech in this country. I’ve travelled a lot for work, and when you’ve been to other places in the world, you really know how much freedom we have here. I always say: “You have free speech, use it! Call up, say what’s on your mind!”

I’ve had a lot of radio shows in my time. I had a feature in a show that was a dating feature, called Evening Encounters – one of the first ones ever on radio. People would call up looking for love. There was one guy who called in from the Wirral, he loved his gnomes. “I’ve got 45 of them,” he said. “I love every single one of them. Love me, love my gnomes.” Anyway, I asked him to tell the listeners what he looked like. “I’m five foot,” he said. And I said: “Don’t tell me you’ve got a little red hat and a fishing rod!” and he put the phone down on me. We carried on, and I talked to the next caller. She said: “That last guy. Do you think he was gnome-osexual?” That’s what I love about radio.

I was a standup for years, so I can go with the flow, I can argue back. I often go mad with people, I’ll cut them off. Late-night talk radio is like a confessional and I’m the priest.

I’m gay, I’m adopted, my mum died, I’ve had struggles in life, I’ve been through every pain you have except for childbirth. And I’ll talk about it all. I’ll talk about anything on air. Except football. I hate the way football’s changed, how it’s about money now and not passion. And the way it divides people, how abusive they get.

I think about the show all day. It’s all planned, but when the mic goes live, anything can happen. We’ll have questions and interviewees. I know a lot of celebs: my autobiography is called Pete Price: Namedropper. I’ll just call them up and have a chat. Sharon Osborne is a mate, Paul O’Grady will often call if he’s in Liverpool. He’ll be feeding the lambs and think, I must ring Pricey. We have the “peaceful hour” at midnight, but if something breaks on the news, then we have to react. We have to go with it.

I know what the show can mean to people because they tell me. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, like with the James Bulger case. People phoning in, saying: “I think I saw them when I was on the bus, I saw them walking along the street, I could have stopped them, I can’t live with myself.”

I once walked out in the middle of a show in 2004 because a young lad called Michael phoned in saying he was going to kill himself. He was 12. Off air, I said to him: “If I come and see you, would you stop what you’re gonna do?” And he said: “You’d never come.” And I said: “I would.” And I left the studio and I drove to his road. I said to my producer, I’ve got to go, you can’t stop me. I called the police on the way, because I didn’t know if it was a set-up – I’m a known gay man, he was 12. I saw him and got him in the car. I was driving him to the hospital and one of the police rang to see if he was all right. So I picked up his call and Michael said: “You know it’s illegal to talk on the phone while you’re driving!” I went, “I’ve just saved your life, you little shit!”

You can get your problems off your chest, you don’t have to go to bed with them, you can speak to me instead Pete Price

Social media has made phone-ins more difficult. Some people don’t call because they can tweet or text instead. I don’t like texting on my phone. It drives me mad, but we tweet during the show. There’s only me and my producer, we don’t have a big team. People are lazy and it takes two seconds to tweet. When we ring them back to have a chat, they get impatient even though we’re paying for the call. No one wants to wait.

There was one lady who called, a bit ago. Her husband died and she was distraught. I talked to her and made her get one of his suits from the wardrobe and sleep next to it. And the next day I got the most beautiful bouquet of flowers from her daughters, and a note saying that I’d saved her life the night before.

To anyone reading this, I would say, please don’t waste your opportunity to call in. We are the luckiest people alive, in this country. You can get your problems off your chest, you can talk about them, you don’t have to go to bed with them, you can speak to me instead, share it, whether it’s political, medical, anything. Talk to me. I can’t emphasise it enough, we are so lucky to have freedom of speech. Look at Turkey! We’re so lucky and we shouldn’t take it for granted. It’s the most incredible tool.

Dotun Adebayo: ‘I’m happy to give out my personal phone number’

Up All Night, BBC Radio 5 Live, 1-5am, Thurs-Sun

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dotun Adebayo: ‘Our priority is news.’ Photograph: BBC/Jon Super

I’m the default late-night listen, which means we can’t realistically just feature ranting and raving callers. If you’re not watching telly, then we’re what you’re listening to for breaking stories, and we never forget that. The World Service is more on an international scale, we’re the national news. We’re the first point of call, the messenger, we have to get the message across.

So our priority is news. We do a world football phone-in on a Friday night and we had to abandon it for two weeks running because of atrocities: first Nice, then Turkey. We have fans all over the world and some of them got it, and some didn’t. We got lots of: “We’ve got to suffer because of something we can’t control.”

We embrace some of that call conversation. I’m happy to give out my personal phone number to certain callers. The other week, I was talking about my daughter’s English A-level. She studied Macbeth and I said to her: “Any question about Macbeth can be answered with this: it’s an argument between existentialism and determinism. Is Macbeth ruled by fate or is he the maker of his own destiny? Does he have to follow what’s determined in advance?” Anyway, we got a lot of texts about it, and they carried on after the programme ended. I replied to them from my phone by text, because I think if you’ve taken the trouble to think about the topic and send in a question, then you’re part of my extended family.

I’m a Londoner through and through, but I have to live in Manchester for the show, so I live in the rear end of Salford in a £90-a-week flat. A one-bedroom place. I’m half-Mancunian now. There’s a gym at the bottom of my tower block and I go after the show for two hours.

When I started the late-night show, when it was still in London, I thought it was the perfect opportunity. I had two young children and I’d come in to 5 Live every night after they went to bed. I come in at 9pm to go on for 1am and then I got home by 5.30am to see them get up. They never missed me. But now they’re older, and so am I, and emotionally it’s much more difficult.

When I started there was a production team of five; now it’s a team of two, a senior producer and a broadcast journalist as well as me. You can only do that job if you’re a really excellent journalist. You’re forced to react, to respond in the middle of the night to a press conference from Barack Obama that you thought was a five-minute thing on the economy and turns out to be him announcing: “We have shot dead Osama bin Laden.” You have to find commentators from all over the world in the middle of the night.

Social media has totally changed the job. The traditional advantage that radio has over TV, that we can be more immediate, that we can be on air in 30 seconds… well, social media is even more immediate. We can be more in-depth than 140 characters, though. Also, for my other show, a black-interest programme on BBC London. The other day we had five guests booked on the subject of Black Lives Matter and not one could make it. All five dropped out with hours to spare. So we went on Twitter and tweeted people who had been tweeting about Black Lives Matter and five people got back and we used three of them. We got new voices.

A late-night programme is a unique form of radio. There’s no one anywhere in the country that does what we do. One in five people listening at that time of night are listening to me. We might not get the same figures as breakfast shows, but in terms of market share, we’re the boss.