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Gwyneth Williams

Blog posts in total 26

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  1. The 4 O’Clock Show on Radio 4 Extra

    Radio 4 Extra currently broadcast The 4 O’Clock Show,  a mix of stories, comedy, interviews and quizzes.  With regret we confirm our plans for the programme to finish next spring and I wanted to explain why we have made this decision.

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  2. Radio 4’s plans for World War One programmes this summer

    Gwyneth Williams outlines Radio 4’s plans for World War One programmes this summer. We'll have Home Front, an ambitious drama with more than 500 episodes, and factual programmes that will help listeners feel something new and insightful about the period leading up to war.

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  3. Record RAJARs for Radio 4

    Record RAJARs for Radio 4 September to December 2013

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  4. Latest RAJARs for Radio 4 & 4 Extra

    Flagship programmes such as Desert Island Discs, In Our Time and Woman’s Hour are getting record audiences and enticing more and more listeners each week.

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  5. RAJAR: BBC stations stand out in strong quarter for digital radio

    Rajar day - and another good quarter for Radio 4 and a particularly good one for Radio 4 Extra. Thanks to all programme makers for their work and do keep listening. Now let me hand over to Chris, the Radio 4 audience guru, for some details... Chris Hutchings writes: "The latest RAJAR num...

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  6. In the Beginning was Sound

    I was privileged to edit the 2006 Reith Lectures with Daniel Barenboim; working with him on that series altered forever the way I listen to music. Last night, inspired again by the Beethoven symphonies being performed at the Proms by his pioneering West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, I re-listened...

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  7. Bloomsday and cultural programming on BBC Radio 4

    Niamh Cusack (Molly Bloom); Henry Goodman (Leopold Bloom); Andrew Scott (Stephen Dedalus) - some of the cast of Radio 4's dramatisation of Ulysses "What did you do in the Great War Mr Joyce?" "I wrote Ulysses. What did you do?" A defining work, a sensuous celebration of lif...

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  8. 80 Years of the World Service

    We are celebrating eighty years of the World Service this year. And this is also the year that Bush House is to close and colleagues will us here in Broadcasting House. Before I came to Radio 4 I was Director of the English World Service and one of my last commissions was to invite Hamid...

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  9. Saturday Live

    Saturdays feel different on Radio 4 and that mood is caught by Saturday Live. Whether it is the Inheritance Tracks or the poem or that interview, there is always something that makes me look up from my morning coffee and stop reading the FT magazine. So much so that I began to feel the pr...

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  10. RAJAR listening figures for Q3 2011: "In an average week 10.83m adults listen to Radio 4..."

    I have been waiting for my usual Rajar Day telephone call - this time it is long distance as I am on holiday.   It is rather good news so congratulations to everyone who has contributed to our programmes. Chris Hutchings is our new audience guru here on Radio 4 so I thought I would you on...

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  11. RAJAR listening figures for Q3 2011

    Yesterday on my way out of Broadcasting House to have lunch with Libby Purves, I met George Soros in the lift - he had just been a guest on Stephanie Flanders' new series Stephanomics. Before I left the office I listened back to Umberto Eco (what a voice; what books) interviewed for Front Row wi...

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  12. Radio 4 and 9/11 Ten Years on

    Last night we recorded the first of Eliza Manningham-Buller's Reith Lecture series. I need not tell you that security was high for the former Director General of MI5 and the Radio Theatre was littered with senior of the secret world. The former Director General of MI5, Eliza Manni...

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  13. Record listening figures for Radio 4: RAJARs Q2 2011

    I am on holiday in Wales (glorious river noise, mountains and sun) and keep having to go up the drive to use the Blackberry so I had given our audience guru, Alison Winter, the land line to find me instantly with her quarterly much-awaited phone call bearing RAJAR data - RAJAR is the body that c...

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  14. More on the Radio 4 schedule changes: Short stories: Update

    From 1949, archive caption reads: "Miss Stevie Smith, poet, one of the finalists in the BBC Third Programme Short Story Competition, reading her story Sunday at Home" Short stories and contributions from writers are an integral part of Radio 4's programming. This week Michael Morpurgo g...

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  15. More on the Radio 4 schedule changes: Short stories

    From 1949, archive caption reads: "Miss Stevie Smith, poet, one of the finalists in the BBC Third Programme Short Story Competition, reading her story Sunday at Home" Some concern has been expressed about the reduction in the number of short stories on Radio 4 from next April; we will br...

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  16. Schedule changes on Radio 4

    Presenter Martha Kearney. The World at One will be extended as part of a range of Autumn schedule changes. Rather a busy week here at Radio 4. It was ten to five on Thursday when we heard about The News of the World closing down. I am in the middle of our annual commissioning round and s...

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  17. The Reith Lectures 2011: Aung San Suu Kyi and Eliza Manningham-Buller

    It has been a tense week. A BBC Newsgathering team has been making its way secretly into Burma, recording two Reith Lectures given by Aung San Suu Kyi and smuggling them out so that we can broadcast them on Radio 4. News from the Reith Editor, Sue Ellis, during the week came in bursts... 'The...

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  18. Rather fabulous - the Q1 Rajars are in

    "Rather fabulous" - she really did say that a moment ago on the phone. I am referring to our Radio 4 audience guru, Alison Winter. It was a momentary lapse as she is, as you might expect when it comes to figures, well... measured... Thus you will gather that the first quarter RAJAR listening fig...

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  19. The BBC Trust's review of service licences for Radio 4 and Radio 7

    The BBC Trust's service licence review was hugely positive for Radio 4 and Radio 7. I have seen some of the listeners' responses on Radio 4 to the Trust. We are widely considered a 'national treasure' and the appreciation for what we do is humbling. The Trust's reseach received a record number o...

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  20. Some changes to the Radio 4 schedule

    I was promised freshly-brewed coffee and croissants at the end of their last run but when I went to to talk to R4 listeners - alas - I got a lovely welcome but just the usual BBC water... I did, however, get a chance to answer some listeners' questions and to put some of my early though...

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