The Listener was a weekly magazine established by the BBC under Lord Reith in January 1929. It stopped publication in 1991. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was formed in 1927 by means of a royal charter. ... John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith (July 20, 1889 - June 16, 1971), later Sir John Reith (1927-), then Baron Reith (1940-) established the British tradition of independent public service broadcasting. ... 1929 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

It was first published by the BBC on 16 January 1929 under the editorship of Richard S. Lambert, and was developed as a medium of record for the reproduction of Broadcast talks. It also previewed major literary and musical broadcasts, reviewed new books, and printed a selected list of the more intellectual broadcasts for the coming week. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was formed in 1927 by means of a royal charter. ... January 16 is the 16th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1929 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Its published aim was to be "a medium for intelligent reception of broadcast programmes by way of amplification and explanation of those features which cannot now be dealt with in the editorial columns of the Radio Times".

The Newspaper Proprietors' Association considered its launch to be "an illegitimate stretching of official activity" and, after consultation between Reith and the Prime Minister, a number of compromises were agreed to, including an upper limit of 10% original contributed material not related to broadcasting. Another compromise was a limit to the amount of advertising it could carry. John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith (July 20, 1889 - June 16, 1971), later Sir John Reith (1927-), then Baron Reith (1940-) established the British tradition of independent public service broadcasting. ...

In its early decades it attracted celebrated contributors including Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf and George Orwell. More importantly, it provided a platform for many new writers, particularly poets. W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender and, later, Philip Larkin all had early works published in The Listener. Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM (18 May 1872–2 February 1970) was an influential British mathematician, philosopher, and logician, working mostly in the 20th century. ... George Bernard Shaw (July 26, 1856 – November 2, 1950) was an Irish playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. ... Edward Morgan Forster (January 1, 1879 - June 7, 1970) was an English novelist. ... Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) was a British author and feminist, a prose writer who has a consequential impact on British modernist literature. ... George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell was a British author. ... Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 Wystan Hugh Auden (February 21, 1907 – September 29, 1973) was an English poet, widely regarded as among the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. ... Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 Christopher Isherwood (prior to 1946 Christopher William Bradshaw-Isherwood) (August 26, 1904 – January 4, 1986), Anglo-American novelist, was born at Disley, Cheshire in the north west of England. ... It has been suggested that Stephen Spenders sexuality be merged into this article or section. ... Philip Larkin (August 9, 1922 – December 2, 1985) was an English poet, novelist and jazz critic. ...

It came to be seen as one of a trio of weekly magazines, alongside The Spectator and The New Statesman, distinguished from them by its not being associated with any political party. The management of those two magazines were occasionally critical of what they saw as the privileged financial position of their subsidised rival. The Spectator is the name of several publications, of which the following have articles on Wikipedia: The Spectator (1711), which is the one most often meant in historical contexts, edited by Addison and Steele The Spectator (1828) The Spectator is also the name of: the student newspaper of Columbia University... The New Statesman was an award-winning British sitcom of the 1980s satirising the Conservative government of the time. ...

The Listener crossword puzzle, introduced in 1930, is generally regarded as the most difficult cryptic crossword to appear in a national weekly. It survived the closure of The Listener, and now appears in The Times. The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom. ...

In 1981 Richard Gott, features editor of The Guardian, was chosen as editor but his appointment was blocked because MI5 declared that he had "ultra-Leftist" sympathies. The job was given to Russell Twisk instead. 1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ... Current MI5 headquarters in Thames House, London MI5, officially called the Security Service, is one of the British secret service agencies. ... In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition...

Following the report of the Peacock Committee in 1986, all the BBC’s commercial activities, including The Listener, were moved into BBC Enterprises Limited. Management was now mainly answerable for the magazine’s commercial performance rather than its literary standards. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was formed in 1927 by means of a royal charter. ...

In 1987, The Listener was spun out to a new company jointly owned by the BBC and rival broadcaster ITV. Seeing The Listener’s eclecticism as a lack of focus, the new company appointed Alan Coren from Punch as editor in 1989 as an attempt to establish a clearer identity as another humorous weekly, moving slightly away from the more intellectual and artistic aspects for which the magazine had also been known. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was formed in 1927 by means of a royal charter. ... Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITV plc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ... Alan Coren (born 1939) is a British writer and satirist. ... Punch was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002. ... 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The attempt failed, perhaps because the change of direction alienated subscribers who had valued the eclecticism, and the company replaced Coren with Peter Fiddick in 1989. In 1990, ITV pulled out of the joint deal, the BBC found themselves unable to support it on their own, and the last issue of The Listener was published in January 1991. Alan Coren (born 1939) is a British writer and satirist. ... 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITV plc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was formed in 1927 by means of a royal charter. ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Editors

• Richard S Lambert 1929–1939
• Alan Thomas
• Maurice Percy Ashley, 1958-1967
• Karl Miller, 1967-1973
• Anthony Howard, 1979-1981
• Russell Twisk, 1981-1987
• Alan Coren 1987-1989
• Peter Fiddick, 1989-91

Arts or Literary editors included: J. R. Ackerley 1935-59, and Anthony Thwaite. Columnists included John Cole, and Roy Hattersley Alan Coren (born 1939) is a British writer and satirist. ... J. R. Ackerley (November 4, 1896 - June 4, 1967, full legal name Joe Ackerley) was arts editor of The Listener, the arts publication of the BBC, from 1935 to 1959, and an important author in his own right. ... Anthony Simon Thwaite (born 1930) is a British poet and writer. ... John Cole (born 1928) is a British journalist. ... Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley, PC (born December 28, 1932), is a British Labour Party politician, published author and journalist from Sheffield, England. ...