Saturday Live (radio Series)
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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 that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
magazine programme which combines real-life stories with short features and contributions from studio guests, as well as the musical segment known as "Inheritance Tracks", in which famous people share information about the music that they would recommend to
future generations Future generations are 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 patienthood of future ge ...
, and the music that they would say that they, themselves, inherited from a previous generation. Since 2013, following the example of a particular listener experience that resonated with the audience, it has featured a segment called "Thank You". This consists 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. Currently presented by
Richard Coles Richard Keith Robert Coles (born 26 March 1962) is an English writer, radio presenter and Church of England clergyman who was the vicar of Finedon in Northamptonshire from 2011 to 2022. He first came to prominence as the multi-instrumentalis ...
, formerly together with
Aasmah Mir Aasmah Saira Mir (; born 7 October 1971) is a Scottish television and radio broadcaster and journalist who currently copresents the Monday-Thursday breakfast show on Times Radio. Early life Mir was born to first-generation Pakistani immigrants ...
and also previously with JP Devlin, ''Saturday Live'' is broadcast live between 9.00 and 10.30 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. In 2015, John Patrick (JP) Devlin stated on-air, as the only remaining member of the presentation team from first programme, nine years earlier, that he had "...seen out two Radio 4 Controllers, four Director Generals and, get this, eighteen Saturday Live presenters...". 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 April 30, 2019 there were 2.4 million listeners. In May 2008 the programme, then presented by
Fi Glover Fiona Susannah Grace "Fi" Glover (born 27 February 1969) is a British BBC journalist and presenter who formerly presented the ''Fortunately'' podcast, '' The Listening Project'' for BBC Radio 4 and ''My Perfect Country'' for the BBC World Ser ...
, was named Best UK Speech Programme at the annual
Sony Radio Academy Awards The Radio Academy Awards, started in 1983, were the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. For most of their existence, they were run by ZAFER Associates, but in latter years were brought under the control of The Radio Academy ...
. In February 2011, however, it was highlighted by the journalist and newscaster
Alastair Stewart Alastair James Stewart Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 22 June 1952) is an English former journalist and newscaster. Formerly presenting for ITV News, he joined GB News as a presenter in 2021. He has won the Royal Television Society's New ...
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 to its current length of 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 "Steady, As She Goes" is the debut single of American rock music, rock band the Raconteurs from their first album, ''Broken Boy Soldiers'' (2006). In early 2006, a limited-edition 7-inch single, 7-inch vinyl record was released as a double A-side ...
'' by the Raconteurs. JP Devlin has not appeared on the programme since 2019. He has more recently appeared on Loose Ends and the Fortunately podcast. 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. It is jointly operated by Wireless Group (which News UK acquired in 2016), ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times''. As of September 2022, the station broadcasts to a weekly audienc ...
station as a breakfast presenter. In December 2020, it was announced that Richard Coles' new co-host would be the broadcaster
Nikki Bedi Nikhila Bedi (; '' née'' Moolgaoker; 9 September 1966) is a British television and radio presenter, born to an Indian father of Maharashtrian origin and an English mother. Married to Kabir Bedi from 1992 to 2005, she retained her married name ...
.


References


External links


BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Live
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saturday Live (Bbc Radio 4 Show) BBC Radio 4 programmes British talk radio programmes