Radio Newsreel

In an era of 24-hour rolling news it’s difficult to comprehend that there was a time when broadcasters found that “the prospect of filling fifteen minutes each night with original actuality material was a terrifying problem”. That was the problem facing the producers of Radio Newsreel when it started in 1940. It was a programme that ‘provided a model for news coverage that was urgent and involving’, it would be heard around the world for half a century and in post-war Britain it was one of the most listened-to news broadcasts. Here is a brief history of Radio Newsreel.     

The idea for a daily programme that was “about the news of the day, introducing the voices of the men and women of Britain” came from two men in BBC’s Overseas division. First was Michael Barkway, the news editor for the Empire Service. But the main driving force was Peter Pooley, a former Empire Service announcer and by 1940 the Overseas News Talk Editor. He recalled the difficulties in sourcing news and actuality as “there were no news agencies to collect it for us and send it ticking into the office day and night. We had to wait for the news to break, then try frantically to collect our sound pictures and stories in broadcastable form and have our programme on the air by midnight”.

The first Radio Newsreel was broadcast on the North American service on 8 July 1940 live from a Broadcasting House basement studio at 4.30 in the morning. Producing and presenting that first edition was Robin Duff who opened with “The British Broadcasting Corporation presents Radio Newsreel – Edition Number One.” The title was meant to suggest the commentary with pictures approach familiar to American movie-going audiences who would see newsreels produced by Fox Movietone, Universal, Paramount and the March of Time series. Indeed the producers were always on the lookout for ‘radiogenic’ stories. The approach of the writers and presenters was to adopt a more conversational and informal approach than could be heard on the news bulletins.   

In that first edition there was a talk by a bomber pilot about the fortnight he’d spent drifting in an open boat, Geoffrey Cox (ITN’s news editor from 1956) on a meeting of the French cabinet days before Petain’s surrender and an interview with three Canadian soldiers in hospital.    

It was Duff who supposedly selected the library music that would open the programme, a piece called Imperial Echoes by Alfred Safroni in a 1928 recording by the Band of the RAF. It formed part of an opening sequence that was eventually introduced with the recorded voice of Canadian announcer Byng Whittaker who would intone “Whilst Britain awaits another dawn, we bring you news from the Battle Fronts of the World in – Radio Newsreel”. 

Audrey Russell and Barry Milne editing a disc for Radio Newsreel.
The Sketch 5 January 1949 

By October 1940 Radio Newsreel was also transmitted on the Pacific Service and the following year by the African Service and on the main General Overseas Service (World Service from 1965). There were also some Latin-American editions: Radio Panorama in the Spanish Service and Radio Gaceta in the Brazilian Service. Its style heavily influenced War Report when it started on the Home Service in June 1944. With the launch of the General Forces Programme in February 1944 it also carried a daily edition (initially with the presenters Phillip Robinson – a post-war Manchester-based producer - and actor and newsreader Norman Claridge) meaning that, until July 1945, it also had a domestic audience. In December 1940 the Newsreel team had temporarily decamped to Abbey Manor near Wood Norton but by June 1942 returned to London at the Overseas HQ at 200 Oxford Street (see Life at the ZOO). Reporters working on the programme in the wartime era included Audrey Russell, Alan Melville, future BBC tv newsreader Robert Dougall, John Irwin (later a post-war tv producer on Picture Page, In the News etc.) and George Weidenfeld (of Weidenfeld & Nicolson publishing fame). Two of the producers were Stanley Maxted who went on to became a war correspondent and George Innes, the creator of The Black and White Minstrel Show.

By November 1947 Radio Newsreel was a well established, well respected world-wide programme with the Radio Times reporting that there had been 2,676 editions for North America, 2,586 for the Pacific and 2,168 for Africa. So on Monday 3 November 1947 in addition to the six international editions a seventh domestic one was first broadcast on the Light Programme. News editor Stanley Rumsam explained that “every night at 7 o’clock it will bring to Light Programme listeners not only the hard news facts of the day but a series of sound pictures illustrating the news and current events. The editors will draw upon live and recorded despatches from BBC correspondents in Washington, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Warsaw, the Middle East, the Balkans, New Delhi or Karachi and elsewhere. Happenings at home will be covered by radio reporters who will sometime be able to illustrate their accounts with actuality recordings made on the spot”.

