BBC | Autumn Watch

Call You & Yours and the Volcanic Ash Cloud

Wed, 25 May 2011 10:52:28 +0000

A rare newspaper review for Call You and Yours this week. It was a rather different kind of programme - we tried to capture the problems caused, mainly in Scotland, by another of those volcano ash plumes which wafted over the UK from Iceland. All our preparations had been for a phone-in on Mary Portas' brief to breathe new life into the High Street but with the ash making its way south and a backlog of cancelled flights building up, we decided to throw out our plans and go for the moving story - literally in this case. Our previous "volcano special" in April 2010 won a Travel Press Award so we know the subject and BBC Scotland promised us help with coverage and we decided to go for it. Producer Sally Abrahams did a brilliant job of holding things together even though we got far fewer telephone calls than for a phone-in reflecting a national debate. As Elisabeth Mahoney points out in her review, Julian Worricker is the perfect anchor to tackle an emerging story where the devil is in the detail. So were we right to follow our journalistic instincts? Or would you have preferred the debate on the High Street? I'd be interested to hear listeners' views - and just to say we are intending to run the shop debate now on Tuesday June 7. Get you comments on that to us now.

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

Listen to the Call You & Yours Ash Cloud
Read Elisabeth Mahone's Radio Review on guardian.co.uk

David Blunkett on DAB

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:13:19 +0000

David Blunkett, MP for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough and former Home Secretary, asked us to pass this comment about DAB on to Laurence Harrison of Digital Radio UK - AS

I just caught the end of your interview in relation to digital.

It is simply not true that 90% of the country have what normal people would describe as 'coverage'.

I can get digital in north Derbyshire if I hold the radio up to the ceiling or I find the exact slot on the kitchen windowsill! In the rest of the house it won't work.

Other experiences (including in London) lead to what I can only describe as 'overload' so that the much vaunted 'higher quality' can only be obtained if the volume is turned right down!

Coupled with the idea that Radio 4 Extra is something brand new and not simply rebadged Radio 7, and we are all getting the impression that the listener is being treated as a fool!

Honesty, openness and a degree of humility - and patience in terms of getting this right - might win us over a little more than technical assertion or evangelical fervour.

Best wishes,

David Blunkett

Listen again to the You & Yours item about digital radio in cars and leave a comment about your own experience.

Getting digital radio

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:27:47 +0000

Do you get it? Digital radio that is. At You and Yours we'd love to hear your experience of digital reception - especially if you have a digital radio in the car. The question arises after our piece which arose after the news that Ford is planning to offer the digital radio as an option on all its cars and on some models as standard from next year. And all new cars should have a digital radio as standard by 2013 - two years earlier than was required of them.

But do consumers want DAB radios in their cars? Martin wrote to tell us he had a DAB radio fitted to his old car - but quickly went back to FM. "I didn't want 80 stations to choose from," he says.

Assuming you would like that choice, is it really available? Not according to Simon, who recommends a trip along the A470 from Cardiff to north Wales. "The radio works well at first," he says, but after less than 30 miles from Cardiff, the radio dies. "Then there is no signal until the north Wales coast - nearly 150 miles away."

Geoff says he drives four miles to the nearest town in Sussex and the digital radio gives up altogether - and Andrew complains that he can't even get an FM signal in Argyll and Bute let alone DAB. Simon says his DAB signal in Cumbria "frequently drops out altogether."

And Robert complains his car often suffers total signal loss in London - when he drives past buildings. "Analogue interference is tolerable as you can still hear something... but with digital you get nothing at all," he says.

Only Steve from Anglesey felt he could recommend a DAB car radio. Sceptics tried to stop him but he says:"Since having it, the only place it hasn't worked was the Conwy Tunnel."

New masts are going up to improve coverage - not sure they'll help in the Conwy Tunnel though - at the moment a DAB signal reaches around 90 per cent of the population - though, significantly for motorists that's not 90 per cent of the geographical area.

So let us know where your DAB coverage starts and ends - maybe we'll even draw up an informal, unscientific map. In the meantime the BBC does offer help with reception problems.

