BBC Radio 4 takes disability programming seriously
I recently bought a radio alarm clock and I’ve had Radio 4 on in the background a lot since then. They do a lot of good stuff, including good programming around disability topics. For example:
* The weekly show In Touch - “News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted“, hosted by a blind man and featuring blind guests
* This evening they played the pilot of Ability, a new radio sit com about a guy with cerebral palsy who uses a speech generation device, written by and staring a guy with cerebral palsy who uses a speech generation device
* Today on another show they looked at how the city of Chester has been made more and more accessible to disabled people, by touring the city with a woman in a wheelchair and interviewing other disabled people in the city
Radio 4 plays a lot of good stuff. Other highlights:
* Out in Africa looked at the experiences of LGBT Africans, hosted by a Nigerian-British gay man, and mainly consisting of interviews with LGBT Africans (including Muslims and Christians) in Africa
* Rabbi Lionel Blue’s self-made obituary, discussing his experiences as a gay rabbi in a time of great antisemitism and anti-gay laws, made by a gay Jewish man
They consistently produce programmes which give a platform to the voices of oppressed minorities - material for these groups by these groups.
The other place the BBC shines in this regard is the radio station BBC Asian Network with music, news, discussions, interviews, everything aimed at and made by members of the South Asian community (mainly in the UK). It costs the BBC more per listener than any other station but they do it because it fills an important need in British society that wouldn’t be filled by a commercial broadcaster.
I encourage people to listen to this stuff, and if you think it’s any good, spread the word and share your appreciation, so they’ll keep making all this stuff! I don’t really know the best way to do that, but you can send them feedback via this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/comment_appreciation
