BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It is broadcast on 92 - 95 MHz FM and 198 kHz longwave; and via DAB, satellite, Freeview channel 74 and the Internet.
Radio 4 is the second most popular British domestic radio station after Radio 2, and was awarded "UK Radio Station of the Year" at the 2004 Sony Radio Academy Awards (http://www.radioawards.org/winners04/win04.htm) for the second year running. Music and sport are the only two fields that generally fall outside the station's remit. There are occasional concerts, nevertheless, and ball-by-ball commentaries of most test matches played by the England cricket team are broadcast on long wave only. Because the long_wave service can be received clearly at sea in the vicinity of the British Isles, Radio 4 also carries regular weather forecasts for shipping and, when necessary, gale warnings.
Radio 4 came into existence on 30 September1967, when the BBC re-launched all of its domestic radio stations under new names. It had previously been known (following the fusion in late 1939 of the pre-war National and Regional Programmes) as the BBC Home Service, in distinction from the Overseas Service of the BBC (now the BBC World Service).
Current programmes
The overwhelming majority of programmes are now available on demand from Radio 4's Listen Again (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml) page, although RealNetworks' RealPlayer is required.
The BBC Radio 4 website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/) groups programmes into various genres:
BBCRadio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history.
Radio 4 is the second most popular British domestic radio station after Radio 2, and was awarded "UK Radio Station of the Year" at the 2004 Sony Radio Academy Awards for the second year running.
The 5-minute "Radio 4 UK Theme" (composed by Fritz Spiegl) would follow but was dropped in April 2006 after 33 years in favour of an extension to the early news bulletin [2], despite some public opposition and a campaign to save it.
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