Andrew Smith is editor of You & Yours

Picture by Doc Searls. Some rights reserved.

The Wrexham and Shropshire Railway Closure

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 11:23:38 +0000

We receive so many complaints about poor customer service here on You and Yours, it's quite something to hear customers enthusing about a company and its products and services. it's even more of a surprise when the praise is directed at a rail service. Yet that's exactly what happened when we spoke to passengers taking one of the last trains on the Wrexham and Shropshire Railway.The company, which operated from north Wales to London, boasts a customer satisfaction rating of 99 per cent and we heard from passengers who were prepared to have slightly longer journeys and pay somewhat higher fares just to travel on a service which felt personal.

Unfortunately Wrexham and Shropshire went out of business last week leaving cynics wondering whether that high level of customer service and its unprofitability might be connected.

A question for Wrexham and Shropshire's boss Adrian Shooter. Many a business leader faced with such bad news, would have hidden behind a written statement but he rearranged his diary to come live on You and Yours to explain publicly what went wrong.

What he told us was an interesting insight into rail privatisation and the subsequent benefits of competition. As part of the Virgin Trains franchise, Shooter's trains were not allowed to stop at Wolverhampton. Had they been able to do so, who knows, they might have allowed Wrexham and Shropshire to turn a profit. Two years and £13-million later, the service has been forced to close.

Those who have already bought tickets can use them on Arriva Trains Wales, London Midland, Virgin and Chiltern. Is it too much to hope travellers might receive an equally warm welcome to the one they'd been hoping for when they booked? Let us know your thoughts on the current state of the rail network.

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours, In Touch, Fact the Facts and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

A prize week at You & Yours

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:24:38 +0000

A nice end to the week. You and Yours won the Travel Broadcast Programme of the Year at the 2010 Travel Press Awards on November Thursday 25th. Our entry was the special edition we did in April on the air travel chaos caused by the volcanic ash blown over Britain from Iceland, forcing aircraft to abandon the skies. It's particularly rewarding because Carolyn Atkinson's small team of producers and reporters gave up their Sunday at less than 24 hours notice, to do the legwork. Julian, who presented the programme with his trade mark calm assurance, wrote a blog as to how the programme came about.

You can see the full list of Travel Press Award winners here.

Earlier this week at the AMI Awards (AMI stands for Ability Media International) where Peter was granted a Fellowship by Leonard Cheshire Disability. As the organisation says:

Peter White MBE has been given this award for his distinguished career in broadcasting and his commitment to championing disability. Peter's achievements are many and considerable and have brought wit, compassion, together with his outstanding journalistic skills to a range of programmes for over 30 years.

Hear hear.

There's a picture of him, for once in his suit, receiving his prize from Ilyas Khan.

24 hours later the suit was back on again. This time it's the Mind Mental Health Media Awards which recognises responsible and authoritative reporting of mental health issues. It was Peter who persuaded me to commission our entry which has made it to the shortlist - an audio diary from Chris Danes who has bipolar disorder. Chris catalogued his ups and downs, which has made for very compelling listening, not least when relating with utter honesty, how the strain of having to produce a piece of radio to a deadline, was not exactly improving his condition.

Joe Kent produced the diaries and you can hear them here.

As it was we received warm words from the judges but not the award itself which went to our own documentaries unit for "Anatomy of a Mental Illness." This told the story of Angela Barnes who was detained under the Mental Health Act after a psychotic episode in 2005.

That was broadcast here on Radio 4 made by a very talented documentary programme maker. Laurence Grissell who cut his teeth as a producer many years ago, here on You and Yours. The programme will be repeated in full on BBC Radio 4 on 7th December at 4pm

It was no disgrace to miss out to this fine piece of work and Peter has won so many awards in his time he'd have probably needed to extend the mantle piece. Win or lose, Peter is unaffected. Regardless of the outcome, he never buys a round

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours, In Touch, Fact the Facts and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4./p>

