Fans of Radio 2's Alex Lester, the self-professed Dark Lord, are in open revolt at the news that he's being moved from his midweek early morning slot to the weekend. They're also angry that his old slot is to be filled with repeats. In the first programme of the new series, Roger Bolton talks to BBC Radio 2 Controller Bob Shennan about his decision to reduce the station's live broadcasting through the night. Also, is the BBC responsible for some of UKIP's recent successes by giving the party too...
Jun 20, 2014•28 min
With The Archers taking a dramatic turn this week (switch off if you don't want to hear a spoiler before the omnibus on Sunday!), listeners question its recently appointed editor, Sean O'Connor, about whether he's making their favourite programme too tabloid. Are some characters undergoing personality transplants? And why, on Good Friday, were some Archers listeners left upset by what they felt was an irreverent approach to the Passion story? Also this week, we hear from just some of the many li...
Apr 25, 2014•27 min
It's the most popular programme on Radio 4 by far, the flagship Radio 4 news programme, which begins the day for more than seven million listeners. No programme attracts more correspondence from Feedback listeners than Today. This week Feedback puts some of that correspondence to Jamie Angus, who's been Editor of the programme for almost nine months. In his first radio interview, Jamie deals with listener complaints including an interview in which presenter Evan Davis continually interrupted pol...
Apr 22, 2014•28 min
Radio 4's forum for comments, queries, criticisms and congratulations.
Apr 11, 2014•28 min
In a dramatic episode of The Archers at the end of last week, Ruth Archer had a miscarriage and sought comfort from her mother Heather. The moment occurred in Friday's broadcast and was repeated during the omnibus on Sunday - Mothering Sunday. Many Feedback listeners felt the timing of the repeat was inappropriate. But others felt the storyline sensitively explored an issue that affects many women. On Saturday, The Archers broke out of Ambridge when Lynda Snell was heard on the phone to Any Answ...
Apr 04, 2014•28 min
A Today interview is never an easy ride for politicians. But listeners tuning in this week felt Evan Davis's interview with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, too things too far. We hear those views. It's an altogether more civilised affair as Roger Bolton drops in on Radio 3's 'pop up' studio at the Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre. For the past fortnight, Radio 3 have broadcast their live programmes from a perspex box. Radio 3's editorial team, pro...
Mar 28, 2014•28 min
How does Radio 4 decide when to change the schedule? The death of Tony Benn last week disrupted some listeners when an Inspector Rebus drama was cancelled in favour of a documentary about the Labour grandee. Then, on Monday morning, the advertised Book of the Week was removed to make way for a re-run of Benn's diaries. Listeners have complained in the past about similar changes to scheduled programmes when Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela died. Roger Bolton asks the Head of Planning and Sche...
Mar 21, 2014•28 min
Is anyone at the BBC listening? This week we'll be talking to John Humphrys about whether liberal bias at the BBC has put it out of step with public opinion, and whether anything is changing. And there's a tale of sabotage and sacrilege in a Lincolnshire abbey. In an interview with this week's Radio Times, John Humphrys admitted the BBC had, in the past, been wrong in its coverage of immigration and Europe. "We weren't sufficiently sceptical - that's the most accurate phrase - of the pro-Europea...
Mar 14, 2014•28 min
Amidst a sea of glitz and glamour at last Sunday's Oscars, one other moment stood out. It was BBC arts and entertainment correspondent Colin Paterson's appearance on the Today programme, live from the red carpet. Colin's attempts to grab the attention of U2 singer Bono, live on the programme has been the talk of Twitter, media commentators, and BBC 5Live. But some Feedback listeners were not amused. Colin Paterson tells us what happened. Also, you can normally set your watch by the 8.30am switch...
Mar 07, 2014•28 min
Listen to this week's Feedback with the lights on because we're talking horror. Radio 4 has just broadcast an adaptation of The Exorcist, the 1971 novel which tells the story of the possession and battle for a little girl's soul and became an infamously head-spinning 1973 film. With demonic possession and very strong language, Radio 4's version was hardly a bedtime story, despite its 11pm slot. So why did they do it? And are the pictures scarier on the radio? Roger Bolton speaks to The Exorcist ...
Feb 28, 2014•28 min
The Today programme says its "fair, balanced and impartial" in its science coverage. The statement came in response to comments after interviewing former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lawson, a climate change sceptic, alongside Sir Brain Hoskins, Professor of Meteorology and Director of the Grantham Institute of Climate Change at Imperial College. Today was the cause of further frustration on Monday when many listeners felt a story about genetically modified potatoes had no opposing side repr...
