I never wanted to be one of those grumpy ex-BBC types who write articles with headlines like ‘what has happened to Today?’. My resolve, however, was broken yesterday by the following text from a distinguished former BBC editor:
The Today programme now playing the Amol Rajan leaving tape on air! If you didn’t hear it, listen on catch up – utter madness.
I worked for the BBC for 15 years and was a reporter on Today for six of those. They were the best years of my professional broadcasting life, and I want the programme and the corporation to survive and thrive. But I defy even the BBC’s staunchest defenders to listen to what I have now heard and not, at the very least, be baffled by what is, indeed, going on at Today.
What happened yesterday will only hand BBC critics several hand grenades to lob at it
The programme spent its last sixteen or so minutes – that’s SIXTEEN minutes – bemoaning the fact that Amol, who has presented Today for only five years, was leaving. Sixteen minutes. That’s exponentially more than the time it gave to items on the cost of living crisis, the war in the Middle East, the new Prime Minister‘s first serious encounter with the leader of the opposition at PMQs, and the crisis in Britain’s jails.