Happy birthday You & Yours

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 11:00:19 +0000

Our 40th anniversary programme on four decades of telephony has generated a good deal of response. It didn't seem like the kind of subject to inspire poetry but it seems one extract may now be studied at secondary schools.
Listener and writer Esther Menon was one who got in touch, prompted by Steve Punt's column on the frustrations of the automated switchboard.
Esther is writing a chapter on poetry in a textbook designed for Year 9 pupils studying English. "I am keen to find lively interesting poems to support the work on form, language, structure etc that will prepare students for GCSE," she writes. And apparently Steve's effort fits the bill. You can't just put BBC material in a book without permission and we're currently being advised, before, hopefully, we give Esther the go-ahead.
Alan Windsor wrote us a happy birthday song I'm no Simon Cowell, but let's just say it's potential to be the Christmas Number One doesn't, to my ears, seem high. Still at least it won't take us long to learn the words.
And we heard from Elizabeth Smith who was "one of the producers* on that first ever edition of You and Yours. She's now secretary general at the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association. We're hoping for some reflections and recollections about the early You and Yours from her, on this blog soon.
Any use of the superlative on You and Yours is calculated to provoke "Oh no it's not" correspondence and there was no sign of slack being cut for us on our birthday. Julian said, not unreasonably, that the art gallery, installed in a phone box in Yorkshire was the smallest in Britain. But no, said Rebecca Birch, she has an art gallery on her - wait for it - on her window sill. And she's sent us a link to her Ledge Project. And before you ask, no Mark Lawson hasn't interviewed her yet. It's a You and Yours exclusive! The phone box story also prompted Mark Illingworth to send us his photograph of a Swiss version converted to a shower (click on the image to get a closer look).

Apparently he snapped it at Grimmelwald near the ski resort of Murren in the Alps.
I've just been told Radio 4's Feedback may be doing a piece on the anniversary and Daily Mail columnist Craig Brown couldn't resist the landmark as a chance to have a laugh at You and Yours' alleged fixation with safety.
Though the impact was softened when I turned a couple of pages to find the Mail covering Toasted Skin Syndrome. Which apparently occurs when you balance your laptop on bare thighs for hours at a time. Thankfully none of our producers suggested we include a piece on laptop burns on You and Yours.
Finally I should say that the Comprehensive Spending Review has forced a re-jig in our schedule next week. The Anniversary edition on disability has been moved from Wednesday October 20th to Friday October 22nd. And we'll be looking at the implications of Government spending plans over two days, starting on the 20th.
Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours, In Touch, Fact the Facts and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

You and Yours celebrates its fortieth anniversary

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:38:58 +0000

The arrival of a new Controller at Radio 4 has prompted some of the leading radio critics to ponder what changes to the schedule might be made as a result.

John Plunkett of the Guardian wonders whether we need You and Yours five days a week.

And Jane Thynne of the Independent questions whether You and Yours really merits an hour each day.

That was very much an issue back in 1998 when the programme was first doubled in duration and the World at One was shortened, but these days it's rare for a listener to question our right to occupy our current place in Radio 4's daily line-up. Interestingly there were similar doubts in the BBC about the merits of consumer journalism when You and Yours was first introduced in 1970.

Virtually no early editions of the programme have been preserved by the BBC - the first complete edition in the archive was broadcast on 7th May 1971. The very first script shows presenter Joan Yorke tackling "modern" packaging, measles vaccination and buying your first home. Undeterred, by the lack of old material, we're in the process of finalising the programmes to mark our 40th anniversary. The series will be part social history and part crystal-ball gazing. And we still want to hear your reflections on the 1970-2010 period.

On Monday October 4th, it's 40 years to the day since You and Yours was born and Julian will be looking at a product which has done as much as most to transform our lives during the programme's lifetime - the telephone. In 1970 some customers were only just getting the facility to direct dial abroad - today you can use your phone to watch television or access the internet. Using your phone to call someone, is so old hat!

Next up is a similar job on travel steered by Winifred. That's due on Friday October 15th and will start from the days when a tour operator had to get government permission to offer a four day break in Majorca for just £18.