Of course, this now sounds like every news programme but at the time all bulletins were straight reads by an announcer and there were no other news or current affairs shows. For nearly a decade Radio Newsreel was the major source of broadcast evening news, the only other being a film newsreel on BBC tv, though few folk had sets at that time, and competition from ITN was still eight years away. The listening figures for the Light Programme edition hit 4 million in the early fifties and it was still pulling in 3 million at the end of the decade, despite the draw of television.

Radio Newsreel always used staff announcers/newsreaders for the international and domestic editions, unlike other news programmes that followed such as The World at One and Outlook that relied on presenters with a journalistic background. Here are some examples from the Light Programme, Home Service and World Service dating from the 1960s and 1980s. The announcers I can identify, or who are indentified on-air, are Jimmy Kingsbury, Ronald Fletcher, Brian Hudson, Michael Murray, Pamela Creighton, Sandy Walsh and Jasper Britton. There are reports from Leonard Parkin, Reg Turnill, Conrad Voss Bark, Peter Nettleship and Harold Brierley.   

The ‘Light Reel’, as it was known in-house, came to be seen as the ‘master edition. A Radio Times article for the 21^st anniversary explained just how many daily editions were produced: 

Half-way through the evening programme, at 7.15 exactly, another Radio Newsreel goes on the air from another studio; this is heard by listeners in Africa and the Mediterranean area, and it is one of six such programmes broadcast daily in the BBC’s Overseas Services to different areas of the world. In fact, out of 49 weekly editions, 42 are broadcast overseas.

The Newsreel’s day starts just after midnight in London with an edition broadcast to America and Asia. Some hours later, while in Britain we are just getting up, another edition is being heard by West Africans at their breakfast and Australians at tea-and so on through-out the twenty-four hours. Besides those who hear it directly from the Overseas Services, in seventeen countries listeners have it relayed to them by their local stations. And some foreign station stations record it for re-broadcasting later, or select items of particular interest to them. For instance, one network in the United States broadcast 300 hours of Radio newsreel material in a single month; and 656 U.S. stations re-broadcast an item on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s retirement.  

The domestic edition of Radio Newsreel moved from the Light to the Home Service from Saturday 31 December 1966, although the Sunday edition had been carried on the Home since September 1957. However, it was dropped entirely in 1970 as part of the Broadcasting in the Seventies re-alignment, with the final edition going out on Radio 4 on Friday 3 April. The following week PM was launched at 5 pm with a 15-minute news bulletin at 6 pm and a 30-minute News Desk at 7 pm.  

London Calling billing from October 1988

Radio Newsreel continued for a further 18 years on the World Service though the number of daily editions started to reduce: five per day in the early 1980s and down to four by the middle of the decade. By 1988 the newsroom was producing three editions a day plus similar newsreels for the Australian and New Zealand broadcasting services

In 1979 the old version of the theme was dropped, much to the consternation of many listeners. The old 78 recording of Imperial Echoes was now too worn to run off any more copies so the BBC commissioned a new recording by the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, who had also recorded a new version of Lillibullero. But as luck would have it some months later studio manager Keith Perrin had spotted a mint copy of the 78 in a junk shop in Tiverton, Devon which meant the ‘rightful’ sig tune could be restored.

In October 1988 the World Service announced ‘a new mix’ with some old programmes being dropped, some renamed or retimed and the introduction of Newshour. As for Radio Newsreel, presenter Sandy Walsh told listeners to the edition broadcast at 1500 GMT Friday 28 October that “our programme style is changing” and that it was the final edition of the programme. From the following day it had a shorter title, now just Newsreel, and a new theme. Out went the old 1928 recording of Imperial Echoes and in came a new electronic theme composed by Richard Atree of the Radiophonic Workshop which borrowed the melody of the old one.

Newsreel was broadcast just three times a day at 0215 GMT for Asia only (the rest of the world got Network UK), 1200 and 1500. But Newsreel’s days were numbered and just over two and a half years later the final edition was heard at 1500 GMT on Friday 31 May 1991, some 51 years after its first broadcast.

