So What's New?
We're in a period where lots of new programmes enter the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Scotland schedule. This week alone we've launched Brian Taylor's Big Debate, our new panel game Swots (see photograph) and we've aired another new drama - The Colour of Light. There's also a new series of Medical Matters, another run of Fowlis and Folk , Ricky Ross is back with Another Country and there's a Wednesday date with Bruce McGregor and the Autumn run of The Highland Cafe. All that plus a lively period at the Scottish Parliament being covered in Scotland at Ten.
This glut of new content can create some problems for us. Our trails producer, Ken Lindsay, has to decide which one to prioritise for promotion. Equally our own presenters have to be briefed on what's on air so that they can help tell the listeners about.
Of course, not every programme is greeted with the kind of enthusiastic applause that I might imagine in some of my wilder dreams. Each new addition to the schedule means that something else is displaced or that another series has to take a break. I get letters and emails telliing me that I make these decision while sitting in my "ivory tower in Glasgow".
Most of those complaints come from well-mannered and reasonable people who simply diagree with the scheduling decisions we've made.
Others - just a few - are (how can I put it?) ill-tempered. My Polish origins are sometimes cited. Also my weight. Fat Controller, that kind of thing.
"Why do you make these changes, " complained one woman, "it just casues trouble."
That was my wife speaking. I think she'd fed up having to check under the car before we drive off in the morning.
I was trying to explain this to Calum MacLeod, a reporter from the . He interviewed me last week for which appears in today's edition of the paper. It's most about my decision to move out of Glasgow, but he also asked me about our investment in drama, comedy and investigative journalism.
You see, it's not that we deliberately set out to annoy listeners. We actually spend weeks on complicated research projects in which we ask for people's opinions. Our most recent audience analysis work involved group meetings around the country, one-to-one interviews and a project in which we sent our programme makers into our listeners' homes to hear what they had to say and eat all their biscuits.
But that was just me.
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