Articles revealed in The Eye are written by a group of contributors and edited by the multi-award successful former BBC information and present affairs reporter, Phil Parry.
Information that the BBC should axe a channel and revealing there shall be sweeping job cuts to save cash, have put the main focus as soon as once more on how a radio service is offered in Wales that hardly anybody listens to, and the person accountable for it operated a failed coverage of hiring costly ‘celebrities’, whereas conducting a controversial affair with a married presenter.
BBC Cymru Radio Wales (RW) has secured record-breaking low viewers figures, and the top, Colin Paterson had a contentious liaison with Lucy Owen, although his officers had commissioned a programme she fronted, with critics fearing the waste of public cash at his station could have been immense.
However the company seems to be pleased with their man, and its web site proclaims about Mr Paterson: “As Editor of Radio Wales, Colin runs Wales’ nationwide English language station broadcasting throughout FM, MW, DAB and on-line. He’s a part of BBC Wales’ Commissioning Group which brings radio, tv and on-line collectively for the primary time to share cross-platform concepts and search out greater, bolder content material”.
The most recent viewers RAJAR figures, although, inform a relatively totally different story, and present simply how unhealthy the state of affairs has grow to be, in addition to placing the details about the company’s cost-saving measures into context.
Within the first quarter of 2022, there was a ten per cent plunge within the variety of hours individuals tuned in to Mr Paterson’s station, and RW had a weekly ‘attain’ of simply 314,000, which was a drop of seven factors.
In December the full weekly viewers determine was 371,000, however now it is just 345,000.
These dreadful statistics examine with a weekly ‘attain’ in the identical quarter for BBC Radio Scotland (RS) of 877,000, whereas the equal figures for BBC Radio Ulster (RU) had been of NO DROP WHATSOEVER in listening hours, and a ‘attain’ of 34,000, which was an INCREASE of three per cent.
But these figures come onerous on the heels of different current controversies, too. The quarter ending December 2021, marked RW down from 5.9 to five.3 per cent, as a share of the accessible Welsh viewers, and confirmed that just about 95 per cent of individuals in Wales ignore the station ALTOGETHER, but different radio stations within the UK (as additionally proven within the newest RAJARs) attracted a far larger viewers share.
Previous years have been nearly as troublesome for RW as effectively.
In 2020 the figures exhibited a slight improve on 2019 however a considerable drop in contrast with two years earlier, a large lower on the yr earlier than that, and the way greater than 40,000 listeners had been misplaced in a single three month interval, regardless of an enormous amount of cash being spent on new schedules.
In addition they revealed that the full listening hours had been 2,667,000, down from 3,074,000 in September 2019.
One of the primary presenters at RW throughout its launch, re-stated his name for Mr Paterson, and his superior, Rhodri Talfan Davies, to resign (not be promoted).
Mike Flynn advised The Eye: “Each of those so referred to as media executives (Mr Davies and Mr Paterson) are answerable to the general public who pay their salaries through the licence charge and may resign. However they’re frightened to disclose the viewers for the abysmal Claire Summers programme that changed Good Morning Wales (GMW). I want to know what the actual figures are throughout daytimes and weekends and the way they waste over £18 million. It’s about time they began to reply a number of questions.”
A former radio government, stated on the time the earlier quarter’s horrible listening figures had been launched: “It’s (the viewers numbers are) peaking at weekdays mid mornings, with Wynne Evans the one spotlight. There’s an over reliance on celebrities who’ve little or no substance, and the breakfast programme is a shame. Paterson and Davies ought to go”.
Our Editor, Phil Parry, introduced the lunchtime programme, Wales at One (which was scrapped in favour of a brand new present introduced by the previous colleague of then Controller Menna Richards, Nicola Heywood-Thomas) the drive-time present Good Night Wales, in addition to the weekly debate collection Folks’s Meeting, for seven years till 2006, and has stated publicly that this CANNOT go on.
