From a warmhearted account of the miners' strike to Kathy Burke's Desert Island Discs, Elisabeth Mahoney selects her favourites of 2010
This has been a good year for radio. We've had record audience figures, testimony to radio's stubborn connection with listeners. As other media audiences fragment, radio listeners seem as dedicated to their favourite stations ? we each have 2.4 of those, according to recent research ? as ever.
It's partly that radio handily knits itself into whatever else you're doing, but it's also the stonking programmes. My favourites this year include Ballad of the Miners' Strike (March, Radio 2), a hugely moving and important testimony woven with folk music, archive clips and much warmth.
I also relished Desert Island Discs generally, but the Kathy Burke edition (August) in particular: this was fine radio, revelatory and life-affirming, and nothing more complicated than a chat over some music. Features is my favourite strand of radio, and there have been some crackers this year, most notably Heel, Toe, Step Together (December, Radio 4), a tenderly composed programme about an unlikely dancing friendship.
There were also some water cooler moments on radio: Chris Moyles ranting about not being paid; the death of Norman Painting, who played Phil Archer, and the delicate, moving way his on-air death was handled; James Naughtie's c-word slip when talking about Jeremy Hunt. These three couldn't be more different, but each programme has a fiercely loyal audience with a huge sense of connection to it.
There are more worrying issues. One wonders quite what will be left of the tremendous World Service once the budget cuts kick in, and radio drama has had a pruning with the loss of the Friday Play. The nationwide roll-out of commercial stations such as Smooth and Kiss means more listener choice, but we need to protect local radio too: it is, after all, what we turned to when the snow disrupted everyday life. But there remains much to cheer about: 2010 after all was the year when 6Music was threatened, then saved, and found a huge new audience.
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