Today was launched on the BBC's Home Service on October 28, 1957 as a programme of "topical talks" to give listeners a morning alternative to light music. It was initially broadcast as two 20-minute editions slotted in around the exisiting news bulletins and religious items. In 1963 it became part of the BBC's Current Affairs department, and it started to become more news-oriented. The two editions also became longer, and by the end of the 1960s it had become a single two-hour long programme that enveloped the news bulletins and the religious talk that had become "Thought For The Day". It was cut back to two parts in 1976-1978, but was swiftly returned to its former position.
Jack de Manio became its principal presenter in 1958. He became notorious for on-air gaffes. In 1970 the programme format was changed so that there were two presenters each day. De Manio left in 1971, and by 1975 the team of John Timpson and Brian Redhead was well established. This arrangement lasted until Timpson's retirement in 1986, when John Humphrys and Sue MacGregor joined the rotating list of presenters. After Redhead's untimely death in late 1993, James Naughtie became a member of the team. Sarah Montague replaced MacGregor in 2002.
The show reached a peak in terms of influence in the 1980s, when prime minister Margaret Thatcher was a noted listener. Ministers thus became keen to go on the programme and be heard by their leader; but the tough, confrontational interviewing style they encountered led to accusations that the BBC was biased. Criticism was particularly directed against Redhead, who was widely seen as being on the left. The style of the male interviewers was analysed and contrasted with that of McGregor, who was alleged to be giving subjects an easier time. The "big 8.10" interview that follows the 8 o'clock news remains an important institution of British politics to this day.
Today regularly holds an end-of-year poll. For many years this took the form of write-in votes for the Man and Woman of the Year. This was stopped after an episode of organised vote-rigging in 1990, but was soon revived as a telephone vote for a single Personality of the Year. A further episode of vote-rigging, in favour of Tony Blair in 1996, forced the programme makers to consider more innovative polling questions.
Since 1970 the programme has featured Thought for the Day, in which a speaker reflects on topical issues from a theological viewpoint. Notable contributors to the slot include Rabbi Lionel Blue and Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford. Over the years the slot has featured an increasing number of speakers from religions other than Christianity, though Christian speakers remain in a substantial majority.
Today found itself in the midst of controversy again in 2002, when its editor Rod Liddle wrote a column in The Guardian that was extremely critical of the Countryside Alliance. He eventually resigned from his post on Today.
Journalist and historian Peter Hennessy has asserted in two books that one of the tests that the commander of a British nuclear-missile submarine must use to determine whether the UK has been the target of a nuclear attack (in which case he has sealed orders which may authorise him to fire his nuclear missiles in retalliation) is to listen for the presence of Today on Radio 4's frequencies. If a certain number of days pass without the programme being broadcast, that is to be taken as evidence that the envelope may be opened. The true conditions are of course secret, and Hennessy has never revealed his sources for this story, leading Paul Donovan, author of a book about Today, to express some scepticism about it.
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