However RW (in addition to Mr Paterson and Mr Davies), has typically hit the headlines for unlucky causes. The Eye’s journalists have been alone in reporting that Mr Paterson’s affair, and the story about it, was included in a Digital Spy (DS) remark regarding RW with the message above the hyperlink saying “…the document low listening figures at Radio Wales below it’s (sic) present administration (had been) amplified this yr by criticism from former award successful reporters and presenters”.
For a lot of workers at BBC CW, Mr Paterson’s romance with Mrs Owen represented a serious potential battle of curiosity, as a result of officers had commissioned a RW programme she hosted, referred to as ‘Sunday morning with Lucy Owen’, and media executives each inside in addition to outdoors the company have advised The Eye, that they had been anxious about their partnership’s potential influence on the method.
When Mr Paterson’s former paramour, Mrs Owen, was newsreading on BBC Wales At this time (WT), programme-makers used an image of Brighton Pavilion throughout protection of the beginning of the vastly essential Muslim month of Ramadan as an alternative of a mosque, and the error was then featured within the Brighton Argus.
One Twitter person complained: “BBC Wales displaying an image of the Brighton Pavilion and getting it confused for a mosque when speaking about Ramadan is sort of f****d?”. One other wrote furiously: “Not completely happy they’ve used a shot of Brighton Pavilion as if it’s a mosque (presumably)”.
On November 4 in 2017 we disclosed how new schedules had been about to be revealed by the BBC, however the well-liked Sunday programme of Mr Jones didn’t seem. On the time the BBC advised us, that they did “make modifications to when programmes run”.
Nevertheless it transpired that the Songs of Reward presenter wouldn’t be on the airwaves in any respect on the BBC, whereas the broadcaster investigated alleged inappropriate behaviour greater than a decade earlier. The singer and TV host from Anglesey, who discovered fame on the age of 12 along with his prime 5 Christmas hit Strolling within the Air, stated he was “deeply sorry” for any upset induced however strongly denied any “inappropriate contact”, and a spokesman for Mr Jones stated that whereas the matter didn’t relate to any broadcast work, he had voluntarily agreed to not go on the BBC whereas it was investigated.
In an announcement, the spokesman added: “While he accepts that his (Mr Jones’) behaviour over a decade in the past was often juvenile, as was that of others, he by no means meant to harass or misery and he strongly denies any inappropriate contact. He’s, nevertheless, deeply sorry for any upset induced and hopes this matter is resolved quickly.”
Mr Jones’ spokesman stated that the allegations from a single feminine complainant of inappropriate messages and make contact with, reported within the Solar, didn’t relate to any broadcast work, and associated to a matter greater than 10 years earlier than.
Now comes information of the cut-backs the entire BBC should endure.
The company is to announce that arts channel BBC FOUR faces being shut down to save cash.
At an ‘away day’ in Cardiff earlier this yr, the BBC’s Director Basic, Tim Davie, outlined the dimensions of the disaster engulfing the company.
Choices have to be discovered to the freezing, and potential axing, of the licence charge which funds the BBC, after feedback by UK Tradition Secretary Nadine Dorries.
BBC FOUR and the kids’s channel CBBC, are to be faraway from the airwaves and put on-line. BBC Information is to be merged with BBC World. 200 hours of content material are to be scrapped, 1,000 workers are to be taken off the payroll over the subsequent few years, and long-wave radio is to go.
Bosses are making swingeing cuts to many different components of its output too, in addition to the key job losses, in strikes designed to deal with a halt for at the very least two years in any licence charge rises, introduced in January, which BBC chiefs say will create a £285 million funding hole by 2027.
Maybe cuts needs to be made, too, to RW, after it secured record-breaking low viewers figures.
However it was to not be – the person in cost has, naturally, been promoted and is changing into Head of BBC Audio for Wales and the West of England…
The reminiscences of our Editor, Phil Parry’s, astonishing 38 yr award-winning profession in journalism (together with among the tales he lined throughout his 23 years on the BBC) as he was gripped by the uncommon neurological disabling situation, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been launched in a serious e-book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the e-book now!
Regrettably publication of one other e-book, nevertheless, was refused, as a result of it was to have included names.
