The Word On The Street

CHRIS POWELL, the chairman of ad agency BMP DDB, must have been bending the ear of his brother Jonathan, Tony Blair's chief-of-staff at Downing Street. Powell C was responsible, along with Barry Delaney, a director of Delaney Fletcher Bozell, for last week's radical Labour local election broadcast, which was divided up into five consecutive 30-second spots. Labour, impressed with the high ratings it attracted, now wants to shake up all its party political broadcasts. But the party and the Powells will face an adversary in Ann Sloman, the BBC's political adviser. The BBC has been against the shortening of the slots because they would be "political advertising", not "informational and educational" broadcasts.

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THE ELEGANT and erudite Graeme Kay, editor of BBC Music Magazine, has been replaced by his deputy, Helen Wallace, a decision made by the elegant and erudite Nick Brett, head of BBC Magazines. The reasons are hard to fathom. Perhaps it is unwise to dress as well as one's publisher. According to one insider, "it turned into a battle of bow ties".

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PAUL GAMBACCINI enlivened a soporific Sony Radio Awards last week when he took the stage to announce the winners and attacked some of the radio managers present. He said he could see one who had sacked a long-running DJ on the eve of his honeymoon. There was another who let a daily DJ attend a staff meeting where they all received a schedule conspicuous for his absence. When the DJ pointed this out, he was told "you get the idea". But Gambaccini's main gripe was with a new manager who has "come from outside radio". He arrived, surveyed his staff and said "three of you can stay", the rest he described in words of four letters. Despite the familiar style of speech of the last, Gambaccini won't be drawn on the identity of his targets: "I was trying to make a point about the short- termism sweeping the industry," he says.

Correction: The editor of the Radio 4 `Today' programme, who wrote on this page last week, is Rod Liddle, not Roger Liddle, as we wrongly called him