Supplementing the papers for lazy listeners

We try to veer away from the dull but worthy coverage of what's going on and keep the discussion lively and animated. The programme has a panel of three to four guests, and we'd always make sure it was a good mixture of men and women and political views. We have a group of really good panellists to draw on, including journalists, politicians, actors and comedians. We try to change who comes in as often as possible, but listeners prefer certain panellists. We've had David Norris in a few times in the past six months - people just love him. He has a lively opinion on everything! Mostly our guests are Dublin-based, though they do come from the surrounding counties and we often get people from elsewhere on the telephone.

You might have to get someone at the last minute, but we don't generally have a problem: the programme is well known now and people are more than willing to do it. Sam Smyth is the anchor - he makes sure to keep the conversation flowing. The programme is aimed primarily at people aged 25 to 45, but we do get calls in from people who are younger and older. The idea is to make issues interesting and understandable. We wouldn't, for example, spend 50 minutes on the Flood tribunal. I'm sure all the SCs around the country would find it riveting, but most people would be less than impressed with a lengthy discussion of the minutiae of the law.

Sam also works as a columnist for the Sunday Tribune and a reporter for the Irish Independent and I work on the news desk in here, so we are both kept very busy each week. Usually it's about Wednesday or Thursday when I would start making phone contact with Sam to talk about what we might cover and who we might have in - all the planning is done over the phone. Then on Friday or Saturday we have a face-to-face meeting to check everything. On Sunday morning we would both get in at about 8.30 a.m. and look at the newspapers. We go through all the Irish papers first - and, in fact, we tend to stick with them by default because generally we have enough to talk about without going on to the British papers. We would arrange to look at some news items and some more quirky items. When the panel members come in they have a read through and check for stories they feel are particularly interesting.

First up in the programme, then, we would read through the main headlines - even something that simple can be hazardous! We once had a call from Fianna Fail in relation to a headline in the Sunday Independent: the party said it was investigating the accuracy of the story - so we had to explain to listeners that we couldn't read it out. That's because, if the story turned out to be libellous, we could be sued for libel for reading it out.

Then we'd get the conversation going by asking each panellist what might have caught his or her eye. The rest of the programme is taken up with discussion of the various stories.

The Sunday papers are extremely popular. Quite a lot of people tend to be fairly casual about reading the papers during the week, so they might buy two or more on a Sunday. You get a synopsis of all the main news, and analysis, as well as quite a few features. There are loads of sections, so there's a good bit of reading in them.

I think our review-of-the-papers slot appeals to people who like the idea of hopping out of bed on a Sunday and flicking on the radio and being able to get a summary of the week's news by listening to the programme; we do the leg work for them so they can get filled in on what's happening.

But the conversation can take any sort of turn. The other week, for instance, we looked at a review of a new book by Germaine Greer and we ended up having a very lively debate on feminism and its definition and how it has changed so many years on. It's a programme the panellists really enjoy too. They know they can have a good, heated, lively debate - and it's always great crack.

In an interview with Jackie Bourke.