Comments on: What’s Radio Four, For?

By: Shig

Shig — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:08:28 +0000

Agreed. Such programmes probably alienate people who might otherwise listen to the good stuff, and so entrench the divide between “Radio 4 listeners” and “not Radio 4 listeners”. Still, I turned on the telly on Saturday night to see two minutes of a primetime game show presented by Dale Winton, featuring celebrities dressed in foil and knee pads taking part in some wacky attempted-IT’S A KNOCKOUT! style “fun”. It made me feel very like someone who might define themselves as a “not BBC 1 viewer”, despite the fact that, of course, I watch BBC 1 all the time.

I’m reminded that, now November’s over, I intend to borrow David’s Xbox and spend December mindlesly shooting aliens in HALO 3 (probably while listening to YESTERDAY IN PARLIAMENT, GARDENERS’ QUESTION TIME, the shipping forecast, etc).

Reading that back, I am inclined to think this isn’t a terribly sensible reply. You may be able to tell that I’ve been in the pub.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:34:38 +0000

As it happens, I do still pay the licence fee, but don’t get me wrong - I did say I’d also been catching up on old favourites. The podcast of The News Quiz has kept me going quite a lot of the time I’ve been in the US (though that subscription is on hold while *gak* The Now Show is in the Friday Night Comedy slot), and there’s plenty more to love on R4. But let’s not forget this is also the network that unleashed Claire In The Community and that Count Arthur Strong bollocks on the world.

My point was only that the network does itself no favours by producing nonsense of the kind I mentioned.

By: Shig

Shig — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:08:06 +0000

Fair enough about things like QUOTE, UNQUOTE but, having just made Elspeth’s dinner while listening to PM, I feel a defence of Radio 4 is called for. It does current affairs stuff, especially politics, terribly well. Its documentaries, especially history, are rather good too–my regular washing-up listening for weeks has been AMERICA–EMPIRE OF LIBERTY, an epic history in about 90 parts over the course of a year (we’ve just got to the civil war and the presenter/writer’s taken a well deserved break until January).

I’m a closet ARCHERS listener, too. And it’s a comedy testing bed for every decent British comedian who ever made it big on TV. THE AFTERNOON PLAY? FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT? TEST MATCH SPECIAL on Radio 4 long wave, the soundtrack to the summer? What more do you want?! Just because you don’t pay a licence fee any more…

Have fun giving thanks.