I have such admiration for the way they just kept going, doing that very difficult thing of being the story, not just reflecting and interrogating the story. A year later, Radio 4 has not only retained its Station of the Year title – which Boaden says was “completely delicious” – but six other awards too, in recognition of the enduring quality of the network’s content.Boaden says of the past 12 months that they have been “incredibly difficult for news. Boaden admits: “In our house we used to listen pretty much to Radio 4 and Five Live. Now we are definitely listening to more Radio 2 and especially Radio 3 – and that’s because it’s so easy to turn over.

And I know anecdotally that is what’s happening.”In the last set of quarterly figures, Radio 4 saw its audience dip slightly from 9.51 million to 9.37 million “There’s nothing we can do about the news,” Boaden says. “My one consolation in all this is that I’m pretty sure most of them are staying within the BBC radio family. But Radio 4 can never afford to rest on its laurels.”Boaden could be forgiven for wanting to blow her trumpet a little at the culmination of a 12-month period that began on 29 May last year with the fateful Today programme’s broadcast on the Government’s Iraqi weapons dossier. We know that certainly some of our listeners were leaving us to go to Radio 2 where they absolutely get treated like intelligent adults but it’s music, it’s often very funny and it’s just a lighter listen in the best sense.”As the number of digital radios in cars and homes increases and as more people listen to radio through their televisions and computers, so Radio 4 – with its intellectually-challenging content – will come under greater pressure to hold on to audiences, Boaden believes.

“The one thing you can say about our programmes is that they do demand quite a lot of attention,” she says.Programmes that “require you to lean forward” might lose out in a market where channel-hopping is much easier than it used to be. “I have an instinct that as the situation in Iraq continues there has been a sort of weariness with the coverage,” she says. “Because most people have made up their minds what they think about it and it’s hard to find the rays of light for any side of the debate.”Boaden admits that in the last set of radio industry listening figures, “we saw some decline in audiences for our news and current affairs programmes and so did the World Service. First, the growth of digital radio is making audiences “more promiscuous about their listening”. Second, the long-running story of Iraq, which Radio 4 is obliged to cover fully, is proving a turn-off – or at least a turn-over – for many listeners who feel that they have had all they can stand of the war.

“I’m very uncomplacent about our future,” she admits.
Her concerns are two-fold. If Boaden is allowing herself a moment’s rest on her laurels she doesn’t show it. After BBC Radio 4 was named Station of the Year for the first time in the Sony Radio Awards of 2003, the delighted network controller Helen Boaden asked herself: “Where do you go from there?” So when the station won the accolade for a second time last month it seemed only right to put the question to her again. Indeed, awards-industry insiders cannot help but nod in appreciation at the most successful young pup on the gong circuit: The Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards. Its genius is in its devious simplicity – it gives awards to “civilians”. They’ll be pleased as punch to turn up, won’t make outrageous demands, won’t mind posing for photographs and won’t demand “four grams of chisel and two bottles of brandy” (as Oasis once memorably did) before agreeing to get up on stage.