COMPLETE SITE INDEX
THERE IS A CRISIS AFOOT
Article from The Argus newspaper
To read the article, scroll down to the bottom of page
The Facts . . . . .
Four long standing members of the presenting team at BBC southern Counties Radio will not be having their contracts renewed at the end of March this year, only days away now. These presenters (in alphabetical order) are Bill Buckley, Dominic Busby, Ed Douglas and John Radford. Newspaper articles started to appear across the Southern Counties region before Christmas (Argus report here) and now many other local newspapers have also carried the story. In fact, as regular listeners will know, Nigel Campbell and Tony Fisher have already left aswell. Presenters have been making occasional references on air confirming this managerial decision but are not in a position to discuss the situation at length on air. Obviously, they still have programmes to present and keep disruption of the normal routine to a minimum. Morale at the Brighton and Guildford studios is at an all time low and many hundreds of listeners have contacted the station management and presenters themselves expressing the sadness and in some cases anger at the decision.
Article from The Guildford Times newspaper
The planned weekday line up from the beginning of April is as follows ...
Presenting the Surrey Breakfast Show (replacing Ed Douglas) will be Fred Marden coming from the Guildford based commercial Eagle radio station. Neil Pringle will be presenting the Breakfast Show in Sussex - combining the existing two programmes currently presented by Sarah Gorrell and John Radford. The Mid-Morning Show (hosted until New Year by Tony Fisher) will be presented by Gordon Astley. Bill Buckley's afternoon programme will be presented by Tommy Boyd with Allison Ferns. The Drive Time programme currently presented by Dominic Busby will be presented in Surrey by Richard Linfield. Sarah Gorrell is in the lucky position of being a direct employee of the BBC and not on the same kind of renewable contract. Sarah will be leaving on maternity leave and coming back to do two mornings a week, either at the weekend or during the week, I need to find out.
If anyone wishes to post their views or suggestions, there are two message boards you can post on. The station has it's own message board and there is now a very long running thread on the subject, click here. There are also other threads on related subjects. I also have my own message board dedicated to the whole of the BBC (you will need to "join" before posting), click here for that one.
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I have just received today a copy of the newspaper article from The Argus about John Radford's departure (see scanned image at the top of the page). I have retyped the article below as it's not particularly clear from the image. Credit to The Argus paper for the following article ...Listeners' favourite John Radford has been sacked as part of a cull of presenters at BBC Southern Counties Radio. The station confirmed last night it has dropped four well-known DJs ahead of a planned relaunch in April. Mr Radford, whose morning show is among the most popular local breakfast programmes in the region, said "I am deeply disappointed. We work extremely hard and are producing our best ever programming. I know the Brighton and Sussex shows had a tremendously enthusiastic following and yet this is our reward." Station sources said falling audience figures prompted a "panic" management decision to clear out old DJs to encourage new listeners. The station has lost about 100,000 listeners in the last three years after audience figures peaked at 350,000 in 2002. The latest listening figures show the station now has 241,000 listeners - a 4.9 per cent audience share. Mr Radford, who lives in Worthing and has worked at the station for eight years, said news of his departure and those of fellow presenters Bill Buckley, Dominic Busby and Ed Douglas has caused morale to sink at the station. He said: "Whatever the situation, my team and I make the best of it but there is a feeling of general malaise. We don't talk about it, we just accept it. We have almost gallows humour about it all." Mr Pringle, the station's managing editor, said: "The figures are part of the equation but not all of it. We know this will upset listeners because they build up a strong relationship with presenters, that's the nature of radio. But we had to look at the future of the station and make a difficult decision. "We Think we have a better show line-up for April." Listeners have been complaining about the changes on the station's message board. One said: "To cast out some of your best assets for the sake of something 'new and exciting' is madness." Another said: "All are excellent presenters who have a good rapport with their audiences. The attempt to gain new audiences will probably result in the loss of old ones." Mr Pringle said the radio station was relocating its headquarters back to Brighton after a stint in Guildford and was planning a relaunch to coincide with the move on April 3. Mr Pringle declined to reveal the new line-up to replace Mr Radford but said it would be announced at the beginning of March. He told The Argus: "John was a lovely man and a very professional broadcaster. I am sure John is disappointed but the decision was not personal." Southern Counties FM's headquarters, including the newsroom, will relocate to Imperial House in Queens Road, Brighton, where the station already has a small studio. Up to 12 members of staff, half of whom are freelance, will be affected by the relocation. |
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