The controversial boss of RTÉ Radio 1 tells Catherine Cleary why her changes will improve the station
In the Sound Bite cafe at RTÉ's Radio Centre, where frothy hits of Starbucks coffee are served in takeaway cups, a busy production meeting is under way to discuss a new idea. It's garden makeovers on radio. There is talk of fairy lights, balcony gardens and how to get an impressive floral display out of a pot. It all sounds very professional, although the breeziness of the chat might well make any delicate flower mourning the loss of the arts programme Rattlebag wilt like an underwatered hydrangea.
Half an hour later, Ana Leddy, who took the pruning shears to Rattlebag, Val Joyce's Late Date and John Kelly's Mystery Train, is explaining the new state of play. She is personable, with a soft but firm voice that holds more of a Derry burr than that of her childhood city, Sheffield. She talks about her passion for public-service radio, her pride in Radio 1's place in the nation's hearts and how the long hot summer that saw her demonised as the axe woman of Montrose has passed into a phase of creativity and team spirit.
She took up her job under Adrian Moynes, RTÉ's head of radio, at the beginning of March, after eight years with BBC Radio Foyle, in Derry, where she was managing editor. Less than three months later the news broke of a radical shake-up in the autumn schedule. This was followed by a swift reshuffle of the production teams behind broadcasters such as Pat Kenny and Ryan Tubridy.
It was the biggest upheaval in the Radio Centre in years, and insiders were quick to vilify the new boss. Leddy was widely seen as an outsider who had been brought in, in a cynical corporate move, to give the bad news to people with whom she had not, as yet, formed any working relationship.
Was she surprised or stung by the reactions? "I don't think anybody would actually like having those kind of labels attached to them," she says carefully, "but at the same time I think it's not unusual for the media to demonise someone at the centre of the story, and I'm very fortunate to have colleagues and friends and family who support me. I don't know if it's anything to do with being a woman. The fact is we've introduced quite a bit of change here, and RTÉ holds such a central position within Irish life that making changes to Radio 1 was always going to be something that would attract a lot of attention."
But what about the most controversial of those decisions, the dropping of Rattlebag, which was criticised by those in the arts as a dumbing down? "I don't do dumbing down," she says firmly. "I'm absolutely passionate about radio. What I do is try to create public-service broadcasting with a populist edge, to attract the widest possible audience to a whole range of things, from current affairs to sports to the arts to entertainment."
Her own credentials as an entertainer were included on the CV that RTÉ released to announce her appointment. She is a guitarist and lead singer with the Cosmic Banditos, a band put together with three friends and her sister, who is a GP in Sligo. "We're an unusual band in that everyone in the band is a lead singer, so we're very democratic in that way," she says, smiling. Rehearsals of their country-roots covers usually take place over a kitchen table, recorded on disc to take away, so they can learn their parts before returning to perform the "close vocal harmonies" that characterise their sound. "It's a good outlet to a busy and stressful week at work," she says. And there have, she agrees, been several of those recently.
Leddy was born in Sheffield, one of seven girls and two boys, the children of two Irish doctors. Her mother's intention was always to return to Ireland. Her brothers and sisters were all sent to Ireland to be educated. She went to boarding school in Monaghan and did her degree at Trinity College Dublin. Both her parents enjoyed a long retirement back home. Her mother died aged 80 and her father died, last year, at the age of 95.
"I first found radio when I was visiting my parents back in Sheffield and I was finished at university. I had always wanted to be a journalist. But in those days there weren't as many courses around, and when you said you wanted to be a journalist people said: 'Don't be silly. Go off and be a teacher.' But I fell into BBC Radio Sheffield by accident, and from the moment I stepped in there I just knew this was where I was going to be. It was one of those magic moments, and I've been working in radio ever since."
She reared her own family, two sons and a daughter, in Macclesfield, south of Manchester, where she worked for BBC Radio 4. Then, in 1988, the family moved to Derry, where she took up her job at Radio Foyle.
She believes RTÉ and the BBC are quite similar in their public-service remits. "We're really privileged here that RTÉ Radio 1 is so central in people's lives. That's a real plus for anyone, and when you consider that nine out of 10 people in Ireland every day listen to the radio, in England they'd kill for that," she says. "For me, coming back to Dublin, where I was a student and spent four great years, and being involved in broadcasting here really does feel like a homecoming year. I've been in so many places at this point I couldn't tell you where home is. But Dublin is the closest thing to it."
