Radio: Decisions by the dragon of Donnybrook

At least it can be said of the new head of RTÉ Radio One, Ana Leddy: she can take decisions. More decisions within a few months of her appointment than over several years previously. But good decisions?

Getting rid of Rattlebag must have been on the cards for some time. There is a precipitous drop in listenership once Liveline goes off the air and someone was going to draw the obvious conclusion some time. Rattlebag was/is too self-consciously elitist to be tolerable. Myles Dungan has an unfortunately didactic manner on radio, which is off-putting – one feels guilty for not having done the homework. Arts don't have to be off-putting – do they?

I have a slight bias in favour of John Credon because he is a fellow Corkonian. But in truth his personality was/is a trifle off-putting too. A goody-two-shoes off-puttingness. His jokes so safe, so bland, so inoffensive. His move from the noon slot presaged his banishment to the post-midnight boondocks. What is to happen the delightful Val Joyce and the sultry Lillian Smith?

But Derek Mooney on for two hours from 3.00pm to 5.00pm? Derek Mooney presents the most delightful and novel radio programme this side of Venus. On Mooney Goes Wild he is RTÉ's best broadcaster. But a two-hour blather-fest every weekday? Disaster. Derek did himself some harm by cavorting on "Winning Streak" and that Euro Idol TV programme. He showed there he can blather with the best. Now ten hours of week of blather? And if not blather, then what? He can't do Mooney Goes Wild over two hours every weekday. He doesn't know about current affairs and anyway we have our fill of that already. Not into the arts. So what then? Inevitably blather. Two hours of blather in the afternoon after one hour of blather in the morning with Ryan Tubridy.

And, by the way, did you hear his interview with Britt Elkland on Tuesday morning (30 May), the sexy Swedish movie queen of the 1960's? Married to Peter Sellers, star of James Bond films, married to Stray Cats drummer, Jim McDonnell, star of "Run for Your Wife". Even Pat Kenny couldn't go wrong with Britt Elkland, but Ryan Tubridy did. He coaxed her into blathering for 20 minutes. No remembrances of Peter Sellers or the James Bond movies or her career as a sex kitten.

How come the Dagger of Donnybrook" (alias Ana Leddy) overlooked this fiasco or is Ryan next on the hit list? Such a pity for he seems a nice guy, intelligent, fluent, good voice and at one time he seemed to know something about something. Now just a blatherer.

But back to the new schedule. Mary Wilson on the drive-time slot? Mary Wilson has been superb as RTÉ's courts correspondent. She has a fabulous capacity to sum up complex cases simply and coherently. She is great on television, credible, professional, measured. So why the hell move her? Move her to a position in which she has no experience, where her serious personality might be a liability?

I can't help but think that the changes are bad for RTÉ but worse for Derek Mooney and Mary Wilson. Both outstanding in what they do now, both moved to slots where their strengths will be irrelevant.

And a full half hour of sports with Des Cahill from 6.30pnm to 7.00pm – increasing the time for sports by a further two and a half hours a week on top of the eight hours over weekend afternoons, sports stuck into Marian Finucane's weekend programmes (they don't fit there at all) and the three hours of sports otherwise on the schedule. A total of fourteen of sport? No arts? That's since Myles Dungan has refused to do a nightly arts programme starting at 11.00pm. What's going on?.p