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Ambridge Extra
''Ambridge Extra'' is an extension of the long-running radio drama ''The Archers''. It began broadcasting sporadically on the digital radio station BBC Radio 4 Extra from 5 April 2011. The programme ran for five series, before it was "rested". Overview ''Ambridge Extra'' ran in addition to ''The Archers'' and gave an insight into other areas of the characters' lives. Writer Tim Stimpson explained the show "should be a little extra gift to our regular ''Archers'' listeners, crafted with affection and giving them a new perspective on life in Ambridge." He stated that the team wanted the series to be accessible for people who had never listened to ''The Archers'' before. ''Ambridge Extra'' featured a number of new or previously silent and minor characters from the main series and initially focussed on several of the younger characters. The programme was broadcast on Tuesday and Thursday with an omnibus on Sunday, all following ''The Archers'' on Radio 4. ''The Archers'' theme tune " ...
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Soap Opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers.Bowles, p. 118. The term was preceded by "horse opera", a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns. BBC Radio's ''The Archers'', first broadcast in 1950, is the world's longest-running radio soap opera. The longest-running current television soap is '' Coronation Street'', which was first broadcast on ITV in 1960, with the record for the longest running soap opera in history being held by '' Guiding Light'', which began on radio in 1937, transitioned to television in 1952, and ended in 2009. A crucial element that defines the soap opera is the open-ended serial nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. One of the defining features that makes a television program a soap opera, according to Alber ...
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English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ...
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BBC Radio 4 Extra
BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British digital radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a day. It is the sister station of BBC Radio 4 and the principal broadcaster of the BBC's spoken-word archive, and as a result the majority of its programming originates from that archive. It also broadcasts extended and companion programmes to those broadcast on Radio 4, and provides a "catch-up" service for certain programmes. The station launched in December 2002 as BBC 7, broadcasting a mix of archive comedy, drama and current children's radio. The station was renamed BBC Radio 7 in 2008, then relaunched as Radio 4 Extra in April 2011. For the first quarter of 2013, Radio 4 Extra had a weekly audience of 1.642 million people and had a market share of 0.95%; in the last quarter of 2016 the numbers were 2.184 million listeners and 1.2% of market share. According to RAJAR, the station broadc ...
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Sean O'Connor (producer)
Sean O'Connor (born 11 February 1968 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England) is a British producer, writer and director working in theatre, film, television and radio. He was the editor of the long-running BBC radio drama, ''The Archers'' from 2013 to 2016. He replaced Dominic Treadwell-Collins as the executive producer of ''EastEnders'' in June 2016. It was revealed in June 2017 that O'Connor had left ''EastEnders'' to focus on his career in feature films. Early life and education O'Connor grew up on The Wirral, where he attended a grammar school, St Anselm's College, run by the Christian Brothers. He later earned a degree in English from University College London. Following his graduation, O'Connor successfully applied for a place on ITV's Regional Theatre Young Directors’ Scheme. Film O'Connor produced the feature film version of Terence Rattigan's '' The Deep Blue Sea'' directed by Terence Davies and starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale. The film is base ...
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BBC Birmingham
BBC Birmingham is one of the oldest regional arms of the BBC, located in Birmingham. It was the first region outside London to start broadcasting both the corporation's radio (in 1922) and television (in 1949) transmissions, the latter from the Sutton Coldfield television transmitter. From 1971 BBC Birmingham was based at the Pebble Mill Studios, replacing studios on Broad Street, but in 2004 moved to the Mailbox facility in the city centre. Pebble Mill has been demolished to make way for a dental hospital and school of dentistry, which opened in 2016. BBC Birmingham is not to be confused with BBC Midlands, which is also based at the Mailbox. BBC Birmingham is the name of the Network Productions Centre in Birmingham making network programmes for television and radio. BBC Midlands is the regional operation providing news, current affairs and other regional programmes. Some departments within BBC Birmingham, such as factual programming, have been subject to review as part ...
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Stereophonic Sound
Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration of two loudspeakers (or stereo headphones) in such a way as to create the impression of sound heard from various directions, as in natural hearing. Because the multi-dimensional perspective is the crucial aspect, the term ''stereophonic'' also applies to systems with more than two channels or speakers such as quadraphonic and surround sound. Binaural recording, Binaural sound systems are also ''stereophonic''. Stereo sound has been in common use since the 1970s in entertainment media such as broadcast radio, recorded music, television, video cameras, cinema, computer audio, and internet. Etymology The word ''stereophonic'' derives from the Greek language, Greek (''stereós'', "firm, solid") + (''phōnḗ'', "sound, tone, voice") and i ...
