The Today Programme
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| Other names | Today programme |
|---|---|
| Genre | News, current events, and factual |
| Running time |
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| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
| Hosted by | |
| Edited by | Sarah Sands (appointed, not yet in post) |
| Recording studio |
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| Original release | 28 October 1957 – present |
| Website | www |
Today (often referred to as "the Today programme" to avoid ambiguity) is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6:00 am to 9:00 am Monday to Friday, and 7:00 am to 9:00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks. It consists of regular news bulletins, serious and often confrontational political interviews, in-depth reports and Thought for the Day. Today has been voted the most influential news programme in Britain in setting the political agenda. The programme has around 7 million listeners per week. It was voted the Best National Speech Breakfast Show at the 2016 Radio Academy Awards.
Today was launched on the BBC's Home Service on 28 October 1957 as a programme of "topical talks" to give listeners a morning alternative to light music. It was named by Isa Benzie who together with Janet Quigley were the programme's founders. Benzie volunteered to lead the programme and she served as its first de facto editor. It was initially broadcast as two 20-minute editions slotted in around the existing news bulletins and religious and musical items. In 1963 it became part of the BBC's Current Affairs department, and it started to become more news-orientated. The two editions also became longer, and by the end of the 1960s it had become a single two-hour-long programme that enveloped the news bulletins and the religious talk that had become Thought for the Day in 1970. Radio 4 controller Ian McIntyre cut it back to two parts in 1976–78 (creating a gap which was filled by Up to the Hour), but it was swiftly returned to its former position.
Jack de Manio became its principal presenter in 1958. He was held in affection by listeners, but became notorious for on-air gaffes (announcing a documentary on Nigeria titled 'The Land of Niger' as 'The Land of Nigger', and referring to Yoko Ono as "Yoko Hama, or whatever her name is", for instance). In 1970 the programme format was changed so that there were two presenters each day. De Manio left in 1971, and in the late 1970s the team of John Timpson and Brian Redhead became established. Timpson had been critical of the content, style and professionalism of Today—describing it once as "not so much a programme, more a way of telling the time" and being filled with "eccentric octogenarians, prize pumpkins, and folk who ate lightbulbs and spiders".
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