If a serious radio channel is a success it can define the state of a culture. Looking back over old copies of the Radio Times, one realises with a keen nostalgia the extent to which the national identity has been embodied in daily sequences of radio and television programmes. Those at the more serious end of the broadcasting spectrum, and their manner of presentation, afford an ideal barometer of cultural health - better, for example, than any study of reading habits.

LRB 6 February 1997 | PDF Download