It is a 600-mile round trip from the Midlands to Cornwall and, among other diversions, it provides an opportunity to sample various local radio stations along the way. Of course, the BBC dominates the “radioscape” from Nottingham to Derby, Leicester. Coventry, Bristol, Devon and Cornwall, to name a handful. The few independents we chanced on are just thumpety-thump dance music jukeboxes, serving a specialist audience no doubt with their meaty, beaty, big and bouncy zaniness. It’s a generational thing, of course, but annoying nonetheless if your age is against you.
However, and rightly so say the licence fee conscious classes, we tend to expect much more from BBC stations – a wider range of interesting and entertaining shows and some identifiable local flavour to match the changing scenery. But in their morning and afternoon programmes, they all seem to do the same thing by mixing old music with bland chatter, simplistic quizzes, the odd dull caller and bits and pieces of localness thrown in to make it all sound chummy and personal.
The presenters, by and large, are from the same school as the annoying bloke on the bus who just won’t shut up. In the parlance of street children, BBC local radio was doing my head in as we drove along the M5 and I came to the conclusion that if the BBC wanted to save money but still maintain a regional service, then it could beam a pre-recorded nondescript sole presenter from a central studio anywhere with his or her stack of oldies and a script of corny jokes.
Sticking in an occasional local news bulletin, traffic jam flash and weather report would keep everyone happy. Driving along, it was hard to get any real sense of identity from these regional services, except for the aforementioned news and weather and a run down of forthcoming carnivals and fetes.
The inanity of a lot of these broadcasts is broken occasionally by a famous guest and, during our trip, BBC Cornwall managed to field none other than Alastair Campbell to offer his latest take on the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown era and engage in some gentle joshing and banter about Burnley football club. The presenter tried too hard to be Campbell’s mate and to sound knowledgeable about politics. It was an easy ride for Alastair and a soft gig to plug his book – he is always more entertaining and good value when his dander’s up in a debating scrum, but he was being tickled rather than taunted here.
As soon as he said goodbye, we returned to the lightweight noise that characterises local radio, especially in England. The bigger regional players such as Wales, Scotland and Ulster perform their duties extremely well with diverse ranges of programmes and strong identities, but the English counties are poor relations in comparison. Budget differences will have a bearing on the quality of output, but it is difficult to understand why it all sounds so weak as the English regions have much to shout about and flaunt in culture, arts and history. It is sad to say, but there was nothing regionally significant in any of the output to and from Bude.
Later, I checked into BBC Cumbria on iPlayer to see how they were handling the dreadful murder spree inflicted on this beautiful region. It is a fine balance between maintaining normality and providing a sombre and reflective tone when tragic events overshadow everything. By and large, Radio Cumbria handled the news and reaction with appropriate seriousness and sensitivity, complementing the unfolding drama and mounting grief with moments of relief in music and gentle non-offensive humour, proving that local radio can rise to extraordinary heights at moments of extraordinary difficulty and deliver a community service when required.
As a footnote to sensitivity, Matthew Bannister on Radio 2, after interviewing a caller about the Cumbrian killings, played Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” with the line “hope you are quite prepared to die”. Remember, local radio teams, national stations are not perfect either.
