Dear Steve, Thanks for your letter which I received this morning. I fail to understand how my comments in the letter to Darren Jones had a rather hollow ring to them after the Mansfield game.. because the same factors are involved. You seem to scoff at the suggestion that BBC Radio Nottingham should worry about getting a big audience but that's the name of the game these days. It is NOT nonsense to suggest that the majority of our listeners are Forest fans.. audience research tells us this. Our audience drops considerably when Forest don't play... even in the days when we could afford to do commentaries on Notts, the number of people listening to Radio Nottingham Sport was much lower when we weren't covering Forest.. they switched off, or more worrying, tuned elsewhere. You seem to have difficulty distinguishing between our audience and the "community" I'm concerned about those people interested in sport.. not other minority groups... like Country and Western fans.." I can't believe you seriously think we have a chance of persuading AWAY teams to waive their fees because Notts County insist on charging their local radio station. Hardly a viable proposition. Thanks for your offer to pay the broadcast fees for us to cover a Notts away game during February or March. However I feel we must decline the invitation because the terms are unacceptable.. as I have often stated previously, we are already committed to covering every Forest match this season. Nevertheless we are making plans now to confirm our first Notts commentaries of the season.. as promised in the aforementioned letter to Darren Jones.. now the season is getting towards it's climax. Mr. Davey will gain £400 from Radio Nottingham Sport over the next two months.. with a further £600 going to their opponents. We trust it will be money well spent. yours sincerely, MARTIN FISHER SPORTS EDITOR.

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Last Update 8 February 1998

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