General Chat

Anyone else listen to it?
They're pretty desperate for programmes due to the lockdown.
At the moment, 'Floggits' is on, from 1956 - with Elsie & Doris Waters Sisters of 'Jack Warner' - aka Dixon of Dock Green.
It's before my time - I was born in 1956 - but they are incredibly clever :-D

I occasionally tune into R4 Extra to listen to Dad's Army episodes.

Have to admit, Dermot, I can't be bothered listening to the news, these days.
Radio 4 extra doesn't have any news, so it's on permanently! :-D :-D

Radio4 Extra would be a lot more credible if it did not censor anything that one of its bureaucrats thinks remotely possible of upsetting somebody.

For instance the well made Silver Sword.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010t90d

Hardly censorship.
It was on in May - you missed it, and it's not currently on 'catch up'.
That's not censorship - that's you sulking because things aren't going your way.

Surely you can download it some other way - you know, with all your tecchie 'know how'.

Try this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Silver-Sword/dp/B00557IQPE

This:
https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/the-silver-sword-unabridged.aspx

This one's free, I believe, not part of a trial:
https://www.slideshare.net/hagnusorde/the-silver-sword-audiobook-free-download-the-silver-sword-audiobook-mp3-online

etc etc.

Yes! I have been listening to The Navy Lark, (reminds me of Sunday dinner) and Hhhhhancocks Half Hour. Brilliant.

Also they have a play every now and then. I heard Blithe Spirit with Roger Allam. Makes a change from the tosh on tv.

With modern storage tech the demands of even a series such as Pullman's "Dark Materials" in 4K video is minimal. Mono audio for BBC Radio is by comparison a floea's bite so there is no justfication for playing hide and seek with access to a library which after all was paid for by the viewers.

Indeed it was at one time the intention of the BBC to out its whole back archive online until it met the problem of insufficient betamax players - not a problem for audio.

Now you can hear it now you can't is a form of censhorship.
"Dangerous Visions" for instance has suddenly become available today.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02v1q2n

Back in the 1970s a series of genius (TV) "Roads to Freedom" again remains under lock and key in the vaults of the British Film Institute. For a long while the BBC refused even to admit that the series existed.

"Inappropriate" language has been edited out of the BBC archives without bringing back the original versions when available. That especially applies to "Round the Horne" and "the Navy Lark".

"I’m all for censorship. If ever I see a double entendre, I whip it out.” Kenneth Horne

There are some great stories and plays, aren't there, Motowngirl :-D :-D
Particularly cringeworthy are the 'Paul Templar' series - but I still listen to them when they're on.


RTR I think you'll find they warn of 'inappropriate language' and 'outdated views' before airing the programme - but then again, I'm only listening to it.
I'm sure your rambling whingeing about something you patently don't listen to has more veritas.

As for not repeating things to your beck and call - go find it elsewhere!
I don't suppose it's crossed your mind that Royalties have to be paid for some radio plays/books, and the BBC may not have the finances, nor the permission to put them on iplayer.

As for 'The Roads to Freedom', I believe that was on BBC2 - which is a TV channel, not a radio channel.

I spend more of my leisure time listening to radio rather than watching TV. Driving or slouching in the back garden in the sunshine like today are ideal occasions to listen to the 'wireless'.

Radio 4 is my favourite station followed fairly closely by R4Extra. Mostly quality stuff which can be recalled-up on my computer should I negligently miss out any of the interesting programmes.

I like Radio 4 too, Dermot -apart from 'Women's Hour'.
I tend to listen to Radio 4 extra until 6.30 in the evening, then turn over to Radio 4.

How I wish that we could hear Radio4Extra over here ...... though someone will undoubtedly tell that I can if only I had ................ insert name(s) here.

Well, I don't have x, y , z, so I just have to envy you guys the ability.

Many of those shows are the ones I grew up listening to while doing my homework (or trying to), and then discussing them at school the next day.

I like the old programmes, because, although they were on when I was little, I was too young to fully understand them
Some are excruciatingly misogynistic, but it's good to know some aspects of society have tried to progress :-D :-D

My dad used to listen to the navy lark,,,,,,it went on ,eyes were rolled and it was time to exit the room.... :-D.

:-D :-D :-D

...and did you have to endure 'World Wide Family Favorites' on a Sunday?

Oh yes Maggie,,,,,,,round the cooker in the kitchen,I can still smell the Yorkshire puddings cooking and dancing round with mum to Elvis.and dad tutting at the sight of us. :-D :

I could never understand why dad listened to the news end shipping forecast,,,,,,,we didn't have a dinghy or a boat.... :-S :-D

We obviously had Sunday dinner earlier than you.
We were eating when it was on.
I love the shipping forecast :-D

Jean Metcalf..had a lovely voice..

Family Favourites - associated with the smell of veg cooking (which I hated when I was a kid, apart from salad and carrots!)

Navy Lark - had to be silent during Dad's favourite...

The media system of time line programming started with BBC Radio in 1922.
Very slowly additional services were added all using AM Radio LW/MW.
As broadcasting was expensive and frequencies fought over with other countries there was not much choice.

For a long time the Radio Times had a monopoly as a program guide which it lost after a bitter fight ( 1970? ).

The majority of people were not able to record radio programs which was in any case illegal even for private use! Thus the habit of "what's on?" and everybody watched popular programs such as ITMA at the same time became deeply ingrained.

Broadcast television simply copied the model of radio. Thanks to the extremely high cost of TV broadcasting and the technology of analog frequency allocation it had little choice.

Wind on to 2020. AM Radio has all but vanished especially the LongWave. Real FM remains popular but has become a niche choice with most of the audience listening to local radio rather than the BBC.

The BBC and govt, wish to terminate UK broadcast FM but are unable to do so while real FM audiences hold up. Thanks to the popularity of FM Community Radio so far this has not happened but FM radio remains threatened. The latest flagship Sony smartphone has brought back the 3.5mm jack for real FM.

DAB radio, broadcast as a digital service, has not really caught on for a variety of reasons but in the context of this post it remains locked to the timeline model.

Starting with the advent of cheap cassette tape recording ( yes, I had reel2reel too but is was niche ) , cassette car radios and VHS the timeline model for receiving media started to fall apart as it became easy to time shift and watch / listen at a time of the listeners choosing. And why not? The biggest thing that the original broadcaster had going was that the quality of cassette tape and VHS was poor compared to the real thing.

Moving radio/tv away from timeline broadcasting was seen as a possibility very early on but proved very complex and expensive to develop.
For the moment the timeline model and its EPG (electronic programming guide ) remains most people's no 1 for tv and radio with a small number of hold outs still buying TV Magazines.
The BBC has a version of this and has even come up with working apps - Sounds, iPlayer - which is more than the NHSX has managed to do.

TimeLine listening is on a steep downward curve with a clear majority of those under 30 preferring the alternative "On Demand" model where listeners and viewers pick up porgrams at a time (and place) of their own choosing. So far the BBC has been extremely clever with some adept dancing so as to offer listeners whichever option they want for the most part. Beyond UK "Sounds" and "iPlayer" the BBC is also putting together products such as Britbox which are targetted outside of the UK.

There is no technical need to hold listeners to a calendar time and place in order to listen. "Missed it" is very much a concept for our yesterdays.

Bertams Hotel this week. One episode daily. June Whitfield as Miss Marple.