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BBC Radio 4's What If?

So joyous to hear this news. I recorded it on cassette from the radio, back in the day but have nothing to play them on now. I have irregularly lobbied the BBC to make this show available. I had wondered if the delay was caused because of them having to clear it with so many prominent people who appeared on the show. I do wonder if this explains the absence of certain episodes that might be deemed 'sensitive' such as the Gulf War one. I know the associated forum, due to the BBC's requirement to remain impartial, was always policed very carefully to block any discussion which 'strayed' into current political debate, despite the recent nature of some of the topics discussed.

As Stateless notes, there was indeed a forum and I was regularly on that; linking back with AH fans I had lost touch with. You did sometimes find people on there who were not as familiar with the actual history coming in hard on you. I especially remember talk of the Great Unrest of 1910-11 being portrayed as an alternative history scenario that was apparently impossible, when in fact it was actual British history. There were some interesting cultural alternatives put forward on there, around various pop stars living on, as well as a range of the 'classics'.
 
Such a pity there is no CD version. Not all of us have the facilities for downloading or playing such audio books. Also £31 seems very steep for something which was broadcast for free and funded by licence feed payments.

I see now that I should have transferred my cassette recordings to CD when I had the chance. I could have made some money with bootleg copies. So disappointed I cannot listen to this collection.
 
Such a pity there is no CD version. Not all of us have the facilities for downloading or playing such audio books. Also £31 seems very steep for something which was broadcast for free and funded by licence feed payments.

I see now that I should have transferred my cassette recordings to CD when I had the chance. I could have made some money with bootleg copies. So disappointed I cannot listen to this collection.
Cassette players are still pretty cheap and easy to get - not high quality (they all use a cheapo mechanism), but you don't need it for this kind of content.
 
Such a pity there is no CD version. Not all of us have the facilities for downloading or playing such audio books. Also £31 seems very steep for something which was broadcast for free and funded by licence feed payments.

The Audible app is free and available for Android and Apple phones and also for PC. An Audible subscription is £7.99 a month for one credit, which can be cancelled easily - no minimum period as far as I can see.
 
There was also a companion forum/bulletin board, which closed down shortly after the show stopped being broadcast. It was the gateway drug that lead me here.

I know the associated forum, due to the BBC's requirement to remain impartial, was always policed very carefully to block any discussion which 'strayed' into current political debate, despite the recent nature of some of the topics discussed.

As Stateless notes, there was indeed a forum and I was regularly on that; linking back with AH fans I had lost touch with. You did sometimes find people on there who were not as familiar with the actual history coming in hard on you. I especially remember talk of the Great Unrest of 1910-11 being portrayed as an alternative history scenario that was apparently impossible, when in fact it was actual British history. There were some interesting cultural alternatives put forward on there, around various pop stars living on, as well as a range of the 'classics'.

I'm intrigued to read about the forum as I didn't come across any mentions of it on the archived site. I can believe without question about the nature of how discussions might have been from what I've read and heard about the Doctor Who one that was run by BBCi for a time. Apparently paying for forum moderating ate a large chunk of their budget and became increasingly difficult as time went on. To the point that, when Russell T Davies came on-board to re-launch Who, one of the first things that he apparently requested was the forum being taken down as he didn't want that to be the place viewers of a new series went to after seeing episodes. He got his way, much to the relief of BBCi by all accounts.

So joyous to hear this news. I recorded it on cassette from the radio, back in the day but have nothing to play them on now. I have irregularly lobbied the BBC to make this show available. I had wondered if the delay was caused because of them having to clear it with so many prominent people who appeared on the show. I do wonder if this explains the absence of certain episodes that might be deemed 'sensitive' such as the Gulf War one.

I'm not sure if that's the case myself. Looking through Genome, I couldn't find a rhyme or reason for what was missing other than most came from the early years of the series. There's one about Lord Halifax becoming PM instead of Churchill, for example, that gets mentioned at the end of the 1947 Agriculture Act episode, for example, that I can't think of a reason why it would be a sore point not to include it. For that matter, if things weren't going to be included on those grounds, the 1992 Columbus episode or the Scottish and EU referendums I mentioned in the review might not have been included.
 
