Did the BBC devote too much time in its news programmes to the meltdown of Murdoch's media empire? One of the topics in this week's Feedback.

The BBC's annual report came out this week, though you may hardly have noticed given the dominance of the coverage of the Murdoch meltdown, (something we discussed in this week's Feedback.)

What caught my eye was not the sums paid to star presenters (I couldn't bear to look) but what the BBC spent on radio in the year 2010/11.

Not allowing for inflation, spending on Radio 1 went up 9.8%, on Radio 2 by 11.3%. Radio 4 received an increase of 6.3%.

So these three stations had increase above inflation.

Radio 5 live by contrast had an increase of only 0.3% before inflation and Radio 3 was the hardest hit of all. It had a cut of 7.3% which, when you add inflation comes in real terms to a reduction of at least 10%.

Now doubtless there are detailed reasons for this but it does give a very rough insight into the BBC's priorities.

In Feedback this week we also look not at the past year but to the future of radio and it appears to be in vision, or at least visualised.

In other words if you listen online there is an increasing amount of visual accompaniment to be enjoyed or endured, be it live streaming of concert performance or the opportunity to see Chris Moyles standing up.

Victoria Derbyshire's show on 5 Live is also visualised, and as I am a Derbyshire fan, I seized the opportunity to go and talk to her and her editor about it.

We met last Tuesday at 8am in Television Centre as Victoria prepared her morning show.

Here are some of those links as discussed in that piece.

• Victoria Derbyshire hosts a debate on immigration in Luton
• Benjamin Chesterton's photo film Lebanon's Missing

And at the risk of being accused of bandwagon jumping - we've done our own bit of visualisation - (taken from an original idea by Bob Dylan...)

Next week - "Feedback - The Movie"... Perhaps.

By the way, in two weeks time I will be talking to the Controller of Radio 4 about the schedule changes she has just announced, which include getting rid of Americana, On the Ropes, The Choice and Taking a Stand, extending the World at One to 45 minutes and moving programmes like Feedback to later in the afternoon.

I will have lots to ask her, not least about that, but do tell me what else you'd like me to raise. Ways to contact us are below.

Roger Bolton is the presenter of Feedback

• Listen again to this week's Feedback, produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with the programme, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
• Read all of Roger's Feedback blog posts.
• Feedback is on Twitter. Follow @BBCR4Feedback.
• Picture caption: "22/01/2006 BBC Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch before being interviewed by Jeff Randall on BBC Radio Five Lives Weekend Business programme, Sunday January 22, 2006."

Here's a puzzle - and to help you solve it, a clue. The Bottom Line is a conversation show where top chief executives and entrepreneurs have a lively debate about business topics with Evan Davis. Now, can you spot the odd-one-out in the following list?

1. A hypnotist
2. A vegetarian
3. An expert on eco-friendly Christmas decorations
4. The chief executive of the world's largest oil company

The answer is 4 - the only one not to have been proposed (so far) as a contributor by their public relations agency.

Here's some more potential contributors that PRs have suggested: an expert on wine-tasting; a singer-songwriter, who'd also like to perform on the show; a medical expert on 'summer madness'; a documentary film director; a psychologist who can talk about playgrounds; a diet expert; a band who've released their third single; a dentist... There are plenty more examples.

Might one end up thinking that the PR industry is full of people who are out of touch with their counterparts in the media? Well you might, if you saw some of the emails I get. Actually, the best PRs suggest good contributors we might not know about; come up with exciting topics; and help us to remain in touch with important business trends. We're grateful for their help - and their patience with our demands.

Most of the contributors who appear on the show are there because we have made the request. With some high-profile guests, we have to be very persistent to convince them to take part - and good PR people can help us here. The idea of appearing on a programme that's broadcast in the UK and around the world on Radio and TV can be daunting to some contributors, though most are excited by the idea of such a huge audience.

But a few PRs spell trouble. Some will guard access to the chief executive they're looking after a bit too fiercely. On one occasion when we weren't able to brief the contributor properly beforehand, he ended up being a hundred miles away at the time of recording - leaving us half an hour to find a replacement guest from scratch. Another chief executive obviously thought there was safety in numbers, because he had three different PR firms advising him (they all demanded separate briefings).

Then there are the huge number of unsolicited submissions we receive, only a very few of which are suitable enough for us to follow up. Some PRs seem to have no idea that the programme is about business, rather than, say, rock music or holidays. Even when they do have a vague grasp of the show's content, they often pitch almost anyone with a business background however remote, especially if there's some event coming up.

These PRs are often the same ones who send lots and lots of emails...the vast majority of which are irrelevant (a friend has christened these 'spram'). For those PRs who haven't yet grasped the basics of effective electronic communication, this advice from a mid-1990s guide to 'netiquette' might help: "messages... should be brief and to the point... unsolicited advertising which is completely off-topic will most certainly guarantee that you get a lot of hate mail."

