Concept

BBC Radio 4

Overview

BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It launched on 30 September 1967 as a replacement for the BBC Home Service and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House in London. Since 2019, the station controller has been Mohit Bakaya. He replaced Gwyneth Williams, who had been the station controller since 2010.

Radio 4 is broadcast throughout the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands on FM, DAB and BBC Sounds, it can also be received in the eastern counties of Ireland, northern France and Northern Europe. It is available internationally via the BBC.com website and app. It currently reaches over 9.2 million listeners, making it the UK's second most-popular radio station after BBC Radio 2. Radio 4 was previously broadcast on long wave on 198 kHz, from 23 November 1978 until 27 June 2026.

BBC Radio 4 broadcasts news programmes such as Today, The World at One, PM, and The Westminster Hour heralded on air by the Greenwich Time Signal pips or the chimes of Big Ben, which are broadcast live. Radio 4 also broadcasts the Shipping Forecast, which is over 150 years old.

According to RAJAR, the station (inc.4 Extra) broadcasts to an audience of 9.54 million with a listening share of 16% as of March 2026.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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But, as we said, different observers will judge differently as to what is the “same” time for an event in the train and an event in Edinburgh. This makes the measurement of distances relative, in just the same way as the measurement of times has been found to be relative. We commonly think that there are two separate kinds of interval between two events, an interval in space and an interval in time: between your…
Bertrand Russell, The A B C of Relativity
States what BBC Radio 4 is.
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But the interval is only definite when the two events are very near together; otherwise the interval depends upon the route chosen for travelling from the one event to the other. Four numbers are needed to fix the position of an event in the world; these correspond to the time and the three dimensions of space in the old reckoning. These four numbers are called the co-ordinates of the event. They may be assigned on…
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
States what BBC Radio 4 is.
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I at 1501A-544. The Act also amended section 119(a) by inserting the phrase "with regard to secondary transmissions the satellite carrier is in compliance with the rules, regulations, or authorization of the Federal Communications Commission governing the carriage of television broadcast stations signals" in paragraphs (1) and (2) and by inserting into paragraph (2), "a performance or display of a work embodied in a…
United States, Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92
Close in meaning to BBC Radio 4; the term itself is not named.
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Philosophers who discussed BBC Radio 4

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

James Lovelock

Place in the tradition

Part of Roger Scruton.

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