Peter will be bringing his own expertise to a programme which assesses the changes for people with a disability which will air on Wednesday October 20th. Next up is food on Thursday October 28th where Winifred will bring you farmers pleading poverty and demanding we join the EEC, plus campaigners worried about the rise and rise of the supermarket. Plus ca change!

Julian rounds up the series on Monday November 1st with a programme on energy which features concerns about a world oil crisis, an impending oil crisis and the introduction of natural gas into UK homes.

40 Years of You and Yours

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:40:35 +0000

Can you help us celebrate our 40th birthday? You and Yours was born on October 5th 1970 and we're looking for listeners, ex staff and guests who appeared on the programme to tell us what they remember of 1970. Oil was being discovered in the North Sea, inflation was running at more than 5 per cent, Edward Heath was preparing to take us into the EEC, the Boeing 747 made its maiden flight, the first shop bar codes and computer floppy discs arrived. And presenter Joan York launched our happy ship with a look at the "dos and don'ts" of home ownership. Personally I'd have opted for the floppy disc item. The following day "the Radio 4 series which tackles topics of direct concern to you" was looking at the impact of children making the change from primary to secondary school. Pension provision was up next day.
In short we want your memories of 1970, your photographs of 1970, your videos of 1970. If you too are 40 we'd welcome your advice on how You and Yours should grow old gracefully. We'll probably call you the You and Yours Generation or something cheesy like that.

We're planning a series of programmes on subjects which reflect the programme's agenda and explore the controversies on our arrival in this world and how they contrast with the debates of today. But which subjects to pick - Travel? Energy? Technology? Food? - I'm sure you can suggest others.

And as the recent headline from the Daily Mail shows - there's plenty of life in us yet. Oh and a sign of our maturity perhaps - only this week we picked up an award for our coverage of social care in the Counsel and Care Older People in the Media Awards 2010.

Anyway you're invited to our party, it's free, you don't even have to bring a bottle. Although if you do...well it'd be rude not to. And we're not driving. Obviously.

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours, In Touch, Fact the Facts and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

Not Funny, Not Clever ..... Part 2

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:00:00 +0000

It was that Winifred concluded the interview by congratulating Anna on being a "clever girl."

"Please remind Winifred Robinson that despite feminism and all that women have achieved in recent decades, women of all ages still have enough problems with being patronised....without her calling Anna Bullus a 'clever girl,' " wrote Louise. "Would she have called a male designer in his twenties who had come up with such an innovative idea a 'clever boy?' "

Winifred and I discussed it afterwards and we agreed that she does indeed, from time to time call intelligent young men in the office "clever boy" after they've winkled out a particularly good story or planned a skilful route through an interview.

Why use the word "boy" or "girl"? We decided it was partly to do with Winifred being from the north of England where directing such informal words at strangers is commonplace. It's regarded as friendly. And if it has any subterranean significance It's not so much for the more mature to belittle young people as to express mild light-hearted envy at their youth.

We decided to ask Anna if she felt patronised by the remark. Not at all, she told us, while adding she was looking forward to her next interview with Winifred. After we broadcast the complaint by Louise and a similar e-mail from another listener, we also received heartening support from other members of the audience, not all of them men.

"I am 58-years-old and I have never written to any media body before," wrote Val. "But I felt the need to offer my support to Winifred. It was absolutely clear that she was listening to the very clever young designer with real admiration."

What this episode did re-emphasise is the Radio 4 audience's eternal vigilance when it comes to our use of language on air. It was apparent too in the response to Quentin Letts' audio column on the creeping use of Americanisms in everyday discourse.

Rather optimistically Peter called for listeners to tell us the Americanisms they most liked. We received one, maybe two but the vast majority had a long list of words and phrases they love to hate.

Things took a turn for the worse when a listener accused Peter of deploying hated Americanisms himself. The offending word? "Awesome." Peter had no recollection of using it - in fact he went as far as to say on air he'd never used the word "awesome" in his life.

That sounded a bit strong but I was relieved when David, who spotted the "awesome "in the first place, e-mailed again.

Peter, I humbly apologise! You didn't say "awesome" at all - you said "autumn'!
Keep doing what you're doing - awesome programme!"

The joys of interactivity eh?

