Today (BBC Radio 4)

Today (often referred to as "the Today programme" to avoid ambiguity) is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks. It consists of regular news bulletins, serious and often confrontational political interviews, in-depth reports and Thought for the Day. Today has been voted the most influential news programme in Britain in setting the political agenda. The programme has 7.18 million listeners per week. It was voted the Best Breakfast Show of the Year at the 2010 Sony Radio Academy Awards.

History

Today was launched on the BBC's Home Service on 28 October 1957 as a programme of 'topical talks' to give listeners a morning alternative to light music. It was initially broadcast as two 20-minute editions slotted in around the existing news bulletins and religious and musical items. In 1963 it became part of the BBC's Current Affairs department, and it started to become more news-orientated. The two editions also became longer, and by the end of the 1960s it had become a single two-hour-long programme that enveloped the news bulletins and the religious talk that had become Thought for the Day in 1970. Radio 4 controller Ian McIntyre cut it back to two parts in 1976–78 (creating a gap which was filled by Up to the Hour), but it was swiftly returned to its former position.