WHYS is too US-centric and there aren't enough callers...
| 14:19 UK time, Tuesday, 10 August 2010
We received this email a couple of days. We've been talking about it and thought you'd like to too...
'My name is Patrick, I'm a WHYS listener from France.
First of all, thank you for your great show! I listen to it every day, and it is very interesting! The topics are often very interesting, thought-provoking, the guests say relevant things. The blog is interesting too! World Have Your Say has opened my mind on many issues, ideas. Merci beaucoup !
There are 2 remarks that I'd like to make:
1) In my opinion, WHYS is too US-centric! The topics are often, very often, centred on US issues.
I believe that roughly half of the topics on air are US-centred topics. BP, Wikileaks, Shirley Sherrod... A few weeks ago, the show was focused on US-Israeli relations and 15 minutes of the show were basically listening to Barack Obama and Ben Netanyahu's press conference! I don't think WHYS ever spent 15 minutes on Kan Naoto's, Hu Jintao or Kevin Rudd's press conferences... I mean, at the end of the day, why not, but for me the show is too often, too much, focused on the US! I mean, half of the time, it is "World Have Your Say", but every other day it is "World (well, especially if you're in America), Have Your Say on American topics!"
I mean, issues in France are covered on your show once every two months. Issues in Japan are covered on your show once a year (if that). Issues in Russia are covered once every two months. And issues about the US are covered every other day. That's way too much, way too much, in my opinion. I understand that the US is the "centre of the world", that many listeners are interested about what happens in the US, but still, still, this is too much, too much!
I understand that many issues happening in the US are of interest to the world. But so are many issues happening in France, Congo, Argentina and Japan! And I understand that you have a lot of listeners in the US through partnership with American public radio. Sometimes I get the feeling that you are trying to "crack America" and that you mostly have American listeners in mind. I may be wrong, but that's my feeling. For example, on the show you often say "please call country code 44 20 70 83 72 72. Oh and if you're in the US, you need to dial 011 first". OK. And people in France, what numbers do they need to dial first? And people in China, what digits do they need to dial first? And what about people in Afghanistan? The way I hear it, people in every other country are expected to work out how to make an international call by themselves, but US listeners oh we'll remind you twice during the show that you need to dial 011 first.
I believe this is not fair! I mean, maybe this triggers in me an emotional reaction like the kid at the back of the classroom who says to the teacher "you only care about pupils at the front of the classroom! It's not fair!".
But still, I'll make my point: for me, there are way too many American guests, way too many US-centred topics. I believe that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service's World Have Your Say should focus more time on issues from different parts of the globe, half of the time on US issues, with American guests, is too much.
2) Sometimes, I believe that there is too much air time reserved for guests and not enough for listeners calling. It often happens that guests talk between themselves during 90% of the show and at the end, there is time for just one or two listeners to air their view. Obviously, listeners can share their view by sending text messages. Still, I think that "talk time" is important and, in my humble opinion, too much talk time is occupied by guests and not enough by listeners on many shows (not all).
Well, I'm just one listener and this is a very personal reaction. But I wanted to share it!
Still, I love the show, and thank you!
Regards,
Patrick'
