Radio
When haddocks flirt, they sound like a motorbike revving up
Flies buzzing, strange rustling, crunching sounds, and then the most chilling screech you’ll have heard all week. Vultures were feeding…
Radio 4 treats its radio listeners as second-best in favour of those who listen to podcasts
How very odd of Radio 4 not only to release The Ratline as a podcast before broadcasting it on the…
A week of extraordinarily direct and honest radio on the World Service
The most inspiring voice on radio this week belongs to Hetty Werkendam, or rather to her 15-year-old self as she…
What it was like to be a black lawyer in the deep south in the 60s
To have been a black lawyer in the deep south of America in the early 1960s would have taken a…
Podcasts still have a long way to go to challenge the best of conventional radio
Here’s a thought. Matthew Bannister, former Radio 1 controller turned presenter of programmes such as Outlook on the World Service…
The power of Sue MacGregor’s The Reunion
The return of Sue MacGregor’s long-running Radio 4 series The Reunion (produced by Eve Streeter) is a welcome reminder of…
Another side of John Humphrys
‘What can you tell me just now,’ asks Audrey Gillan. She’s talking to Tara, who’s been sleeping rough on Fournier…
Radio 4 brings back the dead
If proof were needed that radio will survive the onslaught of the new (or rather now not-so-new) digital technologies, albeit…
The marketisation of BBC radio is a recipe for creative disaster
There’s been a lot of fuss and many column inches written about levels of pay at the BBC, as revealed…
The dumbing down of the Reith Lectures
It’s been a heavyweight week on Radio 4 with the start of the annual series of Reith Lectures and a…
Why is Today losing its audience? Because it doesn’t care about its listeners
Headlines announcing that Radio 4’s flagship Today programme is losing its audience while Radio 3’s Breakfast has put on numbers…
Only Radio 4 would allow Ian McKellan and Joanna Lumley to play Mr and Mrs God
One sphere that podcasts have so far not much penetrated is drama. Audible.co.uk is itching to develop its own brand…
How hospices make you think differently about life
The timing of the Today programme’s series about hospices could not have been more apt, coming as it did so…
Why can’t podcasts be more like Radio 4?
Now here’s a series that would make a brilliant podcast but is also classic Radio 4 — they don’t have…
Why be so frightened of Enoch Powell’s speech now?
It was a provocative decision by the producers of Archive on 4, 50 Years On: Rivers of Blood (Nathan Gower…
Martha Kearney’s arrival at Today is a breath of fresh air
Like a breath of fresh air Martha Kearney has arrived on Radio 4’s Today programme, taking over from Sarah Montague…
Why British radio plays can’t compete with those from the Continent
To Herne Bay in Kent for the UK International Radio Drama Festival: 50 plays from 17 countries in 15 languages…
Paradise Lost is made for radio – but you need to concentrate
It’s a tough listen, Paradise Lost on Radio 4 at the weekend. In bold defiance of the demands of a…
The BBC admit they’re not ready to switch off analogue radio
As Bob Shennan, the BBC’s director of radio and music admitted this week, there are almost two million podcast-only listeners…
Who was the Isdal Woman? And how did she die?
‘Close your eyes and be absorbed by the storytelling,’ urged Jon Manel (the new head of podcasting at BBC World…
‘We’re using the same Aga and Belfast sink as Jill Archer’: how Radio 4 made Home Front
It feels like a long time since the launch of Home Front on Radio 4 back in June 2014, retracing…
Ramblings takes an unexpected turn
This week’s edition of Ramblings with Clare Balding did all the usual things: a walk in the country (cue breathy…
Radio’s role in winning the Cold War
Some of us grew up worrying about reds under the bed, which was perhaps not as foolish as all that…
BBC Arabic’s version of Woman’s Hour is rather different to Radio 4’s
When the BBC’s Arabic-language network went out on air for the first time 80 years ago, on 3 January 1938,…
The joy of buses
It’s a pity Will Self didn’t embark on his bus tour round Britain before the Brexit vote. If he had,…