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours, In Touch, Face the Facts and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

Not Funny, Not Clever

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:14:30 +0000

It seemed like a fairly uncontroversial piece. Anna Bullus is 27 and has her own product design company. Her main invention is a bin for disposing of chewing gum which can then be recycled and turned into...more plastic bins for collecting chewing gum. Genius!

Now her bins are being trialled by Herefordshire County Council.

To be brutally honest, this is the kind of story which might slip off the You and Yours running order outside of August. But in the height of the summer an eloquent young entrepreneur with an interesting invention which appears to solve one of the more unpleasant side effects of consumption, is very welcome indeed.

So last Wednesday on came Ms Bullus for her five minutes of fame (4 minutes 13 seconds actually)

Have a listen and see if you can guess what caused a minor flurry of complaints in the programme inbox.

I'll reveal the offending section later this week.

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours, In Touch, Fact the Facts and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

"Elf and Safety" madness?

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:30:00 +0000

I'd be interested to know whether You and Yours listeners believe they are living in a country which is "elf and safety mad," so do write and let me know your views. We'll be discussing this soon in relation to an outbreak of E-Coli at a petting farm in Surrey.

The H and S-sceptic viewpoint is certainly a popular one. Last week David Cameron set Lord Young the task of eradicating an epidemic besetting Britain.

The Daily Mail sighed a huge sigh of relief, taking an opportunity to reiterate the symptoms - schools banning conkers, goggles outlawed at swimming pools, restaurants banning toothpicks.

But is Lord Young of Graffham looking for a needle in a haystack - if such a plainly hazardous activity is still permitted in "elf and safety" UK?

After all, right now we have the safety record of BP being called into question right across the world.

Admittedly this is under the US regulatory system, though BP is 44 per cent UK-owned. Much closer to home, five British-based companies have now either been found guilty or admitted health and safety offences connected to the explosion at the Buncefield oil depot in Hertfordshire in 2005.

If you're thinking the oil business is one of those industries - like coalmining - that is just inherently dangerous, and remain convinced that the UK's health and safety regime needs dismantling I would urge you to consider the relatively tranquil pursuit of running a "petting farm".

In August and September of last year the Godstone Farm in Surrey suffered an outbreak of the serious and potentially fatal E-Coli O157. This is a highly virulent organism, which the young and old are particularly vulnerable to. Ruminants carry the disease (it's harmless to animals) and it's passed on via contact with infected faeces.

At Godstone 93 people contracted the disease, 17 of them children. No-one died, but 27 people were admitted to hospital with a severe kidney condition, eight children required dialysis and some have been left with permanent kidney damage.

Worried parents featured in the national media - criticising the health authorities for not closing down the farm sooner - thus preventing further cases of the disease from occurring. Some of them voiced their view in newspapers which, ordinarily, are not keen on the UK "elf and safety culture".

Last week an official report into the incident was published. Written by George Griffin, Professor of Infectious Diseases at St George's University, it recommends 43 separate changes to the regulatory regime.

Essentially the report confirms that the outbreak could have been limited to fewer cases had the various agencies involved, reacted more decisively, sooner. But it also reveals a fog of responsibility.

Working farms are regulated by the Health and Safety Executive as they are regarded as a workplace. Yet when a farm becomes an "Open Farm" - primarily to attract visitors, it is officially regarded as an entertainment and become the responsibility of local authority environmental health departments (EHDs).

Local environmental health officers (EHOs) carry out inspections of Open Farms but don't have the knowledge that HSE staff have about health risks in an agricultural setting. Yet it is EHOs that have enforcement powers (it was down to them to force Godstone Park to close).

Furthermore the environmental health department responsible for Godstone Farm was responsible for food safety, hygiene and health and safety at over 2,000 premises, some of them requiring a visit every six months. The Griffin report reveals that at the time of the outbreak:

"...only two out of four posts...were filled . Given these circumstances it is unclear to us how much time was available to ...spend on Open Farm risk assessment. We believe the council should consider carefully whether the EHD is adequately resourced."

