By Paul Blomfield MP, apparently, as an example of the "BBC at its best".
BBC local radio: has the BBC scored an own goal with its cuts plans?
Proposals to cut £15m from local radio budget, pool programmes and reduce sports coverage outrage MPs and listeners
You've probably never heard of the BBC presenter Peter Levy. Likewise Eric Smith, Keith Edwards, Ali Brownlee. None of them earn hundreds of thousands of pounds of the licence fee. You won't see them alongside other BBC presenters in the pages of the tabloid press. In fact, unless you live in Sheffield, Shropshire, Humberside or Teesside, it's unlikely that you'll see or hear them at all.
What unites the above quartet – apart from the fact that, as BBC local radio presenters they are household names in their own localities – is that they were all name-checked by MPs as examples of the BBC at its best, in a recent parliamentary debate called to protest against cuts to the corporation's 40 local stations across England.
It is probably fair to say that local radio stations are among the BBC's least glamorous outlets. It is the domain of lean budgets and stretched staff, broadcasting to a predominantly poor, elderly audience. But the listeners are devoted. A third of local radio's 7.25 million audience – an audience that is, incidentally, up by nearly 300,000 on last year – do not tune in to any other BBC station.
Full story at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/11/bbc-local-radio-cuts
BBC local radio: has the BBC scored an own goal with its cuts plans?
Proposals to cut £15m from local radio budget, pool programmes and reduce sports coverage outrage MPs and listeners
You've probably never heard of the BBC presenter Peter Levy. Likewise Eric Smith, Keith Edwards, Ali Brownlee. None of them earn hundreds of thousands of pounds of the licence fee. You won't see them alongside other BBC presenters in the pages of the tabloid press. In fact, unless you live in Sheffield, Shropshire, Humberside or Teesside, it's unlikely that you'll see or hear them at all.
What unites the above quartet – apart from the fact that, as BBC local radio presenters they are household names in their own localities – is that they were all name-checked by MPs as examples of the BBC at its best, in a recent parliamentary debate called to protest against cuts to the corporation's 40 local stations across England.
It is probably fair to say that local radio stations are among the BBC's least glamorous outlets. It is the domain of lean budgets and stretched staff, broadcasting to a predominantly poor, elderly audience. But the listeners are devoted. A third of local radio's 7.25 million audience – an audience that is, incidentally, up by nearly 300,000 on last year – do not tune in to any other BBC station.
Full story at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/11/bbc-local-radio-cuts