It’s back to 1961 and the 21^st anniversary of Radio Newsreel. It’s likely that this recording was taped off a shortwave broadcast so the sound quality is very ropey. The recording was recovered by Duncan Lockhart, to whom I extend my thanks.      

 Notes

Michael Barkway became the BBC’s Canadian correspondent and between 1962 and 1974 was editor of The Financial Times of Canada.

Peter Pooley resigned from the BBC in 1947 at a time when the news division came under the management of Tahu Hole. He joined the Crown Film Unit and from 1951 worked for NATO eventually becoming Assistant Director of Information.

Robin Duff would go on to become a war reporter and covered the liberation of Paris in 1944.

70 Years of Correspondence

“To be a foreign correspondent is to inhabit a world in which abroad is home, in which communications are lifeblood and in which ‘the story’ is elevated to the status of a god that must, at whatever cost, be treated with reverence and with constant attention to its capricious changes of mood or substance.” 

From Our Own Correspondent, always known in BBC-speak as FOOC, has been a fixture of the radio schedules for seven decades. It was first broadcast on the BBC Home Service on Sunday 25 September 1955 when announcer Colin Doran introduced as follows: "This is the BBC Home Service. From our own correspondent. We are broadcasting now the first of a new series of programmes in which BBC correspondents will deal with current affairs as seen from their own posts in various parts of the world," There followed reports from six BBC correspondents, three based in the States and three European-based. This actually represented nearly 50% of all the overseas correspondents the BBC employed at that time as there were only 13 of them. (1)

For many years the programme was introduced by staff announcers but since 1998 former foreign correspondent Kate Adie has been the regular presenter. FOOC is also heard on the World Service (2) and since 1990 has been produced separately from the domestic version with its own presenters. Again it was World Service announcers that introduced each edition, until about 2006 when broadcast journalists started to present it. More recent presenters have included Alan Johnston, Owen Bennett-Jones and, since 2012, Pascale Harter.   

Here’s a Radio 4 example of FOOC with announcer Laurie Macmillan presenting. This edition dates from Saturday 27 December and includes reports from Tim Sebastian in Warsaw, Philip Short in Peking (now Beijing), John Thorne in Johannesburg, David Willey (who would become the BBC’s longest-serving correspondent with over 40 years based in Italy) in Rome and Bob Jobbins (later the Head of the Arabic Service) in Cairo.

     

In my last blog post on FOOC, back in September 2015, I included a recording from 1985 when the programme marked its 30th anniversary. Now, ten years on I’m going back another five years to the 25th anniversary in 1980. This programme titled Foreign Correspondent was introduced by Ian McDougall. Ian had been a BBC foreign correspondent since 1949 initially posted to Paris but eventually filing more than 10,000 reports from 40 countries. From 1979 until his retirement in 1988 he was the editor and presenter of Radio 3’s current affairs programme Six Continents.   

In Foreign Correspondent Ian talks to, as the Radio Times billing reads, “some of those who were ‘in at the beginning’ about the excitements, the frustrations and the challenges of being a foreign correspondent for the BBC”. 

In an accompanying article (above) by Vivien Lipschitz there is mention of the early difficulties of filing reports, the changing nature of foreign reporting and the increasing demands for more and more reports – at this time most correspondents tended to work in either radio or television with bi-media reporting coming back in from the mid-90s.

Contributing to Foreign Correspondent are: Angus McDermid on communication problems, Ivor Jones recalls the Hungarian revolution, Christopher Serpell with tales of Cuba, Gerald Priestland recalls one of his dispatches been sent off in a beer bottle, Charles Wheeler who had a report tapped out in Morse code, Erik de Mauny on censorship in Russia, Anthony Lawrence, the first editor of FOOC when he was Foreign Duty Editor, on finally getting into China, Douglas Stuart on the aftermath of the JFK assassination and Kenneth Matthews, the BBC’s first ever foreign correspondent, on the start of FOOC. 

If this all sounds rather like a gentlemen’s club that’s because the BBC was still six years away from appointing Diana Goodman as their first female foreign correspondent who was based in Bonn. She would be joined just a few weeks later by Elizabeth Blunt to cover West Africa and in 1989 by Bridget Kendall who was posted to Moscow.

