The Day the BBC Called

I had an odd day a couple of weeks ago. There was a radio drama, The Great Charter, that I had listened to that updated the story of the Magna Carta and placed it into the future. It focused the rights of those on the internet, who owned data, who controlled information. It asked really good questions and framed them in a way that wasn't black-and-white. It made you think and didn't really make you comfortable with the answers it was willing to provide. It was a really good drama

Since I couldn't remember what time the show was on, and at the time, searching for "Great Charter BBC" just got me the BBC's charter, I tweeted one of the presenters that I interact with double-checking the time. She got back to me, I listened to it, it was great. I didn't think anything else of it.

Then, at 6 in the morning, when I couldn't sleep and I was playing on Twitter, I noticed I had a message from "Over To You BBC", the account for the listener feedback show asking if I could DM them and if I'd be willing to talk about the show. OK. Why not.

Four or Five messages later, I send over my phone number. Within two minutes the phone is ringing and the Caller-ID is showing a UK phone number. This was really happening. I answer the phone and the producer and I talk for about 15 minutes. She records the conversation to use parts of it in the show. As we're wrapping up, she said that they usually have a person live on the phone during the taping to ask questions and if I would be interested. This was a pretty easy "Yes". "Excellent! It'll be tomorrow morning at 2:00 PM BST so it'll be about 8:00 AM your time?" Completely doable.

I was given a "homework" assignment to come up with a couple of questions that I'd like to ask the director of the drama and the Commissioning Editor of the BBC (the person who picks what makes it to air). I wrote them up, the producer edited them, we emailed a couple of more times, and then I waited for 8:00 AM the next day for my phone to ring.

I answered the call and talked with the producer again, one of the technicians, and then the presenter Rajan Datar came on and started talking. This is a voice I had heard on my radio for countless shows. Now I'm on the phone with him. It was all a little surreal. In all, I'm on the phone about 45 minutes. They have their discussion about radio drama in general, I get to join the conversation and ask my questions, and then we chat for a bit after.

The strangest part, aside from the fact that I was on a phone call from London, was they kept thanking me for being up so early and talking with them. It was 8:00 AM. I'm normally up at 6:00 AM. In England, is it really OK not to be fully engaged and social before 9;00 AM? If so, I think I might start looking to move....

At any rate, the show aired 5 days later on Saturday. We sat and listened to it and my 10 minutes of talking the phone was cut down to just a minute or two, about what I expected for an edit. It'll be posted on their website until who knows when. After years of listening to the BBC overnight on the radio, it was an absolute thrill to finally be on the air and have my name up on the website.

Thanks Over to You!