Radio 3 host: ‘Bleak news’ is making Today fans switch to us

IT IS bad news for the Today programme – listeners appear to be tired of … bad news.

The BBC Radio 4 show is losing thousands of listeners because of its coverage of depressing current affairs, claims the host of a rival show on Radio 3.

Today lost 839,000 listeners year-on-year – but Radio 3’s Breakfast audience swelled to 634,000 in the same period, according to radio monitoring group Rajar.

Breakfast presenter Petroc Trelawny claims his show is attracting listeners who can no longer face the ‘difficult and bleak’ news offered on Radio 4.

He told the Radio Times: ‘The Today programme is clearly the benchmark for morning news programmes. It’s an amazing institution that feels very valid for today. But I guess we live in a time of quite difficult, bleak news, dominated by a couple of issues that inevitably fill most of Today’s airtime.

‘I suppose people are thinking, “I can’t face quite as much of it.” I think people have found they can come to us and we’ll offer a bit of a sanctuary.’

Author Linda Grant said she had made the swap herself, adding that Trelawny was ‘friendly, knowledgeable and, above all, enthusiastic for the world he is part of’.

A BBC spokesman said: ‘After a record for Radio 4 last year – when listeners tuned in during significant news events – it’s not surprising figures will fluctuate.’