IT WAS, Joe Duffy said yesterday, the hottest weekend of the year - "and the weather's very warm as well".

This not very oblique on air reference to Duffy's off air troubles on the Gay Byrne Show (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) capped yet another morale boosting week at Montrose.

To be fair to the RTE, there was scant sound all week of dirty linen fluttering in the airwaves - whatever about in the print media. When Andy O'Mahony guests on the Sunday Show (RTE Radio 1) suggested there was something rather cringe worthy about some of Duffy's comments in the weekend newspapers, O'Mahony paid a quick compliment to his broadcasting colleague and moved the conversation on.

But what a fine mess their management has got them into. The beginning of the end of the Gay Byrne personality cult is certainly upon us, and is inevitable; Radio 1's total dominance of Irish radio is also a thing of the past, and should be largely unmourned. However, the changes proposed for, the autumn schedule endanger not only its statistical pre eminence but its genuine public service position as a cultural touchstone, the place to hear what's on the nation's mind.

Is it all in the name of keeping Gay and Pat Kenny out of the clutches of Radio Ireland?

With Kenny's show apparently moving to 9.10 a.m., it can hardly keep its current affairs package format without exacerbating the traditional hard feelings with Morning Ireland and boring listeners in the process. But since it's also hard to imagine Kenny replicating the Gaybo style (if Joe Duffy couldn't do it ...), is a "lighter, looser" Kenny show going to see the popular touch familiar from the man's TV programme - i.e. plenty of long interviews with British soap stars?

The new Gay show is easier to imagine. Even over the course of this season his programme's music programming has seemed to shift from an erratic mix of Byrne's jazz favourites plus MOR standards to a poppier classic hits type playlist. It has not, apparently, lured the younger listeners, but it surely is the basis for the shorter, low talk programme being proposed.

If this is tile case, and if the 12.30 p.m. slot stays relatively weak - apart from Lee Dunne's way cool Konvenience Korner on Fridays - then further falls in ratings would seem to be RTE's idea of the way forward.

Lest we forget: Joe Duffy's adventurous, sparky outside broadcasts thoroughly revitalised the Gay Byrne Show, taking it live to places - from Arbour Hill prison to Inishmaan - where radio had scarcely taken us before.

And recall, too, that for all Gaybo's legendary iconoclasm, Duffy is - with Marian Finucane - the popular broadcaster least likely to show deference to power and most likely to seek a forum for the powerless. (I've never forgiven Byrne his adoring interview with Stormin' Norman Schwartzkopf.)

In short, there must be a suitable place in the schedule for Joe Duffy.

When I gave out last week about one sided coverage of the passive smoking issue, I wasn't aware that at least one radio station had got a Philip Morris spokesman on air. On Tipp Today nearly a fortnight ago Seamus Martin, Tipp FM news editor and presenter, put tough questions direct to a company mouthpiece and also gave listeners a chance to air their scepticism about the fag pushers' claims.

Then last Friday's Pat Kenny Show did the same thing, but pitted Philip Morris's David Greenberg; against consultant oncologist Des Carney.

Loyal capitalists to the last, neither PM spokesman invited us to shift our gaze to other corporate killers, but blithely used statistics in a "don't worry, be happy" way.

Carney mostly stayed on more solid ground - the undoubted dangers of being a smoker: he called cigarette smoke the single greatest danger to health we have. But in a week when we heard about Travellers' shocking mortality figures, poverty must have a better claim to that title.

And while anti smoking activists complain about cigarettes being dumped in developing countries, millions of children in those countries should be so lucky as to live long enough to suffer the effects of second hand smoke.

And a question about media coverage remains. When other health issues arise - e.g., from recent weeks, links between baby formula and oestrogenic chemicals; vaccination and cot death; the Pill and breast cancer - the agenda is reassurance and emphasis on "negligible risk". Why is smoke the only cause for alarm?

I haven't heard Dave Fanning's name mentioned in all the RTE star wars speculation. But Dave, not content with being our best DJ and a pretty darn good Today at Five film reviewer on Thursdays, has got a new strategy to be top gun on Irish radio: he's doing all the ads.

From charity to cars, ifs there's something to be sold Fanning's voice is obviously hotter than Brendan Kennelly's.

Begrudge him? Not a bit of it. In our house Fanning fandom goes back to his for the love of it pirateradio nights. Your voice is a gift, Dave - may you enjoy it in prosperity.