I had to chuckle when I read the news that, while Radio 1’s total audience shrank last year, the proportion of over-55s tuning in has risen.

Radio 1 Controller, Ben Cooper, has been asked by the BBC Trust to implement a youth strategy and lower the average audience age.

New presenters and a shift in music programming have resulted in many listeners aged between 25 and 55 defecting to other stations which target older audiences. Hilariously, though, it’s the over 55s who are refusing to budge, despite the schedule changes, and Radio 1 does not want to grab those grannies.

They’re clearly concerned that youngsters will run a mile from a station that their parents, even grandparents, are fans of. But I wonder how much of a factor that is? These days, family members will listen to radio shows as downloads, podcasts, online or live, but rarely as a shared experience. Knowing that your dad likes a bit of Pete Tong, is hardly the same as seeing him ahead of you in the queue for the latest club.

Radio 1 will just have to accept that the 1960s popular culture revolution changed everything. The folk who were kids in the 60s and 70s are not going to suddenly transform into a generation of wee old men in bunnets and tightly permed grannies, as they reach their 60s and 70s. Attitudes to music and fashion have changed forever.

Apart from the Jimis and Janises who were casualties of the excesses of the age, most of the big stars are still going strong - the Stones, Dylan, Cohen, Van Morrison - and the last few years has also seen a 1980s revival, and while the music of those artists is more likely to be heard on Radio 2, the Radio 1 habit is a hard one to shake for people who grew up listening to it, and who, as well as enjoying those veteran performers, are still eager to seek out new talent.

The fact that Radio 1 still employs DJs who are middle-aged and older, and who are still firing on all cylinders - St Annie of Nightingale is 73 - indicates that Radio 1 knows that it has a balancing act to achieve. The last thing it wants to do is throw out the baby-boomers with the bathwater.

Meanwhile, a pair of young ‘uns have turned to a rock classic for inspiration. It’s the 40th anniversary of the release of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, which back then required more than 30 musicians to perform it.

On Tuesday night I’ll be in the audience at Glasgow’s City Halls to see just two musicians, Daniel Holdsworth and Aidan Roberts, recreate the work on their own, on stage, in real time. I’m told that Tubular Bells For Two is a real feast for the eyes as well as the ears, as the guys career around the stage in order to play the various instruments. They’ll also perform in Edinburgh and Inverness next week.