Elections on the Third

Aside from the news bulletins you can pretty much escape the General Election ballyhoo on BBC Radio 3. But that wasn’t always the case.

One of the now forgotten pieces of radio broadcasting is, I suspect, the full reading of all the election results, aside from a few stragglers or recounts, on the Third Programme and Radio 3. Over two or three hours a couple or so continuity announcers would read out the results in alphabetic order of constituency. This service was a feature of BBC radio election coverage in the 1960s and 1970s. It ended with the 1979 election after which time if you wanted to know the full list of results you could check out CEEFAX. (1)   

In the 1950s any BBC radio election programmes were shared between the Home Service and Light Programme. But for the 1959 election the BBC also used the daytime wavelengths of the Third Programme, known as Network Three, from 10 am on the Friday to carry “results as they become available with summaries of the state of the parties every fifteen minutes”.

For the October 1964 election all three national networks offered something different overnight. On the Home Service How the Nation Polled presented by Hardiman Scott, on the Light Election Night Music Till Dawn with Tim Gudgin and on the Third Programme from 11.10 pm to about 3.30 am the Election Results in Full. This was just a straight reporting service read by announcers David Broomfield, Andrew Gemmill and John Spurling.

The March 1966 election saw the same arrangement with the same presenters and this time David Broomfield, Andrew Gemmill and Roy Williamson reading the full results. As the Radio Times described it the Home was ‘fastest’, the Light ‘gayest’ and the Third ‘fullest’.

June 1970 and Hardiman Scott, now promoted to be the BBC’s first Political Editor, was back on Radio 4 but with Ray Moore and Peter Donaldson doing the honours on Radio 2 with Night Ride to Westminster. Meanwhile over on Radio 3 the overnight service had been dropped in favour of a full reading of the results between 7 and 9 am the following morning, this time read by Peter Latham and Peter Barker. This made it a little easier for listeners to know when their own constituency was coming up. The Radio Times explained: ‘for easy reference, Radio 3 offers this special service of all the overnight election results, broadcast in alphabetical order, and divided into approximate time-sequences. Listeners wishing to know particular results can thus tell roughly when they will be coming up. While unavoidably a particular sequence may run beyond its time allotment, for listeners' convenience none will start before the times given.’

In February 1974 it was yet again Hardiman Scott on Radio 4 whilst Radio 2’s Night Ride was hosted by Len Jackson, Eugene Fraser and Jimmy Kingsbury. Reading the results on Radio 3 on Friday morning were Peter Barker and Patricia Hughes.

1974 was the year of two elections so in October it was, for the final time, Hardiman Scott and then Len Jackson and Don Durbridge doing the Radio2 honours.  The task of reading the Radio 3 results fell to Peter Barker, Patricia Hughes and John Holmstrom. 

And finally in May 1979 it was all change. Radio 4’s Countdown to Number Ten was presented by Brian Redhead and Radio 2’s by Jimmy Young.(2) Meanwhile the morning results service was now extended to three hours and on Radio 3 medium wave only. The Radio Times doesn’t bill the announcers but my notes list Peter Barker, Patricia Hughes and John Holmstrom. That 10 am end time was something of an approximation as the broadcast didn’t actually end until 11.10 am. (3)

(1) CEEFAX was available in 1979 but only for an estimated 50,000 viewers. For many sets it was still necessary to buy a decoder costing over £200. From 1974 the results started to be shown on BBC2 on the Friday morning. From 1987 BBC2 showed the CEEFAX results service.  

(2) Brian Redhead would present the Radio 4 overnight coverage again in 1983, 1987 and 1992 before James Naughtie assumed the role in 1997. Jimmy Young, often paired with Brian Curtois, was in charge of Radio 2’s service until his final election duty in June 2001.

(3) I didn’t record any of this final results reading though I’m pretty sure I’ve heard a clip from either it or one of the earlier programmes so I’m guessing some of it must exist in Sound Archives.

