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Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to your questions about In Our Time - on air and online.

Why can’t I the latest episode immediately after broadcast?

Since the launch of BBC Sounds, some podcasts have been available first or only on our own digital platform. Now the BBC is trialling making a number of radio programmes including In Our Time available on-demand for a month first on BBC Sounds after broadcast on Radio 4.

If you want to listen to our episodes immediately after broadcast you can do so on the BBC Sounds website or app. You can also these episodes on the BBC Sounds app.

Episodes will be available on other podcast platforms 28 days after broadcast. The BBC is doing this as we want more people to use Sounds to listen to favourite programmes where they can easily discover more from the BBC. Read more about the trial

Do you read the emails listeners send you?

Your views about the programme are important to us and the producer reads all your emails. Owing to the number of emails we receive, however, we may not be able to respond to every message individually.

Do you have transcripts of the programmes?

We don’t make transcripts of our programmes in the course of our work, so don’t have any to share (and can’t justify the cost of making these for individual requests).

What happened to the indices that used to be on the website?

The A-Z index and Year/Month index were both removed in November 2019, at the same time as other BBC indices. All the websites were being rebuilt and it was too complicated and expensive to adapt or rebuild those pages. They may be restored at some point, in another form.

Online search engines are a good way to find individual episodes. This Wikipedia page is also a useful resource.

Would you like suggestions for episodes?

Yes please! We welcome suggestions throughout the year. We make a note of these, adding them to a list and, even if we can’t yet make programmes from them, we like to know what you are interested in as we take that into when planning ahead.

Where are the podcasts for the old programmes?

You can find all of our 1000+ episodes since 1998 on BBC Sounds and on other podcast providers. When it comes to the separate collections for In Our Time History, In Our Time Philosophy, In Our Time Culture, In Our Time Religion and In Our Time Science, you will find that each contains the most recent 200 to 300 episodes while the earlier editions can still be found on BBC Sounds.

Where are the reading lists Melvyn mentions?

They are in the longer versions of the text which accompanies each episode.

For episodes broadcast before September 2023, you will find them on the programme pages of the In Our Time website, about half way down, below the main purple block, headed "Links and Further Reading".

These reading suggestions come from our guests.

What happened to Melvyn’s newsletter?

This stopped in 2014 and you can find the last one here.

This is what Melvyn said:

“I started doing this some time ago when – and for reasons too trivial to go into – I decided that I would dictate it as I was walking along, and (this may seem perverse) that I would not read it. (Again, too boring to go into.) I’ve loved doing it and thank you very much those of you who have responded so warmly. But this will be my last blog for In Our Time. BBC Radio has to make economies and as resources are scanter than before, it needs, rightly, to concentrate them on programmes. But I’ve enjoyed sharing my wanderings with you over the years. Thank you for reading them.”

Do you offer work experience?

We are not able to offer work experience but here’s a link to some information about what the BBC does offer: https://careers.bbc.co.uk/content/EC_Get-In/.

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