Radio standards on the decline

Has anyone noticed the rapid decline of Maltese radio stations and newspapers in the last few months?

From hearing the soothing tones of experienced presenters such as Carlo Borg Bonaci we have moved to listening to the inanities of people whose best asset seems to be regaling us with "interesting" stories of celebrities and who are apparently unable to string a decent sentence in Maltese.

Given changes effected on one station, while driving to work in the morning, we tried listening to another station. However the evident failure of the presenters to provide a decent programme is so evident as to be laughable.

Not only this, but on one particular station we were regaled with, a few months ago, the oh-so-fascinating story of a man who left it up to his pet goldfish to decide whom to sell his house to - please note that this had been circulating the internet the previous day - and to add insult to injury in the afternoon the presenter was gleefully giving us the same details.

Even worse is the news read out - the same radio station in particular does not change its news from one morning to the next on various occasions.

Is it possible that in the whole wide world nothing has happened from one day to the next?

What is in my opinion even worse is the fact that on many occasions there have been snippets of news which at the hours of 5.30 and 6.30 in the afternoon regale tales concerning sexual escapades, with the words "masturbation" and "orgasms" being freely bandied around - this is a time when many parents are ferrying their children from one place to another by car, with the radio on; maybe some of these so-called newscasters should try explaining to young children the meaning of these words. I tried calling the station once, to politely point this out, however all my calls remained unanswered.

Are radio programmes monitored in any way?

And has anyone noticed that a popular daily has often repeated an article on different pages on the same day? I have even noticed an article on Monday's paper (November 11) which had been presented on Sunday! I am afraid that the English language presented in our papers is also leaving much to be desired...