Resting 'Call You & Yours'

A word about tomorrow (Tuesday). Usually I'd be presenting Call You & Yours rather than the more familiar programme format, but during the election campaign it's been decided that our weekly phone-in will be rested. This is simply to make way for the election calls which are being incorporated into extended editions of The World at One.

A weekly phone-in is a hard programme to get right. If its subject matter is dependent only on the news of the day then it risks duplicating phone-ins on other stations, most notably Radio 5 Live. But if we opt for a topic which is significantly divorced from the news agenda then people aren't talking about it and are less likely to call in.

One of the other dilemmas we face, of course, is how we decide who to put on the air. On a busy Tuesday we may get several hundred calls, but realistically only between fifteen and twenty of them will make it onto the radio. There are several rules of thumb; a good caller will have personal experiences which add to the subject matter being discussed and/or a view that they can back up with some evidence and expertise. In other words we're aiming to shed more light than heat on our chosen subject matter via you, the callers. And if we can move to a constructive conclusion at around five to one, that rounds things off very nicely too.

As for my role...I think it's best described as a juggling act. If you come on the air I must show you the courtesy of allowing you to express your point of view. But I also have to bear in mind that at some point either someone else wants to have their say, or the vast majority of you who are just listening would like me to move things on. Or express a bit of healthy scepticism on your behalf. Then there are the guests to bring in and the e-mails to make space for. The fifty-two and a half minutes tend to go very very quickly.

I'm not sure what we'd have talked about tomorrow had 'Call...' been in place as usual. But I do know that if we'd opened the phonelines today on either dazzling headlights or native daffodils, we'd have been debating both topics well into the afternoon.

Julian Worricker is a presenter on You & Yours

• You & Yours is on BBC Radio 4 at 1200 weekdays. Listen to today's episode on the Radio 4 web site.
• Telephone picture by Dan Brady. Used under licence.

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