Eavesdropping on private conversations

Radio Review: They keep their opinion to themselves in Castlebar, or at least they did this week when it came to Beverly Cooper Flynn. Reporter Fiona McGarry, on The Tommy Marron Show (Mid West Radio, Wednesday), took her mic to the streets of the town the day after Cooper Flynn's Dáil appearance to try to get a measure of opinion on the ground.

People, she reported, were unwilling to talk on tape (she didn't say why, as galloping shyness is unusual on radio) but the general consensus was that Cooper Flynn had given a clear enough Dáil statement and many were reluctant to pass judgment until the Supreme Court appeal.

There were a few "sure she was only doing her job" comments from sympathetic observers and many pointed to "all" that she and her father had done for the town, which sounded a bit like pathetic hat-doffing - what else were they supposed to be doing as public representatives but working to make life better for everyone? McGarry said one or two had mentioned the word "arrogance" in relation to the family and a lot had said they were disillusioned with politics in general, but as for Cooper Flynn, on the ground in Castlebar as reported in the local media, it's a case of wait and see.

There are few listening experiences guaranteed to make you feel more like an outsider than tuning into a local radio station. Mid-programme, Marron read out the bingo numbers - there was no preamble about where to get a ticket or the prize, just straight into legs 11. Clearly the listeners knew exactly what he was talking about, so no explanation needed.

It's that sort of contented familiarity that people are drawn to, as the JNLR listenership figures revealed this week. They showed that, overall, fewer people were tuning into radio although more than eight out of 10 of us tune in to some radio every day. Still, what's worrying for the State broadcaster is that an increasing number of listeners are choosing local radio stations. Dipping into local radio is easy now that most stations broadcast live on the Internet, but physical access isn't really the problem. Listening in can be like arriving in a busy shop in a foreign city and hearing animated chatter but not really having a clue what's going on.

On The Shaun Doherty Show (Highland Radio, Wednesday), farmer Patrick Kelly kicked off a discussion on the special area conservation plan for Gweedore, Co Donegal, by saying it would drive farmers off the land. A debate followed and, listening to it, you could understand why local people like local radio - where else was there going to be such a comprehensive outing for such a subject?

And where else would you hear death notices? While Wednesday's Today With Pat Kenny (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) came back after the 11 a.m. news with an item on the Mafia, the newsreader at Highland finished her reports on world affairs and moved seamlessly into reading out a long list of detailed death notices, complete with information about who wanted flowers and who didn't. It felt like eavesdropping on a private conversation. Incidentally, Highland Radio was shown to have lost listeners this week, so it's not all good news on the local radio front.

Moving from the local to the determinedly international, presenter/producer Denis Costello visited pianist Barry Douglas in Paris for a wonderful Artszone Special: Travels With My Piano (Lyric FM, Thursday). Douglas has been in Paris for 15 years and now lives with his wife, Deirdre, and three children in the seventh ("very bourgeois, certainly expensive") arrondissement. The programme was a delightful mix of offbeat travelogue and intimate individual portrait of the Belfast man. Douglas took us to the roof of L'institut du Monde Arabe for an overview of the city, and to several of his favourite haunts, from the famous Père-Lachaise graveyard (where Chopin and Oscar Wilde are buried) to Les Deux Magots for coffee. He said the Musée d'Orsay had a special romance for him because it was once the station for trains heading south to the sun and sea and so still has a sense of promise and freedom. For a treat, Douglas has dinner at the Hotel Bristol, and when he first arrived in Paris he checked into a suite in the George V Hotel and immediately ordered champagne - this is one artist who doesn't believe in starving in a Paris garret.

There were stories about how he bought his Steinway - "legless, 10 years old, battered and beer-soaked because it had been in a jazz club, for €10,000, the same price as a new Bechstein" - and his neighbours are forgiving of his endless practice, though, in deference to his wife, he does go to a nearby studio when he's working on something new.

With the bustling sounds of Parisian markets and coffee shops in the background and dialogue interspersed with Douglas's playing, the whole programme sounded charming and romantic, just right (rugby aside) for the city and the day that's in it.