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Silence in the air

Kate Chisholm

Wednesday, 15th October 2008

Kate Chisholm on the latest radio offerings

But the loss of Channel 4 radio is not just about digital technology; its demise takes down with it the possibility of some truly inventive radio experiences. Not that we don’t love our BBC stations, especially Radios Two, Three and Four (it’s no good pretending that I’m a Radio One fan), but 4 Radio would have created an interesting challenge. Take a look at the Radio Four schedule in any given week and you’ll find a surprising number of programmes that have not just been around for decades (and decades) but whose broadcast format is very little different from what would have been heard on the Home Service. Of course these programmes have a loyal, not to say ardent, following of listeners who would be outraged at any slight alterations. Who would dare tamper with Just a Minute or Desert Island Discs? They’ve become institutions. But what about Any Questions?, which celebrated its 60th birthday last Friday? Shirley Williams, who was on the panel, was not too bashful about her age to tell us that she remembered listening to its first edition, with the venerable Freddie Grisewood in the chair. Baroness Williams was far too polite to say how much more creative the conversation was in the days when politics was genuinely divided between left and right. The Home Service bosses would never have allowed a whiff of indelicacy in the questions (on Friday-night’s programme one questioner dared to ask where the panellists put their savings; not something that would ever have been discussed on air in the 1950s), but the panellists’ answers would have veered, in perfect Queen’s English, from the defensively ribald to the offensively funny (at least that’s what I recall from the late, very late 1960s when we laughed at what was being said as much as huffing at the hot air).