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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Start the Week: The fall of Maxwell – the end of an era.

The fall of Maxwell – the end of an era.

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, The fall of Maxwell – the end of an era.

Andrew Marr with John Preston, Julia Langdon and Emily Bell.

John Preston, Julia Langdon and Emily Bell discuss the rise and fall of the business tycoon Robert Maxwell, and the changing face of today’s media landscape.

He was born into abject poverty in Czechoslovakia, fought for the British and was decorated for his heroism in WWII, and became a successful businessman and press baron courted by political leaders around the world. Yet Robert Maxwell ended his life reviled as the embodiment of greed and corruption. The writer John Preston discusses his book, Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell, with Andrew Marr.

The journalist Julia Langdon was appointed the political editor of the Daily Mirror in 1984 when Maxwell owned the newspaper. She looks back at his often extraordinary behaviour. But Langdon also examines the difficult and changing relationship between those in power in politics and the media moguls.

Maxwell was brash and theatrical working from luxury apartments at his rechristened Maxwell House, complete with Doric columns at the entrance. Emily Bell, formerly a media journalist now academic at Columbia University, sees certain parallels with Trump Tower. But the media landscape since Maxwell’s days has changed dramatically, and it’s now the owners of today’s social media companies who wield the power.

Producer: Katy Hickman

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The fall of Maxwell – the end of an era.

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