Legacy: Fourth phase public service broadcasting in Northern Ireland

This article examines the importance of radio in the context of public service broadcasting in Northern Ireland. It analyses the strategies used by BBC Northern Ireland to engage with the problems of the last thirty years, and argues that technological and audience developments have produced a new listening environment that demands new modes of broadcast address. The Legacy series, broadcast in Northern Ireland during 1999, is used as a case study to illustrate the ways in which this new mode of address is being constructed. The article uses examples from the Legacy broadcasts to illustrate the fact that radio in Northern Ireland could be entering a new editorial phase aimed at complementing the political changes enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement.