BBC 6 Music Interrupts Radio Four

Last night the broadcast of BBC Radio Four was interrupted when part of 6 Music was broadcast instead.

Radio Four listeners tuning in for the 7pm instalment of rural soap The Archers may have been wondering what was going on last night as instead of the usual theme tune got a song from 6 Music instead. For three minutes last night the signal of BBC Radio Four was interrupted by BBC 6 Music with a track by The Undertones playing on the national radio station.

It prompted speculation on Twitter that the interruption in service on BBC Radio Four was anything but accidental. Tweets on the social networking site speculated that instead it was “guerrilla broadcasting” and was part of the campaign to save the digital station from closure. This suggestion has of course been denied by the BBC  who state it was merely a technical error which resulted in 6 Music interrupting Radio Four.

The Archers is the longest running soap in the UK, produced in Birmingham for the BBC. It airs twice a day and is listened to by nearly 7 million listeners. The rural soap is one of the more topical of the soaps; covering issues such as Foot and Mouth, the ban on Fox hunting and Swine Flu while such things were in the headlines.

It memorably killed of Grace Archer [Ysanne Churchman] in 1955 in a barn fire to get listeners to tune into the soap instead of the first night of commercial television in the UK.