Old and dependable Radio 4

An interesting piece in this mornings Telegraph by the Gillian Reynolds under the title Tuned in or Turned Off,she writes about Radio 4

"I think Radio 4 is a duller place these days, more predictable, less thoughtful, with too many infuriating trailers, its news programmes crammed with BBC promotions, too London-centric, its attempts to introduce new voices clumsy. I tune away more often than I used to. There are more programmes I deliberately avoid."

Perversely she then contradicts by

I also think there is no other single network on radio or television that still manages so often to please, surprise and enlighten me

According to the BBC'S own research,

Among the 19 per cent of the British population that Radio 4 reaches, the "core audience" is a minority but a very interesting one. Twenty per cent of it accounts for more than half of all listening to the station. These listeners are likely to be female, older, less affluent than the Radio 4 audience as a whole, much more likely to be retired. Of the total audience (9,342,000), around 80 per cent listen for no more than 21 hours a week, about three hours a day. Over the past few years the core audience has remained virtually unchanged. Listening by people aged over 55 has been increasing. The number of over-65 listeners went above three million for the first time in the autumn of last year.

The writer seems to suggest that the station shouldnt endulge in any wholesale changes to the schedule and concludes

None of us likes it all of the time but that's the sort of station it is. There can't be a commercial rival or replacement for it. Commercial radio requires its listeners to be active consumers (ie not old) with more of the audience listening for longer (80 per cent with only three hours a day? Forget it.) Speech radio, unless it's just phone-ins, is expensive. Radio 4 has secure funding and can pay writers, actors, comedians, performers. When we don't like what they have spent our money on, we turn off.
We are not, so far, turning off Radio 4 in numbers that suggest the core audience is fatally alienated. It remains second in popularity among the BBC's networks, below Radio 2, above Radio 1, way above all the others. If I am tuning away to Radio Five Live and Radio 3 more than I used to, I do not represent a national trend.