A global audience are ready to listen in to us

Mal Pope is a songwriter who co-produced the film Jack To A King, about the 10-year rise of Swansea City FC

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WAS once told by a brilliant, experienced broadcaster that no matter how many people might be listening I should imagine I was talking to just one person.

Over the years that advice has really helped to guide me when I sit down in front of a microphone.

But, there’s always that little question the back of your mind: “I wonder how many people are actually tuned in to the show?”

This week I was asked to host the BBC Radio 4 Sunday Service which we recorded at the old Mynyddbach Chapel, now known as the Calon Lan Centre. There were a number of moving parts to the service. I was the host; we had a guest preacher and the whole of the musical programme was to be performed by the Morriston Orpheus.

In the past I’ve presented any number of shows for network radio but usually they are documentary-type shows that take weeks of recording, months of editing and when they are broadcast you have forgotten all about them.

One show involved days of recording down at Llangennith Beach as I learnt how to surf. The idea was I needed some personal experience of riding the waves if I was going to truly understand the British Surf Championships. My guide was The Times surfing correspondent who also taught French at Cambridge University. I think I missed it bring broadcast.

Another series I presented was about the history of American black Gospel music. Together with the producer we spent two weeks travelling up through the Mississippi Delta to Philadelphia, and then onto New York state. Along the way we met some of the finest exponents and most knowledgeable historians of Gospel music.

That trip actually changed my life and started an annual pilgrimage to Memphis and Tupelo that went on for about five consecutive years. It was probably six months later that the series was broadcast.

‘As these types of programmes are a ‘one-off’ series it was hard to actually know how many people had tuned in.