Was Adam and Ian's union sensationalist nonsense, or heartwarming country fare? Photograph: BBC
The Archers message board is today throbbing with an unmissable "I told you so" vibe. This week's disappointing RAJAR audience figures, which show a 169,000 quarterly dip in listeners during the programme's hugely trailed, allegedly racy storylines in the last quarter of 2006, have been greeted with glee by posters who have long railed against the Ruth/Sam/David triangle and/or the civil partnership storyline for Adam and Ian as unpalatable, unconvincing or unnecessarily sensationalist.
It's the sensationalist tag that has stuck, though, and a feeling that attention-seeking, issue-laden storylines are now too frequently and too heavy-handedly shoehorned into the programme. Many contributors to the website argue that there is too much of this material, and not enough quieter glimpses into village life as it bumbles along. "If I wanted Eastenders story lines I'd watch Eastenders," writes one listener, "but I don't, I want agrigarian (sic) and rural storylines. I want stories that reflect the lives and challenges faced by those in the countryside".
The reality, though, is rather more complicated than sensationalism creeping in from nasty urban tellyland versus plots that reflect country life. It's not the subject matter that's the problem: this is hardly the first time that The Archers has broached scandal, sauciness or social progress (for these things do, no, they really do, also happen "in the countryside").
What may instead be causing listeners to switch off is that both extremes of the serial - the headline-grabbing exciting stuff and the deadly episodes featuring the most irritating members of the cast (see last night's episode, replete with Bert Fry) - have lost their touch of late.
On-going, slow-burning storylines, such as Jack's dementia and Brian's relationship with his son Ruairi, are still handled with just the right pace and tone, and treated to some terrific writing. Yet when it comes to something like the highly contrived Ruth/David/Sam triangle, which never convinced me for one moment, it's as if the storylines and character motivations were thought up by someone who has listened to one or two episodes, then drunk way too much coffee.
The slower episodes, like last night's, are now so enervating I find myself staring at the radio in disbelief, wondering if those cheeky spoofers from Down the Line have somehow got hold of the slot.
If The Archers was one of the Hereford Bulls up at Brookfield, I'd be calling in the vet right now. A decline in the audience, however small, over such a high-profile period, is going to need a shot of something rather more powerful than antibiotics.
