British Radio

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/2226061

A shocked woman discovered with an at-home DNA test that her real father was a removals man from Essex whose sperm had been used without his permission by a Harley Street fertility doctor.

The disturbing story is set to be revealed in The Gift, a new BBC radio series which will air from next Monday.

It explores how millions of Britons and others across the world have taken tests sold by firms including Ancestry.co.uk and 23andMe, often after being given them as presents from friends and family.

It's a classic sensationalist (and over-long, I had to cut it in half) headline from the Daily Fail but it's a pretty sensational story of sperm theft but all properly researched and soberly presented and I'd recommend that you listen to the Radio 4 episode, it's a real rollercoaster ride.

The premise of the series is that a lot of British people have taken home DNA tests for genealogical purposes and, while everyone is warned to be careful in case you uncover some hidden family secret, there are some extreme cases which are even more unexpected.

Until recently, Bryan Johnson was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to infuse one litre of his teenage son’s youthful plasma into his own ageing blood stream every month. “I’ve never paid more attention to what he’s eating … because that was going into my body,” the 46-year-old American tech entrepreneur says on new podcast The Immortals. He also pumped his own plasma into his 70-year-old father’s body to help improve his declining physical and cognitive health: “It was one of the most meaningful moments in his entire life. And it was the same for me.” Johnson continues to pay $2m a year for a research team to investigate how we can live longer – and he is certainly not the only rich guy in Silicon Valley dedicated to the search for eternal life.

“It took us ages to find somebody to talk to us,” says technology reporter and psychologist Aleks Krotoski, who hosts the BBC Radio 4 series. “Strangely, people who take the blood of the young are a bit reserved … ”

BBC Radio 2 lost more than a million listeners since Ken Bruce left the station for commercial rival Greatest Hits Radio, according to official audience data.

Bruce spent three decades presenting the same mid-morning timeslot on Radio 2, where his mild-mannered style and Popmaster music quiz helped build the biggest audience in British radio.

Yet BBC bosses failed to nail down their most popular presenter on a new contract, enabling Bruce to jump ship to Greatest Hits Radio to present a show in a similar timeslot. Bruce was also able to take Popmaster from the BBC to his new employer, after personally securing the trademark during the 1990s.

The move has turned out to be an enormous success for Bruce and Greatest Hits Radio, with quarterly Rajar figures showing his new show reached 3 million listeners a week between April and June.

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This fresh take on the satirical comedy slot will feature new programmes from the likes of Rachel Parris, who will kick off the series with a range of comic characters including digital stars Rosie Holt and Michael Spicer; Dom Joly, who will take a mischievous approach to investigating the week’s biggest stories; Ria Lina, bringing a global perspective to the news with comedians from around the world sharing news from their countries; Catherine Bohart, who will take a deep dive into the roots of a news story; Rhys James, bringing his trademark quick wit to interrogate the news; and Andrew Hunter Murray hosts the latest creation from The Skewer’s Jon Holmes, which takes aim at the way the news is packaged and presented.

The specials will be broadcast in Radio 4’s popular Friday Night Comedy slot this summer, between series of Dead Ringers and The News Quiz. Friday Night Comedy is also hugely popular on BBC Sounds – last quarter, it was among the top ten on demand radio programmes and top twenty most-downloaded programmes globally. Each special will be available after broadcast, first on BBC Sounds and on RSS soon after.

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