Foreign Correspondent was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 29 September 1980 and repeated on Saturday 4 October 1980.

 

To mark the 70^th anniversary of FOOC the BBC is recording a special programme at the Radio Theatre on 1 October for broadcast in December. Hosted by former BBC Middle East correspondent and Today presenter Anna Foster, the event will feature a panel of special guests including From Our Own Correspondent presenter Kate Adie and current senior BBC foreign correspondents.

Further listening

Here are a number of Radio 4 and World Service programmes that mark the 50th and 60th anniversaries of FOOC. 

The Archive Hour: Celebrating 50 Years of From Our Own Correspondent

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kh3y

Fifty Years of FOOC – The Americas with Bridget Kendall

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6p7

Fifty Years of FOOC – Middle East with Lyse Doucett

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6ps

Fifty Years of FOOC – Europe with Caroline Wyatt

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6q1

Fifty Years of FOOC – Asia with Mark Tully

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6pw

Fifty Years of FOOC – Africa with Mark Doyle

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6q6

From Our Own Correspondent: 60th Anniversary Special with Owen Bennett-Jones

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b069xbmd

Archive on 4: From Our Rome Correspondent (on David Willey)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01fhlqd

There are over 1,000 editions of FOOC on BBC Sounds on BBC Radio 4 and 2,000 on the BBC World Service page.

(1) This was the number of correspondents posted abroad for fixed terms and included a resident correspondent at the UN headquarters in New York. If a major foreign news story broke the BBC could also send other home based correspondents to the area.

(2) I can’t trace exactly when the World Service also started to carry the programme other than some time in the 1960s. When FOOC started in the 50s the General Overseas Service equivalent was called Special Despatch. 

Order, Order!

Forty years ago today the permanent radio broadcasting of proceedings in the House of Commons began. There had been a month long experiment in 1975 and a vote in favour of switching on the mics in 1976 but it still took another two years before the first broadcast of the Question Time session on the afternoon of Monday 3 April 1978. Not PMQs mind (that was on the next day), but the Secretary of State for Wales The Rt Hon John Morris answering questions of the Welsh National language.

It may well have been a triumph for what we would now call the  openness and transparency of the democratic process but Radio 4 listeners weren't pretty aggrieved about it. Coverage was on medium wave, so depriving those that missed Afternoon Theatre which went out on VHF only, which most listeners, it seemed, avoided. Within the first 36 hours the BBC received 343 phone calls and letters of complaint; by the end of May complaints totalled 2,799 as against 31 letters of appreciation.

However, the impact was positive elsewhere as recorded highlights could at last be used on Today in Parliament (which saw its listenership increase) and in news bulletins on both the BBC and IRN.

Radio 4 controller Ian McIntyre wasn't exactly enamoured in  having to split his network for live PMQs every Tuesday and Thursday. "The BBC's business was making programmes, not relaying the source material for them." The live coverage stopped after 15 months.

Former BBC Political Editor Peter Hardiman Scott writes about the long road 

to securing live Parliamentary broadcasting for the Radio Times

The World this Weekend

'The Sunday newspaper of the air' was how BBC Home Service controller Gerard Mansell described The World this Weekend when it launched on 17 September 1967. A spin-off of the successful The World at One that had been on-air since October 1965, the Sunday lunchtime version shared the same DNA as its weekday stable mate, with the formidable team of presenter William Hardcastle and editor Andrew Boyle.

Mansell, writing in the Radio Times, explained further: "Sunday journalism has long been a prominent feature of the British scene. In fact, more Sunday papers are published and read in this country than elsewhere in the Western world. Yet, oddly enough, radio has not up till now provided its own 'Sunday newspaper of the air'. At the weekend, with the exception of News Bulletins and Radio Newsreel, it has tended to 'soft pedal' Current Affairs. Now the gap is to be filled with the new Home Service programme The World This Weekend..."

Writing in the same issue William Hardcastle (see article reproduced above) assured listeners that the new programme would not be a "radio rissole - a warm-up material from previous programmes. Like its parent it will be based firmly on the essential and up-to-the minute service of the one o'clock news, and will be wholly composed of brand-new material designed to explain and interpret that news".

