Stay tuned after Today to find things you might not realise were there. Like Ed Reardon’s Week, a comic masterpiece by Christopher Douglas and Andrew Nickolds, or Andrew McGibbon’s scorchingly funny public school spoof The Pickerskill Reports. There’s a play every afternoon. Not all are brilliant, but on a good day, this is where imagination can add depth to history and reality, change your perspective. Turn on after 8pm on weeknights, and discover why the Army isn’t getting the equipment it needs, or the difference between Keynes and Hayek. Radio 4 is like going down the rabbit hole with Alice: even the occasional shock leaves you wiser.  Plays, comedies, poetry, talks, documentaries have all been part of Radio 4 since it succeeded the old Home Service in 1967. Today was born just 10 years before, in the days when everyone assumed that radio was at death’s door. It started as a miscellany of talk and information, a BBC memo having stipulated that “hard information – facts – are probably the most important ingredient”. There had never been anything like it before, but its metamorphosis into a news programme became inevitable after the later arrivals of The World At One, PM and The World Tonight.  Its subsequent evolution into the nation’s preferred news source has been gradual, often controversial – but, to the eternal credit of controllers ever since Radio 4’s birth, and in the face of the occasional torrent of outrage from Downing Street, the programme has been nurtured and protected. It’s been no easy feat: listeners may not realise how hard the internal fight has been to keep radio adequately funded. Imperious calls have come from Television Centre to concentrate the money on big audiences. Radio, the television bosses assumed, would not withstand the dawn of pictures, and would inevitably wither on the broadcasting vine. Yet the department, the Corporation’s home of Odyssean cunning, somehow managed to sail on.  The odds against were steep. Speech radio costs lots of money: it recently proved too expensive for Channel 4, when it tried to develop a rival service. Indeed, much brainpower and money have been spent on trying to build commercial alternatives. It can’t be done: Radio 4 exists only because it is protected by the licence fee, with the freedom to grow, change shape, try new things, and refresh old favourites.  Above all, what keeps it on the air is quality. And the big news is that there seems to be a new market for it. Radio 4 now has 10.85 million people listening to it every week, an increase on the last quarter, and an increase on this time last year. Its drama reaches a weekly audience of 7.14 million, comedy 5.67 – both the highest figures ever. The Archers, having dipped after the death of Nigel, are now back up, reaching 5.08 million fans a week (although perhaps the current E coli scandals will dent the next set of ratings).  Radio is also adaptable: it suits new listening technologies. Programmes from Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time to The Archers fit the podcast as well as the broadcast. Radio knows how to grow writers. Is there any new comedy on TV as good as Cabin Pressure, on Friday mornings? It knows its audience, respects its intelligence.  Radio 4 listeners are discerning. They’ve realised that on You & Yours, File On 4, The Report, More Or Less and In Business, a story will hatch long before the news catches up. This September, we will need stamina, when an adaptation of Vasily Grossman’s epic Russian novel of the Second World War, Life and Fate, fills every single drama slot for a whole week. Imagine that happening on BBC Two. And imagine a TV network boss going on air to discuss a scheduling change, as Gwyneth Williams did on Feedback last Sunday, attempting to explain to angry listeners why she’s reducing the number of short stories on the network.  We trust Radio 4 to know its stuff, tell us the truth, respect us. It seldom disappoints. If it does, we switch off. Right now, it’s a treasure trove.
Why are more than 10 million people a week now listening to Radio 4? The    answer is simple: quality.