The end for Oneword? 

4 January 2008 tbs.pm/11

Channel 4 pulls out of digital speech station

When it was started seven years ago, it was seen as the first big competitor for Radio 4. As ever, the hype never really lived up to the expectation and for some time, Oneword has been quietly and peacefully broadcasting away its mixture of books and plays.

Ultimately though, it never got anywhere. The station was barely promoted, and there’s no doubt that the launch of BBC7 made things more costly by depriving Oneword of a significant amount of potentially cheap archive programming

When Channel 4 bought a stake in the business, there seemed some hope that the station would be picked up from the doldrums. Channel 4 News was brought in to bring an early morning news programme – a sign that the station might morphed into a new radio speech station the UK could be proud of.

It never happened, and when shareholder UBC Media, wrote off its shareholding, the end was in sight. Channel 4 sold back its stake for just £1. Channel 4 still plan to launch a new speech station – however it won’t be based on Oneword.