 By the mid-1970s, however, the audience for the two daily broadcasts and the weekend omnibus combined was less than 3 million and in 1976 the BBC Radio Four Review Board twice considered whether or not the programme should be axed.The serial's woes at this time were seen to mirror the poor standing of radio drama in general, described as "a failure to fully shake off the conventions of non-realism which had prevailed in the 1940s and 1950s.