BBC Radio 4

t is often said that Britain has the finest broadcasting in the world. In many respects this seems a plausible claim - the BBC, with its impartial, objective and non-commercial nature, and its stated aim to inform, educate and entertain, sets a high standard; a gauntlet which its commercial competitors fortunately try to pick up.

It is funded by a compulsory licence fee, levied on all UK viewers. This is something of a two-edged sword. On the one hand it makes the BBC vulnerable to public criticism of its budget - comments on the lines of "this isn’t what I pay my licence for" are often found in feedback programmes and letter columns. On the other hand, it frees the BBC to some extent from the need to slavishly follow ratings, which has spared us much of the lowest common denominator programming seen in other countries.

The BBC runs two national TV stations (BBC1 and BBC2), five national radio stations (Radios 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), two regional ones (Radio Scotland and Radio Wales), a whole network of local stations, and the World Service, which broadcasts globally, predominantly via short-wave transmitters.

Arguably, the finest example of all that is good about BBC broadcasting is Radio 4. This speech based station carries a wonderfully diverse range of programming - not based on the easy phone-in format, but almost entirely consisting of specially commissioned material. News, drama, comedy, documentaries, magazines, debates and panels, all are scheduled together in a way which encourages you to tune in and see what comes. If one programme doesn’t appeal to you the next one (usually no more than half an hour later) probably will.
The surprising aspect of this is the number of times you discover yourself riveted by a subject which you would never have dreamed could be interesting.

One Director General of the BBC said that if it were to be progressively closed down, the last service go should be Radio 4. Lets just hope it never comes to that.

Who made the first radio transmission?

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