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 by way of the licence price and may resign. However they’re frightened to disclose the viewers for the abysmal Claire Summers programme that changed Good Morning Wales (GMW). I wish to know what the true figures are throughout daytimes and weekends and the way they waste over £18 million. It’s about time they began to reply a couple of questions.”
A former radio government, stated: “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.”.
Our personal Editor, Phil Parry, who offered the lunchtime programme, Wales at One, the drive-time present Good Night Wales, in addition to the weekly debate collection Individuals’s Meeting, for seven years till 2006, stated: “I actually don’t see how for much longer this could go on.
“These in cost have to take duty for what has occurred, and step down. That is PUBLIC cash we’re speaking about in spite of everything!”.
Nonetheless the station, in addition to Mr Paterson and Mr Davies, has usually hit the headlines for unlucky causes.
Our journalists have been alone in reporting that Mr Paterson had an affair with the presenter Lucy Owen, 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 (have been) amplified this 12 months by criticism from former award successful reporters and presenters”.
For a lot of workers at BBC CW, Mr Paterson’s romance with the married Mrs Owen represented a serious potential battle of curiosity, as a result of officers had commissioned a RW programme hosted by Mrs Owen, 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 have been anxious about their partnership’s doable influence on the method.
Mr Flynn was equally unimpressed by The Eye’s disclosure of this relationship. He advised us: “If Paterson has been having an affair with a Wales At present and Radio Wales presenter it brings his administration abilities in to query and he must be suspended instantly”.
When Mr Paterson’s former paramour, Mrs Owen, was newsreading on BBC Wales At present (WT), programme-makers used an image of Brighton Pavilion throughout protection of the beginning of the massively vital Muslim month of Ramadan as a substitute of a mosque, and the error was then featured within the Brighton Argus.
One Twitter consumer complained: “BBC Wales exhibiting 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)”.
Mrs Owen had additionally tweeted over Christmas 2020 about how she had taken a visit to the seaside at Southerndown within the Vale of Glamorgan, when others have been ruled by lockdown rules. She handled us, too, to a video of how she had suffered a “turkey drama” (presumably at her South Wales house) by leaving plastic on the roast, however it can’t examine to the disaster endured by the households to whom she broadcasted each evening with the newest lockdown guidelines. She introduced on-line, as she confirmed us what had occurred: “I left a little bit of the plastic on it…”
Up to now, Mrs Owen has additionally described as a ‘disaster’ sporting odd sneakers into the workplace to broadcast the lunchtime bulletin, and requested whether or not anybody would discover. She even included for us a shocked face emoji after that remark, and following it Mrs Owen revealed on Twitter: “Disaster over!”.
But she might, maybe, have centered on the BBC CW web site saying the identical day that coronavirus/Covid-19 was the most important reason for demise in Wales that month, which many would possibly see as an actual drama. This was what she would have learn as a substitute of complaining about sporting odd sneakers: “The mortality fee rose “considerably” for a second month, to 260 deaths per 100,000 individuals in Wales. It was additionally greater than twice the speed in essentially the most disadvantaged areas in contrast with the least disadvantaged space”.
Mr Davies’ appointee who she had an affair with, Mr Paterson, has additionally been within the information for the fallacious causes. He posted a video on Fb (FB) about how he too went to the seaside over Christmas 2020 – this time at close by Ogmore, which he stated was “Balmy”.
But the Welsh Authorities (WG) guidelines on the time appeared clear sufficient: “If you’re travelling away from house, you must journey to fulfill your Christmas bubble and return house in the middle of 25 December...You must hold taking steps to cut back the unfold of the virus, and this can assist be certain that you take pleasure in Christmas Day as safely as doable.” Journey recommendation from South Wales Police (SWP) warned individuals then about going to seashores “you shouldn’t be driving to those locations”.
Bizarrely, Mr Paterson had additionally retweeted particulars of the lockdown restrictions from his personal radio station which lined the Christmas interval then.
On November 4 in 2017 we confirmed how new schedules have been about to be revealed by the BBC, however the fashionable Sunday programme of Mr Jones didn’t seem. On the time the BBC advised The Eye, that they did “make modifications to when programmes run”.
Nonetheless it transpired that the favored 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 precipitated 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 sometimes juvenile, as was that of others, he by no means supposed to harass or misery and he strongly denies any inappropriate contact. He’s, nevertheless, deeply sorry for any upset precipitated and hopes this matter is resolved quickly.” Mr Jones’ spokesman added that the allegations from a single feminine complainant of inappropriate messages and phone, reported within the Solar, didn’t relate to any broadcast work, and associated to a matter greater than 10 years earlier than.
Mr Paterson’s substitute, Carolyn Hitt, (who was just lately to be seen on the BBC Cymru Wales [BBC CW] programme ‘Slammed’) faces an uphill process, as a result of she presides over a radio station which has secured the record-breaking low listening figures.
Accusations of bias, too, have been levelled at BBC CW – primarily that it favours the Welsh nationalist get together Plaid Cymru (PC).
The Director, Wales, Rhuanedd Richards, who leads the BBC CW ‘Government Groups’, is a former Chief Government (CEO) of PC, and there may be concern as properly, concerning the neutrality of Ms Hitt, who’s in general cost of an neutral information service. She has tweeted: “I’ve voted @UK Labour all my life however at this time…I voted @Plaid_Cymru”, and in February 2020, she appeared as a keynote speaker at a convention of the Welsh independence organisation YesCymru (YC), and there stated that she was “keen to select up the ball and run” for independence.
In the meantime the newest RAJAR figures, come at a troublesome time for the BBC, because it has endured heavy criticism over a new-look emblem which was unveiled.
Two tv presenters, Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid, greeted it with derision. “I imply, I can barely have a look at it“, Mr Madeley scoffed. “Oh, it’s like one thing from (the hit tv comedy collection) W1A, isn’t it?”, Ms Reid added.
“The longer term is so brilliant I’ve to put on shades!” Mr Madeley japed mockingly on air. “Properly, what’s the distinction? Are you able to think about a designer going to the BBC exec and saying, ‘I believe you’ll like this’ and them going, ‘oh my God, that was value half 1,000,000’”. He went on to say: “[The BBC] are like Millwall supporters: all people hates them however they don’t care”. “You may’t say that everyone hates the BBC!” a ‘shocked’ Ms Reid laughed.
Clearly it’s not a brilliant future at RW if the newest viewers figures present a unbroken decline, regardless of the huge quantities of public cash spent on ‘well-known’ presenters, and with companies in different components of the UK doing a lot better…
