I have never lived in the South East, and I would be livid if they tampered very much at all with Radio Four. The same goes for numerous people I know. I am entirely at a loss as to what all of this is about. Did they only ask people in the South East if they listened to Radio Four, and then announce that only people from the South East did so?
Plenty of my tutees are from down there, and very few of them are Radio Four listeners. If anything, I'd say that those from elsewhere were more likely to be. People from the North (and from state schools) seem to discover it earlier, although I don't know why. Of course, people from the North (and from state schools) discover a lot of things earlier.
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They say: Most R4 listeners live in the South-East.
ReplyDeleteYou say: A-ha! I listen to R4, and live in the North. As do some other people I know. Also, I know some people from the South-East who are not R4 listeners.
Do you understand that your points are in no way a refutation of the original claim?
I say that they are just plain wrong, that (as has been widely pointed out) their sample was too small, and that they have decided in advance that because Radio Four listeners are better-educated, then they must all live in the South East.
ReplyDeleteThe North is full of Ken Barlows, whereas I am not sure what the equivalent Southern stereotype would be. But the people who have come up with this drivel are using "too Southern" as their excuse. They wanted to dumb down Radio Four, anyway.
Not for the benefit of the young, a certain number of whom are always going to fall in love with it, while the rest are just going to have to wait until they grow up a bit. And certainly not for the benefit of the North. But for their own benefit, the benefit of those on whom privilege has been, and remains, wasted. Bring back grammar schools.
If they want to get rid of a station only people in or around London listen to or could have any reason to listen to, then they should get rid of Radio One.
ReplyDeleteQuite.
ReplyDeleteOr, at least, I assume so. It is a very long time since I listened to Radio One, and I never did so very much, since people outside the South East didn't and don't. We had little or no cause to do so then, and I am not surprised that that is still the case.
What was the sample size?
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can see, they're using the standard RAJAR figures. Are these generally considered problematic?
18,000. Out of 10 million weekly listeners.
ReplyDeleteNor would I be the only person from the North to be struck, on visting the South East or on metting people from it, by just how uncultured a place it has very largely become. Non-proximity to the alleged citadel may very well be why there are still plenty Ken Barlows and Roy Croppers tuning into Radio Four from the nation's Coronation Streets, but fewer and fewer from the nation's Albert Squares.
18,000 is more than enough to be a robust sample.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I haven't seen trend figures for regional audience - how do you know it's falling in the South-East?
I don't for certain. But I know that the South East is "falling" culturally, only too readily observable a reality; compare the younger, uniformly Southern Radio Four presenters with those who may be London-based now but were formed elsewhere: Jim Naughtie, John Humphyrs, Melvyn Bragg, &c. Or just go there, alas. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair have an awful lot to answer for.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know that Radio Four is in rude health in the North. Again I say that the sample was too small. You could easily find 18,000 Radio Four listeners in a corner of any given Home County, but what does that prove?
What these BBC apparatchiki probably mean is that they want to bring in certain Radio One types who do come from the North originally, but have mercifully lived in London, which is very welcome to them, for quite a while. What they do not mean is that any programme production will be moved North or West, which never really used to be necessary, but which may now be the only way of saving our treasures from the advancing barbarian hordes, like Northumbria and Wessex of old.
My father was a miner/steelworker and my mother was a 'housewife'. I have listened to Radio 4 (was it originally the BBC Home Service?) since I was at junior school in North West Durham. I have listened to Desert Island Discs since Roy Plomley's days in the early 1950s. I could not bear to live in the SE of England. Which category would I fit in to?
ReplyDeleteOne of Us.
ReplyDelete