British radio stations

[Jeivar]

I've been thinking about broadening my horizons a bit, and getting a better feel for other countries than one gets by merely reading online news stories.

What British radio stations are worth listening to for a good mix of news, culture, music and general chat?
I'm 29 years old and don't have strong a strong love for any particular political ideology, if that makes a difference.

[Jaros]

Radio 4 and Radio 4Extra (mainly reruns) are great for dramas, comedies, satires and news shows (serious or otherwise)

Edit: BBC that is, BBC stations are usually referred to by just their number.

[Androgeus]

Radio 4 and Radio 4Extra (mainly reruns) are great for dramas, comedies, satires and news shows (serious or otherwise)

Edit: BBC that is, BBC stations are usually referred to by just their number.

I'm a big fan of the Radio 4 comedies. I particularly like Elvenquest.

[Aidan305]

My radio doesn't tend to move off Radio 4.

[Brother Oni]

Unfortunately Radio 4 doesn't score very highly (if at all) on the music scale.

To get that, you'd need to tune into Radio 3 (classical), Radio 2 (older popular music) or Radio 1 (current pop music).

Radio 1 and 2 score low on the news and culture front (excluding music culture) though and if you're listening during the day time, you have to put up with the general inanity of their DJs.
DJs on in the evenings and nights tend to have a lot more sense and put far more interesting music on.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

No mention of Radio 6? It's the only radio station I've ever heard that's worth listening to. It's basically only music, but they play the most VARIED stuff ever, and each different show actually has *gasp* different style! :smalleek: I KNOW!

Station gets bonus points for being digitally aired as well, which means I get it all the way over here in Canada!

[Jeivar]

Hm. Alright, I'll give those a try. Thanks everyone.

[Selrahc]

Most of the non-BBC radio stations seem to be pretty rubbish, in my experience. Chart topping pop music played on a loop, or pretty unadventurous genre based stuff. I'd honestly be interested to hear if there are any that people would recommend. Particularly for non-music based things.

[Jaros]

Most of the non-BBC radio stations seem to be pretty rubbish, in my experience. Chart topping pop music played on a loop, or pretty unadventurous genre based stuff. I'd honestly be interested to hear if there are any that people would recommend. Particularly for non-music based things.

Well I know for a fact that the UWE Drama Society show (http://www.facebook.com/dramasocradio) on Hubradio (www.hubradio.co.uk) is putting together some quite excellent radio plays for the start of June :D (yes that was shameless self-promotion)

Seriously though, if you know people who do student radio stuff I find they can be pretty interesting, probably less so if you don't know the people but all other non-BBC stations I know are mainly just relatively small music libraries for most of the day.

Actually, I just thought of a good one, it's just one hour a week but the Student Radio Chart show (http://www.studentradiochart.com/) is a chart show of unsigned bands from a different University each week.

[mtpromises]

I listen to AbsoluteRadio.co.uk sometimes. I've mainly used the site for their podcasts with various UK comedians, but they do have regular streaming radio.

[Adlan]

I've been thinking about broadening my horizons a bit, and getting a better feel for other countries than one gets by merely reading online news stories.

What British radio stations are worth listening to for a good mix of news, culture, music and general chat?
I'm 29 years old and don't have strong a strong love for any particular political ideology, if that makes a difference.

Radio 4 for the News and Comedy, Radio 2 and 6 for Music, Radio 7 for the Drama's, Sci-Fi's and Comedy.

Radio 5 Live for the Sport and news.

Family tradition in my house to listen to the 6.30 comedy. Radio 4, week days.

BBC news is generally considered fair, but biased, if that makes sense. It's much less biased than in British Papers or from what I know of American Media, but compared to american media it has a left wing bias, just in the assumptions people make about the way the world should be.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

BBC news is generally considered fair, but biased, if that makes sense. It's much less biased than in British Papers or from what I know of American Media, but compared to american media it has a left wing bias, just in the assumptions people make about the way the world should be.

Compared to American media, the entire Western world has a left-wing bias... I'd say a truer statement would be that American media has a right-wing bias.

[Goosefeather]

Yeah, the BBC is pretty much as politically neutral as you're gonna get in the UK, and has contractual obligations to be impartial.

People sometimes accuse it of bias when it doesn't perfectly align with their personal views, but given that you have just as many accusing it of right-wing as of left-wing bias, that probably just says more about the complainers than the service itself.

[Brother Oni]

Yeah, the BBC is pretty much as politically neutral as you're gonna get in the UK, and has contractual obligations to be impartial.

This impartiality does lead to sometime silly situations, for example a couple years ago, there was a potential strike action on at the BBC and Radio 4 news were reporting on it as if it was happening to another company entirely*.
The funny thing was, if the strike went ahead, the news readers and journos covering the story would have gone on strike themselves. :smalltongue:

*Yes, I understand the BBC is a huge company, but you'd expect the news branch inside it to be relatively small and close-knit.

[Serpentine]

Um... Along the same sort of lines... Can anyone who knows them recommend a UK station for someone who can pretty much only stand Triple J in Australia?

[factotum]

Um... Along the same sort of lines... Can anyone who knows them recommend a UK station for someone who can pretty much only stand Triple J in Australia?

What sort of stuff does triple J play? (I suspect it's unlikely you'll find someone on the boards who's listened to it and is also familiar with British radio!).

[Jaros]

What sort of stuff does triple J play? (I suspect it's unlikely you'll find someone on the boards who's listened to it and is also familiar with British radio!).

From wikipedia (don't judge me):

"The station places a heavy emphasis on Australian music and new music, and generally plays more alternative music than commercial stations."

Is this similar to Radio 6 guys? Not familiar with it myself

[Adlan]

From wikipedia (don't judge me):

"The station places a heavy emphasis on Australian music and new music, and generally plays more alternative music than commercial stations."

Is this similar to Radio 6 guys? Not familiar with it myself


Well, apart from the Australian Music, yes, Radio 6 sounds like it'd fit that description pretty good. Less on new Music, more on the Alternative Music, depending on the program.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Radio 6 sounds like the best bet from that description...

[Serpentine]

What sort of stuff does triple J play? (I suspect it's unlikely you'll find someone on the boards who's listened to it and is also familiar with British radio!).You can find out for yourself! (http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/) :D
I'm such a JJJ whore -.-

Pretty much as described. Aims to play all the really new music (they aired Gotye years and years ago, and were the first to pick up Somebody I Used To Know; they also discover new artists); alternative, indie, rock and to a lesser extent hip hop most of the time, but also have punk, heavy metal and DJ set programmes. They also have a bunch of different talky programmes, including a youth current affairs show, a show about religion and weird stuff, and one about science.
So Radio 6, eh? I'll have a squiz.