Opinion: Is BBC serious about planned cuts to Radio Suffolk?

But it doesn't get everything right - and the appalling news about the attempted destruction of local broadcasting this week is evidence of that.

The idea of reducing local broadcasting to 40 hours a week (plus league football matches) is ludicrous, and I suspect the senior management knows that.

To my mind, this has the look of a "Let's come up with an unworkably over-the-top proposal so we can withdraw it, come up with a different proposal for cuts that aren't quite so bad, and then we've got away with it" scenario.

So I wouldn't be at all surprised if we don't get a press release at the start of the New Year telling us that BBC management has listened to the public and is now just merging Radios Suffolk and Norfolk outside peak hours - and they'll be more shared content around the region during the evening.

It will still be a less local service than we have now - but listeners will feel they've dodged a bullet rather than feeling irritation about more radio stories about Kings Lynn and Cromer!

Having said that, though, the BBC is creating a great deal of uncertainty for its listeners - and even more for its employees in local radio - by coming up with such a proposal.

And it does look as if it is being dreadfully ageist toward its older customers who tend to listen to "their" local radio station than younger people.

I know the BBC has a problem. Younger people aren't watching as much television or listening to as much of its radio as they did in the past.

It sees the need to shift more of its resources to "digital" platforms that younger people do want to enjoy.

The danger is that if they switch too many of these resources they end up punishing their loyal viewers and listeners without actually succeeding in getting any new users.

We've already seen the loss of local identity with the decision to close the BBC's Cambridge-based Look East programme. 

Now viewers are fed a diet of news from Milton Keynes and Northampton (which the government doesn't think are in the East of England). I'm sorry but they just aren't "local" and I'm sure viewers there feel the same about news stories from Ipswich or Felixstowe!

Local radio (and television) may attract an older demographic - but another group who use the radio service are drivers.

Local drive-time programmes with a mixture of news, music and traffic information are invaluable to people heading home from work.

Hearing about delays on Woodbridge Road in Ipswich are very useful in this part of the world - a regional service just wouldn't work. Traffic bulletins would have to be very long if they were to cover everywhere from the dockspur roundabout at Felixstowe to the Bottledump junction at Milton Keynes!

And the BBC does seem obsessed with replicating the work of other news providers which are also under pressure.

Why switch its resources from local radio, which is now a unique service following the mergers of independent radio stations, into new "investigations" units which are replicating the work of other media across the country?

I know I have an interest here, as an employee of another media group, but it does seem as if they're sacrificing a much-loved local service just to be another voice in a market that is already served by someone else.

Of course, undelying all this is the funding of the BBC - and this is a pretty difficult issue to sort out.

The licence fee hasn't risen in line with inflation over recent years so it is getting squeezed, but fewer people are watching or listening to its output so it is difficult to justify forcing them to pay more for something they don't want so much of.

We are now seeing the coroporation celebrating its centenary - and there is much to celebrate there. 

But we cannot ignore the fact these are perilous times for the BBC - and I'm not sure that hacking off those who enjoy it the most is really such a great idea.