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Instead - and not without some eyebrows being raised, he acknowledged - Jeff opted to run the national broadcaster from BBC Highland's more modest studios in Inverness.

"BBC Scotland was restructuring and floated the idea of having management and programmes dispersed outside Glasgow," Jeff explained.

"I immediately put my hand up and said: 'Can I have Inverness?'"

Jeff admitted his decision had surprised some of his metropolitan colleagues, but pointed out that his job required him to visit all the station's production centres. By relocating, he would simply be starting the journey in Inverness instead of Glasgow. Technology also helps Jeff base himself wherever he likes.

Nevertheless, there were those who remained mystified why he would want to leave the central belt for Inverness.

A Glasgow boy himself, he can understand that attitude and admits that when he was growing up, Inverness did not register - something that, as a good BBC man, he blames on STV.

"The weather maps didn't exist beyond Dundee," he added.

Yet Inverness has always played a part in Jeff's radio career, ever since he first arrived in the Highland Capital in 1988 for work experience with independent station Moray Firth Radio.

Renting a room in Scorguie with its view over the Moray Firth, he remembers saying to his landlady that he wanted to settle in Inverness, even though he was barely in his mid-20s.

That work placement led to the offer of a job in the MFR newsroom before he returned to Glasgow a year later to work with Radio Clyde.

Just four years later he was back, having since joined the BBC and married research scientist Anne, to launch Tom Morton's morning show as senior producer.

Though promotion to editor of Radio Scotland's topical programmes meant a return to Glasgow for the Zycinskis, whose number had been doubled by the arrival of children Sarah and Alan, Jeff still felt the pull of the Highland Capital.

"One day in Glasgow we were all out for lunch talking about what we would do if we won the lottery and people were saying things like they'd move to Hawaii. I said: 'I think I'd move to Inverness.' At that point people quietly shuffled away," he laughed.

"The three love affairs of my life are radio, Inverness and my wife - in chronology, not in order of importance because I encountered Inverness before I met my wife."

The Zycinskis' attachment only grew after the family returned in 2006 and saw how much Scotland's "millennium city" had grown, offering amenities it had previously lacked, and that attachment extends not just to the place, but also its football team.

"I had always worried about the Celtic-Rangers thing in Glasgow, so I never took my son to football games down there, but part of the deal of moving up here was that I would take him to see Caley Thistle," Jeff explained. "There is something great about watching a team go through its rollercoaster over the year. I'm a huge Caley Thistle fan, I must admit."

Though, as is clear from his strictly chronological list of love affairs, Jeff has been a fan of radio even longer.

"I always loved radio when I was a kid and it wasn't the clichéd story of Radio Luxembourg, it was foreign stations like Radio Free Prague. These short wave stations coming out of the eastern bloc always fascinated me - and scared the heck out of my father because he was Polish and worried I might be going over to the Communist side," Jeff laughed.

Jeff - whose Scottish upbringing means he is constantly told the "correct" pronunciation of his surname every time he books into a hotel - made his first move to a radio career when he studied magazine journalism at University College, Cardiff.

The course also had a module in radio journalism and Jeff's tutors, spotting his natural talent for the medium, encouraged him to transfer to the broadcast side, something he has never regretted.

"It's the speed of it," he said.

"Television has caught up, but radio's always much more immediate and intimate and has much more variety you can be involved in.

In Radio Scotland, you can be involved in comedy, drama, sports, classical music and pop music, where if you are working in television, your job is one of those rather than all of those."

The arrival of the internet age and especially the introduction of the Listen Again facility for radio, allowing people to catch programmes they may previously have missed, has given radio an important new strength in the 21st century.

Jeff believes there will always be a demand for the immediacy of live daytime radio, but the internet means the station can provide programmes which appeal to a variety of special interests, such as Celtic music, arts and comedy.

The one disadvantage to Jeff's role, which includes overseeing the production of UK network programmes made in Scotland, is that it has taken him away from the microphone.

"There are days, especially when a big story breaks, when you do miss being part of the action," he acknowledged.

"There are compensations to the strategy side. The fun part is always developing new things, tweaking old programmes or commissioning new ones.

"The main joy is what I would broadly label encouraging new talent. Here in Inverness it's a joy to see young musicians coming through the door. Good as they are, they might never have done anything like that before. Similarly with new sitcom writers you get that buzz from people who want to try something new."

Not everything works, Jeff acknowledges, but he feels the risk is worth taking especially given that the BBC is publicly funded.

"We're funded by the licence fee, so it's not as if we are going to go bankrupt next week. I'd feel guilty if I didn't exploit that freedom," he said.

As an ex-journalist himself, one of his proudest achievements is providing his investigations team with the money and time to work on stories. In terms of comedy, he is delighted that "Desperate Fishwives" has become a nationwide success, despite fears the first Doric comedy would not translate to the rest of the country. Jeff revealed he would love to see comedy talent emerging from the Highlands to do something similar just as he would like to work more closely with UHI to provide Highland youngsters with professional media training.

Under Jeff's supervision, drama has also made a return to Radio Scotland's schedules and he has been able to link this with the station's other output, such as a forthcoming play about teenage alcoholism which will feature as part of a season about alcohol abuse.

"You are never going to get huge audiences, but drama can be very effective when you use it as part of a season or get people excited about a new writer or a writer new to radio," he added.

With around 90 per cent of the UK population listening to radio on a daily basis, Jeff can afford to be optimistic.

"Twenty years ago, the predictions were the complete opposite, but radio has become sexy again because of all the platforms you can listen to it on.

"You don't have to be dependent on the schedules any more," he said

Keep this up, he suggests, and audience figures might even overtake his television rivals.

"One million listen to Radio Scotland. We'll get there one day," he said.

c.macleod@inverness-courier.co.uk