Borsetshire Borsetshire Borsetshire is a fictional county in the BBC Radio 4 series "The Archers". Its county town is the equally fictional Borchester. The county is supposedly set between Worcestershire and Warwickshire, but is also intended as a generic West Midlands rural county. Its name also echoes Anthony Trollope's fictional Barsetshire and the real Dorsetshire. Other places in the county include Ambridge, where "The Archers" is mainly set, Lower Loxley, a nearby village and Felpersham, a cathedral city which appears to be larger than Borchester. Ambridge is on the B3980 six miles south of Borchester and seventeen miles west of Felpersham.
Soap opera primarily broadcast live, interspersed with short pre-recorded film clips and still photos to remind the audience of the previous week's episode. The first long-running prime time soap opera was "Peyton Place" (1964–1969) on ABC. It was based in part on the eponymous 1957 film (which, in turn, was based on the 1956 novel). The popularity of "Peyton Place" prompted the CBS network to spin-off popular "As the World Turns" character Lisa Miller into her own evening soap opera, "Our Private World" (originally titled "The Woman Lisa" in its planning stages). "Our Private World" was broadcast from May to September 1965.