More pipes

A rambling report from the BBC Trust on the "national" radio services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, offers few crisp insights and some daft ideas.

Here's the hardest message: "Radio Scotland brings a large number of listeners to the BBC portfolio in Scotland but an eclectic schedule has been adversely affecting overall audience impressions of the station". A clear warning to Jeff Zycinski, the Bill Cotton of Inverness, to get a grip. There's also some debate in the full report about why BBC Radio Scotland costs so much to run, compared with the others - some £32.6 million last year. Four production centres, each with managers - and then managers travelling between them - would be one daft and easily removed overhead.

There are odd recommendations about music policy which, probably to the glee of the (commercial) Radio Centre, will increase the number of harp and uilleann pipe recordings heard daytime in Wales and in the evening in Scotland. The sensible bit is that the management should set new measurable objectives for all the stations AFTER the cuts in DQF have been revealed. There's also a late realisation that these "national stations" should co-ordinate more with Tim Davie's isolationist Audio & Music empire.

Meanwhile, I shall be applying for a job as Line Spacing Editorial Advisor, shortly to be advertised by the Trust.