Listening to the news

I read an article yesterday mentioning that BBC Radio 4’s morning news programme ‘Today’ is losing listeners, and it was linking it to the presenters, Justin Webb, Mishal Husain, Amol Rajan, Martha Kearney and Nick Robinson. In the earlier years of the programme there would be a single presenter, the first was Jack de Manio from not long after its inception in 1957 to 1977. Since then many other people have presented it, some of whom are well known in other areas of the media, the longest serving was John Humphrys.

We listen every morning – well as soon as I ascend out of sleep I do, and I’ve listened to it – I guess, all my life. We had the radio on at home as a child and growing up, when I moved away and was a student we always had a radio – no TV, couldn’t afford it! Since then, even though we have had a TV, we still listen to the radio,, particularly the news. However, radio audiences have declined in general, particularly talk radio (as opposed to music radio.)  and I was reading inn the newspaper yesterday that the today programme has been losing listeners over the last year. The inference was that it was the presenters, and their style of presentation which was causing this leaching away from the programme.

That may be so, although I think it’s difficult to test, but I wonder if it’s more about the content than the style of the presenters or some of the other (very modest) changes. The last few years, and the last year in particular has been full of sad, worrying, frightening, depressing news. The terrible pandemic, the parlous state of the government (I won’t give rein to my personal views) the death of the queen (even if you’re not a royalist, many, many people are and were greatly saddened) the dreadful war in Ukraine, and now the grim, ghastly, heartbreaking, complicated war in the Middle East. Oh, and of course there is the understandable concern and anxiety about climate change.  It doesn’t surprise me that many people feel brow-beaten and depressed, and powerless, and why would they want to hear more horror first thing in the morning. At the same time, many are struggling financially, are anxious about their jobs, worried about their future and that of their children.

I feel all those things, but I still listen to the news every day, I guess it’s a habit after all these years.

My featured image is of a nearby garden, in the summer sunshine.