What I am about to tell you will give you a nasty shock: soon, there may be an alternative. There are some moments in history when, after oppression by a gigantic monolith, the individual is finally given a choice. The fall of communism, springs to mind, as does the arrival of the chocolate Hob Nob. Now, at last, an end to Radio 4’s monopoly, which began with the Home Service in 1939.

In the next few days Ofcom will announce a new “national commercial radio multiplex”. I know this sounds as exciting as You and Yours on a wet Wednesday afternoon, but it means the beginning of a fierce race for control of a new set of digital radio channels.

One of the favourite companies to win, Channel 4 television, has said it will offer the first direct competitor to Radio 4 — the rival news, feature and documentary-based station the country has been missing for so long.

A new Radio 4? Never, the fans cry, the old one is already too targeted at the “metropolitan elite”, junks too many traditions, panders too much to youth. On all counts, my first response is: if only. And secondly: that’s exactly what any rival should do. This year every adult in the UK listened to an average of two and half hours of Radio 4 per week, and about one in ten of us regularly tunes in. But these figures are nothing for the BBC to crow about. Many of us switch on not because we want to, but because we don’t have any choice — there is only one national channel that is not reliant on music or cheap live chat. To the words “smug” and “cosy” that are associated with Radio 4, I would add “complacent”. Millions are ready to defect.

Take the absurd myth that Radio 4 is somehow too “London-centric”. A typical day’s programming gives the impression of a broadcast to rally isolated sheep-herders on the Russian steppes: the Shipping Forecast and Farming Today grind on to The Archers, Gardeners’ Question Time and Open Country. Shipping for a nation with a tiny and dwindling number of fishermen or sailors, farming for our tiny and dwindling number of farmers? Where are the special programmes for those who live, as most of us do, in cities? There are none. The Today programme — admittedly excellent in other ways — might be broadcast from London, but its attitudes are pure Chipping Sodbury. The huffs and puffs of indignation at any innovation are like a static buzz.

It is no secret that Radio 4’s demographic is older, but does the mindset have to be so yawningly, Thought-for-the-Day-ishly, fuddy-duddy? One marker of this is Today presenters’ use of the word “indeed” as a rejoinder to almost anything their guests say.

The kind of people who still say “indeed” in the 21st century are ancient dons who want to patronise their students, because it means, effectively: “I have heard what you are saying many times before and it does not impress me one jot.” The Today studio rings with so many “indeeds” that it can sound like volatile exchange in a Restoration comedy.

Which brings me on to arts. The Afternoon Play creaks out the sort of amateur dramatic productions that were popular when the Home Service was founded, and remain fossilised in the immovable stone schedules. The kindest description of the 6.30pm comedy slot is “parlour-room”, the brand of antiquated drollery that has lost favour in every other walk of British life. The players’ plummy voices sound as if they are constricted by the wearing of very tight bow-ties.

Radio 4, if we are honest, isn’t very good. By which I don’t mean that every programme on Radio 4 is bad — indeed, far from it. There are some excellent shows, and others that I have become fond of by dint of clocking up so many radio hours. I have omitted them because the fault does not lie with their talented staff. The fault lies with the strategic vision of the station, which has lost ambition.

It has lost the ambition to reflect life in contemporary Britain, in particular to appeal to those in their twenties and their thirties, or those who want programming that is surprising and risky as well as thoughtful, or those who live a life other than that of the rural middle-class. Most of all, it has lost the ambition to change.

For that, I sympathise. Witness the furore earlier this year when the irritating UK Theme, at 5.30am, was dispensed with. A mere five minutes of change and the storm of protest grew so loud that the Chancellor of the Exchequer even weighed in, calling the tune an essential symbol of Britishness. Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC, said that a commercial rival to Radio 4 will be “good for the BBC and for competition”, but, if such a station does emerge as the winner of the Ofcom competition next spring, I am not sure that the BBC is in a position to respond to any threat. The old-guard fans will prevent that.

Instead, they should leave the schedules preserved exactly as they are, as they always have been, seal the gates of Radio 4 and throw away the key. If that is what the traditionalists want, give it to them. The rest of us can tiptoe next door.

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