Of course I am not alone; many journalists have to grapple with far more calls and emails than I do. Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired magazine, wrote a famous blog post on the subject, where he explained he would ban PR people who sent him inappropriate emails because there were just too many.

The other side of the coin is that it can be tough to reach the right person in a large media organisation like the BBC - and we do try to help 'lost' PRs. But there will always be some who will just grab a media contacts list and email everyone on it, not worrying if the guest or story is appropriate, because it's the easiest thing to do.

So our advice to PRs is, do as Chris Anderson suggests - find out what a journalist is interested in before contacting them. It isn't that difficult - and it might save some money. For example, if a PR listened to or watched an edition of the show before sending in promotional CDs, DVDs and books (and we get a surprising number of these) he or she might discover that we don't play music or movie clips, and we almost never review books.

Managing relations between large organisations and the public is not an easy task. In this week's programme we'll hear how top PR practitioners Julia Hobsbawm and Lord Tim Bell go about it.

Neil Koenig is series producer of The Bottom Line

• The Bottom Line, uniquely, is broadcast on BBC radio and television: on Thursdays and Saturdays on Radio 4, and on World Service Radio and the BBC News and World News TV Channels. The next programme is on Radio 4 tomorrow at 2030 (repeated at 1730 on Saturday).
• The picture, which shows a shelf of Spam in a Korean shop, is by Mark DeMaio. Used under licence.

I can always tell when we've recorded a good edition of The Bottom Line: it is one where I have not had to speak very much.

Don't get me wrong. I love speaking. It's what I'm paid to do. And before we record the programme I always make sure that I have plenty to say on the topics we're discussing.

Fortunately, however, I'm modest enough to know that the Bottom Line is really about the guests rather than the presenter. And for the programme to succeed, it needs to show the guests at their most fluent and expressive.

And that is where the challenge of the programme lies.

To succeed, the conversation has to fizz; the guests have to bounce comments off each other and push their point out, rather than have it pulled from them. In short, the guests have to converse like the professional talkers who fill the airwaves - journalists, politicians, artistic performers and academics.

But the interesting fact is that when you take a significant number of business people out of their comfort zone and put them in a radio studio, they are not relaxed about practising the art of conversation.

Business-people are trained in all sorts of communication: they can bark orders or sell washing powder or talk to Powerpoint presentations. They are just not bred to appear on Midweek.

Put a microphone in front of many of our guests they are a little taciturn; they like to think about what they're saying; they are worried about disagreeing with the other guests or speaking out of turn. Sometimes, they even wait to be asked a question.

Unchecked, none of these habits give the programme the natural flow we are looking for. (After all, you would never feel a dinner party had been very stimulating if it consisted of the host simply asking a sequence of questions to one guest at a time). So my job as presenter is to make all the guests feel comfortable with the task at hand.

Now, over time I've made an interesting observation on what works and what doesn't in making the more reticent guests relax.

I used to give a rather vague pre-show chat to them all, emphasising that they should feel free to speak without being spoken to; that they could make their point when they wanted to, and even interrupt if it sounded natural.

But this turned out to be too imprecise. Business-people are task oriented and hungry for new skills. They want their briefing to be more target-driven.

So I have discovered that if, before the recording, I instead tell them that "on at least three occasions in the programme, you should make a comment without having been asked anything by me", they converse in a far more casual way.

In fact, some of the best conversations occur when I jokingly suggest the show is a competition to see who can initiate the most points and talk most.

Tell them that, and the discussion flows. I have to do very little work. To the listener the result is a programme that has a more variable pace and one that is altogether easier to listen to.

But I expect it's only programmes with business guests that would find the way to foster a natural-sounding round-table chat by giving specific advice upfront of a rather unnatural kind.

Evan Davis presents The Bottom Line, Dragon's Den and Today

• The new series The Bottom Line begins this evening at 2030.
• Some pictures taken at a recording of The Bottom Line in Broadcasting House last July

Editor's note: Quentin sent me this update to his blog post this morning - SB.

Look, the thing about blogs is they're the almost unedited brain-to-webpage outpourings of whoever writes them and although I thought "Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan" which is one of the most fun in the series, unfortunately I typed an extra "I" which made it Star Trek III which, as any fule know, is pretty rubbish. My error was not noticed until blog-readers started pointing it out. I am suffused with shame..."

Now read on:

Swine flu has arrived in Dubrovnik. Two passengers on a cruise ship are showing symptoms. So how should the authorities respond? The press - including me - are summoned to a large meeting to hear what's been decided: 30,000 face masks will be made available (Dubrovnik has a population of only around 40,000); curfew will be enforced; all gatherings including football matches to mass are cancelled. Although not - as I point out through barely-suppressed laughter - this one. Clearly the press are expendable.

