New signings include boxer Chris Eubank and cricketer Geoff Boycott. MacKenzie hasn’t lost the popular touch either, devoting almost the entire output of the station to the recent debacle surrounding the ex-England football team manager, Glen Hoddle. His own daughter recently left the station although MacKenzie denies she was fired. All three of his children work in the media and both his brothers are journalists.The free phone line to Talk Radio has also gone, largely explains MacKenzie to increase the calibre of those calling in. Presenters Kirsty Young and Danny Boyd have already felt the blade of Mac the Knife, as have a number of senior executives and a dozen or so producers. “There have been what can loosely be described as personnel changes,” says MacKenzie.

“In the media what pays you back 100 times over is investment. When you say actually the bottom line would look much better if I didn’t buy the National Film Library that’s true But in two years time you won’t have an audience. The City understands the investment idea but managers are scared they are going to get fired.”Needless to say, MacKenzie has done a bit of sacking himself since he arrived at Talk. “The great giants of our business like Rupert know that investment is the only answer.” He bangs on the table.

The pounds 5m MacKenzie estimates Talk Radio has to pay the Treasury every year will, he promises, be reinvested.”No media company that has been successful has ever gone in for slash and burn,” he says. But once we get through it with a bit of luck they are going to change the licensing system and the absurd amount of cash we currently give the Government,” says MacKenzie, referring to planned government regulatory changes. Although the ratings slipped slightly again in the last quarter of 1998, from 1.7 to 1.6 per cent of total audience share compared with 39.1 per cent for the whole of the BBC radio network and 2.6 per cent for DJ Chris Evans’ station Virgin, Talk’s advertising sales have risen 170 per cent in January compared with the same period last year “It’ll be tough on the money all year. MacKenzie put his own cash in too, all of his liquid assets, although he won’t tell me how much.And Talk Radio, which lost around pounds 8m last year, looks like it might just be on the up.