Does Today have a Tomorrow?

The Today Programme has really hit a new low - today! It has been noticeable that the quality of news reporting on radio has declined in recent years. The World Service is a poor refection of its former self, but the Today programme, that supposed flagship of Radio 4, has really gone downhill. Some of the decline is down to decisions made at a corporation level - notably the production of news items for consumption on both TV and Radio. The result being the appearance of news items on Radio that are actually produced primarily for TV and so we are subjected to stories where sections are filled with disembodied and disjointed sounds that, when seen with the accompanying pictures on TV, make some sense, but when played without commentary on Radio are just, well junk. But the editorial decision of the Today editors are as much to blame. On a regular basis we have to listen to extended advertorial for other BBC programmes masquerading as news. So, this morning we have, as usual on a Monday, to listen to an extended piece about tonight's Panorama. Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the Panorama programme per se (although it has to be said that Panorama has been systematically dumbed down over the past 10 years) but the fact is that its content is not news, it is self declared news. To compound this in a prime slot post 8am we have to suffer a piece about the rise of Stand Up Comedy. Once again lets be clear I have nothing against Stand Up comedy - I am a big fan - but it is hardly news! And to add insult to injury we are told this is the first of a three part series on Comedy. Three parts!!!!

This concerns me for lots of reasons, not least that it seems to indicate that Radio 4 believe our appetite for news - and I mean real news - and analysis - and I mean proper analysis - is in decline. "The audience cant take it" seems to be their view because, trust me there is plenty of news and analysis out there to be covered if they chose to do it. Instead they seem to believe that we want some parochial magazine show. So Today is declining into a flabby self satisfied and safe magazine programme - no doubt with sofa type sound effects soon.

What is particularity worrying for me is that it seems more and more like the USA where the absence of good news programming amongst a plethora of channels is staggering. One of the consequences of this is a population very poorly in formed about what is happening outside of the borders of their own country. But perhaps that is it. Radio 4 has become obsessed with the USA - we even had to sacrifice Go4it to the truly risible Americana. So maybe that is the plan – BBC may turn into FOX News – oh heaven help us!
I will go back to Tunbridge Wells now.

Progress?

A report today about the planned retirement of analogue radio services highlighted the challenges it presents. This is an issue close to my heart as radio, particularly spoken word radio, remains one of the great joys in my life. The general public perception apparently is that they don't want or need any more radio channels and that the broadcast quality and reach of digital services is so patchy that the loss of analogues services would be unacceptable, a view incidentally which I share. Of course it wont stop the government ( of any colour) pushing ahead in the pigheaded way that they always do, but it is just another example of an occasion where new innovations that are foisted upon us are in many cases simply not as good as what they are replacing nor do they have any obvious advantage. My little transistor radio runs on batteries for weeks, but my DAB radio chews up power to the extent that you can forget about having a battery powered one. Even in a big metropolitan centre like the one that I live in the broadcast quality and reliability of the digital services is poor. You have to have the ariel up and taken together all of these things seem to go against the great advantage of radio – its portability. So it is with flat screen TVs. The quality of the picture is simply not as good as a CRT, and the power consumption is so much higher. But as a result of over promotion and relentless advertising many perfectly good CRT sets are ending up in landfill. One has to question how all this sits with the supposed desire of the governments – of all stripes – to push us to be more green. We are pressed to destroy perfectly good kit to replace it with new kit which is in many cases not as good, obviously costs in CO2 to produce the replacements and generally consumes more energy. This can also be said of the new low energy light bulbs. Of course they may use less power but it is negligible when you think how much more our TVs now consume and the DAB radios will. But most importantly they are not good sources of light – which surely should be the first consideration.

I guess I am just old fashioned but the “progress” we are all supposed to be “enjoying” just doesn't seem like progress to me, and runs counter to what is supposed to be our most pressing concerns – the environment.