Composer of the Week

There are, by my reckoning, eight BBC radio programmes that started in the 1940s that are still on air (see note 1). The second oldest of those Composer of the Week, which started life as This Week’s Composer, was first scheduled on the Home Service on Monday 2 August 1943. It was, according to the BBC “an innovation which proved that lovers of serious music are awake in large numbers as early in the morning as 7.30 a.m.” The first week’s programme featuring Mozart was just a short (only 25 minutes) morning musical interlude. It has now been running for 80 years.   

The running order for that first programme lists the two movements of Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 27, his Violin Sonata in B flat major and ending with Violin Sonata No. 42 in A flat major. The two latter pieces feature the violin playing of Yehudi Menuhin. Subsequent week’s featured all the greats of classical musical (see note 2).

Like many of the gramophone programmes of that time there was no presenter as such and links were provided on scripts to be read by whichever continuity announcer was on duty that day. This was how the programme ran for the next half century. It was only when the role of the Radio 3 announcer was changed in 1992 that named presenters were associated with the programme.

Post-war, in September 1945, the start time was shifted on two hours to 9.30 am and it remained a mid-morning fixture in the schedules until 1995 when it was shifted to its current midday slot. The only exception to this was in the late 40s (September 1947 to April 1950) when it was “promoted” to an evening slot after the six o’clock news “a much more convenient time for most people than the early morning”.

In the early 1960s the BBC was seeking to utilise the daytime frequencies of the Third Programme for “programmes of serious music” in a service that would be called the Music Programme (note 3). It was also a case of use it or lose it with a BBC committee concluding that “the unused time on the Third Network was a standing invitation for as take-over bid by commercial operators”.

 The Music Programme was phased in during 1964 after much discussion with the Musician’s Union, who objected to an increase in needletime to play more gramophone records, and the rejuvenation of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.  Amongst the programmes transferred over from the Home Service to the Music Programme in December 1964 was This Week’s Composer (note 4). The Music Programme title lingered even when it became Radio 3 in 1967 and was finally dropped in April 1970 but The Week’s Composer had found its new 9 am home that it would occupy for the next 31 years.  

In January 1988 the title of This Week’s Composer was flipped over to Composer of the Week. Then four years later changes were afoot at Radio 3 as a third of the continuity announcing team were made redundant (Malcolm Ruthven, Tony Scotland and Peter Barker) with the remaining staff taking on new presenter/producer roles (Andrew Lyle, Piers Burton-Page, Chris de Souza, Paul Guinery, Penny Gore and Susan Sharpe). 

The impact on Composer of the Week was that as well as some of the presentation team presenting the programme a number of voices, many new to the Radio 3 audience, would present a week’s worth of programme depending on their specialist knowledge and interests. So we hear composers, musicians, music critics and musicologists including (in the year 1992/93): Lindsay Kemp, Richard Alston, Stephen Johnson, Adrian Thomas, John Thornley (later one of the producers of the programme),  Richard Wigmore, Michael Oliver, Richard Langham Smith, Jeremy Siepmann, William Mival, David Fanning, John Warrack and Roxanna Panufnik.

In the BBC’s Sound Archives there’s nothing of the 45 year run of This Week’s Composer, probably because it was just seen as part of the daily continuity announcement duties rather than a built or pre-recorded programme. One of the earliest recordings of Composer of the Week dates from 1988 and features Mozart. This clip is one the BBC website but is vague as to exact date and who the announcer is. It appears to be the evening repeat on 27 January 1988 (mention of Mozart’s birthday on that date confirms this) of the previous week’s morning broadcast from 20 January 1988. The announcer sounds like Susan Sharpe.

Another 1988 clip here features Donald Macleod presenting the music of three Hollywood greats, Max Steiner, Miklos Rozsa and Erich Korngold.  At the time Donald was part of the announcing team, having joined in 1982. This one is easier to date and comes from Monday 12 December. By co-incidence I recorded much of that week’s programmes but sadly, in retrospect, cut out Donald’s introductions.    

