Melvyn Bragg leaves In Our Time - Radio 4.

[PrimevalStomp]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewnllp1de8o

No news on who will take over his role. I do hope it will continue; even if I’m only half listening it always feels solid in a world of madness.

@napody , In Our Time - Human Nature - BBC Sounds

Somebody not associated with comedy.

A lot of the behind the scenes work will be done by the producer.

Sorry, MN does this thing where it constantly blocks me if I try to post a link to completely normal places like the BBC or Wikipedia.

IDK the numbers, but I searched John Gray to get:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005458s
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548kf

He was just an example -- there are so many brilliant guests. It's really just staggering when you read the list

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_In_Our_Time_programmes

Lord … PM is presenting IOT as ‘something for the podcast generation’ …

I’m sure he is very clever but I feel he sometimes talks down to the experts, so not sad as long as the programme continues.

It is very podcast like, though, @PrimevalStomp , probably by virtue of its venerable age. I know you don't like them, sorry! But the conversational medium, the expertise, the calm talking without intrusive sound design, and the sustained deep focus on a topic -- these are all features of podcasts, rather than (modern) radio.

Think about The Rest is History, Fall of Civilisations, The History of English... In Our Time fits right in to that. If anything, it's too short. But IOT has the advantage of covering much much more culture, science and philosophy, which is harder to find in one podcast; nobody else has the stupendous cultural reach of the BBC.

BBC programmes are mainly too short and shallow to make it as podcasts, and they are too fond of shouting and blaring noises which don't work in earbuds, but IOT (and I would say More or Less), both pass muster. And the Reith Lectures!

Oh I’m so so sorry to lose him. The rest of the BBC is so low quality in comparison.

He’s 85, he deserves to retire!

That’s a fascinating (if unwelcome) thesis @Sellenis. I have heard a few not-horrible current affairs podcasts, but mostly the ones I’ve stumbled upon are either chat - fluff - or ASMR docu-somethings - all exactly the same, making an interminable story out of some mystery of little interest to anyone but the presenter and their mates, with someone much much too close to the microphone, which reads as rather impertinent over familiarity. So I don’t think of them as a source of intellectual stimulation or even intelligent debate.

I had rather felt he was not keen to be retired from the show, @ErrolTheDragon.

I can heartily recommend https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/ @PrimevalStomp . Start at the beginning with Proto Indo European.

Amol Rajan. It's always Amol Rajan.

Yup …

I don’t dislike him at all as a broadcaster, but it would be great to have someone less familiar to my ears.

It must be a fantastic job …

There's another thread on this now and someone has suggested Mary Beard. She'd be a good choice. Kirsty Wark? Please, for the love of God, not Matthew Syed 😱

I don't even properly listen to it, just love that it's there.

I love that he’s familiar to my ears. Purely because, after all these years, Ive never had to listen to him say anything puerile or attention seeking or even a bit dim. He’s so reliably untrivial. Incredibly trustworthy. Zero pandering.

Melvyn Bragg will be on Today sometime this morning. Maybe he’ll give a clue as to who will be inheriting his seat?

On now, 7.21am.

Amol is interviewing him about it now.

Interesting question about the popularity of History podcasts - he suggests that it’s perhaps because it isn’t taught well at school.

My impression from the MN HE board is that parents right now tend to denigrate any degree that isn’t strictly vocational - meaning more and more young adults go out into the world with no solid grounding in subjects that help them think about and understand the world. So then they make up the lack with podcasts.

Nothing was taught well at my school. We were just warehoused and if we were lucky someone would put on a fight for entertainment. And then the police would come! Hurray. That's pretty standard I think.

Of course most people cannot afford to do degrees in medieval French literature or Philosophy etc. Most people are not independently wealthy and everyone needs to eat. I couldn't afford to go to university at all, and that's normal. That's ~70% of adults. It doesn't mean we're not interested in thinking about or understanding the world. Those two things are not related.

But I think history is really the ultimate subject for podcasting. It's narrative - and humans just love to be told stories. We've been telling bedtime stories round the fire for as long as we've had speech and fire, I'm sure. So history makes sense as top subject.

Then there's also what one would recommend in conversation. For example I'm not going to recommend my fave podcasts about functors in category theory, or latent space or something, in a general conversation. And I imagine most people have the same; there're the generally interesting subjects: the broad shared places, and then one's own specific professional expertise: the narrow deep mineshafts.

Hmm … Perhaps there’s a generational divide?

I went to university in the 80s, on a grant, and was lucky enough to be taught by some world famous historians. (Not that I appreciated that at the time!) So I’m inclined to be the tiniest bit dismissive of anything that seems … popular. (I am embarrassed to admit this here.)

Please, for the love of God, not Matthew Syed He's a presenter that has me reaching for the Off button.
I don't like Amol Rajan either but tolerate him on the Today programme. He seems a bit lightweight.

Tom Sutcliffe?

I do understand what you mean. I am not massively keen on current BBC offerings because everything has to be "accessible" which seems to mean weak jokes and shallow enquiry. I want to go much much deeper into topics, generally. I'm not that keen on another 24 minutes recapping Henry VIII or WW2 with sound effects. I haven't found television documentaries interesting or informative these last 20 years and I'm not that keen on standup comedians cribbing off Wikipedia, which is mainly what you get in the media now.

But I also don't think that's hugely unusual. There's a very large audience of people who feel underserved by the BBC, which is why podcasts are so popular. And standup comedians are also popular! The BBC isn't crazy to turn so much over to them. If you look at the most popular podcasts, there absolutely are a lot of standups wittering on about their dinner, as well as history, politics etc. Both can be popular. And while most podcast listeners listen to the most popular podcasts, most of the podcasts they listen to are not popular. 😅Podcasts have a classic long tail distribution.