From the start, and for many years, The World this Weekend had a full hour which, according to Hardcastle, together with "the more relaxed and spacious atmosphere of the weekend, should give us new opportunities to try some of our less-than-orthodox approaches to the news. It will also enable us to treat some subjects more thoroughly; to look forward more piercingly; to sum up more trenchantly."  

For listeners in the 1970s and 80s the voice most associated with The World this Weekend was Gordon Clough, indeed he was the programmes sole presenter for nearly a decade from 1976. The earliest recording I can track down is from 16 September 1984 with Clough at the helm, the news read by Eugene Fraser - leading on the naming of Prince Harry and the ongoing miners' dispute - and an interview with Energy Secretary Peter Walker.

The regular presenters over the five decades have been: William Hardcastle (1967-69), Anthony Howard (1969-71), David Jessel (1970-71), Nicholas Woolley (1971-75), Gordon Clough (1972-91), John Sergeant (1987-88), Nick Clarke (1989-94), Roger Hearing (1991-92), Susannah Simons (1991-92), James Cox (1992-2005), Shaun Ley (2005 to present), Brian Hanrahan (2006-10) and Mark Mardell (2014 to present).

Rolling Back the Year

We are, apparently, slap bang in the middle of what some call Merryneum. That post Christmas period when we’ve had our fill of pud, turkey leftovers and the sales and we’re girding our loins for the New Year’s Eve revelries and the return to work. It’s also a time for reflection on the past year, the highlights and the lowlights, the good and the bad.

As usual there are a smattering of review programmes in the current national radio schedules. I’ve spotted BBC Radio 4’s News Review of the Year with Sarah Montague hash-tagging the year and Pick of the Year with Lynne Truss. On Radio 5 Live there’s Chris Warburton’s news and sports highlights in 5 Live in Short and the excellent Radio Review of the Year with Jane Garvey and Stephanie Hurst. On the World Service you can hear highlights from across the language services in The Fifth Floor.      

But on the RRJ blog I like to dip into the archive and so its not the last twelve months I’m remembering but the events on 1982 when for much of the year the focus in the UK was on a forgotten group of islands in the South Atlantic.

News Review of the Year 1982 is presented by one of the BBC's then foreign correspondents, David McNeil. It was produced by John Allen and broadcast on Radio 4 on Sunday 26 December 1982.

War Report

On the evening of D-Day, 6 June 1944, the BBC Home Service broadcast the first in a ground-breaking series of programmes featuring recorded reports from correspondents on the front lines: War Report.

One of the reporters sending back dispatches recorded on the newly-developed Midget Recorder was Frank Gillard (pictured in 1944 above), who in 1985 revisited some of the battlegrounds and recalled how he and his colleagues brought the news back to Britain.

Radio Times feature on War Report 16 June 1944,
as reproduced in the 50th anniversary magazine.

War Report was broadcast for fifteen minutes each evening at 9.15 p.m. from deep in the basement of Broadcasting House, Studio LG1. An enthralled audience of between ten and fifteen million would tune in.  There were some 235 editions, from D-Day until VE Day.  

In August 1985 BBC Radio 4 broadcast two documentaries fronted by Gillard that told the story of War Report. The producer at BBC Bristol was John Knight.

D Day Has Come

John Snagge’s D Day announcements on the BBC are some of the most momentous archive recordings ever. Less well known is the story behind the announcement of Communique Number One and the importance of the pink card that contained the historic news.

This audio is a recording not of the initial announcement but of the midday bulletin read by Snagge on 6 June 1944.

The story of the behind-the-scenes events at Broadcasting House and at the small underground cubicle beneath the Senate House of London University – the wartime HQ of SHAEF, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces – were recalled by John Snagge and Michael Barsley in their book Those Vintage Years of Radio. Snagge takes up the narrative:

 “I had begun broadcasting many years before but in all those years, this was the most dramatic announcement I had ever made. It had an electrifying effect. The tension had been building up and increasing month by month, day by day, and finally hour by hour. As I read the announcement, from a pink card which had been handed to me at 9.15, I sensed the excitement, and knew what it would mean to the people at home, and especially to the resistance movement of the occupied countries in Europe.”

