Promises Promises

In October 1973 The Observer’s radio critic Paul Ferris wondered what the fledging ILR stations would serve up:

LBC’s original application to the Independent Broadcasting Authority for its franchise talked about a daily breakfast-time programme that would “transmit our own editorial conferences ‘live’ so that listeners can be involved in our news-gathering … with no attempts to conceal our own mistakes”. This has been quietly dropped. Says Mr Cudlipp (Michael Cudlipp, chief editor): “I’ve never been at an editorial conference where journalists do anything other than mutter or swear.”

The programme director of Capital Radio, in which the Observer has an 11½% interest, is a former BBC television producer Micahel Bukht, who says they will be an “adult pop music station in the daytime”.  Between the music will be the usual interviews and news.

Drama will be represented by several soap operas. The Mistresses will be a bit of romance about King Charles II and his girls (Mr Bukht describes it as “thigh-squeezing time”), Bed Sit will be about a London boarding house, and Me and ‘Er will be a topical five-minuter. “If it’s raining outside,” says Mr Bukht, “we can have it raining in the script.”