BBC’s decision on Derry’s Radio Foyle cuts criticised as ‘Belfast-centric’

• Published date: 01 December 2022

Derry is a place apart. Culturally, it is arguably as far, if not further, from Belfast as it is from Dublin. For almost 40 years the BBC's outpost in the city has admirably reflected, celebrated and challenged that identity

BBC Northern Ireland's decision this week to axe Radio Foyle's flagship breakfast show and hourly news bulletins - as part of a wider cost-cutting plan across the UK-wide corporation - is being seen as the station's death knell.

Ana Leddy, former head of RTÉ Radio 1 who ran Radio Foyle for eight years, has little doubt about the real impact of the Belfast-based management's £2.3 million "savings and reinvestment plan".

"No breakfast show, no news bulletins local programming comes on at 1pm for a few hours? Does that sound like a radio station to you?" she says.

"I believe this is a killer blow. It's the end of BBC Radio Foyle as we know it and is, in effect, its closure."

Leddy, brought up in Sheffield, is of Irish extraction and worked in BBC local stations in England for 10 years before being appointed managing editor of Radio Foyle in 1998. She quickly had to get to grips with the nuances of Derry when she arrived.

"There is a different psyche in Derry," she says.

Deeper complexity

It is not just that it is, obviously, predominantly Catholic or nationalist, but its natural hinterland runs north and west into Donegal, adding deeper complexity to an existing divergence in the North between the east and west of the river Bann.

"So many families are intertwined, living and working across the Border. People carry two wallets, two purses, with euro and pounds. It is a state of mind. You wouldn't have it anywhere else."

It is a complexity Leddy negotiated to steer the station towards countless awards, including beating BBC behemoths Radio 4 and Radio 5Live to win the Sony overall UK best radio breakfast show.

"A local radio station should hold a mirror up to its audience, but also be a window to the world," she says.

"Foyle has done that by really knowing its audience. It has been strong enough and courageous enough to do that in a unique situation in Northern Ireland, at an even smaller level in Derry and the northwest in an era where society has emerged from the Troubles, and we all know how fragile that can be," she says.

"Giving a voice for debate in these times is as important as it's ever been. Foyle is an important place from that point of view."

No stranger to overseeing cuts herself - she was dubbed the Iron Leddy and the Axe of...