BBC Radio 4 first aired on September 30th 1967, taking the place of the BBC Home Service. Since airing in 1967 the content of the programmes have not varied much, with a regular mixture of news, history, science, comedy and drama. As the content has largely remained the same, as has the audience.
The programme schedule for Radio 4 is quite varied from sitcoms and stand up comedy to news and topical lectures. With such an apparent mix of programmes it could be assumed that Radio 4 has something for everyone – but in fact there is not much variation away from the stereotypical listeners, give or take a few exceptions.
In the late 60s it was not uncommon for listening to the radio to be a social, or family past time; although it was not nearly as common as it used to be after the introduction of television. The children who grew up listening to the BBC Home Service continued listening as it changed to Radio 4, as the content was similar and in a way, comforting. This could be one of the reasons why Radio 4 listeners are older generations rather than younger ones.
The youth of today are not bought up listening to the radio as a past time. Very often the radio is put on as background noise to other daily goings on, for example in the car. For this reason, it is not likely that Radio 4 is going to appeal to younger generations because they do not clear their schedules to listen to specific segments on the radio in the way that an older person might do.
The programmes are designed to target older generations. For example, I listened to a segment about what it means to be a drummer in a band. Instead of interviewing the drummers of modern bands, they interviewed Phil Collins; presumably this is because listeners would not know much about modern bands.
Radio 4 covers both the national and international news with an average of 7 news programmes over a 24 hour period. As well as having all the news available to listeners at multiple times throughout the day, all the news programmes are available to listen to on BBC Iplayer each day. The news shows focus on different aspects of the news, and some shows going into great detail, while others sum up the news briefly in 15 minute segments.
I thought that this was quite a good idea because it means that if you have a large amount of time to listen to the news you are able to do so, but if you are in a rush then there are also times when you can be given the news in brief.
The news on Radio 4 is presented in a very formal manner. The news is usually reported by one presenter and includes relevant interviews. As well as being told the news of the day, we are also told the headlines of national papers, including the Financial Times. We are not however, given the headlines from publications such as The Sun. This could be because it is assumed that listeners of Radio 4 are not likely to be interested in papers like The Sun.
One of the features I found most interesting on the news on Radio 4 is that as part of the 05.30am News Briefing programme, we are told about major news stories that happened on this date but in past years. Personally I found this to be interesting because it is not something that I have heard done on other news programmes before. This might be because listeners of Radio 4 are often of an older generation, and so they may enjoy reminiscing on stories from their pasts.
I cannot see the youth of today listening to Radio 4 as they mature, largely because it is stereotyped as an “old person” radio station, and we as a society are increasingly fearful of ageing. I think that it would be best if Radio 4 kept producing programmes which can be enjoyed by their loyal listeners and accept the fact that Radio 4 listeners are a dying breed.
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