Vanessa Whitburn is leaving!!!!! hurrah!!!

[Ponders]

Is this why they closed down the MB last month - so people couldn't hold parties there?

[IndridCold]

I would be more pleased if I didn't think that her replacement will be even worse .

[LondonMother]

Tense times - but it's survived for 60+ years, so let's hope for the best. I heard TA on and off all through my childhood but my mum wasn't a dedicated listener so it was more of a background noise on Sunday mornings than anything else. I started listening seriously in the early 80s when William Thingie was the editor. It was often very funny then, with a lightness of touch that's largely been missing in the subsequent decades. Humour in TA works best at the level of well-crafted liners from Brian et al. The supposedly funny storylines are often excruciatingly unfunny - Jill and the vegetables, for example, or Lucky the Gnome.

I'd like the new editor to concentrate on character-driven storylines that last a sensible amount of time and don't just fizzle out and disappear after a few weeks. If they need another archivist to help with continuity, I'm available! (Not an archivist by training, just an Archers geek.)

I'd also like to see an end to Ambridge Extra. The main programme needs to improve. They shouldn't be spreading themselves more thinly instead!

[Ponders]

she was interviewed on Feedback this afternoon - she said she was sorry that "some people", or words to that effect (ie implying an irrational few ) were unhappy about Nigel being deaded.

[LondonMother]

Didn't she also refer to 'my' listeners? I don't think of it as her programme at all. Delusions of grandeur.

[NetworkGuy]

Ponders - I think someone also wrote that it would be better if she were dead than Nigel. Not sure that she should receive quite so much flak - I'm sure we all can think of poor handling (I found the "trails" for a few of the "big stores" really over the top)

Also hearing the "spoiler" from continuity announcers revealing what will be on in the next chunk...

This isn't in the same category as a TV soap, where you have 20-40 channels available and they "need" to keep you returning to their series, but "Radio 4" for heaven's sake, with no "talk" competition and it's not as if they really "grow" audience with short or long term story lines... most R4 listeners either listen to the show, or don't, depending on their level of interest.

[NetworkGuy]

LondonMother - re "Ambridge Extra" - thanks for the reminder.

I'm not swayed one way or the other over the show being made, but am annoyed that the Radio 4 Extra service on DAB is only in Mono yet they are commissioning new material from time to time, not just "Ambridge Extra", but comedy and that "Neverwhere" drama which had launch on R4 and subsequent pieces on R4 Extra.

It's a bit more ammo for Feedback about how naff the DAB service is from the BBC (R4 was 80 kbps Mono for a lot of last week because of Tennis or Cricket coverage on DAB, while FM was in Stereo).

BBC/OFCOM needs to consider DAB+ which nearly every other country (that has considered DAB) has decided to use. UK is going to be left in a DAB backwater while new radios will be developed for the DAB+ market and we'll never see them (or if we do, we won't get any of the benefits as UK transmitters will still be using the 20+ year old DAB specification).

[R4]

I thought that the Feedback interview was poor. I bridled at 'my' listeners. Also at the talk of the murder storyline that was veto'd from on high (subtext: Nigel's death wasn't, so don't blame just me)

[R4]

I agree with you NWG about the trailers and spoilers too. I don't want to know what is coming up - I want to be taken by surprise, like RL.

No idea what you are on about with DAB I'm still on LW!