Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> Libby on target With Yoof Radio http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1582712735 Message started by Burstner55 on Feb 26^th, 2020, 10:26am

Title: Libby on target With Yoof Radio
Post by Burstner55 on Feb 26^th, 2020, 10:26am

I commend today’s comment by Libby Purves in The Times. She is saying what I have been droning on about for years. She just says it better. See for yourself. The paywall prevents me cutting and pasting.

Title: Re: Libby on target With Yoof Radio
Post by Administrator on Feb 26^th, 2020, 1:29pm

Here’s a taste of it:

“ Today, under BBC management preoccupied with handing out fortunes in “back pay” to women it undervalued, its [radio’s] existence is in danger. Even its most secure public faces protest: this week the Today presenter Justin Webb decried the new mantra that “traditional linear broadcasting” must be replaced by a digital buffet of any old tosh that might attract 16 to 24-year-olds. Hence podcasts, many of which are vapid waffle, puddle-deep pop-culture fandom, or lip-smacking “true crime”.

“The BBC Sounds app has money poured into it rather than into programmes; “youth-friendly” presenters are overpaid and underdirected. Yet as Webb suggests, “The young will get old. It has happened before.” Meanwhile the idiosyncratic identity of news programmes — argumentative Today, measured World at One, cheerful drivetime PM — is assaulted by the ruling that all reports must come from a “story-led” central hub. As if all newspapers were ordered to use a single pool of reporters, their editors obedient receptors.

“Radio, linear as well as digital-buffet, retains a strong listenership. It can still surprise, when scheduling offers something (as Reith wished) “better than you thought you wanted”. It is actually the BBC’s only USP: others do TV news, drama and documentaries just as well. But radio is scorned by ambitious tin-eared management theorists. When “young” ears grow up, there may not be much left for them.”