As part of the Debating Matters publicity drive, we were asked to go and be part of Radio Sheffield’s daily Rony’s Forum with Rony Robinson, a seasoned presenter. So the Friday after the competition (I know, it’s taken me ages to get this post written) we headed down to the central studio with the head. Entering, the four of us split into two pairs and we went on for blocks of half and hour and fourty five minutes per pair; I was in the first. The show is a phone-in discussion idea so after I explained the competition we had won, we were involved in discussions over animal cruelty with regard to horse racing, new words that have appeared based on the Internet (embarrassingly I knew only a few of them). I wasn’t as eloquent as I wanted due to being shocked somewhat by hearing my own voice at a very loud volume in the headphones I was wearing, and the other pair (Tom and Andrew, I was with Orowa) were far more philosophical and thoughtful than I was. But it was a very interesting experience and I think we put on a good show. The programme says they may try and get young people in more often because their show, given its time of twelve until three and given its content is very much aimed at the middle-aged and they would like to encourage wider listenership.

However what was probably more interesting was observing the producer get to work behind the scenes while my comrades were on the air. What a fantastic job. With one touch screen managing the eight phone lines, switches allowing messages to be spoken into the presenter’s earphones, texts and e-mails coming in on another screen, sending instant messages to the presenter, checking that he has his volume sliders in the right place with another display… and then when things are quiet for a bit when Rony was talking away to one of us, they popped over to facebook. The producers were very happy to explain what they were doing and answer our questions: the main one had newsread and presented on Radio 4 so we were with good company! I learnt a lot about a very interesting job. One thing that stands out in my mind is how just before the news Rony gestured frantically as he was going through ‘this is BBC Radio Sheffield, now time for the news with…’ but after a quick grab of the ‘talkback’ microphone from the producer he was supplied and integrated flawlessly the newsreader’s name.