Radio
Bruises and Boaden
Michael Vestey
liked the sound of Helen Boaden, the new controller of Radio Four, when she appeared on the radio complaints pro- gramme Feedback (Friday), the last of the recent season. I need to be careful here, though, as I felt the same about her prede- cessor James Boyle when he was first inter- viewed making soothing noises about Radio Four. We hadn't spotted the fixed Birtist stare in his eyes and the machete tucked down his trousers.
The bruises are still there, as Boaden admitted to the presenter Roger Bolton: 'We'd be liars to pretend there weren't,' she said. There were some bruised audi- ences and programme makers. 'We've had four years of quite radical change and I think we need a bit of consolidation and calm.' We must hope she means it. Her watchword, she told the board that appointed her, was evolution not revolu- tion: Radio Four was a precious institution. However, she needs to reverse some of Boyle's changes and perhaps she will; she is unveiling her autumn and winter schedules next Tuesday and we might see then.
She must not be over-cautious, though, as she appears to be about certain pro- grammes. There was a beautiful simplicity about The World at One running for 40 minutes, followed by the repeat of the pre- vious evening's edition of The Archers. Boyle hacked back The World at One to half-an-hour and put The Archers at two o'clock, adding an often dismal quiz in the middle. It appears Boaden might have been got at by someone, as she said on Feedback: 'One of the things I've learned in the past 16 or so weeks is that simple solu- tions or simple ideas very rarely work on Radio Four.' I think she is wrong there.
Although her instincts told her to move these programmes back she has clearly been persuaded that Boyle was right. His thinking was that with The Archers in its present slot listeners would be wooed to stay on for the 45-minute Afternoon Play: 'There's some evidence that has worked.' It was, she thought, a 'canny move' by Boyle. I find this difficult to believe. I look at the details of the play and decide on that basis whether or not I am going to listen to it. All that Boyle's • alteration did was to enrage listeners whose lunchbreak finished at two, forcing them to miss The Archers. Boyle was enslaved by focus groups, but I have never met anyone who has participat- ed in one, and we have to wonder who they are. They might be comprised of the most incredible nerds, for all we know.
13oaden also said that some listeners pre- fer The World at One as more of a news briefing than a current-affairs programme. All I can say is that the programme in shortened form often sounds hurried; returning to its former length would make it more considered and thoughtful, though it remains a good programme nonetheless. If Boyle has left his machete in one of Boad- en's desk drawers, she should set about the focus groups with it and stick to her instincts about a network she obviously cherishes.
The World This Weekend a week last Sun- day attracted fierce complaints about a 15- minute item it ran about the single currency. I wasn't able to hear it and my modem has mysteriously crashed, but it seems the piece was in the form of a memo to Tony Blair advising him on how he could extol the virtues of joining the euro to a public largely opposed to it. The con- tributors were all Europhiles, with not a single Eurosceptic represented. No one from BBC News was made available to appear on Feedback to answer the com- plaints but Steve Mitchell, head of radio news, supplied a statement which seems even more extraordinary than the offend- ing item.
He said: 'The World This Weekend piece . . was an attempt at parody that didn't come off. .. It's fair to say this piece mis- fired and came across as one-sided. There was no intention to mislead listeners who will be familiar with hearing both sides of the euro argument on Radio Four and indeed all our networks.' A parody? At the start of a mainstream news and current affairs programme? What could the editor have been thinking? You do not lead a serious programme with a parody, you lead with what you consider to be the major news event of the moment. There might have been a case for it with the pro- gramme's Sunday morning stablemate, Broadcasting House, which often goes in for one joke an edition, usually not a very good one either. It might even, with some proper balance, have fitted in to the latter part of The World This Weekend when it was an hour long (another Boyle triumph, cutting it to half an hour). The result of this blun- der has been to bolster the widely held sus- picion that the BBC is biased about Europe.
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