As has already been suggested on this site, Radio Times is certainly not a magazine purely about the radio anymore, and face it, hasn't been for decades. Not unforgivable in itself, perhaps, although imagine if you did have a publication which got as excited and curious about the medium of radio as, say, The Listener, used to, prior to a demise that John Birt no doubt felt was timely in January 1991. All of this might be just about excusable if Radio Times really was a kosher magazine about TV, with proper analysis and discussion. You get a clue about RT's current brief on page four when Sue Robinson reminds you at the end of her weekly 'letter' to readers (what's the betting she writes those horrible little all-purpose circulars 'Dear all...' that twats enclose with Christmas cards every year?) that she was awarded the title "Editor Of The Year (General Interest Magazines)". The most forgettable award ever? We had to look it up in RT three times for absolute confirmation, it was such a watery platitude. But with the BBC being the greatest example of a licence-funded organisation that just happens to be a multi-million pound commercial operation, they can't risk anyone picking up any rival listings magazine. So every cover of Radio Times, like its contents, must scream quality, is the mindset at White City. So they think...

What typifies the offensive blandness of RT in the year 2000 tends to coincide with the offensive blandness of the BBC in the year 2000. Actually, "coincide" is the wrong word, as this would imply that the two tendencies are unconnected. But the two things are joined at the hip. As any straight-talking Beeb employee will tell you off the record, the Corporation is absolutely hell-bent on targetting a niche, no matter how tenuous or desperate. And just as the dull lunchtime but primetime-in-waiting soap Doctors is followed by a barrage of trails for "Chicagohopecasualtyholbycity" (thinly-veiled translation: "Are you obsessed by hospitals and human suffering?"), so the RT patronises its middle-class, women's magazine refugee audience (and by extension, if in a different way, everyone else) by eschewing individual programmes, and even particular stars of programmes for people who are best-known as lifestyle icons, loosely speaking. (The Simpsons set of covers, "designed specially by Matt Groening!" (so?), might have been an exception, were they not accompanied by weak, dumb and downright dishonest accompanying features (no mention of Sky buying up the series when the BBC turned it down in 1990)).

Similarly, just as the BBC websites like to think of themselves as being all things to everybody - just try and find any decent article about broadcasting on there, and all you'll find is pointless lists of Fast Show catchphrases and endless plugs for their home shopping service - BBC Worldwide have made damned sure that every last supposed middle-class preoccupation is individually catered for across their magazine divisions. Gardening? Cooking? Wildlife? Classical music? Pop music, but only for the kids who will no doubt grow out of that at 16? Another women's magazine which is definitely not like its competitors but which is actually eerily similar? (Eve, in case you were wondering.)

So what's our point? This: Why, if the BBC are ploughing millions of pounds into a heap of lifestyle magazines in an already overcrowded marketplace, are they filling a magazine which should be about broadcasting (the BBC's raison d'etre, in case anyone's forgotten) with irrelevant shit? And nowhere is this irrelevance more teeth-grindingly obvious than on page one, the cover. At its worst, a cover will make all the most insulting assumptions about its audience. Take, for example, the belief-defying "Who says Britain's short of doctors?" cover of 7-13 October 2000. Leaving aside concerns that the cast of Holby City or Casualty wouldn't last five pissing minutes in a real intensive care unit, this utterly pathetic headline makes two alarming assumptions. Firstly, it predicts that viewers cannot tell the difference between fiction and actuality, which given past evidence of troubled soap stars being given attention that would be denied real people, may sadly be true. Secondly, it treats the horrifying state of Britain's health service down the years as pure escapism - just as Radio Times regards EastEnders as working-class strife for people who know nothing about it, so it perceives Holby City and Casualty to represent, at a conveniently safe distance, the NHS for people who can afford private treatment. We're all middle-class now, as various politicians and McCarthy might say.

Or take as another example, the recent Jonathan Ross cover of 2-8 December: "How Jonathan Ross broke the age barrier. The HOT SHOW that makes RADIO 2 COOL". The first sentence is in a dwarfed typeface, no accident since Ross has never been a mainstream ratings-winner with viewers, unless you count They Think It's All Over, which he joined long after it had become a hit show. The boldly-typed words are the key to what La Robinson would like the readers to retain in their thick skulls: It doesn't matter whether it's Jonathan, Diana or Ricky Fucking Ross, just so long as it makes the previously cardigan brigade of Radio 2 trendy and cool, that's all that matters. And, helpfully, it helps to make RT's audience profile a bit "cooler" too. Upmarket, up-to-date, up their own arses, but ultimately no more intelligent than consumers for rival titles.

So lifestyle is all for BBC Worldwide. How else can you explain the foldout celebrity chefs cover of 4-10 November, "What do you call a tableful of chefs?". (The punchline really isn't worth reprinting.) The subtext here for Robinson's peers is "Look! Over here! A bunch of blokes who cook! Phwoarr, eh girls?!". They don't even attempt to tell you the name of the programme they're all in. Whatever, it's a BBC2 thing, so it's a bit too risky for RT's circulation, especially given that meanwhile on the same newsagents' shelves, TV Times and TV Choice are practically forbidden by law to put anyone on the cover who isn't Ross Kemp.

And even when a specific programme is splashed across the front cover, you either get the feeling that you're indecently close to Human Interest World ("How Castaway changed our lives", 18-24 November), or you're faced with such a predictably central pillar of BBCness (D. Attenborough, 11-17 November) that you sigh to yourself that it's only a matter of time before Wogan slumps onto the cover. Oh. He's already been there (26 August - 1 September).

Still, while all the plebs try to read their TV Quicks the right way up, it's nice to know that RT has the culture and education of the nation under control. After Sue Robinson's crusade in November to get our kids away from the commercialisation of American kids TV towards public service, non-commercial home-grown quality fare which doesn't have to rely on merchandising spin-offs like...er, Teletubbies, Tweenies and LA 7, who else but good old foster child of the middle-classes Harry Potter could grace the cover of the Christmas 2000 issue of the Good Old Radio Times?

In a world of PR-puff, dumbed-down showbiz gossip and shitty little lifestyle features, trust the Radio Times to reflect those times. And as that very magazine is obsessed with superficialities and image, we're sure they wouldn't mind us using that as a basis for analysing their own product just from page one. Well, whatever, it's done now. But that's just the beginning....