Former Director of BBC World Service English, Gwyneth Williams takes over as the new controller from the present incumbent of the highly influential post in September 2010. Her predecessor, Mark Damnzer, leaves the BBC in September to become Head of St. Peter’s College in Oxford, England.
Background and BBC Career
Gwyneth’s radio career started in 1976 as a trainee talks writer at BBC Radio’s HQ, Bush House in London. Soon she would produce and edit BBC Radio 4’s nightly news update programme The World Tonight. Rising rapidly though the ranks among the posts she took on were:
- Deputy Editor Special Current Affairs Programmes.
- Head of Radio Current Affairs
- Editor of the BBC Reith Lectures
- Editor, Policy and Social Programmes
- Editor The Week in Westminster
- Editor Foreign Affairs Radio
As Head of Radio Current Affairs, the department she was responsible for produced some well respected, some long running, and some outstanding radio programmes with extremely loyal listeners as:
- File on 4
- From Our Own Correspondent
- Analysis
- Crossing Continents
- Money Box
- In Business
- And 5 Live Report.
From July 2007 she was Director of the BBC’s World Service English, the branch of the Corporation that produces all the BBC’s international radio programmes in English, broadcasting to (according to the BBC’s figures) 40 million listeners worldwide.
What Tim Dale, William's New Boss Says
In her new post as Controller of Radio 4 and Radio 7 with the BBC her new boss is Tim Davie, Director of BBC Audio and Music who said of her appointment:”Gwyneth is an editorial leader of the highest calibre and a passionate supporter of Radio 4. She brings vast experience, tremendous intelligence and a fresh prospective to one of the biggest jobs in broadcasting.”
Gwyneth herself said: ”Radio 4 represents the BBC at its best: it is loved and trusted and above all stands for quality. It is a privilege and honour to be asked to lead the network through the next stage of its evolution.”
Radio 4
The stated remit of the BBC’s Radio 4 service is to provide a “mixed speech service,” and since much of the popular radio offerings in the UK, are currently music based, this alone makes Radio 4 a unique and treasured service especially to its fiercely loyal listening base. It offers news and current affairs, magazine programmes as well as a range of drama, audio books, comedy, and factual programmes. Current listening figures (march 2010) fromRAJAR, Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd., the body appointed by both the BBC and licensed commercial stations in the UK to measure the industry’s audiences, report that BBC Radio 4 has over 10 million listeners, 20% of the potential audience.
Radio 7
Much of BBC Radio 7’s output comes from the wealth of material gathered by the BBC over its history and like Radio 4, is a speech based service. A digital station available on the internet and via satellite and freeview transmission in the UK, its remit is to provide in its schedule such material as comedy and drama, and children’s programming while most of the material is archive, it also commissions some original content in the same format.
The BBC further state that:”the station should also be the home of children’s speech radio.” BBC Radio 7’s listening figures from the same date source as those for Radio 4, RAJAR, show that the station has just over 1 million listeners, 2% of the possible listenership.
Dan McCurdy - Dan McCurdy is a freelance writer producer creative and lecturer. Dan is one of the UK's most experienced radio writers and producers. ...
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