Avoiding The Archers

I cannot begin to tell you how much I value listening to Radio 4.

I know that everyone likes to think their preferred news source is devoid of any bias, political or other, and those with ‘higher class’ sources of news usually criticise the shortsightedness of such a view:

Star reader: “Can you flippin’ believe what Jade said on Big Bruvva”…
Daily Mail reader: “How common – read some proper news.” [grumble grumble] “political correctness gone MAD” [blah blah] “I call a spade a spade” etc.
Times reader
: “Oh, please, you can’t believe a single thing that rag says”
Guardian reader: “Broadsheets just have a more intelligent way of manipulating their readers…”
FT reader: [displays air of disinterested superiority]

Anyway, Radio 4. Gladly it’s not a newspaper, and doesn’t have adverts. That already puts it in the league of “news sources I can tolerate”, but it’s so much more than this.

Like all sources of news, I suppose there is a bias, but I honestly don’t know what it is. And if there’s ever a bias, it’s never consistent across programmes.

I’m intimately aware of the interview styles of all of the station’s main presenters – Eddie Mair, John Humphreys, Caroline Quinn, Sarah Montague, Jenni Murray, Jim Naughtie, Steady Eddie Stourton, Lustig, Kearney, Buerk – and I’m aware of their general leanings, how they may over-question certain viewpoints and give other viewpoints too much slack. But they seem to do so because of their distinct personalities, not their politics. In fact I couldn’t tell you what the political leanings of any of the above really are. I have my inklings, but they are never confirmed.

For the American readers, think of Radio 4 as the British version of NPR, without the annoying ‘funding’ advertisements and without the incessant need to link pieces with elevator music.

Radio 4, how did I ever manage without you? Every single programme leaves me more educated or enlightened.

Every programme, except one. The Archers.

Is there a SINGLE person who likes The Archers? Do I have anything in common with them? I thought I knew the Radio 4 audience. Those who love that heady mixture of intelligent arts review and pithy news, the comedy, the drama, the geek programmes, the literary reviews…

Archers.

When that music comes on, the world turns to slow motion, I reach my hand towards the nearest radio or software player, coffee flying everywhere, but it’s too late. The hideous ‘tune’ is with me for the rest of the day. I just need the first two notes, and I’m infected.

Every day you are tempted with the delights of Front Row with Mark Lawson in that pre-Archers teaser. Oh, how lovely – a special piece on Gormley’s new public exhibit in Trafalgar Square, a super piece about the art of manuscript editing, a discussion between leading actors on the meaning of a playwrite’s latest work. How exciting! But no, we are going to subject you to 15 minutes of westcountry accents spouting banal rubbish about the state of farming in the UK! And we’ll infect you with that terrible music!

For about 13 years now, I’ve never known the official times and lengths of episodes of The Archers.

Why? Because I am too scared to switch back to Radio 4 for fear of hearing just half a second of weirdy Archer World. Not that I don’t love catching the end of an aria on Radio 3 in the meantime, but I thought to myself, “perhaps I should look further into this”.

So for anyone in the same position as me, who never really knew when The Archers started or finished, here is the weekly schedule.

You won’t find weekly Archer avoidance times on The Archers official website, so I present them for you here, collated from the Radio 4 weekly schedule. I doubt it will ever change, unless the sky fell in.

Monday to Friday: it’s not safe to turn the radio on any time between 2.02pm and 2.15pm, and 7.02pm and 7.15pm.

Sunday: (this has caught me out so many times) leave it off between 10am and 11.15am (SO unfair) and then 7.02pm until 7.15pm.

Saturday, the coast is clear all day.


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One response to “Avoiding The Archers”

  1. AngryTechnician avatar

    The only time I’ve heard the Archers theme tune and not wanted to shoot myself was when Bill Bailey did a cover of it in a classical Russian style on a pipe organ, as the introduction to “The Museum of Curiosity” when it first started last year.

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