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In this lecture, David Hendy will talk about his history of Radio 4, as well as his own work behind-the-scenes at the station. With examples from the sound archives, he will explore how a radio station which appeared to have little or no future back in the Swinging Sixties has not only survived but gradually blossomed into a national icon - and an essential part of many of our lives. With privileged access to the BBC's vast archives, and through interviewing former members of staff, David Hendy has pieced together the extraordinary story of some of the programmes which have defined Radio 4 - The Archers, Today, Woman's Hour, The Shipping Forecast - as well as the disputes which have nearly destroyed it. In telling this story, David Hendy will argue that we urgently need to revive the nation's listening skills and ensure that radio, as the most intelligent mass medium of them all, has a central role in 21st Century cultural life.

David Hendy is Reader in Media and Communication at the University of Westminster, where he has been teaching radio and the history of broadcasting since he left the BBC in 1993. As a broadcaster, he produced Radio Four programmes such as The World Tonight and Analysis, and he is now a regular contributor to series such as The Archive Hour and Feedback. His first book, Radio in the Global Age, was described by the American scholar Robert McChesney, as 'the best introduction to contemporary radio' he had read. Dr Hendy's most recent book, Life on Air: a History of Radio Four, has been widely praised and is the winner of the 2008 Longmans-History Today Book of the Year Award. Early in 2009, he will take up a post as Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University's Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. While there, he'll be working on a new book about media and consciousness and writing a radio play about the pioneering Edwardian scientist and psychic Oliver Lodge.