All of this post is in-my-humble-opinion so, if anyone doesn't agree then that's fine and I'm not going to argue.
I do, though, think it's fair to say that Radio 4's audience is continuing to rise and apparently something like 1 in 6 of the UK population listen to it at some point in a week. Now that's frankly astounding for a "serious" station in what is widely regarded as a country where everything needs to be dumbed down to be popular.
What Mark Damazer seems to have done is to make Radio 4 more audience-centric. He's putting on shows that are quality and popular, not just shows that Radio 4 "ought" to put on.
Radio 4 has a stable of great comedy shows; JaM, Clue and The News Quiz are all well-established. The Now Show is hit-and-miss but still very popular. The Unbelievable Truth and The Museum of Curiosities are finding their feet but, again, are popular in terms of numbers of listeners. Elvenquest was something of a smash-hit, but how long it can go on is doubtful as its storyline is rather limiting. This group, along with Today, the new Women's Hour and a handful of others are now what Radio 4 is building its programming around. And, importantly, they're what a cross-section of Britain listens to - not just a particular section of the population who think Radio 4 has an obligation to put on programmes for them.
Those programmes that used to be popular but whose audience is growing older and who aren't gaining new listeners are under the microscope. One of the "holy grails" that is rumoured to be in trouble is The Archers, for example. Now that would cause a lot of complaints from a certain section of the listeners, but it would once have been thought impossible to scrap The Archers. Now it isn't.
So JaM has been re-invented and changed, in the eyes of the BBC at least, as going from a rather tweedy, old-fashioned panel game into one of the keystones of Radio 4. None of us listeners will have noticed but I think that's what the original article is referring to.
I'm not generally in favour of what much of the BBC is doing these days, in terms of being stupidly risk-averse, banning people from causing offence, enforcing "trust" and so on. But this subtle change in Radio 4 is one definate benefit.
Cheers
kJ
--- In just-a-minute@..., Dean Bedford <dbedford@...> wrote:
>
>
> On Sunday, November 8, 2009, at 10:09 AM, kj.naughton wrote:
>
> >
> > I think it's less of a re-invention in terms of the style and format of
> > the programme and more of a re-invention in terms of its positioning as
> > one of the keystones of Radio 4.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > kJ
>
> yes I wondered that - but hasn't it been on Mondays at 6-30 for years?
> Or do you mean something else?
>
> cheers, D
>