Feb 21, 2014•28 min
Should the Today programme have invited Lord Lawson, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and now chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, to comment on climate change? On Thursday morning, as the floods across Britain continued to make the headlines, Feedback listeners poured scorn on a Today programme discussion between Lord Lawson and Sir Brian Hoskins, a government climate change adviser from Imperial College in London. We'll hear why they were so angered by the debate. The other is...
Feb 14, 2014•28 min
BBC Radio News is becoming too tabloid. That's one of the accusations from some listeners who think the coverage of celebrity affairs and accusations of sexual abuse by former entertainers is given disproportionate time in comparison with 'serious' updates from Syria, for example. This week, Roger Bolton visits the BBC Newsroom in the shiny, one-year-old New Broadcasting House in London, to find out who sets the news agenda and why. He'll be speaking to the Editor of the BBC Radio Newsroom, Rich...
Feb 07, 2014•28 min
The news of Nelson Mandela's death reverberated around the world on Thursday evening. But by Friday morning it dominated not only the news but also the normal schedule across BBC Radio 4. Many listeners were frustrated by the coverage which they say was just too much, and at the expense of important national news about the worst storms for a generation and the Autumn Statement. And the coverage continues. We speak to the Head of the BBC Newsroom, Mary Hockaday, and ask whether Nelson Mandela's d...
Dec 13, 2013•28 min
Did Radio 4 devote far too much airtime this week to the marital strife of a cook and an ad man? That's the view of many Feedback listeners who complained that the BBC became more gossip-mag than public service broadcaster in its coverage of Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi's very public divorce. Also, why has Radio 4 been asking sailors how they get their weather information? Does this signal the beginning of the end for The Shipping Forecast? Network manager Denis Nowlan eases listeners' fea...
Dec 06, 2013•28 min
There are irritants aplenty this week as listeners tell us about the Radio 4 programmes that have driven them to distraction. Many of them wrote to ask why Radio 4's Book of the Week about the life of former French president Mitterrand used French accents that rendered it more 'Allo 'Allo! than serious biography. And many other listeners are infuriated by the repeated use of just four piano notes heard in Radio 4's A History of Britain in Numbers. The series' Executive Producer, David Prest, tel...
Nov 29, 2013•28 min
Radio 4's Mastertapes returned for a third series last week, with John Wilson talking to musicians about a career-defining album in front of a live audience. The series began with Robbie Williams discussing his debut solo album Life Thru a Lens. But would the programme be more at home on a music network like Radio 2 or 6Music, rather than Radio 4? Roger Bolton talks to the series producer Paul Kobrak about the place for a programme like Mastertapes on a speech network. When Any Questions visited...
Nov 22, 2013•28 min
Was last week's edition of Radio 4's Profile programme sexist? Some Feedback listeners have accused the programme of just that after a profile of the new Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, featured numerous references to her cooking and baking abilities. In this week's Feedback, the Editor of Profile, Richard Knight, defends the programme. Roger Bolton also speaks to Ric Bailey, the BBC's Chief Political Advisor, about the challenges facing the Corporation in the lead up to the Sc...
Nov 15, 2013•28 min
The last of the Reith Lectures was delivered earlier this week. Grayson Perry's series of four lectures on the world of contemporary art has had, in the words of their Commissioning Editor, 'by far the most response ever for a series of Reith Lectures'. Feedback has received many letters of congratulations for Grayson Perry but some listeners question whether the programmes have been in keeping with the Reith Lectures' reputation for showcasing the thoughts of 'significant international thinkers...
Nov 08, 2013•28 min
Has Radio 4 been taken over by corrupting influences? Author G F Newman's The Corrupted has aired every weekday for the past two weeks in the Afternoon Drama slot, usually the place for one-off plays. Some listeners are not happy about it, especially with the sexual and violent content of the drama that some feel goes too far for broadcasts during half term. We talk to Radio 4's Commissioning Editor for Drama, Jeremy Howe, about why he felt the The Corrupted was worth 7 hours of airtime over jus...
Nov 01, 2013•28 min
In this week's Feedback, Roger Bolton speaks to the BBC's Director of Editorial Policy and Standards, David Jordan, about 'due impartiality' in climate change coverage. And writer Morwenna Banks explains why she chose radio to tell a powerful story of friendship in the face of breast cancer. Her Radio 4 Saturday Drama Goodbye starred acting heavyweights Olivia Colman and Natascha McElhone as Lizzie and Jen, two friends struggling to say goodbye after Lizzie's terminal diagnosis. It left many Fee...