Inspections were carried out at non-peak times to "reduce the regulatory burden to the farm operator." The EHD "recorded that they were very confident in the Godstone Farm management and scored the premises above average."

Godstone was also required to appoint a "specific competent person in respect of health and safety." This was identified to be an Assistant Farm Manager who confessed to having received no training for his role. The farm later said the owner was this "competent person."

Meanwhile in the Health Protection Agency's regional operation, which was responsible for leading and co-ordinating the official response to the incident a "computerised case management and decision support system" was malfunctioning "due to insufficient broadband capacity at the Leatherhead office." This system was key to identifying linked cases which would have allowed the seriousness of the outbreak to have been discerned sooner. It had been "in use" since 2006.

Now I don't know about you but the picture I'm getting is less Health and Safety Stasi and more Inspector Clouseau.

Specific shortcomings identified at Godstone Farm were: staff inadequately trained in health and safety; paths badly designed allowing the spread of contamination; "limited opportunities for hand-washing" in certain areas and the "deep litter" system which allowed an accumulation of faeces in the pens.
The risk assessment was out of date, insufficiently detailed and not "site-specific."

And it is the risk assessment which sits at the heart of modern UK health and safety regulation. No longer do businesses fear the knock of the all-powerful, all-knowing "inspector," who can close them down with a single tap of pencil on clipboard. Instead we have a cheaper and "light touch" system which puts companies and organisations in charge of identifying their own safety risks and acting appropriately. And according to the Griffin Report on Godstone it's a responsibility businesses don't necessarily want.

"The....approach which allows employers to choose how to comply...suits large businesses with in-house resources and expertise enabling them to manage a variety of risks competently...This is not true of smaller, less well resourced firms who will often say 'just tell us what we should do'."

Perhaps Lord Young should take note as he waves his sickle at the UK health and safety thicket.

Winifred will be investigating the issues raised by the Godstone Farm E Coli O157 outbreak soon. Unfortunately the owners of Godstone have said they can't appear because some parents are bringing a legal case against the farm.

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours, In Touch, Fact the Facts and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

You & Yours is on BBC Radio 4 at 1200 weekdays. Listen to today's episode on the Radio 4 web site.

Contacting the Driving Standards Agency

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:23:54 +0000

How difficult do you think it is to get an interview with the Driving Standards Agency about changes to the driving test? When we read this morning about a new "independent driving" section to be introduced in October and that some of the driving schools were opposed to it, we thought it might be worth a few minutes of airtime. It's what we call in the office a "quick hit" - a well-founded, easily understood, on-the-day story which can be brought to the You and Yours midday wicket, with a minimum of fuss.

We phoned the Driving Standards Agency Press Office at around 9am who thought an interview should be possible and we started putting the other elements in place. Various phone calls to the DSA followed during the morning where, without guaranteeing an interview we were told they had a willing interviewee who was available at the time we needed them.

But still no final confirmation came through. Until 11.55am (with the item due to start ten minutes later) a somewhat embarrassed press officer informed us there would be no interview as the necessary "permissions" had not been obtained. There was no indication of what these permissions were or who was responsible for granting them.

So senior bods at the Driving Standards Agency - strap line Safe Drivers For Life - an executive agency which is part of the Motoring and Freight Services Group within the Department of Transport, turnover £190-million - can't talk publicly about driving tests without permission. And it takes more than three hours to get permission.

My hope that interviews with public organisations, which were citing "election purdah" as a reason not to take part in the programme a few weeks ago, might be easier to obtain once polling day was out of the way, may have been somewhat optimistic. I'll keep you posted.

The Driving Standards Agency press release about the new test

Listen to the final story on You and Yours broadcast on Friday 4th June

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours, In Touch, Fact the Facts and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

You & Yours is on BBC Radio 4 at 1200 weekdays. Listen to today's episode on the Radio 4 web site.

Best Buy - balance in reporting consumer journalism

Fri, 07 May 2010 13:46:29 +0000

Our report on Best Buy - the arrival of the American electrical retailer in the UK became controversial before it had finished. Listeners complained that we were offering a promotional platform for the company and in effect had become part of their PR operation.

