The Archers

The Archers is a British soap opera in the form of a radio play on BBC Radio 4 radio series has been running for over 60 years and is the oldest still running radio soap opera series in the world.

It tells the rural life in a fictional place called Ambridge in the fictional English county of Borsetshire. Borsetshire should be between Warwickshire and Worcestershire, so in the West Midlands to the south of Birmingham. The family " Archer " is an agricultural working family in Ambridge.

The series started on 13 February 1950, a pilot scale, since January 1, 1951 sends the BBC every weekday a consequence. Meanwhile, the individual episodes are broadcast from Sunday to Friday. By early 2011 16300 episodes have been produced.

The series originally also fulfilled an educational mandate by the modernization of rural life and the use of modern technology in agriculture were included in the action with. This approach was abandoned in 1972.

The series is broadcast every night from Sunday to Friday at 19 clock local time on BBC Radio 4 and repeated on the following day by 14 clock, except on Saturdays. Sunday morning at 10 clock there is an omnibus edition, which summarizes all the consequences of the previous week. There is also a podcast.

The " Archers " are to this day in addition to the news programs, the most frequently heard broadcast on Radio 4 every week follow about 5 million listeners, the radio play. In June 2007, the " Archers " with over one million listeners were online the show with the highest audience rating.

After the fictional place where plays the series, a rose has been named the ' Ambridge Rose'.