The story behind that pink card is also, in its own small way, dramatic. For the card had been written to be spoken by two announcers, and contained indications for Voice A and Voice B. The words were identical, but the announcement for Voice A had been crossed out in red pencil. Moreover, when Snagge went into his cubicle that morning (the broadcasting room was immediately below the Press Room, where the D Day news was given simultaneously and verbally) he realised that beside him another cubicle was the American military correspondent, Colonel Dupuis. His Voice A announcement, went out only to the troops waiting to go across to France to reinforce the initial landings.

What exactly had gone on, during the night hours, to make the change? Snagge takes up the story:

“We have to go back a bit. The date of the opening of the Second Front must have been one of the most closely guarded secrets of all time, and within the vast and intricate organisation necessary to mount such an assault, the BBC was destined to fulfil a special role – and to fulfil it according to the BBC method, that’s the important point. All the secrets have been out for years now – the last-minute postponement, the fact that the BBC Overseas reported the invasion two hours earlier, by quoting an Occupied Europe broadcast from Holland, and so on. But perhaps the victory of the BBC in insisting on the use of a well-known BBC voice first – which happened to be mine – has never before been properly emphasised. The man who won that victory was William Haley. As Director-General, he declared that the use of an American voice first would cause confusion, and that Voice A must not only be British, but be one of the regular, named announcers.”

The actual card of the announcement, with Voice A eliminated, was taken by Snagge back to Broadcasting House that day, and now hangs framed in his house. At one time, his friend Ed Murrow asked if he could borrow it, and when it was returned, the card was signed “To John Snagge, who first spoke these words on the air: Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Underneath are the confirming signatures: “Winston Churchill” and “Tedder” (Lord Tedder was then Eisenhower’s Deputy).

There were several more vitally important personnel involved in the D Day broadcasting story. As Head of Presentation, Snagge’s first job was to contact the Senior Superintendent Engineer, Leslie Hotine, and the man who put out European Service programmes, Gibson Parker. That was about three weeks before 6th June. The equipment was to be installed at SHAEF, not at BH. All programmes were to be faded, and linked with United Nations Radio. European transmitters would then put out an Alerting Period, with an initial call in English, followed by recordings made by Heads of State in their own language – Queen Wilhelmina, King Haakon, General de Gaulle, and so on. Snagge had to write out all his instructions in longhand, without secretarial help, until Senior Controller, Basil Nicolls, was able to supply his own personal secretary, who was within the magic circle. Frank Phillips recalls that he was in charge of Overseas announcements from Bush House, but said to Snagge “I don’t know what my instructions are.” Nor did Joseph Macleod, who was detailed for the Continuity announcing. The instructions were, of course, in longhand – in the safe.       

So to 5th June, and Snagge continues:

“I had not been allowed to leave Broadcasting House for days. I couldn’t even leave the office – not even to make necessary physical calls – without informing Duty Officer. On the 5th, I went to bed as usual, with no indication that we were on the verge of D Day. But looking back, I remember that the engineer in charge, Leslie Hayes, had a habit of saying, knowingly, ‘You can sleep tight tonight,’ or something similar. He said it on the night of the fourth, but not on the night of the 5th! At about 4 a.m. my bedside phone rang. Jim Forte, the Duty Officer, said: ‘You must report to SHAEF headquarters at once.’ I rang Frank and Joseph, and told them to take up their positions. With Pat Ryan[who led the BBC War Reporting Unit] I walked the ten minutes or so over to Malet Street. I don’t remember what we talked about. At 6.30 a.m. Macleod opened up the Service normally, and according to programmes in the Radio Times. We sat and waited. We know we had dynamite to announce –at last.

“A sergeant brought me a slip of paper at 9.0 a.m., headed Topflight Zero 732 GMT. This meant that 0932 Double British Summer Time was the deadline.  I contacted Joseph, to transfer from BBC to me at SHAEF, To Frank Phillips I said ‘Get the keys of the safe from Gibson Parker,’ and gave him zero hour. I had to scribble my own introduction to the Announcement on the pink card. Colonel Dupuis started his broadcast first, but only to his limited audience. The moment I heard him announce the invasion of Europe I went ahead too. After reading the momentous words, I repeated them, and again many times during the day, to the first War Report.    

