The show also occasionally worked as a forum for the BBC World Service's global audience to put questions to a particular guest.

[7] The BBC World Service launched the programme in October 2005, featuring Anu Anand and Steve Richards as presenters and Mark Sandell as editor.

Since February 2011 the programme had a weekly television edition on BBC World News on Fridays produced by the same production team.

Topics for discussions were set by listeners,[8] who could email the show prior to it going on air each day, or even call into the studio office.

Some of the comments left on the WHYS blog and Facebook site, together with emails, Tweets and SMS text messages, were read on the air.