Guernsey Press

Bailiwick broadcasting is the point

SOME 40 years ago the BBC launched in Guernsey as ‘the voice of the islands’. That’s the islands of our Bailiwick.

Published

Yesterday some of its journalists were on the streets protesting against proposed cuts to local radio services which, to the ears of islanders, will make their afternoon listening decidedly less easy, as they learn more about road closures in St Ouen and Grouville.

Just as readers of this newspaper want Guernsey news, sport and features, radio listeners want ‘their’ station from their publicly-funded broadcaster to be a ‘local’ station.

Shared content and depleted local news, interviews and comment just leave islanders asking what the point of local radio is.

Members of the National Union of Journalists were on a picket line of sorts at Bulwer Avenue, protesting against the BBC’s plans to make this move permanent, but Guernsey listeners will be very aware that this has been happening between the islands, by stealth, for some years now. And the station’s listener figures are making the NUJ’s point very effectively.

Nationwide, the BBC needs to be effective, efficient and represent value for money. Perhaps if it hadn’t come to the islands four decades ago, it wouldn’t start doing so now.

But its local listeners would probably agree that unless it will revert to what it originally set out to do for the island, the BBC station may as well shut.