Your Hundred Best Tunes

Your Hundred Best Tunes was a long-running BBC radio music programme, always broadcast on Sunday evenings, which presented popular works which were mostly classical excerpts, choral works, opera and ballads. The hundred tunes which made up the playlist were initially selected by the creator and presenter, Alan Keith. Subsequently, tunes were suggested by requests and polls of listeners.

It was first broadcast on 15 November 1959 on the BBC Light Programme under the title The Hundred Best Tunes in the World which it used until 7 February 1960, when Alan Keith's personal list of one hundred had all been played. The more familiar title was adopted from 14 February 1960 onwards. At this point it ran for half an hour from 10 to 10.30 pm, but from 25 December 1960 it was extended and moved to earlier in the evening, running from 7.35 to 8.30 pm. From 12 March 1961 it adopted the 9 to 10 pm time slot which it would occupy for the rest of its life, on four different networks: it moved from the Light Programme to the Home Service from 5 January 1964, and remained there after it became Radio 4 from 1 October 1967, but returned to what had been the Light Programme, now renamed Radio 2, from 5 April 1970.

The last show was transmitted on 21 January 2007 – a remarkable run of over 47 years. For most of this time, it was presented by the original creator, Alan Keith, who continued up to the age of 94. After his death in 2003, Richard Baker presented the show. Holiday guest presenters included Lady Evelyn Barbirolli, Rosalind Runcie, Earl Spencer and Ursula Vaughan Williams.

The show was terminated by controversial BBC controller Lesley Douglas, who replaced it with a longer Melodies for You, presented by Alan Titchmarsh, which continued to play music from the same repertoire until it too was cancelled in 2011.