From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Newsgroups: uk.misc,soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: BBC Radio 4 Longwave
Date: 12 Oct 92 23:54:12 GMT
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de (.de, ie Deuchland uber alles ville)
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA

In article <1992Oct8.134220.17155@edscom.demon.co.uk>, rpt@edscom.demon.co.uk
(Richard Tomlinson) writes:
|>In article <PD.92Oct7184404@herts.x.co.uk> pd@x.co.uk (Paul Davey) writes:
|>>
|>>The BBC has announced that the domestic Radio 4 service will no longer
|>>be broadcast on 198Khz longwave (1500m). That frequency will then be
|>>used for the proposed BBC 24 hour News service.
|>>
|>>BBC R4 will still be available on VHF/FM.
|>>
|>>As the longwave frequency can be picked up all over the British Isles
|>>and much of Western Europe many listeners are up in arms over this
|>>proposed change.
|>>
|>>Most drama programmes will not be carried on the news service.
|>>
|>
|>This all sounds like a great idea to me. Drama is not very interesting on LW
|>as it's not stereo. The most important function of Radio 4 IMHO is to carry
|>quality news - this will still be available to all those who can get LW. 

As a self confessed news junkie (I listen to 8 buletins a day usualy) I can tell
you that 24 hour news is not as good as you would think. CNN is about as
interesting as watching paint dry. 

If they were to keep analysis, you and yours, wymins hour etc. there might be a
case for a 24 hour service This would mean squashing the Archers (particularly
the Sunday marathon edition) and thought for the bloody day, nauseating
patronizing little prelates to make you start the day feeling like you want to
throw up. It's almost as bad as listening to that dreadful Lynda Thathcher-Snell
in the archers, she's a right stomach churner n' all. We would also lose the
daily service we got lumbered with, although the religious reading program has
finished the christian classics and started on the maharybat so is actually
interesting. However if you exclude all the drama threre is not much time saved.
To do 24 hour news you would have to knife the chat shows and the panel games.

Many is the night that I have lied in bed (I'm practicing being George Bush), on
my back looking up at the stars and thought "shit what happened to my roof", no
sorry, thought gosh good ol' blighty I'm sorry I haven't a clue brings it all
back, pity they don't have an ecconomy that can give me a job because that
bloody woman and her head prefect screwed the ecconomy.

|>I
|>would also point out that people outside the UK should not enter the argument
|>as they don't pay a licence fee. Remember that the World Service is paid for
|>by the foreign office.

Oh thanks a bloody bundle old chap.

Point of fact, I recently got offered a quite exceptionaly generous salary under
the EEC human mobility program. These are fellowships paid for in part by the
British taxpayer and the express purpose is to get people to move about the EEC,
you are ineligible for a fellowship from your own country or one you have lived
in for more than two years. This is a program the British government supports.

So on the one hand they will pay a lot of dosh to be rid of me and on the other
they are going to take away me radio 4. That makes about as much sense of the
old Tory nonsense that "you can't buck the markets" and membership of the ERM as
the cenerpiece of ecconomic strategy were reconcilable philisophical positions.

Of course it would be quite fair to say, why not make the treasury pay for the
long wave service then. However there was always a good argument for that. The
longwave transmitter is expressly for emergency broadcasting. It can reach the
whole UK. The government need to keep people buying long wave radios so that if
disater strikes people will be able to hear what the government is doing.


--

Phill Hallam-Baker
Newsgroups: uk.misc,soc.culture.british