That’s very good. Thank you for that update. I’ll keep the pdf as reference this week. There’s various shows I listen to weekly - God forbid, Minefield, Radio Lab, This American Life, Philosopher’s Zone, All in the mind… that I often prefer to listen to on-air.
I notice how you got up and listened at 5.30 which reminded me of when I used to listen to RN every morning for the comedies - Just a minute, My word et al. Interesting, there’s a comedy slot at lunch time on Saturday. RN needs more comedy. That’s one thing that Radio 4 does very well.
No worries! Yes, I agree RE comedy and the lack of it on Radio National. It’s good that they have TGIF and a comedy slot now. It seems to be a gap in their programming what with NPR having ‘Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!’, the BBC has ‘Just a Minute’ and even CBC has ‘Because News’ on the radio. If our anglosphere public broadcasting cousins have it, we should too!
After listening to Radio National all week at work, I wanted to post an update of what I heard during the day that wasn’t in the schedule or 2025 press release announcement.
Monday
12:00 PM – Science Show Replay
1:00 PM – The World Today
1:30 PM – Stop Everything Replay
2:00 PM – History Showcase – 2PM BBC Australian Crime podcast Fairy Meadow (1 ep each week), followed by an episode of An Object in Time which aired as a miniseries produced by The History Listen back in 2021
3:00 PM – Conversations
Tuesday
12:00 PM – Big Ideas replay
12:50 PM – Quick Smart
1:00 PM – The World Today
1:30 PM – Philosopher’s Zone replay
2:00 PM – Background Briefing replay
2:45 PM – Lab Notes
3:00 PM – Conversations
Wednesday
12:00 PM – Big Ideas replay
12:50 PM – Poetry Reading
1:00 PM – The World Today
1:30 PM – Law Report replay
2:00 PM – God Forbid replay
3:00 PM – Conversations
Thursday
12:00 PM – Big Ideas replay
12:50 PM – Word up segment from the Awaye Program replays (no new eps since Nov 2024)
1:00 PM – The World Today
1:30 PM – The Party Room Podcast
2:00 PM – Soul Search replay
3:00 PM – Conversations
Friday
12:00 PM – Big Ideas replay
12:50 PM – James Carleton host of God Forbid came in to chat with Cassie to talk about this week’s episode and there was a quiz about who said what this week on RN. Cassie read a quote out and asked listeners to text in with the answer.
1:00 PM – The World Today
1:30 PM – If You’re Listening Podcast (replay)
2:00 PM – Speaking Out
3:00 PM – Conversations
It’s not the Summer Schedule. Unfortunately RN has been doing repeats in the afternoons since they axed music programming during the Michelle Guthrie restructuring. Funnily enough the 2025 slate has the most new programs since the restructure, but the repeats in the arvos continue.
I would love a national Talk back show like the CBC does. I also think even a national version of the country hour for city listeners and taking stories from the different country hours would be good to bridge the gap between city and country. They’re also missing an audio documentary show (that’s not history related) with the axing of Earshot.
RN could simulcast some ABC Local Radio shows that are networked anyway if they’re not going to do anything original. I’d even put the Country Hour on the metro RN stations, and in rural areas where RN is operating, put The World Today on as live.
But if the aim is to be a “national” station, then that would be hard to do. But also, since the ABC was slashed and gutted like a fish, it won’t happen.
I agree with this - Nightlife and Overnights should already be airing on RN. Newcastle already runs The Country Hour on RN, so it is possible to have split programming for different regions.
I wouldn’t say they’re ‘podcasts’. They’re RN shows that are also published as podcasts. The schedule is pretty similar to BBC Radio 4 - a mix of live and taped things BBC Sounds - Radio 4 - Schedules
I wish there were two hours of LNL. Otherwise maybe book reading at 11pm? They used to do that back in the day. Also the listen app has audiobooks so they seem to own rights to books…just need to reduce the amounts of repeats I think
A second hour of LNL with talkback would be great. A live hour long world (or ideally asian) news focused show would be good too - similar to R4 having World Tonight at 10:00.
