Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time is inviting listeners to send in ideas for a future edition. The chosen one will be broadcast on December 3, and the deadline for submissions is next week.
“We have already received thousands of fascinating suggestions from all over the world,” Radio 4 says, “from workers on assembly lines, from teenagers for whom English is a second language, and from students and professors.” In Our Time was the first BBC show to be podcast, which, together with its cerebral and eclectic nature, accounts for a significant global following.
Round Britain Quiz, the Radio 4 series that celebrates complex knowledge in a more light-hearted way, is also reaching out to its audience after 68 years. The new run, starting tomorrow, will include what the BBC calls “a generous smattering of questions devised by listeners”.
Listener engagement seems to be the flavour of the month. Last week was the deadline for the submission of comic material for Radio 4’s The Show What You Wrote, a themed sketch show written by the public; the third series begins in December. Radio 4 Extra’s Newsjack issues a similar invitation to the public to send in one-liners and quick gags, rather than entire sketches. And the votes of Radio 2 listeners alone will determine which West End show wins the audience award for best musical in the Evening Standard theatre awards next month.
The phenomenon is not new, even if it is particularly pronounced at present. In Our Time also canvassed its listeners last year, resulting in a programme on Kafka’s The Trial. And from Housewives’ Choice onwards, where would DJs be without musical requests?
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Shows that rely on input from listeners include Radio 4’s Poetry Please and Feedback; Radio 3’s Jazz Record Requests; Radio 1’s The Surgery; Radio 5 Live’s weekday phone-in, Your Call; and the World Service’s Over to You.
Several of Radio 2’s top shows specifically, and shrewdly, feature listeners’ contributions, texts, requests and even confessions, including Ken Bruce, Elaine Paige, Simon Mayo and Jeremy Vine. The story competition 500 Words gets 120,000 entries from children.
In a competitive, marketing-driven world, all this makes sense as regards “branding” — cementing the bond with, and maintaining the affection of, the audience. For the cash-strapped BBC, it also takes some pressure off producers, and may even constitute cheap labour. Whatever great ideas are sent to In Our Time, they will probably sustain it into the distant future.