Such a pity there is no CD version. Not all of us have the facilities for downloading or playing such audio books. Also £31 seems very steep for something which was broadcast for free and funded by licence feed payments.

I was disappointed myself initially at the lack of a CD release. Then, thinking about it, I understood the reasoning behind it as part of a larger audiobook trend. The running time is 16.5 hours, including two hour long episodes. Those two would get their own discs, and with the rest running a half-hour you could get two per disc. You're looking at a sixteen disc box-set release to get what was released here onto physical media, which isn't unheard of but has become increasingly rare. It also doesn't help that, at least here in the US, CD players in new cars have gone the way of cassette players, which came as a surprise to me helping my mom and brother car shop in the last two years. It's true that there's still home players and stereos (I've got one sitting behind me, albeit unused in years), but physical media has increasingly become a collector's market. Whether that's for better or worse depends on your POV.

As for the licence fee, I know there's been back and forth between myself and others in the TV thread in the Pub that in an ideal world all of the BBC stuff would be free to watch/listen to online via iPlayer or accessible via a pay service for international audiences (with myself falling into the latter). Rights and co-production issues mean that isn't likely ever going to happen, particularly with the pressures already brought on the BBC. As such, I continue to be amazed how much stuff does get released and stays available.

The Audible app is free and available for Android and Apple phones and also for PC. An Audible subscription is £7.99 a month for one credit, which can be cancelled easily - no minimum period as far as I can see.

I was going to mention this, as well, as I got it through my Audible monthly plan for a price far less than the £31 purchase price on its own. I download audiobooks from them, load them into iTunes to place on my iPod Classic, and listened to What If? that way.
 
The Audible app is free and available for Android and Apple phones and also for PC. An Audible subscription is £7.99 a month for one credit, which can be cancelled easily - no minimum period as far as I can see.

A big problem when your gas and electricity rose £80 this month and you are struggling to pay for food. I do not own a smartphone, far too expensive. I got into being an author to pay the bills.
 
I was disappointed myself initially at the lack of a CD release. Then, thinking about it, I understood the reasoning behind it as part of a larger audiobook trend. The running time is 16.5 hours, including two hour long episodes. Those two would get their own discs, and with the rest running a half-hour you could get two per disc. You're looking at a sixteen disc box-set release to get what was released here onto physical media, which isn't unheard of but has become increasingly rare. It also doesn't help that, at least here in the US, CD players in new cars have gone the way of cassette players, which came as a surprise to me helping my mom and brother car shop in the last two years. It's true that there's still home players and stereos (I've got one sitting behind me, albeit unused in years), but physical media has increasingly become a collector's market. Whether that's for better or worse depends on your POV.


I have not owned a car newer than 10 years old, sometimes 20 years, so I am usually well behind in terms of technology. My last one moved me into the CD age. I have got a lot of audio books on CD especially from charity shops for blind charities or in hospitals and some have 10+ discs. I was very surprised when Munich (2017) by Robert Harris came out as a CD audio book, but I guess they knew the age or readers likely to be into it.
 
I'm not sure if that's the case myself. Looking through Genome, I couldn't find a rhyme or reason for what was missing other than most came from the early years of the series. There's one about Lord Halifax becoming PM instead of Churchill, for example, that gets mentioned at the end of the 1947 Agriculture Act episode, for example, that I can't think of a reason why it would be a sore point not to include it. For that matter, if things weren't going to be included on those grounds, the 1992 Columbus episode or the Scottish and EU referendums I mentioned in the review might not have been included.

This kind of thing led me to wonder if it came down to the attitude of individual contributors, if, for example, they had a book outlining their views better than in the programme. I know the BBC has tended to move away from deleting recordings, but they can come out erratically. It took ages for A Traveller in Time (1978) to be released on DVD despite sustained fan demand and the release of not so good series much sooner.
 
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