In 1999 Radio 3 decided to give Composer of the Week a dedicated presenter. By now Donald Macleod had left his post as Presentation Editor and was freelance. With the help of the production team he would be responsible for researching and writing his own scripts. Finding the “way in” to a composer’s life is his favourite part of the process. “It’s absolutely not my job to tell people what to think about the music. I’m there to paint pictures and I often start with a visual image”. His first composer, in September 1999, was Edvard Greig and for his script Macleod discovered that “he had a good luck charm that he carried around in his pocket, a little stone frog. I thought it was such a charming image. So I started from there. “  

For the programme’s 70^th anniversary in 2013 the team produced a list of the nearly four hundred individual composers and over a hundred groups or schools of composers featured since 1943. They also reached out to listeners to suggest any overlooked composers though, as Macleod explained “it’s often tricky because if a composer is obscure, there won’t be enough music in good performance to fill the best part of five hours.”   

 Marking the 70th anniversary of COTW
Radio Times 27 July 2013 

Here’s a clip of Donald introducing Composer of the Week on the 70^th anniversary which featured the music of Robert Schumann.

In a Radio Times feature for the programme’s 80^th anniversary a number of programme landmarks were listed:

Composers featured to date Around 1,400

First female composers featured Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann in August 1988

First black composer Duke Ellington in May 1985

First non-European Four Americans: John Alden Carpenter, Samuel Barber, Roy harris and Edward MacDowell in May 1945

First South American Heitor Villa-Lobos in April 1977

First Australian Percy Grainger in November 1996

First Asian Toru Takemitsu in February 2018

This year Donald Macleod, aged 70, has decided to ease off a little and Kate Molleson has joined the programme. For her first Composer of the Week in May the subject was Gyorgy Ligeti. “We decided we weren’t just going to tell the story straight. I had pianist Danny Driver with me, sitting at the piano, opening the music up in a really unintimidating way”.

Radio Times 29 July 2023

For the programme’s 80^th anniversary, last week, Donald Macleod recalled some of the composers he’s interviewed during his 24 year tenure. This is a short clip from the first programme.      

(1) When I write about this I always seem to miss out one programme or another. However, I reckon the other programmes from the 1940s are: Desert Island Discs (1942), Today in Parliament (1945), Woman’s Hour (1946), How Does Your Garden Grow? (1947) which became Gardener’s Question Time in 1951, Round Britain Quiz (1947), Sports Report (1948) and Any Questions? (1948).  

(2) August 1943- February 1944: Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Handel, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Brahms, Elgar, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Liszt, Verdi, Chopin, Ravel, Cesar Franck, Rossini, Rimsky-Korsakov, Saint-Saens, Berlioz, Puccini, Mussorgsky, Delius, Bizet, Vaughan-Williams,

(3) At the time the Third Programme only broadcast in the evening. In the daytime and early evening, under the umbrella title of Network Three, the BBC also offered the Study Session, the Sports Service (on Saturday afternoons) and Test Match Special. 

(4) Other transferred programmes included Music Magazine, Talking About Music, Your Midweek Choice and Midday Prom.

By Strauss – New Year in Vienna

 

Whether you’re starting the morning all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed or nursing a Hogmanay hangover there’s no finer way to usher in the New Year than a with a Strauss waltz. This morning’s New Year concert from Vienna, now in its eighth decade, offers its usual menu of marches, polkas and waltzes from the opulent Musikverein in Vienna’s first district. It’s been a staple of New Year’s Day broadcasts in the UK for 64 years.

The early wartime concerts – the first was on New Year’s Eve 1939 – were tainted by their Nazi associations. Post-war the concerts were re-invented under concertmaster Willi Boskovsky who conducted on 25 occasions between 1955 and 1979.

Broadcasts of the concert are hosted by Austria’s ORF and relayed worldwide via the EBU to over 90 countries.  The BBC has been broadcasting the concert since it was first televised in 1959. The programme was always a recorded version shown later on the 1st until 1987 when it started to be shown live, though there was a one year hiatus in 1982.From 2003 BBC Four broadcast an evening highlights version; this moved to BBC Two in 2019, but it’s back on Four this year.     

