Bring back Bonita
Sir: Christopher Fildes is right (City and suburban, 2 May). The BBC does think money and markets are vulgar. This may not matter much in London but hurts those of us whose newspapers arrive a week late.
The BBC World Service financial news was run by Bonita Lee Swann, who used to get up at 4am, give us the news with our breakfast, and send us out confident in our business deals or prospects for retirement. In less than five minutes, at exactly the same time each day, she gave us all the share indices, exchange rates and commod- ity prices from all over the world, with intel- ligent commentary. This was immensely useful and the most popular programme on World Service. The new director has changed all this into a sort of chat show, with numbers given sporadically through- out the day at unpredictable intervals.
On protesting by letter I was told most haughtily that if I wanted to know prices I could subscribe to an agency (which is impossible here). His was 'no longer that sort of programme'.
RA Lowis P0 Box 49538, Nairobi, Kenya
Previous page
