Blog posts by year and monthFebruary 2011
Posts (22)
Live on Radio 4 tomorrow night - Mark Watson needs your help
Mark Watson is live on Radio 4 at 2300 on Monday evening with a brand new live pilot called Mark Watson's Live Address to the Nation. The theme of the pilot is 'ambition' and your role (apart from listening, of course) is to share your ambition story. What's the craziest (or noblest) thing you'v...
George VI's coronation microphone is here - but what to say?
Editor's note: a live experiment is planned this weekend to hear the microphones made famous once more in 'The King's Speech.' As the film world prepares for the Academy Awards, the film starring Colin Firth as George VI is among those tipped for success. "Broadcasting House" is working with the...
Did the BBC send too many reporters to Egypt?
All radio presenters who are worth their salt want to go where the action is, but are they all really needed when they get there? After all the BBC has an extensive number of foreign correspondents distributed around the world's troublespots, as well as having foreign affairs specialists such as...
How many times have you been in love? A kind of census
Did you know why Jesus was born in Bethlehem and not Galilee? A kind of census required Joseph and Mary to be in Bethlehem around Christmas a couple of millennia ago. Fascinating. One wonders the Fate of Christianity had there not been a census. I'm not pretending my alternative census will hav...
Series catch-up for speech-based radio programmes is here
Editor's note: from the BBC Radio blog, great news for lovers of Radio 4 series - SB Ever since 2002, when we started offering listeners the chance to hear radio programmes on demand via the original Radio Player, listeners have consistently asked to be able to catch up on all the episodes of s...
Tim Davie responds to the Trust's review of Radio 4
In the Radio Times, BBC Radio boss Tim Davie has written a response to the substantial public debate about the Trust's review of Radio 3, Radio 4 and Radio 7. He endorses the suggestion that Radio 4 broaden its audience: The idea of making more people aware of Radio 4 makes sense: there are so...
Non frequentiamo bunga bunga
I've just met five ladies from Florence, and things may never be quite the same again. They've lit up the Italian language, and after many false starts, if one day I learn to speak it, it will all be down to them. These women, on a day trip to Rome, have flicked a switch in my mind that student...
Ten remarkable guests from John Freeman's Face to Face
1. Tony Hancock Tony Hancock opened tonight's Archive on 4 about Face to Face, the hugely influential interview programme that ran on BBC television from 1959 to 1962. In the programme, produced by Chris Ledgard, Sue MacGregor interviews producer and creator of the programme Hugh Burnet...
The legendary lost Men Behaving Badly pilot
Whilst working on this week's Britain In A Box, I had a rare treat when we managed to obtain a copy of the original, never-broadcast pilot of 'Men Behaving Badly'. The pilot was made for Thames TV, directed by their then Head of Comedy, John Howard Davies and starred the eventual cast of the fir...
Does it matter where a Radio 4 programme comes from?
David Liddiment, the BBC Trustee who led its review into Radio 4 among other stations, must be wondering what has hit him. No sooner had he published the review last week than newspaper columnists, the odd BBC presenter, and a lot of listeners attacked him for trying to fix something they don't...