BBC Radio 3
Will Radio 3’s bold new season find new listeners – or alienate their core audience?
As Classic FM celebrated its quarter-century on Wednesday with not a recording but a live broadcast of a concert from…
‘I’m going to fine anyone who refers to an opus number on air’: how we made Classic FM
Three weeks before Classic FM launched, I was on the radio in Hong Kong, introducing hits by Rick Astley and…
How Scott Walker created music out of a dead pig
Summer nights, hot and humid, mean just one thing — it’s Proms season again. Sore feet, sweaty armpits, queuing outside…
I wish radio was more like I remember it as a child
This week’s column is dedicated to my mother who loved her radio and encouraged us to be listeners. Without her,…
In the digital age, you might expect the paper diary to be dying – not so
By chance on Saturday morning, I tuned into Radio 4 and heard Professor Clare Brant talking on Saturday Live about…
Luther’s music had an even greater impact than his words
It’s 500 years since Martin Luther pinned his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, sparking…
The making of Bach’s Passion
It’s the oddest place to find a profound meditation on the death of Christ, but there it is on Radio…
Here’s what Sarah Sands should do with the Today programme, by Rod Liddle
I wonder what Sarah Sands will do to Radio 4’s Today programme? She is the first editor in more than…
BBC radio is at its best when it’s at its plainest
It was the crime story that showed us just how much China has changed since its years of social, political…
Radio drama is far more adventurous than anything visuals can achieve
At the third UK International Radio Drama Festival held last week in Herne Bay, entitled ‘And Let Us Listen to…
How radio can help refugees integrate
The Indian Prime Minister has twigged something that President Trump has yet to understand. On Monday, celebrated as World Radio…
A masterclass in radio reporting
The BBC foreign correspondent Hugh Sykes was meant to be talking about how music has shaped his life with Sarah…
Does Radio 3 really need to tiptoe around every controversy?
This week the Southbank Centre began its ‘Belief and Beyond Belief’ festival — a series of concerts and talks claiming…
Why does sport work so well on radio?
The purest form of radio is probably sports commentating, creating pictures in the mind purely through language so that by…
Digital is taking away one of the treasured aspects of radio: its serendipity
It’s been a turbulent year, and not just in the outside world. Inside radio, digital is changing not just when…
What it's like to be a reindeer herder and other tales from the Arctic Circle
In this season of watching and waiting as we approach Christmas and year’s end, radio has a precious role. At…
Why boredom is good for us
When did you last experience a boring Sunday afternoon? If you’re over 16, probably not since you were last 16…
Is radio better without the talking?
There’s nothing new about Radio 3 tearing up the schedules, temporarily abandoning regular favourites such as Private Passions, The Early…
Appointing a former Labour cabinet minister to oversee radio is not just odd but alarming
Quite how one person is expected to oversee not just radio but also ‘arts, music, learning and children’s departments’ was…
It’s hard to justify spending money on Radio 3 – but here’s why we must
We now think of Radio 3 as the music station, but when it was created in 1946 as the Third…
The women who were paid to sing for the dead in Ireland
‘We think we’re in charge of this stuff but we’re not,’ said Quincy Jones, the composer, arranger, jazz trumpeter, musical…
The perfect radio antidote to the gathering storm
A brief encounter with Radio 4’s Any Questions to gauge the measure of opinion in the shires after the referendum…
Coney Island amusement park used to display premature babies to a paying public
I like Radio 4 — you can have it on in the background burbling away for hours and hours without…
If you want to know how music really works listen to Classic FM not Radio 3
He’s been billed as the new Pied Piper but it’s going to take a while for Tom Service to quite…
How the BBC made the most unlikely TV hit of the swinging Sixties
‘Comedy is like music,’ said Edwin Apps, one of the characters in Wednesday afternoon’s Radio 4 play, All Mouth and…
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