Home Comforts -- Number Four: The BBC

The stars of Gardeners' Question Time

Let’s face it, when it comes to television, the BBC is increasingly losing the argument as regards its worth to the licence-fee payer. There is still great programming to be found – better than most stuff you’ll find in the UK – but Lord Reith’s three-pronged founding principles of educating, informing and entertaining have long since been abandoned in favour of making cheap reality shows, blitzing ITV1 in the ratings, and running said mauling as a headline on the ‘news’ website the next morning.

The TV licence agreement is up for renewal in 2016 and, if Cameron & Co. are still in charge by then, further cuts are surely in the pipeline. And yet, this would be a great shame. Because the ‘TV licence’ is in itself something of a misnomer. Indeed, a significant chunk of the TV licence is spent on the last division of the BBC where the Reithian principles are proudly upheld: BBC Radio.

I subscribe to a podcast from BBC Radio 4 called ‘Documentary of the Week’ – hardly requires much of an explanation, but given the wealth of factual output on Radio 4, choosing the week’s ‘winner’ is surely a tall task. Over the last few weeks, I’ve enjoyed programmes covering topics as many and varied as C.S. Lewis, the Gettysburg Address, a survey on the way we use our time, and a history of the computer password. That’s right, a history of the computer password. And every last one of them has been utterly fascinating. Yet this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Tune your UK car radio to Radio 4 and, depending on the hour, you might get a comedy show, a play, an in-depth news programme (which, unlike its television counterparts, doesn’t talk to its listeners like 3-year-olds), ‘Gardeners' Question Time’ or, of course, the shipping news. On what other radio station in the world can you hope to find such variety?

Then, if you’re a sports obsessive like me, you have 5 Live, which covers most major events in the UK and abroad, with the aid of an intrepid army of commentators, whose words could paint a thousand pictures. These guys can describe the ebb and flow of a tennis rally shot-for-shot in real time and fill 90 minutes of a one-sided Formula 1 race with wit and authority. They even sometimes make cricket sound exciting.

Oh, and, as a wise man once put it, do you like good music? The Beeb has five stations covering pretty much era or genre you could shake a baton at. And that’s not to mention the high quality of programming on offer on the BBC’s network on local stations throughout the UK.

I have relatives in the US whose first move in the morning, after getting the kettle on, is to go straight to the Radio 4 website and listen to the Today programme. The poor internet here forbids me such a luxury. But such is the esteem in which the BBC is held by expats – and, indeed, armies of non-Brits. Moving abroad only reminds one all the more forcibly that there is no broadcaster in the world that comes close to matching its variety, objectivity and authority. I am very much looking forward to having Auntie back.