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''In Our Time'' is a live

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radio discussion series and

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

exploring a wide variety of historical topics, presented by Melvyn Bragg, since 15 October 1998.BBC ''In our time''
It is one of BBC Radio 4's most successful discussion programmes, acknowledged to have "transformed the landscape for serious ideas at peak listening time". , 808 episodes have been aired and the series attracts a weekly audience exceeding two million listeners.

Programme

The series, devised and produced by Olivia Seligman (with others) and currently produced by Simon Tillotson with Victoria Brignell, runs weekly throughout the year on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

, except for a summer break of approximately eight to ten weeks between July and September. Each programme covers a specific historical, philosophical, religious, cultural or scientific topic. In a November 2009 interview, Bragg described how he prepares for each show: "It's not easy, but I like reading. I enjoy what was called swotting in my day. I get the notes late Friday afternoon for the following Thursday morning. I find all the spare time I can for reading, get up very early on a Thursday morning, have a final two hours of nervousness, and away we go." Bragg hosts discussion of the week's subject featuring what he has characterised as "three absolutely top-class academics" on the subject. The programme is normally broadcast live and unedited on Thursday mornings at 9a.m., lasting around 42 minutes, and is then available online. He begins each episode with a short summary of the week's topic, then introduces the three guests. He guides the discussion along a generally chronological route, then either concludes the programme himself or invites summation remarks from one of the specialists.

History

''In Our Time'' was conceived for Bragg in 1998 after he was forced to quit his decade-long role as presenter for ''

Start the Week ''Start the Week'' is a discussion programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 which began in April 1970. The current presenter is the former BBC political editor and the BBC's former political Sunday morning presenter Andrew Marr. The previous regular ...

'' due to a perceived conflict of interest arising from his appointment as a Labour life peer. He was offered the Thursday "death-slot" and decided he would "do what ealways wanted to do," and "hastily battered out a simple idea" with producer Olivia Seligman expecting the show would only last a few months. By September 1999, he had taken a time slot that was previously attracting an audience of 600,000 and grown it to 1.5 million. By 2000, the half-hour show was expanded to 45 minutes and to include three guest speakers. In 2004, the programme was made available as a

from the BBC website and iTunes for one week after broadcast. Until July 2014, listeners could also sign up for weekly email newsletters from Bragg, where he mentioned any additional information relating to the programme, along with snippets from his own personal and intellectual life. In 2009, selected transcripts of episodes from the programme were compiled in the book ''In Our Time: A Companion to the Radio 4 series'', edited by Bragg. Since 2010, every episode of the programme has been available from its website as streaming audio, making it one of the first BBC programmes to have its entire archive released. Since 2011, the entire archive has been available to download as individual podcasts.

Cultural impact

The programme is considered one of the BBC's most successful projects, acknowledged to have "transformed the landscape for serious ideas at peak listening time". Frequent contributors to the programme since 1998 include A. C. Grayling, Angie Hobbs, Ian Stewart,

Simon Schaffer Simon J. Schaffer (born 1 January 1955) is a professor of the history and philosophy of science at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and was editor of ''The British Journal for the History of Sc ...

, Martin Palmer, John Mullan, Steve Jones,

Carolin Crawford Carolin Susan Crawford is a British communicator of science and astrophysicist. She is an emeritus member of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge and an emeritus fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Education Crawford studied the Mathem ...

Paul Cartledge Paul Anthony Cartledge (born 24 March 1947)"CARTLEDGE, Prof. Paul Anthony", ''Who's Who 2010'', A & C Black, 2010online edition/ref> is a British ancient historian and academic. From 2008 to 2014 he was the A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek C ...

Rana Mitter Shantashil Rajyeswar Mitter (born 1969), known as Rana Mitter, is a British historian and political scientist of Indian origin who specialises in the history of republican China. He is Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at ...

, and

Julia Lovell Julia Lovell (born 1975) is a British scholar and prize-winning author and translator focusing on China. Life and career Lovell is professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at Birkbeck, University of London, where her research has bee ...

. In 2005, listeners were invited to vote in a popularity contest for the "greatest philosopher in history" with the winner selected as the subject of the final programme before the summer break. With 30,000 votes cast, the contest was won by

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

with 27.9% of the votes. Other shortlisted figures were

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...

(12.7%),

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...

(6.8%),

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

(6.5%),

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

(5.6%),

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...

(5.6%),

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...

(4.8%),

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...

(4.8%),

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

(4.5%) and Karl Popper (4.2%). The poll was controversial but led to widespread reporting, and a boost in the programme's overall listenership, as various UK celebrities and news outlets championed their favourites.

References

External links

*
In Our Time
'

homepage, wit
iPlayer archive
of past programmes * *

of In Our Time episodes {{DEFAULTSORT:In Our Time (Bbc Radio 4) 1998 radio programme debuts Audio podcasts BBC Radio 4 programmes Educational broadcasting in the United Kingdom Philosophy podcasts Philosophy radio programs 2004 podcast debuts British podcasts