Happy Birthday BBC World Service

19 December marked the BBC's World Service's 75th birthday. Quite an achievement for the basically venerable broadcaster.

"This year the BBC World Service celebrates 75 years of broadcasting. In this audio archive, each of those years is looked at in a special one-minute-long programme, based on our vast radio archive. Presented by Helen Boaden, the BBC's Director of News, the series looks at how mass communications have changed the world, and how the world has changed the media. The series begins in 1932, with the rather downbeat words of the BBC's founder, Lord Reith: "as to programmes - don't expect too much in the early days... The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good." It covers innovations in broadcasting and charts changing styles in reporting."

Go here, BBC WORLDSERVICE.com to access the program.

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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