BBC Radio was a little slower to pick up the concert but has been broadcasting it live every year since 1972. (It had first been broadcast by Austrian radio in 1953).It’s always, I’d you’d expect, on Radio 3 though with one exception; in 1995 it appeared on Radio 2 instead. There had been a couple of earlier radio broadcasts. In 1966, on 2^nd January, the Light Programme carried highlights of the New Year’s Eve concert and a few days later more excerpts were heard on the Home Service. In 1969 there was live coverage on Radio 4 and then highlights over on Radio 2 during Sam Costa’s lunchtime show.   

Remarkably only five people have introduced the concert for BBC tv and radio over the last six decades. First was Lionel Salter a former conductor turned BBC administrator and at the time was Head of Music Productions, Television. In 1964 for one year only, it was the turn of Antony Hopkins, musician and Talking About Music presenter. The microphone then passed to Richard Baker who introduced the concert for an incredible 30 years. Richard’s last Vienna duty was on that 1995 Radio 2 broadcast. Here’s Richard Baker saying Grüß Gott to listeners in 1992.

In 1996 former King’s Singer turned broadcaster Brian Kay took up the gig. Since 2011 Petroc Trelawny has been doing the honours throwing himself into the part by tracking down a second-hand Loden coat and black fedora “so I’d look suitably Third Man-ish”. This year Petroc is back in Vienna after two years of providing the commentary from London (at the Olympic Park studios) due to Covid restrictions.    

To get you in a suitably Viennese mood from a year ago comes this programme in which Moira Stuart celebrates the music of Vienna and of the Strauss family. Moira Stuart’s Viennese Concert was broadcast on Classic FM on 1 January 2022. 

BBC 100

On Monday the BBC celebrates 100 years since its first radio broadcast on 14 November 1922.

Making the opening announcement on station 2LO was Director of Programmes Arthur Burrows who wrote: “November 14, 1922, was the day chosen to commence British broadcasting in the official sense. It was the day of the declaration of polls in connection with the General Election, and the news for that evening consisted in the main of election results. The next day the Birmingham station, 5IT, began to operate, and within a week 2ZY had also joined in the work. The London station continued in my charge (Mr Jeffries arranging the musical programmes and sharing in the pleasures of the children’s hour). Birmingham fortunately secured the direction of Mr Percy Edgar, already well known in the Midlands, and Metropolitan Vickers appointed to the Manchester station Mr K.A. Wright, a young graduate of Sheffield, who, since his earliest days with the firm, had shown a keen interest in music and its propagation by wireless. One cannot look back upon those early days without a smile.”

To mark the BBC’s centenary I’ve produced this sound montage 100 Years of BBC Radio in 100 History. Roughly chronological in order it’s my selection of some memorable voices and programmes designed to show something of the breadth of the radio services. I hope you enjoy it.

You’ll hear some broadcasters who make more than one appearance but see if you can spot who appears most often, on seven different clips throughout the sequence.

Here’s the version with accompanying pictures.

The selection of early clips was, of course, limited by what’s survived from that period. Most of my audio for the first half century comes from compilation records issued by the BBC (for their 50^th and 75^th), documentary programmes about BBC history I’ve recorded over the last 40+ years and repeats, often on Radio 4 Extra. Those 1920s clips you here were all recreated for the May 1932 programme The End of Savoy Hill produced by Lance Sieveking. Much of what you hear from the mid-70s onwards was recorded by me at the time or may come from recordings kindly donated since starting this blog.  

Inevitably as soon as I’d edited the ‘final’ final version I remembered all the stuff I’d missed out. No “I’m rather worried about Jim” or “Give ‘em the money Barney”, no Noel’s funny phone calls, no reports from foreign correspondents (other than wartime), the role of the  European Service during the Cold War. I could go on. Summarising local radio or what the BBC calls ‘the Nations’ was impossible; they all just get seven minutes. The wonderful World Service has been reduced to two minutes.

