An Everyday Story of an Omnibus Edition

As any BBC Radio 4 controller knows, you ‘refresh’ the schedules at your peril. And what’s more, to tinker with The Archers is sure to incur the wrath of any dyed-in-the-wool Ambridge fan. Cue the letters in green ink and emails fired off to Feedback.

But this is exactly what Radio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya is doing from next month as the Sunday omnibus edition of The Archers is shifted by an hour to the later start time of 11am. Taking its place after Broadcasting House is an extended one hour Desert Island Discs. As a sop to listeners whose Sunday morning routines will now be in disarray the omnibus edition will be available online at midnight, presumably so that Archers listeners can play it out for themselves just after Paddy O’Connell has signed off.

To be fair the omnibus edition has been at 10am on Sundays for the last 26 years. It was moved forward by 15 minutes in April 1998 under the controllership of James Boyle. He’d gain himself something of a reputation as schedule meddler -in-chief, changing the time of the weekday editions of The Archers from 1.40pm to 2pm, dropping the repeat of the Friday edition (reinstated in the new changes) and adding a Sunday evening edition.  Boyle also extended Today, changed the start time of Woman’s Hour lopped 10 minutes off The World at One and dropped the likes of Kaleidoscope (for Front Row), Week Ending, Sport on 4 and Breakaway. Interestingly Desert Island Discs also moved from 12.15pm to 11.15am where it also has remained until next month.     

But surely The Archers omnibus edition has always been on a Sunday morning? Well, no it hasn’t, as this dip into the schedules of Radio 4, the Light Programme and the Home Service will demonstrate.

7.30 pm on Saturday

Well that surprised you. Yes, when the omnibus editions first started on 5 January 1952 – a year after the programme had first been nationally broadcast – it was on a Saturday night. In 1952 it was on the Light Programme so followed programmes such as Sports Report, Jazz Club and Radio Newsreel.

4.00 pm on Sunday

From 26 July 1953 the omnibus moves to Sunday. Why? Well I’ll come to that.

7.30 pm on Saturday

Yes even Light Programme controller Kenneth Adam liked to move the radio furniture now and then as the omnibus is back to Saturday night by the end of September 1953. That same week saw the start of Friday Night is Music Night, also recently in the news as it re-appears on Radio 3.

9.10 am on Sunday

Listeners can, in July, August and September 1954, now ‘have breakfast with The Archers’. But what’s behind this Saturday night/Sunday morning swapping? Well it coincides with the summer Proms concerts. In the 1950s the Proms were not the exclusive preserve of the Third Programme and would also be broadcast on the Light and the Home Service. This summer pattern continues in 1955.

7.30 pm on Saturday

This remains the usual slot apart from when the Proms are on in 1955. The Sunday morning versions start at 9.10 am and run for 50 minutes rather than the usual one hour so actually there’s a bit of editing going on here to make the omnibus version fit the timeslot.  

8.00 pm on Saturday

It’s moved on by half-an-hour from 1 October 1955. In the summer of 1956 it again pops up on Sunday, this time at 3.15 pm. In mid July 1957 it temporarily moves to Sundays at 9.10 am.

12.15 pm on Saturday

For some reason, between 28 September and 30 November 1957, the omnibus is now heard on the Home Service on Saturday lunchtime, again in a truncated form. The weekday editions remain on the Light Programme.

9.45 am on Sunday

Finally, from 8 December 1957, the omnibus edition ends up on Sundays where it has remained ever since. Back in 1957 on the Light Programme it was followed at 10.30 am by Easy Beat, so it remains very much edited down from the regular weekday broadcasts.

9.32 am on Sunday  

On 1 January 1961 it moves back a few minutes and is now just under an hour long so presumably we’re now getting the full weekly story. It follows Chapel in the Valley and a two-minute news bulletin at 9.30 am.

9.30 am on Sunday

From 30 August 1964 the Home Service takes the Sunday morning omnibus and, as it happens, Chapel in the Valley. Meanwhile over on the Light they have The Record Show with Geoffrey Wheeler followed by Easy Beat. The fact that Radio Caroline, with its all day pop programmes, had started earlier that year is purely coincidental surely!

Meanwhile from 14 December 1964 the Home Service starts to repeat the previous day’s Light Programme broadcast. From Monday 2 January 1967 the Home Service broadcast all editions of The Archers .The Home Service becomes BBC Radio 4 on 30 September of that year.

6.15 pm on Sunday

In 1976 Ian McIntyre is appointed as the new controller of Radio 4 and a year later, from 2 October 1977 he causes major consternation by moving The Archers omnibus to Sunday evening at 6.15 pm; at the same time dislodging Letter from America from Sunday morning to lunchtime. Listeners complain in droves. Correspondents to the Radio Times were not happy: ‘I feel like weeping...the most disastrous change of all” (Renee Obard, Salisbury) and ‘change for the sake of change has no appeal’ (S.C. Russell, Bolton). Even the offering of a quadraphonic stereo transmission – for the first omnibus edition at any rate – failed to impress: ‘the pleasure afforded to a few listeners of hearing The Archers in stereo and quad must surely be outweighed by the discomfort caused to those who, like myself, are now denied the pleasure of listening at all, albeit in humble mono’ (R. Collingwood, Camberley)   

The incoming Director General Ian Trethowan tells McIntyre to think again. Bizarrely someone protests by nailing both an abusive letter and a kipper to the door of McIntyre’s son’s room at his Cambridge college. BBC Governor Lady Seota complains that it has “up-ended her life”. Eventually after increasing pressure from listeners and the governors McIntrye relents and the omnibus programme reverts back to Sunday mornings from July 1979.

10.15 on Sunday

This becomes the new time for the omnibus edition for the next 19 years. Returning to Sunday morning on 1 July 1979 it is preceded by Letter from America (which had already been moved back to Sunday morning) and the Morning Service and followed by Weekend Woman’s Hour, back on air after been dropped in late 1974.

10.00 on Sunday

On 19 April 1998 there are changes to Radio 4 Sunday morning’s schedule as mentioned above. At 9 am we get a brand new programmes Broadcasting House in which ‘Eddie Mair presents a fresh approach to news’ followed by The Archers now 15 minutes earlier and also 15 minutes longer. And that is how things have remained until now.