"What the heck is this advert?", asked one. "A very prolonged advert" and a "free advert" were two more comments which rolled in by e-mail while we were still on air. There's also a thread on the subject on the Radio 4 Message Board which expresses similar sentiments.

Stories about new products and services are often misinterpreted when they appear on a consumer programme like You and Yours. Many listeners expect us to be "up and at" companies - finding the flaws in their business offer and exposing their wrong-doings.

My sense is that modern consumers want raw information as well as warnings about poor practice. They want to know about new, commercially available, products and services. A new retailer with ambitions to challenge Currys and Comet about to start operating in the UK, is of interest to anyone likely to buy a new television or washing machine in the not too distant future. It's particularly interesting when the company involved is an established US retailer. It's also promising its stores will be manned by salaried staff who are knowledgeable about the products it sells - a development likely to be welcomed by shoppers fed-up with fending off commission hungry shop staff.

A report by Alan Budd for the BBC Trust on BBC business reporting criticised a "preoccupation with taking the consumer perspective" and warned against "the polarisation of views between business and consumer."

To me that means we shouldn't turn up at Best Buy assuming they're trying to fleece every paying customer (unless we have evidence that they are.) But we do need to have our wits about us. Best Buy did employ one of the leading PR agencies Freud Communications to orchestrate their launch. Prior to the event there were briefings to selected analysts and journalists. We were not allowed to attend. Best Buy knew they'd get more media attention on Day One than on any other hence the megaphone-equipped cheerleaders and the attractive opening sale offers.

The BBC's editorial guidelines warn against giving "undue prominence" to commercial products or services and against appearing to endorse any organisation - "its products, activities or services."

Rob Gregory - an analyst from Planet Retail with a decade in retail research behind him and a specialist in the electronics sector, provided the context to the excitement and razzamatazz of Best Buy's "G.O." - or Grand Opening. He told us, among other things, that prices online can still be cheaper than Best Buy can offer. Our reporter Catherine Carr mentions the retaliation of the competition and expresses natural scepticism about those enticing first day offers and how long they'll last.

So this kind of story is always a tightrope. I'd be interested to know how many listeners felt that with Best Buy, we really lost our balance.

Listen again

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.
You & Yours is on BBC Radio 4 at 1200 weekdays. Listen to today's episode on the Radio 4 web site.

Election Purdah

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:01 +0000

If you think there's too much coverage of the General Election campaign - there may be a very good reason for that. If the experience of You and Yours is anything to go by, every public organisation involved in UK public life has gone into election "purdah."

Among the bodies which have either cited purdah or something less specific like wishing to avoid raising political hackles as a reason for not appearing on the programme in the last week or so are the Food Standards Agency, National Fraud Authority, Office of Fair Trading, Consumer Focus and the Health and Safety Executive.

The guidelines governing election purdah are drawn up by the Cabinet Office and they're designed to prevent civil servants becoming involved in the political hoo-hah that is a General Election.

The general principle in "communication activities" is "to do everything possible to avoid competition with Parliamentary candidates for the attention of the public." (p24) Staff are required to confine themselves to "factual explanation of current Government policy, statements and decisions" and avoid becoming "involved in a partisan way." ( also p24)

Interestingly the rules don't only apply to Government departments but to non-departmental public bodies and other "arms length" public sector organisations. (p 49)

Some journalists would like to extend purdah even further. Have a look at Ed West's blog.

The frustrating thing is, the stories we've found difficult to persuade interviewees to talk about are hardly the stuff which will determine the 2010 General Election. They include calorie counts on menus, first aid training rules, credit card regulations, the efficiency (or otherwise) of the National Fraud Reporting Centre and a new code of conduct designed to protect homebuyers. But equally it's hard to think of a story which doesn't have the potential to become controversial - especially in the heat of a tight-fought campaign.

So the press officers say "No" and all we can do is grin and bear it. And wait for May 7th.

Andrew Smith is the Editor of You and Yours, In Touch, Fact the Facts and The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

You & Yours is on BBC Radio 4 at 1200 weekdays. Listen to today's episode on the Radio 4 web site.