radio math

This morning I learned that there is such a thing as Radio 7. My dial only goes to 4. My dial, truth be told, is permanently stuck to 4. I listen to nothing else. BBC Radio 4 used to wake me up in the morning and fill me with a sleepy hour of news, hard-hitting interviews and pithy weather reports. Now that the relentless buzzer has taken over the unenviable task of annoying me out of bed, the radio only comes on in the kitchen, but the program is the same. For the rest of the day, I don't do radio.

Radio 7 is broadcast digitally. I doubt that any of my radios receive it. The same holds true for 6 Music, which was at the center of an internet storm a year ago when the BBC proposed to shut it down because of general austerity and a particular lack of audience. The digital radio world is filled with any number of obscure broadcasters that don't reach more than a handful of listeners. 6 Music made headline news when a strong online campaign managed to save it. Being a 4 person, I have yet to listen to it.

It wasn't quite true when I said earlier that I don't do radio for the rest of the day. Sometimes at night I turn it on when I prepare dinner. Tonight, a familiar voice was on the air, but one that didn't quite fit. Garrison Keillor had left the quiet life of Lake Wobegon behind to be interviewed on Front Row. He presented his first collection of poetry, published as a book and read out by the author himself.

The interview is vintage Keillor, a rambling contemplation on poetry, life, love, and the non-existing significance of the number 77. The words are carefully chosen to sound as if they had spontaneously popped up. The elocution is soothing, almost sedative. This is not a good show to listen to when you're driving – it nearly put the interviewer to sleep – but it's great for relaxing after a day at work.

At the end of the broadcast the presenter let it be known that Garrison Keillor's radio show can be heard on Radio 7, which, I forgot to mention earlier, is to be renamed Radio 4 Extra. That's what the news was about this morning. I can't see how it would matter to me.