''Late Junction'' is a music programme broadcast weekly on Friday nights by

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

. Billed as "Journeys in music, ancient to future. The home for adventurous listeners.", the programme has a wide musical scope. It is not uncommon to hear medieval ballads juxtaposed with 21st-century electronica, or jazz followed by international folk music followed by an ambient track. Each edition of the programme runs for 90 minutes.

History

The programme was created soon after Roger Wright took over as controller of

, as part of changes with which Wright believed that he was addressing "this feeling people had that they didn't want to put Radio 3 on unless they were going to listen carefully". The first programme was broadcast on 13 September 1999 and produced by

Antony Pitts Antony Pitts (born 1969 in Farnborough, Kent) is an international composer, conductor, and producer. His compositions have been published by Faber Music, with CDs of choral music on Hyperion Records and other recordings on Harmonia Mundi, Nax ...

. ''Late Junction'' won a Sony gold award in 2003 for Music Programming. The show was described as "A radio jewel. Is there a show like this anywhere else in the radio world? Everyone who hears the show falls in love with it. Surprising, revealing, accessible. Brilliantly programmed - a show where the real star is the music." The programme's main regular presenters are Verity Sharp and Jennifer Lucy Allan, who alternate as solo presenters. Before the shift from three 90-minute shows per week to a single two-hour broadcast in late 2019, other regular presenters included the show's founding presenter

Fiona Talkington Fiona Talkington is a broadcaster, writer, presenter, and curator. She has been a presenter on BBC Radio 3 since 1989. She was a founding presenter (1999) of the music programme Late Junction. BBC For BBC Radio 3, Talkington has presented and pro ...

Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born Theatre director, theatre and film director, theater manager, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his radically innovative and avant-gard ...

Nick Luscombe Nick Luscombe (born 30 January 1966) is a British radio DJ, having presented various self-selected new music shows since 1999 for the likes of XFM, BBC 6 Music, BBC World Service, Tokyo FM, InterFM, NME Radio, Samurai FM and Resonance FM. His ''F ...

Anne Hilde Neset Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie and Ana. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in ...

, and

Mara Carlyle Mara Carlyle (born 1974 or 1975) is an English singer-songwriter, producer, and arranger who also plays the musical saw and the ukulele. She was raised in Shropshire, England and now lives in London. Career Carlyle's first recorded appearance w ...

. Other former presenters include

Shaheera Asante Caroline S. Asante (born December 1979) is a British-born broadcast journalist, editor and environmentalist of Guyanese and Ghanaian descent. Early life Asante was born in London to a Guyanese, South American mother and Ghanaian, West African f ...

(until 2006), and

Robert Sandall Robert Paul Sandall (9 June 1952 – 20 July 2010)
- accessed December 2010 was a British musician,

In March 2019, BBC Radio 3 Controller Alan Davey announced that Late Junction was being cut from three episodes a week to a single two-hour slot on Fridays from Autumn 2019. More than 500 people from the world of music, including

Brian Eno Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno (, born 15 May 1948), also mononymously known as Eno, is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambien ...

Billy Bragg Stephen William Bragg (born 20 December 1957) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic th ...

Jarvis Cocker Jarvis Branson Cocker (born 19 September 1963) is an English musician. As the founder, frontman, lyricist and only consistent member of the band Pulp (band), Pulp, he became a reluctant figurehead of the Britpop genre of the mid-1990s. Cocker h ...

Martin Carthy Martin Dominic Forbes Carthy MBE (born 21 May 1941) is an English singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in English folk music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, as well as later ar ...

and

Eliza Carthy Eliza Amy Forbes Carthy, MBE (born 23 August 1975) is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing the fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson. Life and career Carthy was born i ...

signed an open letter objecting to the cut. From April 2024, as part of a new schedule introduced by BBC Radio 3 Controller Sam Jackson, Late Junction's weekly running time was cut by a further 30 minutes to 90 minutes and it also moved to the earlier start time of 10pm.

Presenters

Current presenters

* Verity Sharp * Jennifer Lucy Allan

Former presenters

* Anne Hilde Neset *

Robert Sandall Robert Paul Sandall (9 June 1952 – 20 July 2010)
- accessed December 2010 was a British musician,

BBC Radio 3 programmes British music radio programmes