Even Libby Purves is slamming Radio 4

Even former Radio 4 stalwart, ex-Midweek presenter and self-declared ''life-long loyalist and listener'' Libby Purves - though in many ways as 'BBC as can be' in her outlook - sees that David Blunkett has a point about her favourite channel BBC Radio 4. 

In her latest Times column she says that the BBC shouldn't ignore him, and although she thinks it's ''not all the way there yet'' she obviously thinks it's a lot of way there when she agrees with him that ''if [Radio 4] starts thinking that its mission to educate is largely moral and progressive, that information should be skewed towards this and entertainment come a poor third, it is in trouble.''

It's a problem, she says, when ''fine issues...overwhelm the casual, accidentally met joys and surprises of the schedule, drag guilt into comedy and make drama predictable and drear''...which sums up the problem pretty well.

''Radio 4’s screechingly left comedy grates often'', she adds, and new Radio 4 dramas are usually ''dismal''. 

She concludes, ''David Blunkett, I feel your pain.''

It's bad enough for the BBC when a serious Labour 'big-hitter' like Lord Blunkett expresses the concerns we've been expressing over the years, but when Libby Purves - of all people - comes out in support of him then the BBC ought to take heed.

Dropping 'below the line', the highest-rated comment below Libby's piece says, ''I used to say Radio 4 was worth the licence fee on its own. No more. I have switched it off. I am fed up with having propaganda rammed in my ears''. And this is at The Times.

The second-highest-rated comment said, ''I can't help myself, and I know it's silly, but whenever I switch on radio 4 I listen to the first 10 words I hear. Invariably they are about race, gender or climate. Try it.'' 

It's the kind of experiment I like, so I tried it around 9.06pm tonight and didn't hear anything about those three things in the first 10 words, though in the first 20 words I heard ''ash dieback'', which is similarly depressing. But the phrase ''climate change'' duly arrived just over a minute later, so I'm giving that to the Times's second-highest-rated commenter as being near enough to be considered a bullseye.

''Amol The Righteous''

I think it's safe to say that the Daily Mail's Amanda Platell isn't pleased with the BBC. Her Saturday column this week is headlined How the BBC's golden boy Amol Rajan conned me into royal hatchet job.

As well as calling the first part of his documentary The Princes and the Press “a hatchet job on the Palace and the Press...and a hagiography of Harry and Meghan”, she says she “submitted” herself to “at least two hours of filmed conversation with Rajan” but found it “reduced to less than two minutes of selective quotes”. She says she “felt utterly conned”, and feels even more sorry for the Royal Family.

 

It has to be said that The New Statesman's Rachel Cooke isn't overly sympathetic towards Amanda's plight, writing:

These [royal] correspondents have all walked straight into Rajan’s trap. He was the editor of the Independent, they must have thought, he’ll understand, he’ll listen, he’ll take me seriously.

She suspects him of “laughing at them inwardly” [e.g. “at Amanda Platell of the Daily Mail trying to sound cute rather than just plain bitchy”].

But she continues, pondering...:

...how on Earth to explain Rajan’s own, no less comical mode? 

He seems to doubt anyone watching could have even the vaguest grasp not only of the basics of journalism, but of the English language itself. “She is a COLUMNIST,” he says, of Platell. “Which means she provides OPINION.” Hammy pauses, disappointed sighs, patronising explanations: he is very good on Today on BBC Radio 4, but here he sounds ridiculous, half-Hercule Poirot and half-Richard Madeley.

Former BBC presenter Libby Purves enjoyed Rachel's piece, tweeting:

Hilarious. And has Amol The Righteous bang to rights as well!!!

“Nobody likes a braggart, do they?”

Libby the Purves

Former Radio 4 presenter Libby Purves has been talking to the Radio Times and giving the BBC both barrels over its “self-congratulatory” self-promotion of its own programmes and services. Here are some quotes from the piece:

“The BBC’s coverage of its own navel has increased tenfold.” 

“There’s a fine line between civil, informative announcements and needy self-congratulation.” 

(On the marketing campaign surrounding the launch of the BBC’s new radio app, Sounds:) “It’s a smartphone app, not a Moon landing! It does pretty much what iPlayer Radio did, only with an intrusive ‘personal’ algorithm that scans your ‘listening habits’ and thinks it knows you.”  

“A new Doctor Who is greeted like a Nobel Prize announcement: Strictly is like a Cup final, and a bit of forgettable fiction like Bodyguard sparks chin-stroking discussion on Today, for all the world as if something in the real world had happened.” 

“Of course, popular culture is worth covering. But if it’s always your own contribution, it feels naff. So does the endless cross-trailing on television, nipping minutes out of actual programmes.”  

“How loud can you bang your own drum before it gets undignified? Might we not expect a gentle throat-clearing modesty, and – in news programmes – a decorous sense that the world does not revolve around Broadcasting House? Nobody likes a braggart, do they?” 

I agree with Libby. 

Overkill

Libby Purves, writing in The Times, makes a good point I think:

"Not living up to EU ideals"

Radio 4's Midweek presenter Libby Purves has a piece in The Times called I can’t be proud of a barbed-wired Europe. Below the headline lies this summary of the piece:

Bickering about migrant quotas as women and children die in lay-bys or freeze in forests is not living up to EU ideals

"Europe should man its borders with kindness as well as wire", says Libby, living up to BBC ideals.