\u201cI know my attention span has been hammered since the advent of the smartphone,\u201d he adds. \u201cFor young people, it must be exhausting following TikTok the whole time and all the other distractions that are going on \u2014 utterly shattering and exhausting. And just to listen and consider is a really valuable thing that this programme offers to the audience.\u201d <\/p>\n
So, who is In Our Time\u2019s new frontman? Brought up in London and Oxford, the son of the Russian literature translator Michael, Glenny studied German and drama at the University of Bristol. He flirted with the idea of becoming an actor but \u201cvery sensibly, I decided against that\u201d. <\/p>\n
Instead, he pursued linguistics \u2014 he can speak German, Czech, Serbo-Croat, Portuguese and French, with \u201csmatterings of Hungarian and Albanian\u201d \u2014 before a career in journalism beckoned. He made his name reporting for the BBC on the Balkan wars and latterly as a writer of books. He wrote McMafia, about post-Soviet Union corruption, and was an executive producer on the BBC drama series of the same name, which starred James Norton<\/a>.<\/p>\n Glenny wrote McMafia and was an executive producer on the BBC drama series of the same name, which starred James Norton<\/p>\n NICK WALL\/BBC<\/p>\n Clearly, Glenny, who has served as the rector of Vienna\u2019s Institute for Human Sciences since 2022, and is the husband of his fellow BBC broadcaster Kirsty Lang, has the bona fides for In Our Time, but his appointment still came as a surprise to many. <\/p>\n Stephen Fry, the household name, former QI presenter and sometime actor, had been tipped as the man to breathe new life into Bragg\u2019s old show. \u201cI was told that Stephen didn\u2019t apply,\u201d Glenny says, politely ignoring a subtle invitation to look down his nose at last year\u2019s The Celebrity Traitors<\/a> contestant. \u201cThere was apparently a lot of mythology around [Fry getting the job]. Of course, he would have been very brilliant, precisely because he\u2019s such a polymath and so erudite and a great talker.\u201d <\/p>\n Glenny seems intent on not rocking the boat when he makes his debut on In Our Time. \u201cI will not be going in like a bulldozer,\u201d is how he puts it. \u201cMelvyn\u2019s legacy is absolutely huge and I want to build on that rather than demolish it.\u201d <\/p>\n He says the show\u2019s three producers and editor will \u201cset the agenda entirely for the first couple of months or so \u2014 they\u2019ve already got a whole series of topics lined up. But after that I want to do it in collaboration with them.\u201d He has his sights set on the Seven Years\u2019 War and microchips. <\/p>\n Glenny\u2019s challenges will stretch beyond merely filling the void left by the much-loved Bragg, 86. Like the BBC at large, In Our Time needs to fight to retain relevance in an age when the state-owned broadcaster is losing ground to digital media. <\/p>\n \u2022 Melvyn Braggs\u2019s manifesto for magic moments<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult not to view The Rest Is History, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland\u2019s wildly popular podcast, as a direct competitor, with listeners moving away from radio schedules and towards Spotify. And their success is encouraging others to have a go. Even Piers Morgan has a history podcast (although History Uncensored, while produced by Morgan\u2019s company, is hosted by the former CNN anchor Bianca Nobilo). <\/p>\n \u201cMy hat goes off to them,\u201d Glenny says of Sandbrook and Holland. \u201cJust as In Our Time evolved under Melvyn, it will evolve under me, if only because the media environment is different and you have to find ways of competing with shows like The Rest Is History without simply aping them.\u201d <\/p>\n Glenny\u2019s plan, after settling his feet under the In Our Time desk, is to find ways \u201cforward in a world that is dominated by TikTok<\/a>, by podcasts, where the BBC\u2019s radio monopoly has effectively been breached and it needs to react in a different way\u201d. But he has no interest in pursuing the popular \u201ctalking-heads podcast\u201d approach. <\/p>\n Many podcasts stretch out their discussions on topics over several hours or even multiple episodes. The Rest Is History, for instance, recently released a five-part series on Jack the Ripper. Might In Our Time extend its discussions beyond the standard 45 minutes? <\/p>\n![\"Alex](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/6c6d0df1-743b-4c41-8152-cebf4bd17683.jpg\")
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