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''Saturday Live'' is a
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...
magazine programme, first broadcast on 16 September 2006. It combines contributions from studio guests with real-life stories and short features, as well as the musical segment known as "Inheritance Tracks", in which famous people share memories about two music tracks, one that they consider they inherited from a previous generation and one they would recommend to
future generations Future generations are Cohort (statistics), cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The Moral agenc ...
. Since 2013, following the example of a particular listener experience that resonated with the audience, it has featured a segment called "Thank You", consisting of voice messages from listeners who received acts of kindness from those strangers who were not, or could not be, thanked properly at the time. These messages sometimes refer to accidents, or amusing incidents, that happened decades earlier, and occasionally the kind stranger is found, and their response is then also shared. The programme is currently presented by Nikki Bedi with a co-presenter roster including Peter Curran,
Huw Stephens Huw Meredydd Stephens (born 25 May 1981) is a Welsh radio and television presenter, currently broadcasting on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 6 Music. Stephens founded the Sŵn music festival with John Rostron and the yearly s ...
, Olly Mann, Jon Kay and Greg James. Previous presenters include Rev. Richard Coles, Aasmah Mir,
Fi Glover Fiona Susannah Grace "Fi" Glover (born 27 February 1969) is a British journalist and presenter who currently hosts a two hour show for Times Radio and the Off Air podcast, for ''The Times''. Before joining ''The Times'' in October 2022, Glover w ...
, Sian Williams, and J. P. Devlin, who in 2015 stated on-air, as the only remaining member of the presentation team from the first programme, nine years earlier, that he had "...seen out two Radio 4 Controllers, four Director Generals and, get this, eighteen Saturday Live presenters..." (J. P. Devlin has not appeared on the programme since 2019, but has more recently appeared on '' Loose Ends'' and the ''Fortunately'' podcast with Fi Glover). ''Saturday Live'' is broadcast live between 9.00 and 10.00 on Saturday mornings (UK time) and is available world-wide on demand in the form of an extensive on-line archive that includes streaming, download and podcast formats. According to presenter Richard Coles, at the end of 2014 there were more than 1.8 million weekly listeners and according to Poppy North of C. Hurst & Co. on 30 April 2019 there were 2.4 million. In May 2008 the programme, then presented by Fi Glover, was named Best UK Speech Programme at the annual Sony Radio Academy Awards. In February 2011, however, it was highlighted by the journalist and newscaster
Alastair Stewart Alastair James Stewart OBE (born 22 June 1952) is a retired English journalist and newscaster. Stewart joined Southern Television in 1976, then joined ITN in 1980, where he served three years with ''Channel 4 News'' and went on to become a ma ...
as "unfunny, self-indulgent, contrived and, worst of all, twee" and therefore unworthy, in his opinion, of a slot in the Radio 4 schedule. In May 2012, the duration of ''Saturday Live'' was increased from 60 to 90 minutes by being extended into the time-slot formerly occupied by the travel programme '' Excess Baggage''. The programme's original introductory theme music was taken from various instrumental sections of " Steady, As She Goes" by The Raconteurs. It has subsequently varied from week to week, with a closing track chosen by one of the guests. Aasmah Mir announced on air during the show of 25 April 2020 that it was her last appearance on the show. She left to join the new
Times Radio Times Radio is a British digital radio station owned by News UK, part of the Murdoch family, Murdoch media empire. It is jointly operated by News Broadcasting (which News UK acquired in 2016, when it was known as ''Wireless Group''), ''The Tim ...
station as a breakfast presenter. In December 2020, it was announced that Richard Coles' new co-host would be the broadcaster Nikki Bedi. On 25 March 2023, Richard Coles co-presented the programme for the last time after 12 years as a regular presenter, as a result of its production moving as from the following week from London to
BBC Cymru Wales New Broadcasting House BBC Cymru Wales New Broadcasting House, previously known as the BBC Cymru Wales headquarters building, is the headquarters of BBC Cymru Wales in Central Square, Cardiff. It operates many of its broadcasting services (radio and TV) from there us ...
in
Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...
, with one of his guests being former co-presenter Dr Sian Williams. The programme was also to be reduced from 90 to its original 60 minutes.


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External links


BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Live
{{BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 programmes British talk radio programmes