Profile/Ana Leddy: Her friends know her as a fun, easy-going person. But few staff at RTÉ Radio 1 see this side of her after receiving a 'kick in the teeth' with the new schedule shake-up, writes Kathy Sheridan
It's safe to say that few of the walking wounded around RTÉ Radio 1 will recognise the Ana Leddy described by a sharp-tongued Northerner who knows her from her Radio Foyle days.
"Ana is a fun person, very lively, easy, genial - in a somewhat eccentric way . . . She's whatever the opposite of a stuffed shirt is."
He has had the pleasure of watching her belting out a Chrissie Hynde number in Derry's City Hotel in recent years, rigged out in rock-chick leathers, turned-up collar and tight jeans, in her incarnation as lead singer and guitarist with the Cosmic Banditos, an outfit he categorises quite admiringly as "alternative country rock".
"I don't think you'll find many RTÉ controllers get up to that kind of thing after work," he chortles. The 49-year-old sang a duet with her daughter who has a "terrific voice" - a Pretenders song but sadly, he could not recall whether it was the one that goes "Don't get me wrong . . .".
As choruses go, it might not be the most appropriate one around the corridors of Radio 1 just now, where the Leddy message delivered in recent days was anything but tentative. One source - who expected "the opposite of an axe-woman" on her arrival in February - described it as swift, brutal and shatteringly public.
At Rattlebag, the afternoon arts programme presented by Myles Dungan, where the listenership figures had held at a respectable 176,000 (and fallen by less, percentage-wise, than other untouched programmes), no-one saw it coming. "Some people thought it might be moved or changed - but not gone," says one. They concede that the rationale might have been due to the figures - "but it was also down to somebody coming in who has to prove herself", insists another.
The manner of the message delivery was also a shock, leaving little room for "victims" to absorb the news before it was made public. "Myles was hearing about it from Ana in one room at the same time as the production team were being told by the editor in another. The press release went out that evening."
John Kelly's The Mystery Train suffered a similarly humiliating public dousing. While much of listener reaction has been centred on Rattlebag, a senior producer on another radio station, who is a big fan of the Mystery Train, is still bemused at the treatment of the presenter, whom he considers to be one of the best broadcasters on these islands. "RTÉ is supposed to be a public broadcasting service . . . Where does this leave it - more playlist dross?"
Most sources readily agree that a "shake-up" was needed on Radio 1. The shock lay, they say, in the lack of "consultation" at producer level. "She came in with an open door policy in February and suddenly the door closed and she disappeared for a couple of months while she was working on her plan. So she wasn't very visible." As a result, few people have got to know her.
One senior staff member reportedly met Leddy for the first time, a day after the knock-out blow had been delivered by someone else. Although another, with little reason to love her, suggests that such an approach makes sense: "Part of the reason for not sitting down with people would be that it would be very hard to turn around then and give us all a kick in the teeth once you know people personally." But the upshot, say some, is that the justification for the changes was never made clear and the accusation is that much of it is "seat of the pants stuff".
The sharp-tongued Northerner noted that she was not "universally popular" at Radio Foyle, to which she arrived as station manager in 1998. "Some people saw her as a flake, a bit eccentric and irrational, even whimsical, who'd make decisions without being very clear. There would be a bit of puzzlement about a decision because she wouldn't have spelt it out to anybody. Things that worked out well in the end didn't seem well thought through to begin with. There was no overall philosophy, She seemed to operate more by instinct ."
The same source also suggests that she arrived in Derry at a blessed time for the city and therefore for its "unique little radio station", a time when Northern Ireland was coming out of conflict and Derry, a cocky, self-confident place, was ahead of the game. "It was a really, really good place to hit on at that particular time so yes, her success there could be a bit of fluke and I suspect Ana knows that."
But no-one would detract from the fistful of Sony awards acquired by the station during her tenure, including one for best breakfast news show (referred to as one of her particular "babies") and two "station of the year" awards in the smaller stations section. There is no doubt that she left a positive glow in her wake and the management was desolate to see her leave.
One prominent RTÉ figure suggests, however, that to judge Ana Leddy's success in Radio Foyle - "a tiny opt-out of an opt-out station" - as an insight into her radio mind would be a mistake. "You need to look farther back to her BBC days producing Women's Hour or You and Yours, a consumer programme or Mediumwave, a media programme - all consumer-oriented and people-led, with a notable absence of expert talking heads."
By all accounts, her diagnosis of Radio 1 output is that it is very narrow and political, led by an agenda set down in Dáil Éireann. The Leddy remedy is to remove it from the grip of the newsroom agenda and broaden it to make it more reflective of those who listen to it, rather than the usual familiar stream of experts. She has made it known that she wants to see fewer Irish Times newspapers (interestingly, the only paper swamped with complaints about her axing of the arts show) on RTÉ desks and more of what one source paraphrased as "intelligent tabloids, whatever they might be; some kind of third way, I think, though you can't be sure".
The troops have been kept on the edge of their seats with phrases such as "I'll be all over you like a rash now" (in response to comments about her previous invisibility), and "we won't be asking your permission" (to questions about movement within departments).
Regional staff are also about to have their cages rattled by all accounts, with pointed questions being asked about why particular studios were not reporting particular stories.
Not everyone is dismayed, however. One staff member who is "reserving judgment" about the changes lauds her as "the first manager to come in, in many years, who has gone about instituting change in the right way. Too many just sat there and listened to all the reasons why they couldn't do x, y or z . . . I like anybody in management who is bold, dynamic and actually does things as opposed to the torpor that besets most of them. I believe she knows radio. The only question mark is where she's going to find the significant resources to fund her ambitious changes. Afternoon music programmes are there for a reason: they cost buttons to produce. I presume she knows how to cut her cloth."
Though raised in Sheffield, she is thoroughly Gaelicised, coming from a family of Irish speakers, the daughter of two doctors, from Belfast and Dublin, and a grandchild of Cormac Ó Cadhlaigh, who was professor of Irish at UCD. She boarded with the St Louis nuns in Monaghan, and graduated with an arts degree from Trinity College Dublin in 1978. She has three children, two at college here and one still in school.
Back at Radio 1, the sense of disorientation can be gauged by the reaction to a picture Leddy placed in an RTÉ in-house bulletin of one of her children as proud winner of a boxing match, no doubt - as one staffer suggests - meant as a friendly, we're-all-family-people together gesture. Some interpreted it instead, as a kind of coded warning of Leddy's plans for her minions.
"Daft", says the staffer, "but that's the feeling in here."
The Leddy File
Who is she? Head of RTÉ Radio 1 since February.
Why is she in the news? She has introduced controversial changes, including the axing of Rattlebag and The Mystery Train.
Most appealing characteristic: Affable and straight-talking.
Least appealing characteristic: Not prone to consultation.
Most likely to say: "We won't be asking your permission."
Least likely to say: "Would you mind terribly if "