Like many other listeners I have been distressed to learn that by next spring Radio 4 Extra may be no more - as a radio station, that is. Its archive, so we are told, will remain, though how easily programmes will be accessible remains to be seen. At present they are available for a set number of days after a repeat broadcast then vanish until - or unless - broadcast again some time - maybe even years - later. I know that Ray Connolly was frustrated when trying to make the case for a play of his being retained on the website, so it seems highly unlikely that absolutely everything will be there to hear again at the click of a mouse and that we are all supposedly fussing over nothing. But even if that were magically to be the case it still wouldn't make up for the serendipitous discoveries for the regular listener to the DAB station.
So - assuming the Beeb prove impervious to protests and petitions - the first question is: without a recent broadcast as the main criterion just which programmes will those who log on to BBC Sounds be able to hear? Will they change from week to week? Or perhaps day by day, a lucky dip? Will new additions continue to be made to the archive or will the task of hunting out and restoring forgotten treasures also be considered an expense too far?
Some years ago the station - possibly when it was still known as BBC 7 - had a season of plays by Rhys Adrian, a name which often cropped up in those once-annual volumes of radio plays which had won the Giles Cooper Award. Missing from the works selected for rebroadcast, however, was a drama I remembered with particular fondness entitled Toytown, and it was a joy to hear it again at last more recently on Radio 4 Extra; presumably it had finally been located or a copy handed in by someone.
But the point is: where else would I have heard such a piece again but on that station? Not in its original home, that's for sure, given the cutbacks in drama on Radio 4 and its increasing reliance on series rather than the single play, not to mention its greater focus in recent years on issue-driven plays.
What is Toytown about, you ask? Er, well, it's about some park keepers. What happens in it? Not too much - or at least not the sort of thing which can be gleaned from a pitch. It doesn't teach you anything - or at least nothing which can be reduced to a slogan.
I'm guessing that once upon a time radio drama at the Beeb was like its TV equivalent, to judge from commentaries I've heard on DVDs of Dennis Potter's and Andrew Birkin's work: once a project had been accepted, it was more or less trusted that the writer and director knew what they were doing and were left to get on with it. Andrew Birkin has spoken of his discovery, when writing his superlative series about J.M. Barrie, that he would need much more screen time to tell the story he was discovering; he got it.
Readers already familiar with the protests about Radio 4 Extra's closure - including one, tellingly, from the editor of the Radio Times - won't find much new in what I am saying in this post but two essential points bear repeating ad nauseam by all who care about keeping this station on the air.
One is that it's not enough to have an online archive, regardless of how many programmes are available at the click of a mouse. One of the joys of Radio 4 Extra, in addition to reacquainting yourself with old friends, is happening upon an unfamiliar drama or documentary or quiz or obscure sitcom (or whatever) simply because you happened to be listening to the station that day.
And the second, related, point is that BBC radio has such a rich fund of material, especially with an archive of radio drama of a quality unequalled anywhere else in the world, why - for relatively small savings in its overall budget - why is it taking the self-destructive step of limiting its reach by switching off the station designed to promote and preserve its distinguished history?
As Jimmy Clitheroe, who is all there with his cough drops, would say: Make It Make Sense.
A petition to save Radio 4 Extra has been set up by the Chortle website; you can sign it here.
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