Radio 4 Legal Show ‘Law in Action’ Hit By BBC Cuts

Law in Action, the long-running Radio 4 legal programme, is to have its funding scaled back as part of a £500,000 cost-saving at the BBC.

The show’s normal schedule – which sees 12 episodes broadcast a year – will continue until at least 2013. From then it had been suggested that fewer episodes will be recorded. However, this now seems unlikely, with the show expected to continue on its current schedule on a reduced budget for the foreseeable future.

Law in Action has been running since 1984, and is broadcast 12 Tuesdays each year at 4pm, and is repeated on Thursdays at 8pm. It’s also available on iPlayer.

Recently, the blogosphere has spawned a host of legal podcasts attempting to give Law in Action a run for its money. The most successful to date has been the #Without Prejudice podcast, hosted by former BPP law school lecturer Mike Semple Piggott and Preiskel & Co lawyer/New Statesman legal correspondent David Allen Green (see comment below), although it continues to be dogged by sound quality issues.

For listeners in search of a more irreverent experience, Legal Cheek’s RoundMyKitchenTable podcast, in which guests are plied with booze beforehand then forced to gossip about their colleagues, runs every Friday – and is also available on iTunes.