I first started work on this project after completing my BBC90 montage, saving clips away in a separate folder. Most made the cut, some just didn’t fit or no longer felt appropriate or interesting. Serious editing, sequence by sequence, started in February and altogether I’ve used nearly 700 different bits of audio (including jingles). I reckon about 20% of material was also in the BBC90 celebration. Thanks go again to Andy Howells who helped with some BBC90 material in 2012 and to Aircheck Downloads who tracked down a couple of DJ jingles for me that appear in one of the Radio 1 sequences.

Here’s the audio only version.   

 

The name's Connery. Sean Connery

This weekend we're mourning the death of Sean Connery. Of course the plaudits and obits have all focused on his career defining 007 role but as this is a radio blog I've been looking elsewhere.

Connery's radio appearances were few and far between but inevitably focused on his films as well as his other passions of golf and Scottish nationalism. To my knowledge he only made one starring role in a radio programme and that was in a BBC Radio 3 drama series written by Peter Barnes.  

Playwright and screenwriter Peter Barnes had adapted a number of plays for BBC radio by the time he wrote an original set of monologues that were broadcast in 1981. Barnes' People had a glitzy cast that included Alec Guinness, Leo McKern, John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft. Barnes' People II, a series of duologues appeared in 1984. Barnes' People III with casts of three was heard in 1986 and the final series More Barnes' People followed in 1990. Sadly they've not been heard since.

For the first drama of Barnes' People III,  called After the Funeral, director Ian Cotterell gathered together Sean Connery, Donald Pleasence and John Hurt. Connery flew in from Spain for the recording, Pleasence jetted in from France while Hurt "trotted along from Chiswick."

The black comedy centres on a trio of pimps - "upmarket flesh meddlers" - who are lamenting the passing of Anna "the First lady of Brotheldom." At the end they honour her memory by clinking glasses and singing Unforgettable.

The Radio Times had this article about the series written by David Gillard. 

Here is that drama not heard since a 1987 repeat. (With apologies for the sound quality).  

Sean Connery 1930-2020

Sausages, A Lawn Mower and the Dwarf in Shakespeare

If I were asked to list my favourite radio comedies that list would include the largely-forgotten, and not heard since 1981, Radio 3 series set in the world of academe, Patterson.

Patterson (think Lucky Jim meets The History Man) was written by Malcolm Bradbury and Christopher Bigsby. It's Radio 3's only out and out sitcom, and that's more by chance than design. The series was originally commissioned for Radio 4 but at some point during its production they decided they didn't want it and Radio 3 controller Ian McIntrye picked it up. The series also enjoys the further distinction of being a the only Radio 3 series to get a repeat on Radio 2, and within months of its first transmission.

The central character is struggling English Literature lecturer Andrew Patterson, played by Lewis Fiander. His career is in the doldrums and so is his marriage to the long-suffering Jane, played by Judy Parfitt. In episode one he's interviewed for and obtains a job at some unspecified rundown Northern redbrick university. "Isn't that Henry Moore?" "Oh no sir, that's  Fred the cleaner  dusting a great hunk of metal".

During the interview we first meet two characters that will appear during the series, as well as two, Professor Amis and Professor Murdoch, that don't. The Vice-Chancellor is played in true CJ style (memories of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin) by John Barron. "Hmm, Dr Patterson. In my experience, which is wide, women are not usually fellows called George". Richard Vernon puts in a superb comic performance as the absent-minded head of faculty Professor Misty. "Dreaming spires, appalling traffic, tea and crumpets, AJP wotsit."

Arriving for his new job Patterson finds his old friend from college Victor Evans (Hugh Thomas) is already in post. "I thought you were at Hull?" "I couldn't stand it, buses, people on the streets, living people walking about everywhere, giving me headaches..."