The kind of radio that excites her is that which "strikes a chord with the audience and gives people a sense that, when they've listened to something, they've learned something. Not in the way of having something thrust at you but in an intelligent and entertaining way, so that you're actually feeding your soul in some way, either artistically, politically or journalistically."
She draws a line at describing what they will be doing as more talk radio. "I prefer to call it speech radio. It's something entirely personal. It suggests that real thought and production have gone into the talk that you hear on the radio. And that is the reality of what happens on RTÉ Radio 1. Making good popular radio is a very, very serious task, and it requires an absolute quality approach to production. It's having great presenters and great production teams that work together to entertain but also to surprise the audience."
NewsTalk 106, the Dublin speech station, is widely seen as a big threat to RTÉ's listenership figures when it goes nationwide next month; part of Leddy's response has been to give Eamon Dunphy, who presented NewsTalk 106's breakfast show for two years, a Saturday-morning interview show from next month. It will be a sort of Desert Island Dunphy, looking at the life of a well-known person. "We're going to have a number of trigger questions that will characterise it, which will enable us to take the programme in a direction that it wouldn't necessarily go if you're just interviewing someone about their life. Questions like, 'What was the most significant turning point in your life?' and greatest fears and those sorts of things. We've plotted a course that we hope will unearth something different from the interview."
Now the dust has settled somewhat, would she have done anything differently? "I think the context in which everything occurred was in the middle of a lot of changes to programmes and schedules and so on, and I think that probably made it more difficult for people. But from the start there were some people who came in and spoke to me about different issues, and we were able to make adjustments to that. This was not something that was set in stone. People have got their assignments now, and they will change again in the future."
And what about the perception that she was brought in to implement someone else's vision? "I'm the head of Radio 1. I'm doing my job. Obviously I've worked with Adrian [ Moynes]. We work as a team here, in particular the editorial team, and of course I would work with Adrian as well, but, like I said, I'm the head of Radio 1. It's my job to take the soundings, to put the vision together and then to get on with implementing it."
So does she look forward to putting the axe down and getting on with her job? "What axe?" she says, spreading her hands and smiling. "For the last few months myself and the production teams have been working flat out, building these new programmes, looking at our existing programmes and working out how we refresh them. This is the fun part. It's hard work, but we're in the business of entertaining, and we should be having fun while we're doing that. And, certainly, that's the feeling I'm getting from the staff, that they're absolutely up for this and there's a real buzz out there and a real focus and determination on pulling it off. The stakes are very high. There's a fabulous team of producers and presenters, and it's all to play for."
THE CHANGES
March 2006 Ana Leddy arrives at RTÉ's Radio Centre as the new head of RTÉ Radio 1, having beaten off internal candidates for the job.
May 2006 RTÉ announces radical changes to the autumn Radio 1 schedule
June 2006 A letter to The Irish Times signed by members of the arts community describes the decision to drop Rattlebag, Myles Dungan's daily arts show, as a symptom of the "poverty of imagination that now underlies RTÉ's vision - which is to appeal to some misconceived notion of 'middle Ireland' by serving it up even more talk/phone-in shows in a market already swamped with such programmes." The Arts Council asks to meet RTÉ's director general.
July 2006 Production staff on Radio 1 shows, including the teams behind Pat Kenny and Ryan Tubridy, are told they are being moved to different programmes. Former Mystery Train presenter John Kelly announces he is to join Lyric FM and present an afternoon music programme from October.
September 2006 RTÉ's new three-hour Drivetime programme, whose main segment is presented by former legal-affairs correspondent Mary Wilson, begins to mixed reviews. Rattlebag plays a series of "best of" shows as its replacement programme, to be presented by Derek Mooney, is tweaked into shape. Eamon Dunphy will begin his Saturday-morning show on September 30th.
October 2006 Mooney will take to the air between 3pm and 5pm each weekday from October 4th. An 11pm weekday arts show, The Eleventh Hour, with Páraic Breathnach, will also start on October 4th.