Gardeners' Question Time
Gardeners' Question Time is a radio show produced by the BBC since 1947 . The weekly program, which airs today on BBC Radio 4 , mostly takes place in a UK gathering where gardeners can ask questions about their garden to an expert panel. Individual programs only answer questions sent by post or e-mail; in exceptional cases the panel of experts also travels on, for example to Ireland or northern France. The program is currently broadcast on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. local time.
history
The first broadcast on gardening on the BBC was a series of 15-minute lectures that Cecil Henry Middleton gave from May 9, 1931 under the title The Week in Your Garden (later only In Your Garden ). His relaxed tone made it a great success, because it stood out clearly from the usual serious tone that was predominant on the radio at the time. Under the name In Your Garden , the show soon ran on Sunday afternoon and reached 3.5 million listeners there. In a television program broadcast on November 21, 1936, A Gardening Demonstration , Middleton gave a demonstration of autumn pruning techniques. During World War II, the program supported the UK government’s Dig for Victory campaign, which aimed to encourage citizens to grow their own vegetables wherever possible. Middleton died on September 18, 1945, but the radio episode continued under the responsibility of other presenters until March 28, 1970.
Another precursor was How Does Your Garden Grow? The broadcast of which was subsequently limited to the broadcasting area of Northern England, but has been on the national BBC program since 1957.
There were two decisive moments in the development of the program: The 1970 Radio 4 program reform only provided space for a garden program on the transmitter, and the entertaining Gardeners' Question Time quarreled with the more serious and expert program In Your Garden . Gardeners' Question Time ultimately won because of its much larger audience (one million versus 200,000) and because it introduced beginners and non-gardeners to gardening. Critics of this decision criticized the lack of seriousness of the program and the often superficial advice. The show would present gardeners as shallow entertainment.
At that time, the program was also in a crisis in terms of content. To many, the show seemed outdated and repetitive. In particular, the members of the panel of experts criticized many for being out of date. However, before Studio Manchester, which was producing the show at the time, consciously intervened, the composition of the panel had to be changed. Expert Fred Streeter died in late 1974 at the age of 98 from complications from a broken hip, while Alan Gemmell dropped out at the age of 63 in 1976 due to herpes zoster .
There was a much bigger turning point in the 1990s when the BBC handed over production of the program to a private company. In the course of this development, the panel that had existed for decades left the program and went to Classic FM . The producers extended the program from 30 to 45 minutes and increased the number of possible experts considerably. The locations where the program was recorded were not just garden clubs and local assembly halls, but also, for example, underground stations or a nudist colony. While the experts knew the questions before the broadcast before 1994, they have had to answer the questions spontaneously since then. The show is currently moderated alternately by Eric Robson and Peter Gibbs.
literature
- David Hendy: Life on air. A history of Radio Four . Oxford University Press. 2007. ISBN 0199248818
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ First TV gardening program November 21, 1936 . In: The BBC Story. November. In: bbc.co.uk. Without a date. Retrieved April 16, 2012.
- ↑ First gardening program 9 May 1931 ( Memento of the original from April 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: The BBC Story. Without a date. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
- ↑ Hendy 2007, p. 63.
