Radio 4 loses its voice | Dt Leaders | Opinion | Telegraph

The reason that listeners mind so much about the changed tone of Radio 4 is that they love the network so. As Gillian Reynolds notes, nothing else on radio or television manages so often to please, surprise and enlighten.

Of course we are annoyed when news programmes turn into promotions for other BBC products, and those of us who follow The Archers are perfectly capable of detecting when our suspension of disbelief is being manipulated to introduce sensationalism intended to boost ratings.

Pet hates, readers tell us by letter and online via Your Voice, may be Fi Glover's archness, the painful assumed matiness of Veg Talk or the sagging facetiousness of Broadcasting House, but if an overall factor is to be found for the decline of Radio 4, it might be called its change of voice.

If, as many loyal listeners do, you like to listen to Radio 4 as you go about your daily life at home or in the car, then it is fatal to your happiness to be talked at by someone who seems not to share your interests. The unpopularity of Radio 4 under a previous controller, James Boyle, may be traced to his making listeners feel the network was his, not their, property.

Radio might seem like one-way communication. But to find a response in the hearts of listeners it must aspire to conversation, an art proper to civilisation. If interviewing guests, on Desert Island Discs or PM, should entail listening as well as questioning, so communicating with listeners requires a voice that connects – not that of a brash sports reporter, a tinny disc jockey or a self-obsessed chat-show host.
Voice means more than the noise coming out of the radio. It includes the habit of thought in the group culture of the broadcasters. Attitudes that alienate are brilliantly parodied in Radio 4's own satire, Down the Line. For listeners who do not want to leave the network they love, a more welcome voice must be found.

Radio 4 loses its voice Dt Leaders Opinion Telegraph