ABSTRACT
With these evocative words emerging from the sleepy strains of a classical lullaby, each daily broadcast of the BBC radio children’s program Listen with Mother (1950-82) encouraged its pre-school audiences to settle down quietly and lend their ears to the mix of story and song about to emanate from the loudspeaker as their mothers listened alongside. The very phrase “Listen with Mother” conjures up an image of the archetypal domestic radio audience of the type that were endlessly reproduced in the promotional and critical material during radio’s “golden age,” while effortlessly seeming to connect this modern mode of media consumption with more traditional forms of storytelling-and listening.
