Letter from America
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Letter from America was a weekly 15-minute radio series on BBC Radio 4, previously called the Home Service, which ran for 2,869 shows from March 24, 1946 to February 20, 2004, making it the longest-running speech radio programme in history.
It was presented by the late Alistair Cooke, who each week spoke of a topical issue in the USA, often tying together different strands of observation and anecdote. He frequently ended his letters on a humorous or poignant note.
Letter from America had its origin in London Letter, a 15-minute talk for American listeners on life in Britain that Cooke recorded during the 1930s while working as London correspondent for NBC. London Letter came to an end when Cooke emigrated to America in 1937, but it was not long before he suggested to the BBC the idea of continuing the idea in reverse. A prototype, Mainly About Manhattan, was broadcast intermittently from 1938, but the idea was shelved with the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The first American Letter was broadcast on March 24, 1946; the change of title to Letter from America came in 1950. Initially confirmed for only 13 instalments, the series lasted nearly 58 years and gathered an enormous audience, being broadcast not only in Britain and in many other Commonwealth countries, but throughout the world by the BBC World Service.
On March 2, 2004, at the age of 95, following advice from his doctors, Cooke announced his retirement from Letter from America; he died less than a month later, on March 30, 2004, at his home in New York City. A compilation of the program's transcripts was published in 2004.
