Department stores

Can I compare James Purnell and Mike Ashley ?

I'll have a go.

Is Radio 4 the House of Fraser of the UK media High Street ? A heritage broadcast brand reluctant to acknowledge the realities of streaming and podcasts ?  Set for an inexorable slow decline, with a dwindling customer base drifting away to more agile competitors ?  Mike Ashley still sees financial value in High Street properties - but not as department stores. He'll sell some off, and probably just use the ground floors of those that remain to sell trainers and Flannels - products with an appeal to youth that House of Fraser couldn't manage.

What's James Purnell's take on Radio 4 ? Candidates for the vacant Controllership are waiting with baited breath for the job ad, now being batted back and forth between HR Onboarding, Talent, Nurturing, Diversity and the Director's Office, in the hope it will give them a steer. Doyenne of radio critics Gillian Reynolds told Sunday Times readers at the weekend that applicants will have to understand James' strategy, and listen non-stop to BBC Sounds, his first major intervention in British radio since the ousting of Helen Boaden.

The trouble is that the House of Fraser/Radio 4 comparison is patchy. House of Fraser dropped haberdashery and furs some time ago; the Radio 4 schedule still has elements of the schedule it started with in 1967. But it can hardly deemed to be failing. The weekly average audience is just under 11m - in December 2000 it was just under 9m. It's still - just - the most popular station in the London transmission area, ahead of Radio 2.  This stability is all the more remarkable given the new entrants to the all-speech market; Radio 5Live in 1994; the move of LBC to a national station in 2014; and the arrival of TalkRadio in 2016.

There is a weakness - the number of hours listeners stay with Radio 4 is on a slight decline. It was around 12.5 per head in 2000 - now it's around 11. It's possible that the 'a la carte' offerings of the BBC Radio iPlayer and BBC Sounds are, slowly, tempting audiences to 'create their own schedule'. (Or they could be doing something else.)

The answer to the problem, as with many such questions, is John Lewis. Wouldn't it be grand to have a Controller who want to work with staff and indies to invest, refresh and modernise ?  And brilliant to share ownership of the online offering, rather than see it handed to a separate, competitive team ?

What, Gillian, would be good would be for the Chairman of the Selectors, James Purnell, to listen to Radio 4 non-stop for a bit, rather than dipping into 6Music during weekend cooking. And then the candidates could have an informed discussion at the interview, rather than shape their ambition to match the ambition of the strategist.