“To while away the time of waiting, some of the high-ranking British and US officers around that tiny studio organised a two-shilling sweepstake on the exact hour. I won eight shillings with my estimate of 9.0 a.m., and still have the odd scraps of paper on which we wrote down our estimates. Such is radio history.”

Extracted from Those Vintage Years of Radio by John Snagge and Michael Barsley published in 1972 by Pitman Publishing.  

There’s more about War Report in a blog post following later today.

Countdown to the White House 1980

As Americans head to the polls this week for the Presidential election I take a look back at some of the radio coverage of the 1980 election when Reagan first came to power.

That election took place at a time of low economic growth and the foreign policy entanglements of the US hostages held in Iran. Shortly before the election diplomatic moves were underway to secure the release of the hostages. The first clip is the news headlines from Radio Luxembourg on 3 November 1980 read by Rob Jones. Clip two is the BBC’s Washington Correspondent at the time was Clive Small, here reporting on the hostage situation and its impact on the election outcome on 4 November 1980.

Election Day itself was 4 November and the BBC’s coverage started just after midnight on the 5th with Brian Redhead introducing Countdown to the White House. Than over on Radio 2 broadcasting through the night from 1 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. was the American Election Special co-hosted by Sarah Kennedy, taking care of the music, and the ever-versatile John Dunn, looking after the politics. In this clip John is joined by Clark Todd.

There's a dip into the international coverage with William McCrory on Voice of America. The in the early hours of the morning (UK time) Carter conceded defeat to Reagan. The IRN news bulletin at 3 a.m. is read by Carol Allen.

At 6 a.m. Radio 4 carried an extended edition of Today with John Timpson in New York and Libby Purves in London. In this recording you’ll also hear from BBC correspondents Paul Reynolds, Clive Small and Peter Ruff. Reflecting on the result later that day is Clive Small.

Finally from that evening Radio Moscow’s World Service seemed to emphasise the low turnout of 53% as against the Soviet Union’s 100%.

The Falklands War

Thirty years ago this week events rapidly unfolded in a part of the world that at the time few people knew existed – the Falkland Islands.

With the issue of sovereignty back in the news in this post I recall the events of 1982. I’ve retrieved these short audio clips of news bulletins of the time which hopefully will be of interest to any historians. If nothing else, from a broadcasting point of view, they are a reminder of former BBC newsreaders and reporters and also confirm just how long Peter Donaldson has been on Radio 4.

 

2 April 1982

Argentine forces capture the Falkland Islands. Radio 1 news read by John Andrew.

5 April 1982

Political fallout as Lord Carrington resigns. Radio 4 news read by Peter Donaldson.

25 April 1982

British attack on Argentine submarine (later confirmed as the Santa Fe). Radio 2 news read by Gavin Campbell with reports from the BBC’s defence correspondent Christopher Lee.

26 April 1982

British Marine recapture South Georgia. Radio 4 news ready by Peter Donaldson with chief political correspondent Brian Curtois, defence correspondent Christopher Lee and Tony Benn MP.

1 May 1982

British attack the Argentine held airfield at Port Stanley. The World at One with Gordon Clough, Christopher Lee and Paul Reynolds.

2 June 1982

The Battle for Goose Green had taken place a few days earlier but this report from Robert Fox was broadcast on Radio 4 on 2 June.

15 June 1982

Pooling arrangements for reporting on the conflict led to this report on Radio 4’s PM programme by IRN correspondent Kim Sabido on the ceasefire a couple of days earlier.

The Final Frontier

With the last ever launch of a NASA space shuttle expected some time today (weather permitting) here’s how BBC Radio covered the launch of the first shuttle Columbia 30 years ago.

The launch was due on Friday 10 April but had to be suspended due to problems with fuel cell warning lights and the fact that backup flight software had not been fully tested. In the first clip below from Radio 4’s PM you’ll hear Susannah Simons, Gordon Clough and science correspondent James Wilkinson.

By Sunday it was all systems go and James Wilkinson broke into Pete Murray’s Sunday Show to cover the event live, with commentary also going out on Radio 4’s The World this Weekend.