I was driving cross country through the snow and had the radio set to traffic reports. These were coming through from local stations.

It was interesting after going through several counties to notice that some use 0845, some 03 and some local numbers. These numbers were given for listeners to advise on any poor road conditions etc. A few points to note:

Clearly the decision on phone provider is made on a local level so no lame government excuses here!
The numbers are given for people who are out and about to call in. Anyone with half a grain of sense knows that 0845 numbers cost a fortune from mobiles.
The radio stations are local so do not need to pretend they have a national presence with 08 or 03 numbers (although at least 03 numbers are reasonable)

Also, when listening to the football on Five Live, why do they STILL use an 0500 'freephone' number for fans to call on their way home from matches? 0500 is not free from mobile and can anybody tell me of one person that has a landline in their car???!!!

floella2 wrote on Jan 9^th, 2010 at 4:18pm:

Also, when listening to the football on Five Live, why do they STILL use an 0500 'freephone' number for fans to call on their way home from matches? 0500 is not free from mobile and can anybody tell me of one person that has a landline in their car???!!!

True, but most know about 0200 222 0700 and/or 0200 222 0900 by now.

There is clearly none joined up thinking in the BBC with regards telephone numbering. Much like the Government where JobCentres are now moving over to 0845 numbers, but NHS Stressline, NHS Change4Life, DVLA and others are now using 03 numbers. The DWP appears set in its ways, despite its Minister saying that call backs would be offered to those ringing from mobiles as a temporary measure as it has become aware of the cost of calls.

I would question the assertion that "most" football fans know about dial through numbers.

I got a list of BBC 0845 numbers from a FOI request last year, I remain ready to share this with anyone with the time to do something about it.

The 0845 numbers for local radio stations were introduced at the time when this enabled those outside the "local" call area for the studio to call in at "local" rate. At the same time national services were given 0870 numbers. The latter were all replaced with 0370 numbers some months ago. Although it is many years since this benefit has been significant (local rate disappeared 6 years ago) the local radio stations have still not got around to sorting out this problem and the national organisation has been reluctant to take the blame for forcing "local" stations to change to numbers that would cause some to incur an increase in cost. The bullet needs to be bitten, but it is hard to know whether each station has to be targeted separately or whether this could be done for the BBC as a whole. I would doubt that the benefit of revenue share would be seen as significant; in the context of the costs involved it will be seen as very small.