Simmering

Funny old day. On Feedback, R4's Dennis Nowlan tapdancing about the future of Long Wave on Feedback ("beyond this Charter"); Roger Wright lambasted for accusing Radio 3 listeners of short attention spans; elsewhere a groundswell of noise about local radio cuts.

Here's a photo of a protest outside the BBC's Mailbox offices in Birmingham. Factual programming is moving to Bristol.  It appears the management forgot Factual "owns" the studio managers, so there's already a small DQF modification so that someone marginally qualified can record The Archers, which apparently stays.

At Radio Cornwall, station boss Pauline Causey wrote an email to Mark Thompson that fell into public hands. My favourite bit..."Radio Cymru costs £16.1 million. It reaches 146,000 people. Radio Cornwall, our station, at present has a budget of £1.6 million. It reaches 142,000 people."

At Radio Lancashire, occasional presenter Sean McGinty is madder than hell, pointing out that the cash cut from local radio over the licence fee period  is less than 20% of the growth in income of BBC Worldwide in one year.  Meanwhile, at the Trust, the pigeonhole for local radio complaints has 1,000 in it; with just 600-odd for the whole of the rest of DQF.

DG Mark Thompson has been visiting BBC staff in Belfast and cheering them up with these thoughts: "If you're really that unhappy, if you think that you can't do your best work here then leave - no-one is forcing you to stay."