“I don’t watch television, use the internet, or read newspapers. I listen to the BBC’s radio news every morning.” -Paul Smith
I am starting to think that maybe designer Paul Smith is right. The BBC radio stations are available to us poor yanks via the internet and the wonders of streaming data. My favorite station is BBC 7, as that is the ones airs new radio dramas, just like they used to make here in the 1930s and 1940s. These are pretty good shows. Sometimes they seem to be nothing more than the audio portion of an old sitcom, but the BBC TV shows are so reliant on the verbal wit that it translates fine as a radio broadcast. Other stories are made for radio broadcast, while some seem to be Books On Tape that are played for the radio audience. They are all pretty damned good.
BBC 1-7 range from Top Ten in Britain to World News to Comedy and Sci Fi. There are the occasional odd shows that the BBC radio service is famous for, like people tracking down crickets or studying so dead language no one has ever heard of. This is great stuff. BBC radio is what Radio was meant to be. Not the sad mixture of old songs and old farts talking that we have here in America.
BBC 1-The Best in New Music
BBC 2-Music & Entertainment
BBC 3-Classical, Jazz, World, Arts, Drama
BBC 4-Intelligent Speech
BBC 5-Live News
BBC 6-Music
BBC 7-Unadulterated Entertainment
The 7th Dimension is BBC 7’s Sci-Fi shows. They have done a lot of cool things over the years, like radio versions of Burning Chrome and Frankenstein. Dr Who and Heros the radio show are on at the moment. That’s pretty cool.
I have found that I really love internet radio. Now I just need top figure out how to get it in my car.