As you might have guessed - this was an exercise (it worked as a trick opening for Star Trek III so I thought it was worth trying for a Radio 4 blog post). The bad news was that I was watching scientists from across Europe make a right pig's ear out of trying to deal with a simulated swine flu scenario, suggesting a strategy that would have turned a small-scale problem into a full blown panic.

The good news was that this was taking place in the real Dubrovnik, a stunningly beautiful city I'd last been in before the 1991 siege and which is now back looking better than ever. I'm mentioning this not only because I've hugely enjoyed being at these science communication workshops in Croatia attempting to explain the workings of the media, but because I think some Radio 4 listeners imagine that for once-a-week programmes like mine, presenters are kept in a freezer between shows, thawed out just before transmission and returned there as soon as we are off air.

Material World takes up roughly half my week - preparing, researching, scripting and coming up with puns most but not all of which never get past my producer. The rest of the time I'm usually running around between conferences, other (lesser) programmes and the odd bit of more exotic work like these Dubrovnik workshops.

This was something aimed at senior figures who were supposedly already fairly media-savvy. Many were - but what I found alarming was how there remain some people high-up in science and science policy who are adamantly antediluvian in their thinking that it's entirely the public's own fault if they don't understand scientific issues or can't work out what a scientist is waffling on about. During our mock press conference on the swine flu outbreak one of them protested that "this isn't about science communication, this is about thinking on your feet" - as if helping science reach people doesn't involve responding to people and situations.

This is something which used to be a minor passion and that I'm now - including right now - at the risk of becoming a major bore about: I fervently believe that science shapes all our lives, that everyone has the right to at least a basic grasp of how, and that if you can help people past their prejudices that science is boring and/or incomprehensible, there's myriad fascinating and life-enhancing stories to tell. So it really gets my goat and other metaphorical livestock when I run into those - like one or two of the scientists in Dubrovnik - who blame the media, the public and everyone but themselves for a lack of wider scientific appreciation.

As I said - I can bore about this at length, so best leave it there even though this has been a big part of my week, like it is most weeks. That aside - apart from the continuing strange sensation of being a Manchester City supporter on the edge of a new season where the mountain of cash is overshadowed only by the mountain of expectations - I'm in recovery from 6 weeks of the 'visualisation' of Material World.

In case you missed it - and the vast majority did because it's a radio programme usually listened to via radios - this was a pilot scheme to give added visual content to for anyone hearing us live via their computer. Some people loved it, some hated it, and some liked it but found it got in the way of all the other things they usually do while hearing us live via their computer. That mixed response aside, the main focus seemed to be my physical appearance. There was a lot of guidance on my terrible posture, comments pro and anti my lively gesticulations (I wave my hands more when broadcasting than in real life, discuss), and - despite having my photo on the website - widespread disappointment at what I look like. My favourite was the backhanded compliment that came in during the final week of visualisation: "Quentin's not at all like I imagined. Great voice though".

Quentin Cooper is presenter of Material World

• The next edition of Material World is on Radio 4 at 1630 tomorrow. It's a live programme. The programme archive is here and the podcast is here.

We're experimenting this week. Material World - our weekly science programme presented by Quentin Cooper - will be accompanied, live, by some pictures. It will not be television and I won't reveal exactly how it will work - but give it a try. The visuals will stay up for several days after the programme - so if you don't catch it live you will still be able to see it.

We have done a fair amount of Radio 4 visualisation but we're still feeling our way. Here are some samples - the most recent being from Today last week. I thought that one was rather intriguing. The most complex thing we tried - quite a while ago now - was around Drama - a project called The City Speaks, from March 2008, which had TV images transmitted while a series of short plays were being transmitted in the Afternoon Play 1415 slot (the original story was by Peter Ackroyd). It was not television. That would have defeated the purpose of the enterprise. It was a bit giddy to watch and listen - but the plays worked as pure radio plays and it was fascinating.

We all know that we are not trying to make television - but we feel there are a limited number of things we might do where some kind of visualisation can add to a programme's editorial clout - or entertainment. It's early days... and we'll keep going with it...

• This Friday's Feedback will feature a discussion about Radio 4's contribution to the visualisation trial, which also includes programmes on BBC 6 Music, Radio 1 and Radio Five Live.
• Some previous Radio 4 visualisation experiments: Laura Solon and the joyously deranged China Lion, Stand Up With the Stars - Radio 4 presenters took to the stage for Comic Relief and Big Bang - Dara O'Briain brings a new audience to theoretical physics.
• Visit the Material World web site for details. On the site you'll also find the programme's huge archive of previous programmes to listen to.

As my colleague Brett Spencer has written regarding similar experiments at 5 Live, the results are making for interesting viewing. Our experiences can be seen on the Today site, among them Sarah Montague's grilling of BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons, Labour MP Stephen Pound describing the expenses scandal as "like a slasher-movie", and Michael Horowitz insisting that there is still honour among poets...

Jon Zilkha is Deputy Editor of Today. Continue reading his post and leave comments on The Editors blog...