IS FIVE DUMBING DOWN?

Is Radio 5 live dumbing down?
According to an article in this morning's Ios,that is certainly the case.

Tim Luckhurst cites gives a few examples in his article

When the new financial year begins in April, two long-running shows will
disappear from BBC Radio Five Live. Euro News, first broadcast when the station
was launched in 1994, will be abolished along with the weekend obituary show
Brief Lives. Up to six journalists' jobs will go, but a BBC spokesman says
"These cuts are unrelated to any overspend."

One BBC producer says: "I can list correspondents who have not appeared on
Five Live for a year. It is not on their radar. Many programmes have abandoned
serious news."

"Listening to the banter that has replaced current affairs, it is hard to
remember that it was launched by a former editor of the Today programme [Jenny
Abramsky]. It has repositioned itself as entertainment."

I have to say that I tend to listen to the station a lot less thanI used
to,only really when it now covering sports events tending to get my hard news on
Radio 4 or online.Whether that's a sign of dumbing down or getting older,it
isdifficult to say.

Controller Bob Shennan gives a contrary view

"

When Five Live launched, it was the only rolling news service on the BBC.
The development of rolling news on other outlets has forced us to evolve and
that has had an impact on the threshold for news stories."
Now BBC correspondents must file a generic piece for all outlets and
television takes priority. But Mr Shennan denies that losing news priority has
reduced his station's credibility. He regards reluctance to interrupt discussion
programmes with minor stories as a sign of maturity. He insists Five Live
remains determined to pursue its founding ambition to broaden the BBC's news
agenda by covering stories other outlets ignore.
"Our programmes cover many
issues that are not on the BBC's news-gathering diary. That is why sport is so
crucial: it brings in an audience that does not automatically listen to news.
But Five Live has never been about handing down tablets of stone with 'news'
written on them. It was launched to provide news relevant to the people it
serves."

Some of the banter however is a little too brisk for the ears,especially the Breakfast programme which I now rarely listen to.
But it has a place in the radiosphere,certainly allowing far more listener interaction than on other rolling news networks.

Not a view agreed by Mr Luckhurst, aformer assistant editor on the station

What that leaves is a service which, far from being unique,
partially replicates the tone of mass-market papers but lacks their killer
instinct. To my ear, Five Live already sounds too much like neutered populism. I
do not doubt it can attract listeners. My qualm is that it is pursuing a
strategy that will render it indistinguishable from commercial chat radio. What
will the new BBC Trust make of a station that sounds increasingly like the
advertising-funded TalkSport (which recently broke Five Live's match-day
monopoly on Premier League football)? A truly independent regulator would
question the legitimacy of funding it from a universal licence fee

.