Listeners will be the losers if planned cuts to BBC local radio go ahead, says Christa Ackroyd

It is not just the way the changes are being brought in. It is also the way they have treated presenters many of whom you will consider your friend on the airwaves, some whom you have grown to love listening to and more importantly trust. Most of them have had to apply for their own jobs or attempt to win new roles. It has been a painful and humiliating experience. It is, say the BBC, simply a matter of money and the result of the licence fee being frozen. Well sorry but that doesn’t wash with me. If you can afford to pay millions for what effectively is a repeat of the weekend’s football matches, and several million more to its presenters and pundits, you can afford to keep our local radio stations going. In my book, the BBC bosses have a moral obligation to do so. As communities struggle with the cost of living crisis the role of local media is all the more important. Funding should be increased not decreased.

So why is ‘local’ suddenly a dirty word for an organisation which claims to care for its grass roots. Is it because by and large the audiences are older and perhaps less vocal? I suspect so. The BBC seems obsessed with youth which is why we have already lost oodles of talent like Ken Bruce, Vanessa Feltz, Simon Mayo and so many more from our national radio stations and are about to lose scores more from our local stations up and down the country. Well I hate to break it the BBC but we all get older. That doesn’t mean we get dumber. We are just as relevant as a younger audience who, let’s face it, rely more and more on streaming services and have been brought up get their news straight to their phones. So why penalise a generation who prefer it the old way?

What is wrong with being local, particularly in an area like Yorkshire which has such a strong identity and covers more than five million people? Why can’t the cuts, if they are necessary, be spread evenly across all BBC services on TV and in radio? Why does ‘local’ have to take the brunt. My late great friend Richard Whiteley was a national icon but always said this greatest achievement was presenting news to those he lived amongst. The great Harry Gration, who sadly died almost a year ago now, was proud to have started a second career as a part time sports presenter on BBC Radio Leeds.

So dear Beeb, is the plan to deliberately let it all fade away so you can, before too long, turn around and say ‘ah look no one is listening to local radio any more’ so there is no need for it exist? Too extreme? Well they have already begun to dismantle it. Four hour radio shows, already the new norm, are too long not just for the presenter but for the listener. Those presenters have become our friends and we trust them because they live among us and reflect our local pride. Now many of them are going. The cuts, say the Beeb, are vital. Well the service these stations provide are vital too so get a grip, do what you are paid to do and play fair. Look elsewhere. These radio stations are vital for our communities and charities struggling now more than ever to keep afloat. They are vital for those who are working and travelling with detailed traffic and travel right down to what is happening just down the road. Until now they offered unrivalled sport coverage in depth, now I presume it will be watered down and shared. And when it snows or rains or floods, who do we turn but to our local radio stations? Not only that but they are the training ground for talent of the future. Where will our big stars come from if not through local radio as so many have done? Oh I know from reality TV shows that’s where, heaven help us. The demise of local radio isn’t just a BBC thing. We have lost so many valuable and once successful local radio stations in the past under the premise that bigger is better. And that is absolutely and most definitely not true when it comes to radio. Radio is the most intimate of mediums. It talks to the listener as one person. It builds relationships like no other medium can. It seeks to serve its local listener without patronising them. At its best it informs, it educates and it entertains. Oh hang on a minute isn’t that exactly principle expounded by Lord Reith upon which the BBC was founded.

And so it is time for us all to make a noise. The plans are by no means complete but from what I have seen they are not good. So write to your MP, write to the BBC bosses and tell them you don’t agree. It worked when they planned to axe 6 Music. It worked when they planned to get rid of the local politics show on TV. And it may yet work again. Even if it doesn’t, it will show those presenters who are being kicked out that they are appreciated by the listener, if not by the BBC hierarchy. Because many of them are feeling pretty glum at the moment. And they deserve a pat on the back not being put out to pasture for all they have given us over the years. I just wanted to tell them that. Because local radio and newspapers are where I started. Local TV gave me 25 years of joy. And local is and always will be my passion because if we lose it then we lose our unique identity along with it. Put it another way as one broadcaster once told me, a hit record sounds the same when played in Southampton as it does in Sheffield. A network TV programme looks the same in Brighton as it does when it is broadcast in Bradford. It’s the bits in between that matter. That is local radio. That is local TV. And it has never been more important nor more under threat than it is now.