Leading article: Farewell to the voices of a generation

The resilience of radio as a medium that millions continue to turn to is in no small part due to the bonds listeners form with people they would not recognise if they passed them in the street, but whose voices are almost as familiar to us as those of our own family.

It's an extraordinary and rather wonderful process. So when two voices whom the Radio 4 audience knows as well as Charlotte Green and Harriet Cass announce their departure from the network, we feel a perhaps surprising depth of loss.

The newsreader's art is an unconsidered one. But an art it assuredly is, and Green and Cass have shown complete mastery of it. Both newsreaders have been with the BBC since the 1970s, and kitchens throughout the land have been the calmer for their presence. The microphone has passed to a new generation. Can we keep things nice and mellifluous?