By Jack McKeown

PLANS FOR a £100,000 state-of-the-art radio studio in Dundee have been shelved after broadcaster Lesley Riddoch’s new show was dropped by the BBC.

Riddoch left the BBC last year after five years presenting her two-hour lunch time slot, saying she was tired of a long daily com- mute, but had hoped to produce a similar current affairs show from a purpose-built studio in Dundee.

The BBC commissioned a pilot episode for the new programme, which was to be made by Feisty, the company Riddoch set up with Dundee-based producer Turan Ali.

It would have involved the creation of a hi-tech studio, creating up to seven jobs and raising the profile of the media sector in Dundee, but the BBC decided not to press ahead with the show— apparently without informing Riddoch.

The show was dropped following the arrival of BBC Scotland’s new head of radio, Jeff Zycinski, as part of the BBC’s restructuring plans.

Yesterday Riddoch, who now runs Africawoman, a monthly newspaper written by female African journalists, told The Courier, “I was disappointed. What made it worse was that I only found out when I was contacted by a journalist asking how I felt about my show being dropped.

“It wasn’t very nice finding out that way. To me, people are perfectly entitled to change their minds. In the real world it happens, but it’s always far better to have some direct dialogue when things change.

“I’m still getting bombarded with Emails every day asking when are we coming back.”

Riddoch and Ali are now producing a pre-recorded series for the BBC, but a new Dundee studio no longer features on their plans.

“We’re producing 13 half-hour interviews with various high- profile people,” continued Riddoch.

“But for these we’re usually going to people’s homes to interview them.

“We were down in London speaking to Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, and visited Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner in his council house—which he’s had to turn into a virtual compound because of all the death threats he’s received.

“There’s no real need for an all-singing, all-dancing studio in Dundee for that. If we were doing a live show we’d need a completely dependable state-of-the-art studio which no one else can bag.

“The studio we were going to set up would probably have cost into six figures and would have created about five to seven jobs,” she continued.

“Over the longer term I’d like to get back to the idea of a studio in Dundee but it depends on how things go.”

A spokesperson for BBC Scotland said, “Head of Radio Scotland Jeff Zycinski is refreshing the day-time schedule of Radio Scotland as a whole, commencing from Monday, June 13.

“The lunchtime 12-2 pm slot is being split into two parts. At noon Gary Robertson presents Monday Live weekdays (Tuesday Live etc) for an hour, then The Radio Cafe takes over at 1.10 pm, presented by Janice Forsyth and Clare English.

“Lesley Riddoch returns to the station at 11 am with her new 13-part conversation formats produced by her own production company, Feisty. These will run twice weekly and broadcast on a Monday and Friday.”