Radio review of the year

Nick Smurthwaite in The Stage looks back on a good year for talk radio.

In a recent interview, Jenny Abramsky, the BBC’s director of radio and music, spoke of “the resilience of radio” and its ability to reinvent itself.

Because of the primacy of television in our mass culture, there have been Jeremiahs in the higher echelons of broadcasting, predicting the marginalisation of radio for some years. But the hands-on champions of radio, such as Abramsky and Melvyn Bragg, are dedicated to its survival as a force to be reckoned with.

As an example of its outreach