Just a Minute Just a Minute Just a Minute is a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy and television panel game chaired by Nicholas Parsons. Its first transmission on Radio 4 was on 22 December 1967, three months after the station's launch. The Radio 4 programme won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award in 2003. The object of the game is for panellists to talk for sixty seconds on a given subject, "without hesitation, repetition or deviation". The comedy comes from attempts to keep within these rules and the banter among the participants. In 2011 comedy writer David Quantick ascribed "Just a Minute"'s success
Today (BBC Radio 4) department in 1963, and started to become more news-orientated. The two editions also became longer, and by the end of the 1960s it had become a single programme two hours in length that enveloped the news bulletins and the religious talk that had become "Thought for the Day" in 1970. In May 1977, Radio 4 controller Ian McIntyre cut it to two 25-minute parts, filling the gap with "Up to the Hour". The new format was unpopular with BBC staff, including Peter Donaldson who on at least one occasion openly ridiculed the programme on air. It also provoked comments in