Radio One must continue Peel legacy: ultimately, it is the comments and messages from the listeners which speak the loudest.(Editorial)

John Peel has quite rightly been eulogised by friends and colleagues all week, but it is the tens of thousands of messages that are still flooding in from his listeners that say the most.

Their sheer volume is unprecedented, their content deeply moving. No other broadcaster in this country has touched so many people of every age and from every corner of the globe, including, at some stage, many--most?--of the readers of this magazine.

It is equally striking how the same themes keep on recurring: kids stumbling across his show in their bedrooms and being drawn into a new world of musical possibility; listeners not only being hooked by the musical breadth but by the unique broadcasting style which reached out to them like an old friend. Those certainly resonate with me.

In a sense it is crass to say that John Peel has particular significance for the music industry, since this an industry from which he always resolutely stood apart. But it remains true.

His passion for new music is something that most in the music industry aspire to, few experience with such intensity and no one has retained for so long. And his role as the ultimate A&R source will never be matched.

In the age of Goggle, KaZaA et al--not to mention every website run by the tiniest band, label, shop, radio ...