Product Description

Radio Four has been described as 'the greatest broadcasting channel in the world', the 'heartbeat of the BBC', a cultural icon of Britishness, and the voice of Middle England. Defined by its rich mix, encompassing everything from journalism and drama to comedy, quizzes, and short-stories, its programmes - such as Today,The Archers, Woman's Hour, The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy, Gardeners' Question Time, and The Shipping Forecast - have been part of British life for decades. Others, less successful, have caused offence and prompted derision. Born as it was in the Swinging Sixties, Radio Four's central challenge has been to change with the times, while trying not to lose faith with those who see it as a standard-bearer for quality, authoritativeness, or simply 'old-fashioned' BBC values. In this first major behind-the-scenes account of the station's history, David Hendy - a former producer for Radio Four - draws on privileged access to the BBC's own archives and new interviews with key personnel to illuminate the arguments and controversies behind the creation of some of its most popular programmes. He reveals the station's struggle to justify itself in a television age, favouring clear branding and tightly-targeted audiences, with bitter disputes between the BBC and its fiercely loyal listeners. The story of these struggles 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. A kaleidoscopic view of the changing nature of the BBC, the book provides a gripping insight into the very nature of British life and culture in the last decades of the twentieth century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139521 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-27
• Original language: German
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 500 pages

Stefan Collini, Guardian Review, September 22, 2007
'Filled with riveting detail and anecdote, constantly illuminating ... endlessly engrossing.'

Review
...meticulously documented... a magnificent chronicle. (Laurie Taylor, THES )

An unalloyed treat... If Radio 4 is a great four-funnelled liner, radiating serene intelligence and self-control, this is the ship's secret logbook. Life on Air is a gem. (Libby Purves, The Times )

Filled with riveting detail and anecdote, constantly illuminating ... endlessly engrossing. (Stefan Collini, Guardian Review )

Hendy has explored those relating to Radio 4 in its first two decades very thoroughly indeed. (Stefan Collini, Guardian Review )

Hendy's book will certainly sort the sheep from the goats among listeners (Kate Chisholm, Daily Telegraph )

Hendy charts in masterly detail the improbable evolution of a network. (John Tusa, Times Literary Supplement )

Hendy examines a many-faceted national treasure with the cool eye of a jeweller and the ardour of a proper fan. (Libby Purves, The Tablet )

Revelatory. (Advance praise from Ned Sherrin, broadcaster )

Eminently readable, utterly reliable, on occasions painfully frank, it is a joy to read. (Advance praise from Gillian Reynolds, Radio Critic of the Daily Telegraph )

A tremendous read: impeccable research used with wit and insight about a national treasure. (Advance praise from Jean Seaton, Official Historian of the BBC )

This is the reverse of sexed up. (Valerie Grove, Literary Review )

[An] academically rigorous, but eminently readable book that rightly sub-titles itself A History of Radio 4 (Jenni Murray, Daily Mail )

engrossing and highly entertaining reading...this is a rich book about a rich subject (Camden New Journal )

[A] fine, meticulous history (Financial Times )

There is a nugget of surprising and entertaining fact on every page. (Lisa Mullen, Time Out )

Jenni Murray, Daily Mail, October 26, 2007
'[An] academically rigorous, but eminently readable book that rightly sub-titles itself A History of Radio 4.'

Customer Reviews

The Pleasure of Life on Air
Skipping to the chapter Pleasures at the end of Life on Air, is quite simply like putting Radio 4 on and finding you are at the beginning of a gripping drama, a heated debate or a review of a film that sounds a "must see". David Hendy uses this last chapter to share with us the emotional responses Radio 4 always brings out in its' listeners, who, despite having favourite "hate" bits stick with it pretty much through thick and thin as a much valued background to their daily lives. I loved the poetic bits used here : Carol Ann Duffy talks about the Shipping Forecast's power late at night, listened to in the dark as Hendy says "the power lay in it being like a sudden utterance carried through the air, unbidden but somehow consoling - darkness outside. Inside the radio's prayer - Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre." And did you know that we don't have Finisterre any more on the shipping forecast and it's been replaced with Fitzroy? or that German Bight used to be Heligoland? Or that when a BBC controller tried to axe it in 1995 as it was no longer useful to sailors who used automatic weather reports there was a considerable public outcry and he relented? Not a shout out loud revelation to be sure, but one that is typical of this brilliantly researched, beautifully written book. Life on Air isn't about trash celebs or DJs but it is filled with riveting detail and fine analysis about why this quirky, idiosyncratic and ultimately very British institution is still as popular as it is. It shows that David Hendy has been a producer at the BBC working on among other things Analysis and the World Tonight - this book is for the thoughtful reader who relishes fine writing. David Hendy won the much coveted Longmans History book of the year for this in 2008 and it is easy to see why.

a truly magnificent achievement
It would be hard to overstate the importance of David Hendy's brilliant work of cultural history. Widely recognised in academic and BBC circles as the finest work of British radio history, the award winning book is based on detailed use of archive material and is at the same time highly readable. Hendy himself trained as a Mediaeval historian before working at the BBC as a producer. He manages to combine real historical prowess with a charmingly engaging style. The book is a very significant breakthrough in cultural history, providing the reader with penetrating analysis of this quintessentially English institution. I could not recommend this highly enough! Hugh Chignell, Assistant Prof. of Broadcsting History, Bournemouth University.

Dissertation time
Like the reviewer below, I too was disappointed. Radio 4 has provided the backdrop to so many of our lives, including Today, PM, Letter from America, the Archers, Woman's Hour, Home Truths and so on. I was hoping for a book that delighted in the programmes and the characters that made them, but what we were served up with was a heavy undergraduate dissertaion focussing on the history, and eventually the reader just gets bogged down that it becomes less Life On Air and more Coming Up For Air. Shame..