Life on air : a history of Radio Four
"David Hendy draws on new interviews and privileged access to the BBC's vast archives to illuminate the controversies behind the creation of some of Radio Four's most popular programmes. He reveals the station's struggle to justify itself in a television age favouring clear branding and tightly-targeted audiences - a struggle that has led to passionate disputes between the BBC and its fiercely loyal, highly influential listeners. This story is about more than the survival of one radio network. Radio Four has been a lightning rod for all sorts of wider social anxieties over the past forty years, and the story of its development is at the same time a compelling insight into the very nature of British life and culture."--Jacket
History
ix, 518 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
9780199248810, 9780199550241, 0199248818, 0199550247
137312957
Introduction; PART 1: REFORMATION: C. 1963-1976; 1. September 1967; 2. Reconstruction; 3. Three-in-one; 4. Politics and permissiveness; 5. Crises; PART 2: COUNTER-REFORMATION: C.1976-1983; 6. Mac the Knife; 7. Theatres of the air; 8. Close-up and personal; 9. Under siege; PART 3: LISTENER POWER: C. 1983-1997; 10. Years Zero; 11. Provocations; 12. A Long Wave Goodbye?; 13. Pleasures; Epilogue: 1997 and since