Oct 25, 2013•28 min
Does the BBC still need to balance climate change science with sceptical views on the other side? After the World At One gave airtime to a climate change denier, Bob Carter, Feedback listeners questioned whether this was impartiality gone mad. We speak to Professor Steve Jones, who wrote a report for the BBC Trust on the impartiality and accuracy of the BBC's science coverage, about where to draw the line. Nobel Prize winners, top-selling novelists, former presidents and Russell Brand. There's s...
Oct 18, 2013•28 min
This week the BBC Director General Tony Hall unveiled his vision for the future of the corporation. At its heart is technology. A new app called Open Minds will draw programmes from across the BBC's speech radio output and Radio 1 is to lead the way in becoming an audio-visual network with its own video channel on BBC iPlayer to host exclusive interviews and performances. We speak to the Controller of Radio 1 and 1Xtra about visualisation and whether the future of BBC radio depends on it. But wh...
Oct 11, 2013•28 min
In the last programme in this series of Feedback, we bring you a special edition devoted to one of the most divisive radio subjects - comedy. Recorded in front of an audience at the Edinburgh Fringe, Roger Bolton puts questions from listeners in the room and at home to a panel of comedy movers and shakers. Roger is joined on stage by Radio 4 Commissioning Editor Caroline Raphael - the woman who decides what's funny enough for Radio 4 and by comedian Marcus Brigstocke, who can be heard across BBC...
Aug 23, 2013•28 min
On Monday evening, just as England bowler Stuart Broad was reaching the peak of a devastating spell, listeners to Radio 4 Long Wave were ripped from the action. They were plunged into the seven o'clock news followed by The Archers. Radio 4 Network Manager Denis Nowlan explains what went wrong. Last week we announced that The Archers is to have a new editor - Sean O'Connor will take over in September. But this week some Archers' fans were turned off by a scene involving reunited lovers Helen and ...
Aug 16, 2013•28 min
Was the BBC's HardTalk too hard on Baritone Thomas Hampson? When Sarah Montague interviewed the opera star on the World Service and BBC News programme, opera fans around the world took umbrage. We hear from the listener whose complaint went viral and made him an overnight hero in the opera world. Plus, is the World at One able to maintain its reputation for hard news during silly season? Roger Bolton speaks to WATO editor Nick Sutton. The announcement that Peter Capaldi is to play the 12th Docto...
Aug 09, 2013•28 min
The 119th Proms season is in full swing and in Feedback this week Roger Bolton meets Roger Wright, the Director of the Proms. We put listeners' questions to the Director, behind the scenes at the Royal Albert Hall. Roger Wright is also the Controller of BBC Radio 3. And he might have something to say if his network took one Feedback listener's suggestion seriously. We hear his novel approach to toughening up Breakfast on 3 and toning down Radio 4's Today programme. It's been a good week for the ...
Aug 02, 2013•28 min
Radio 4's forum for comments, queries, criticisms and congratulations. George Alexander Louis is not yet a week old and already his name is known around the world, thanks in no small part to the BBC's coverage of the royal birth. But was it all a bit too much? Many of you think the BBC went baby mad. Operation Dropout mobilises as Roger Bolton meets the man who looks into those awkward silences caused by technological failure - the BBC's Technology Controller for Journalism, Andy Bocking. And wh...
Jul 26, 2013•28 min
This week the BBC announced that the Today programme is to get a new presenter - a female one. Mishal Husain will join the Today line-up in the Autumn and, along with Sarah Montague, will take the ratio from 1 in 5 female to male presenters, to 2 in 6. Feedback listeners welcome the announcement. But it's not all jubilation. We hear reaction to the BBC's Annual Report. Some of it made for "grim reading" according to the DG Lord Hall. £5 million spent on three separate inquiries into the Jimmy Sa...
Jul 19, 2013•28 min
Last week Roger Bolton spoke to the acting editor of The Archers, Julie Beckett, about the decision to put the moment of revelation in the Matt and Lilian saga in The Archers' digital-only offshoot Ambridge Extra. After the interview aired we received a deluge of complaints - more than about the coverage of the death and funeral of Baroness Thatcher. Listeners were "incandescent" with rage about both the decision itself and the interview, which many felt offered far from adequate answers. Given ...
Jul 12, 2013•28 min
