Toast - Reader's Digest UK
Why did we lose Reader's Digest magazine when it is still going in America?
The BBC Business journalist, Sean Farrington, discovers what happened to the brand which started over a hundred years ago and became the most widely read magazine in the world.
Alongside him is the serial entrepreneur, Sam White, ready to offer her opinions on the business's fortunes.
How did a magazine which pinched articles from other publications become so successful? And why did it end up toast in the UK?
Sean speaks to: - Sir Alexander McCall Smith, the best-selling author of The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency who also wrote for The Reader's Digest- Richard Junger, Professor of Communication at Western Michigan State University- Tom Browne, a former editor of Reader's Digest UK- Gary Hopkins, a former owner of the business's UK division- Jason Buhrmester, Chief Content Officer for Magazines & Books at Trusted Media Brands which owns the Reader's Digest brand, still publishes it in America and licenses it for publicaiton in other parts of the world.
Produced by Jon Douglas. Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
You can email the programme at [email protected]
Feel free to suggest topics which could be covered in future episodes.
Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in December, where Greg Foot investigates so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds.
Sliced Bread
While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers.
In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist Sean Farrington examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt?
Some of the world’s most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world’s most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently?
The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand’s fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions.
From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked.
Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations on 3 July, 2025. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread.
In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds. For this brand new series of Toast, episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode on BBC Sounds first, a week earlier than anywhere else.
Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.
- No. of episodes: 158
- Latest episode: 2025-06-05
- Health & Fitness Science
Where can you listen?
