Many of us doze off to the soothing sound of the BBC’s Shipping Forecast because Radio 4 is always in our ears. There will be no advertisements or jolting music fillers, if you discount the British national anthem which signals the station’s switch to the world Service at 1am. Then there’s programming through the night, much of it from BBC reporters in far flung corners of the Earth, interspersed with live news bulletins. All of it enlightening and distracting and entirely free to everyone in the dark hours.
That calm, global predawn company is just one of the reasons why the BBC is beloved. Farming Today at 5.45am rolls into Radio 4’s flagship three-hour Today programme followed by shows as diverse as More or Less (a quick, droll, expert breakdown of dodgy statistics); You Do Not Have to Say Anything (presented by a criminal barrister); the institution that is Woman’s Hour
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