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Feedback: Fear of Flying, Evan Davis

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04/03/2016

Fear of Flying, Evan Davis

BBC Radio 4 - Feedback, Fear of Flying, Evan Davis

A new look for Radio 4 comedy and ten years of The Bottom Line.

Listeners react to the morning broadcast of an explicit drama, Evan Davis reflects on ten years of The Bottom Line, and we discuss Radio 4's new comedy commissions.

Roger Bolton discusses audience comments about The Bottom Line with Evan Davis, finds out about Radio 4's new comedy commissions, and hears listener reactions to an explicit drama.

It's been ten years since Evan Davis started presenting The Bottom Line, Radio 4's business chat show which aimed to bring senior and expert voices from the City to a broader audience. Evan reflects on the programme with Roger Bolton and addresses listener concerns that the focus of the programme is too narrowly aimed at the City's highest echelons, that business reporting has been trying to gloss over the city's failures in the financial crash, and about the number of women appearing on the programme.

Last week, some listeners were shocked to turn on their radios at 10:45am and hear four letter words and explicit content in Fear of Flying, Radio 4 dramatisation of Erica Jong's novel about sexual liberation. Was Radio 4 right to air the drama directly after Woman's Hour? Should radio have a watershed, like TV?

Sioned Wiliam is Radio 4's new commissioning editor for comedy and has just released her first full set of commissions. She joins Feedback for the first time since her appointment to discuss the future of comedy on the network. What kind of new voices will she bring to the network? Will she try and put her own stamp on old favourites? And do shrinking budgets mean Radio 4 comedy is under threat?

And the Government has recently released a number of reports, ahead of the White Paper expected to outline their plans to reform the BBC. Colin Browne from The Voice of the Listener and Viewer joins Feedback to explain what the reports reveal and what the implications might be for BBC radio.


Producer: Kate Dixon
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

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