As a PR professional, I’m always looking for the news hook to make a story fly in the media. Being a former journalist, I’m usually pretty good at knowing what is news and what isn’t. There are always anomalies, sometimes something with very little legs flies and sometimes the best story nosedives. But I like that, it’s part of what makes this job so interesting.

Knowing and loving The Archers as I do, the recent hype around its 60^th anniversary episode which promised “to shake Ambridge to the core” was always going to be difficult to deliver.

Ok so the language may have emanated from the programme, but it was the hardcore, loyal and faithful Archers fans who built up the momentum by seizing on the description and agonising over what it could mean.

Most were worried that it would be something not in keeping with the programme. They didn’t want The Bull to be bombed by terrorists or a plane to fall out of the sky onto the village school like its TV soap counterparts. Others played the guessing game and suggested possible storylines.

All of this promoting coverage across all the mainstream media from radio and tv to national newspapers and blogs.

Unlike Eastenders and Coronation Street, The Archers never reveals its storylines so this also added to the expectation and excitement.

As a result, regular Archers listeners’ ranks were swelled by many others now intrigued by what an earth was going on.

Result, people were somewhat underwhelmed. A loveable character fell off the roof and died and a less loveable character had her baby early after an emergency caesarean – tragic for the immediate family and unsettling for the village but hardly shaking it to the core.

But does it matter? With a tip off from the press office the whole episode took on a life of its own. People who laughed at me, a city girl through and through, for religiously listening to this tale of country folk, all tuned it and talked about it. Ok, so not all those radio rubberneckers will continue to listen, but some will. Job done?