Editors note: Denis Nowlan, Network Manager of BBC Radio 4 talks about the enduring importance of The Shipping Forecast.  You can listen to the Shipping Forecast online or read the latest report at BBC Weather.  3w1z38

The Shipping Forecast is one of those Radio 4 institutions that occupy a special place in the hearts of many listeners across the country, but it also fulfils a very important role in providing vital safety information to mariners who traverse the waters around our shores. With this in mind, last year we asked our colleagues at the Royal Yachting Association, the Met Office and HM Coastguard to send a questionnaire to their inviting on the way they use the Shipping Forecast. We did this to ensure the service we offer continues to provide them with the most useful information in the best way possible.

We were very pleased to receive almost 1,000 responses, and although this was a self-selecting sample, the was on the whole very positive: most respondents cited Radio 4 Long Wave as their primary source of Maritime Safety Information (MSI) and classified the service as vital; they also praised it for its simplicity, reliability and dependability. One respondent, whose comments were echoed by hundreds of others, wrote: “Radio 4 Long Wave service is absolutely essential for safety and planning (inshore and at sea); it can be received at considerable distance unlike FM/internet and when cruising well offshore becomes the only source of weather and safety information.”

There does not appear to be an appetite for significant changes to the service, although some respondents did suggest that all Shipping Forecast bulletins should be made available on demand on the Radio iPlayer, and we have already implemented this change.

I spoke to about the results of the questionnaire and about the ways people access the Shipping Forecast.

Listen to

Listen to The Shipping Forecast

It was raining cats and dogs in London this week, with thunder crashing around Wimbledon and great forks of lightening slashing through the black clouds. That is when the sun wasn't beaming out of a flawlessly blue sky.

One day I was sweltering on the Tube, cursing the fact that I hadn't brought a bottle of water with me, while the next I was hiding from a cloudburst in a shop doorway, much to the irritation of the owner.

Changeable weather I think you'd call it.

And of course I blamed the weather forecasters for not warning me about it. (They had of course, I just hadn't listened, or rather understood what I was being told.)

In the UK we always seem to be blaming the weather and its messengers, while making more and more demands of the forecasts.

"Please tell us exactly when it will rain at the Test match", is one such query the BBC's weather team received recently.

Mind you some listeners are baffled by forecasts that include phrases like these:-
"Showers will squeak up",
"We'll have a weatherfront sitting down", and
"We are going to have a sandwich of weather today."

For this week I went to the BBC's weather centre, which is not located on some blasted heath or exposed coastline, but occupies a small space in the now doomed Television Centre in west London.

Apparently the weather team will be some of the last people to leave that famous doughnut when it closes in the next year or so.

I walked along the corridor past the gleaming photos of the predominantly young forecasters, dreaming of the long lost days of Bert Foord and Michael Fish, to meet the people who really know what pressure is, not least when they have to cut a bulletin in half with virtually no warning because a Today interview has over run.

I talked first to one of the Weather Centre's clients, the managing editor of Radio 4, Denis Nowlan.

Roger Bolton presents on BBC Radio 4

• Listen again to this week's , produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with , find out how to the listener or subscribe to the podcast on the web page.
• Read all of Roger's blog posts.
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• The picture shows Jack Armstrong, one of the team of weathermen from the Meterological office in 1963.

Editor's note: this week's item from , Radio 4's weekly ability programme, concerns the highly contentious issue of trails. Putting his head in the lion's mouth to defend them is network manager, Denis Nowlan. Brave man - SB

What is it about trails that so excites or rather inflames the listener? This week as I entered the office I could feel the heat radiating off the incandescent emails.

The immediate cause was an interview I did last week with the deputy Editor of the Today programme, Jon Zilkha. A few days before, a BBC weather forecaster had had to cut his pre-8 a.m. bulletin from its standard 90 seconds length to a truncated 20 seconds. The reason was that a live discussion about the BBC itself had overrun, in listeners' view an increasingly common occurrence.

Of course another option would have been to drop the trail instead. Mr Zilkha defended the decision to cut the forecast and went on to suggest that for many listeners trails are just as important as the weather. Many of our correspondents were incredulous about that assertion.

"If he can actually find a listener who would rather listen to a trailer then hear a weather forecast, I"ll buy him a drink" wrote Colin Williams.

Deborah Bull told us "You are a public service and a decent weather forecast is part of that. There is no justification for preferring to run trails instead".

Peter Simpkin said "I hope you will follow up with a direct question to the Controller R4... is the 5-to-8 trailer more important than the weather by higher command?"

Well the Controller was not available but the official defender of trails was. He is the Network Manager of Radio 4, Denis Nowlan. Listen to his defence of trails and tell us what you think in a comment:

By the way the latest RAJAR figures show that Radio 4 has just had its best listening figures ever, and that those for Radio 3 have gone down a little. I think there must have been a General Election.

Roger Bolton presents on BBC Radio 4

• Listen again to the whole programme, get in touch with , find out how to the listener or subscribe to the podcast on the web page.
• On the About the BBC blog, Margo Swadley writes about those RAJAR figures

For quite some time we've been musing about the weather on Radio 4.

We know it's a very important part of the schedule and I am frequently assailed by listeners who think we don't give it enough attention, are not clear enough or are negligent about their part of the country - and more. Much more.

Last month PM and iPM tried various different ways of doing a weather forecast - and there was a great deal of audience reaction. Peter Gibbs - from the Met Office - was the man at the helm.

From today we are going to try a new way of telling the audience about the weather on PM. The key changes are:

• Forecasters will use a new standard map of UK weather regions, so the naming of region will be consistent.
• Cear signposting of each region before each bit of weather information.
• The forecaster will pick out some major population centres and the narrative will normally flow from South to North (although this will change in the case of major weather disruptions elsewhere).

So - we'd like to know what you think. Respond here or on the PM blog and I will peruse your responses. It's not a vote - and we will have to decide what we think is editorially best - but I will note your applause, abuse, doubts etc. With interest.

• The changes are previewed on the PM blog and you'll be able to hear the first of the new forecasts at 1757 this evening.
• UPDATE: less than an hour after the first of the new bulletins the PM blog has already attracted 87 comments about it.