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The world's longest-running serial drama, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4's The Archers, will celebrate 60 years on air on Sunday 2 January 2011.

The much-loved drama, set in the fictional village of Ambridge, attracts an audience of over five million in the UK and has a worldwide following. First broadcast to the nation in 1951, daily life in Britain's favourite village continues to enthral audiences as much today as it did when it was first heard.

"I believe the secret to The Archers enduring popularity over the decades is a combination of characters that the audience can identify with, strong storylines and an affirmation of the importance of community in all our lives," says Vanessa Whitburn, who started as a producer on the show and has been editor of The Archers since 1991.

"We have a wonderfully loyal audience from right across the age spectrum. In the run-up to the anniversary episode we'll be hearing from some of those fans about their favourite moments from down the years and why they feel part of the Ambridge community."

Over the years, the drama has featured many famous names playing themselves, everyone from royalty – the late Princess Margaret and the Duke of Westminster – to DJs Sir Terry Wogan and John Peel and even artists and writers including Morse creator Colin Dexter and Sir Anthony Gormley. Dame Judi Dench and Richard Griffiths are among the famous actors who have appeared in the drama in character.

Since the very first episode, introduced with the words "An everyday tale of country folk," The Archers has been associated with its iconic theme tune, Barwick Green from the suite My Native Heath, written in 1924 by the Yorkshire composer Arthur Wood.

In 2007, The Archers made history once again when it became the first ´óÏó´«Ã½ audio drama to be available as a podcast. Hugely successful, the podcast has received 16.7m UK downloads (24.2m from the entire world including the UK) since launch, with an average of 500k UK downloads (732k entire world) per month this year to October.

The anniversary will be marked by a special 30-minute episode instead of the usual 15 minutes on the evening of 2 January 2011.

And, on the same day, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 7 will broadcast some archive Omnibus editions featuring favourite moments from The Archers over the years.

More information, including cast biographies, can be found on .

Notes to Editors

There's a growing audience of fans discussing The Archers online – many of them during the episodes – on the site's message boards or on Twitter.

For the anniversary episode on 2 January, there will be a visualisation of tweets made during the programme. This will show the changing tone of the audience's conversation and their reactions to the events of this momentous episode.

It will be viewable on the night on the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Archers website. Members of The Archers team will be tweeting that night and fans can join up with this mass conversation by tweeting using #thearchers.

KC