[Swprograms] Fwd: [uk-radio-listeners] Radio 4 - some more home truths

[Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx>]

This group would enjoy the program guidance.

Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA  18104

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mike Barraclough <mikewb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Dec 16, 2005 5:33 PM
Subject: [uk-radio-listeners] Radio 4  - some more home truths
To: uk-radio-listeners@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Interesting thoughts from Andy Kershaw in Todays Guardian:

Yesterday morning on Radio 4's Today programme a discussion over the
cancellation of Home Truths became a dispute over the very nature of
the station after DJ Andy Kershaw claimed there were a large number of
programmes the station could do without. Below he explains his
criticisms and suggests some possible remedies

Here's another one for the list: Veg Talk. It's on every Friday
between 3 and 3.30 in the afternoon. Two faux, cockney barrow, boys
talking about turnips. To my mind there's only so much you can say
about vegetables, but this show's been going on for seven years! "Call
in with your experience of turnips!" they say. Who in their right mind
has an experience of turnips? And who would call in with it? It's
exactly the same type of whimsy that did for Home Truths. And I think
there's a conflict of interest at work too - one is a vegetable
wholesaler.

There are more and more consumer programmes on Radio 4. It is
fascinated with them. Shop Talk, Veg Talk, You and Yours for an hour
every day; they are all on because they are cheap. The only problem is
that while they don't cost anything, they end up with people begging
for phone calls about vegetables. I really have no idea who wants
these programmes. Even as I speak there's another one starting about
how to deal with a sore throat!

Since the events of yesterday morning I've seriously considered going
into hiding for a few days. But I want to make clear that I'm coming
at this from the view of a fan. I have a great love of Radio 4 - from
In our Time (which was excellent about the Peterloo massacre
yesterday) to From Our Own Correspondent, Thinking Aloud with Laurie
Taylor, Analysis, the Moral Maze and, of course, the Today programme.

John Humphrys asked me what I'd put in place of Home Truths and it's a
simple answer: debate. There's an enormous appetite for it, for public
speaking and public meetings, one that is largely unsatisfied. When
Christopher Hitchens (who's a pal of mine, he likes to call me "Dear
old thing") was debating Tariq Ali in a London college last year,
people were queueing around the block to get in. I would almost go so
far as to say that debating is the new rock'n'roll, but that might get
me in Private Eye.

There is one more thing Radio 4 could do, and that's rehabilitate the
career of Britain's greatest living broadcaster. His name is Ray
Gosling and he's been ostracised from the station since the disastrous
regime of controller James Boyle. Gosling is a national treasure and
if anyone deserves to fill John Peel's shoes, then it's him

· Andy Kershaw is a broadcaster and Radio 3 presenter. He has nine
Sony Gold radio awards in his stairwell. He was talking to Paul MacInnes.







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