With
the blue skies and sunshine of Paphos a distant memory, we closed the door on
the caravan for the final time of 2012 in torrential rain and winds on Sunday.
Wading
from the van to the car in our wellies we reflected on another great year at
Lesley culminating in our winning a runners up prize in the Best Kept Caravan
competition which is quite an achievement considering we lost just about all
our bedding plants and shrubs to the savage winds and salt spray during the
first week of June. Let's hope for a summer in 2013.
The
news is just as depressing as the weather and none more so than the controversies
surrounding the good old British Broadcasting Company. Leaving aside the horrendous
revelations and accusations surrounding the late Sir James
Wilson Vincent "Jimmy" Savile, OBE, KCSG, from a purely selfish point of view I am more angry about
the dramatic cuts planned for local radio services.
In common with most of my generation I was
brought up on radio and still remember sitting round the radio listening to
Paul Temple, Journey into Space, Educating Archie, the Billy Cotton Band Show and
of course The Goon Show in the mid 50's and later, once I was hooked on music, Saturday
Club with Brian Matthew, Pick of the Pops with Fluff Freeman and falling to
sleep every night to the in and out fadings of Radio Luxembourg.
I can still vividly remember laying in the
bath every Saturday morning after football listening to the Daddy of the Disc
Jockeys, Jack Jackson.
Later, in the 60's we use laze on the east
coast beaches listening to Radio Caroline and Radio London which were both just
off the Suffolk-Essex shore.
Now I
champion the cause of BBC local radio. It is far and away the best vehicle for
local
news, travel and weather and its locally themed chat shows, phone-ins and live
discussion of community issues. It offers listeners an interactive local
service that far surpasses that available in weekly local newspapers who are
only interested in their circulation, regional TV and on the internet. Local
radio stations, like local newspapers, are often the training ground for new journalists
who could end up working in national or international media.
The BBC are planning
to make drastic cuts across the corporation in a bid to save money. Of
course it’s our money they wish to save, the BBC belongs to every one of us
licence payers. The BBC is the envy of the world, the planet’s no.1 broadcaster
and it is ours and should be treasured. Those who run the BBC should be
of the understanding that they are simply looking after it for the benefit of
us and our children and our children’s children.
I
am a regular listener to BBC Radio Surrey and its sister station BBC Radio
Sussex when in Selsey. They have their own local early morning breakfast and early
evening drive time programs and at the weekends local sports commentaries and
updates from all around Surrey, Sussex and North East Hampshire. Most of the
rest of the time they have common programming but in the evening they join
forces with other regional BBC stations for a 50's, 60's and 70's music
show hosted by the excellent Roger "Twiggy" Day, of Radio Caroline
fame, with nightly studio guests from the world of pop and rock music. At the
weekend it's another stalwart from pirate radio, Kenny Everett's partner in
crime, Dave Cash.
Despite
the BBC reducing the annual cuts from £15m to £8m the whole identity of local
radio is in threat of becoming at best regional radio which totally defeats the
whole object. As an example Roger Day’s evening programme will vanish as
between 7pm and 10pm they are preparing to broadcast a single show across the
whole UK local radio network. Somebody tell me how this qualifies as local
radio. Aren't Radio1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc enough channels for national radio?
The BBC wishes to
apply a 20% of staff across the Local Radio network. In doing so they
will save less than 5% of operating costs. To give you some perspective,
local stations are staffed by on average 35 people and they produce around 4600
hours of programmes a year. In contrast, Radio 1’s Newsbeat is staffed by
52 people and produce easily less than a few hundred hours each year in the
form of news bulletins.
Doesn't seem like rocket science to me to work out where to make the cuts.
Doesn't seem like rocket science to me to work out where to make the cuts.
Now I hear that one of the most experienced and entertaining BBC radio presenters, so accurately described by a colleague of mine as a "Student of Life", having fought through throat and mouth cancer and returned to BBC Radio London, is losing all his weekday shows:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/01/danny-baker-bbc-show-axed
How stupid is that. Cut out the middle management not the people who entertain us and really care about radio. Love him or hate him, Danny Baker is nothing but entertaining and a radio institution. Let the listeners decide want they want to listen to, not make unwanted program changes in a desperate attempt to justify their jobs.
How stupid is that. Cut out the middle management not the people who entertain us and really care about radio. Love him or hate him, Danny Baker is nothing but entertaining and a radio institution. Let the listeners decide want they want to listen to, not make unwanted program changes in a desperate attempt to justify their jobs.
Click this link and sign the petition to Save BBC Local Radio :
LONG
LIVE RADIO
My
thanks to The Surrey Heath
Residents Blog
for the facts and some of the words
included in this blog.
