The Queen’s reign coincides almost exactly with the age of television. Her coronation in 1953 turned us into a nation of viewers, and Journey into Space, which also began in 1953, was the last evening radio series to command a bigger audience than that watching TV at the same time — a watershed in national life. So, just as historians ask how the monarchy survives in the age of egalitarianism, we might also ask how radio survives in the age of television. Indeed, not just survives, but prospers, with 90% of the adult population (a figure that hardly ever fluctuates) tuning in each week.
Tim Davie, director of BBC audio and music, revealed an even more remarkable fact at a seminar the other day — that radio’s “share of ear”, the proportion it commands of all the man-made sound devices that reach our ears, including CDs and downloads, is 80%. Even among younger audiences, it is more than 60%.
There are certain things, of course, that both royalty and radio exude, and that lend themselves to longevity: tradition, continuity, Britishness. William Shawcross, the Queen Mother’s biographer, wrote in this newspaper last week that the Queen is “steady and unassuming, but allowing herself to move with the times”, and the same assessment could apply to radio. It has evolved from an immovable Bakelite wireless set into the portable, multifunctioning, increasingly digital device of today, but without losing its essence of simplicity and companionship.
But does HM listen to any of it, whether on one of her trusty leather-bound analogue Roberts devices, or on a mobile phone, which is how a third of 15- to 24-year-olds say they listen? Little is known about that. She grew up in a radio world, and used it (in South Africa in 1947) to make her famous pledge of lifelong service, but her own likes and dislikes — whether she listens to Today, for example — remain shrouded.
There are a few clues. We know she used to like Mrs Dale’s Diary, because Penny Junor was at school with her daughter and says so. We know she liked Terry Wogan’s breakfast show on Radio 2, because she said so when she knighted him. And she is unlikely to have allowed her sister, Margaret, and daughter-in-law Camilla to appear on The Archers if she did not approve of that. Or the former to appear on Desert Island Discs (being repeated on Radio 4 Extra at 10am and 9pm today) if she hated that.
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One majestic series — in both senses — may well have passed her by, as it has others. Vivat Rex is a 26-part drama about the English crown from 1307 to 1533, narrated by Richard Burton. First broadcast on Radio 4 in 1977, it has been repeated over the past month on Radio 4 Extra, but ends tomorrow. The verse-speaking of Shakespeare, Marlowe and others, by casts that include John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft and Derek Jacobi, is of such beauty, you listen transfixed.
Though it has generated virtually no publicity, you can still hear some of it on the BBC’s website. You will be enthralled by a series made for the silver jubilee and just as powerful at the diamond.