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Barwick Green
"Barwick Green" is the theme music to the long-running BBC Radio 4 soap opera ''The Archers''. A "maypole dance" from the suite ''My Native Heath'' written in 1924 by the Yorkshire composer Arthur Wood, it is named after Barwick-in-Elmet in Yorkshire's West Riding. The recording used between 1950 and the 1990s was played by Sidney Torch and his orchestra. Sidney Torch recorded a commercial version of "Barwick Green" in the 1950s, but it was not used on ''The Archers'' itself. The familiar opening 7 notes are echoed in the pizzicato in Benjamin Britten's ''Simple Symphony'', written in 1934. The Sunday omnibus broadcast of ''The Archers'' starts with a more rustic, accordion-arranged rendition by The Yetties, while the theme for BBC Radio 4 Extra's ''The Archers'' spinoff, ''Ambridge Extra'', is a version arranged by Bellowhead Bellowhead is an English contemporary folk band, active from 2004 to 2016, reforming in 2020. The eleven-piece act played traditional dance tunes ...
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Bellowhead
Bellowhead is an English contemporary folk band, active from 2004 to 2016, reforming in 2020. The eleven-piece act played traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide range of musical styles and influences. The band included percussion and a four-piece brass section. Bellowhead's bandmembers played more than 20 instruments among them, whilst all performers provided vocals. Their third album, ''Hedonism'' (2010), is the highest selling independently released folk album of all time, having sold over 60,000 copies and earning the band a silver disk. The band parted after their final gig at Oxford Town Hall in May 2016. In 2020, the band reformed for a reunion concert and, as of 2022, are undertaking a reunion tour, visiting Portsmouth, Oxford, Leicester, Cambridge, London, Brighton, Southend-on-Sea, Ipswich, Bath, Plymouth, Cardiff, Birmingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Harrogate, Liverpool, Sheffield and Manchester. ...
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The Archers
''The Archers'' is a BBC radio drama on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural setting". Having aired over 19,500 episodes, it is the world's longest-running drama by number of episodes. Five pilot episodes were aired in 1950, and the first episode was broadcast nationally on New Year's Day 1951. A significant show in British popular culture, and with over five million listeners, it is Radio 4's most listened-to non-news programme, and with over one million listeners via the internet, the programme holds the record for BBC Radio online listening figures. In February 2019, a panel of 46 broadcasting industry experts, of which 42 had a professional connection to the BBC, listed ''The Archers'' as the second-greatest radio programme of all time. Partly established with the aim towards educating farmers following World War II, ...
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Radio Times
''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by John Reith, then general manager of the British Broadcasting Company (from 1 January 1927, the British Broadcasting Corporation), it was the world's first broadcast listings magazine. It was published entirely in-house by BBC Magazines from 8 January 1937 until 16 August 2011, when the division was merged into Immediate Media Company. On 12 January 2017, Immediate Media was bought by the German media group Hubert Burda. The magazine is published on Tuesdays and carries listings for the week from Saturday to Friday. Originally, listings ran from Sunday to Saturday: the changeover meant 8 October 1960 was listed twice, in successive issues. Since Christmas 1969, a 14-day double-sized issue has been published each December containing schedule ...
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Immediate Media Company Ltd
Immediate Media Company Limited (styled as Immediate Media Co) is a British multinational publishing house that currently publishes a significant range of titles, including ''Radio Times, BBC Top Gear, BBC Good Food'' and a host of others. In H1 2018, the company's titles reported a combined ABC circulation of 1.59 million, including 1.1M active subscribers. In 2018 it reported selling 70+ million magazines. The publishing house is owned by Hubert Burda Media, and is an agglomeration of Magicalia, Origin Publishing and BBC Magazines, publishing both media content and software platforms. Approximately 85% of its revenue is from content services, with the remainder from advertising. History Immediate Media originated from the combined assets of several formerly independent publishing houses, including BBC Magazines, Magicalia, Future plc, Hitched and Jewellery Maker. In late 2011 the BBC's magazine-publishing business was sold to Exponent Private Equity, following clearance b ...
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The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ...
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