Victor introduces Patterson to the rest of the faculty: departmental secretary Mary played by Frances Jeator. "there's a letter for you already, an invitation from the Vice-Chancellor. Dinner next Monday night, 7 for 7.30, dinner jacket, RSVP, carriages at 11.30. I didn't like to open it". Then there's Amy Spade (Maggie Steed) prone to spying on her colleagues and then sending anonymous letters using newspaper clippings signed "the Holy Scout." And finally Melissa Murgatroyd "honeypot of the senior common room" vampishly played by Maureen Lipman - and showing just what a star cast Patterson enjoyed.

Other members of the cast during the eight episodes include Richard O' Callaghan the librarian on the issue desk Spencer Cuthbertson who comes round offering "bloody helpful herbs", university porter Probity played by Jack May (Nelson Gabriel from The Archers), Irene Prador as Mrs Vice-Chancellor ("Ach, to be Jung in Vienna"), Tariq Yunis as Victor Bannerji and Leueen Willoughby as Valerie Candle. Also appearing are Lisa Hayden, Philip Davis, David Tate, Patrick Barr and Patricia Hayes.    

Patterson was produced by Geoffrey Perkins, at the time co-starring in and co-writing Radio Active but already an experienced producer with Week Ending, Hitch-Hikers and ISIHAC under his belt. When the series first aired on Radio 3 (February to April 1981) it, in true Radio 3 form, over-ran its supposed half-hour timeslot by two or three minutes. By the time of its Radio 2 repeat (June to August 1981) some of the dialogue had been trimmed but at the same time some musical stings had been added. Unfortunately the BBC only kept the edited repeats, though off-air recordings of the originals do exist. For years I'd wondered what the theme music was called and the answer came to just a couple of years ago when quite by chance I was listening to an old In Concert featuring guitarist Gordon Giltrap. The theme is Jester's Jig and both it and The Tyger were used to provide the stings between scenes for the revised repeats.      

Here's an example of one of the edits between the Radio 3 original and the Radio 2 repeat. From the opening of episode one Patterson's monologue goes completely. Generally lines are cut rather than whole scenes going often in the longer domestic scenes with Patterson and Jane. I've left in the original Radio 2 continuity with announcer Liz Allen.  

Malcolm Bradbury had written The History Man some five years before Patterson came along but surely the character of Flora Beniform, with whom Howard Kirk shares many "desultory interludes", is a forerunner of Melissa Murgatroyd. "Flora is formidable, and she likes going to bed with men who have troubled marriages; they have so much more to talk about, hot as they are from the intricate politics of families which are Flora's specialist field of study."

Bradbury co-wrote Patterson with his friend and University of East Anglia colleague Christopher Bigsby. In fact they had already collaborated on a 1975 Play for Today titled The After Dinner Game. It too was set on in a university and there amongst the dramatis personae are 'Flora Beniform' and an idealistic young lecturer called 'Andrew Patterson'.       

Sharon Acker, Ian Carmichael (as Jim Dixon) and Terry-Thomas in the 1957 Boulting Brothers
film adaptation of Lucky Jim. A 2003 film featured Stephen Tompkinson in the main role. 

The parallels between Patterson and the Kingsley Amis novel Lucky Jim can easily be found. The first major post-war campus-based novel, Lucky Jim is set in some non-descript university, perhaps inspired by Amis's own teaching experience in Swansea or maybe his visit to see Philip Larkin in Leicester. (The novel is dedicated to Larkin). Like Patterson, Jim Dixon, a young history lecturer, has to deal with an absent-minded professor, Professor Welch,  whose sentences just ...err... trail off... Welch, like Misty, addresses Dixon by his predecessor's name of Faulkner, just as Misty confuses Patterson as Thistleberry. There's a lecture for which each of the main protagonists is ill-prepared: Dixon's on 'Merrie England', Patterson's on Milton's Lycidas. Whilst Dixon sets fire to the bed sheets, Patterson manages to set his jacket alight. "This man is on fire. Pour champagne on him Probity." Dixon, a bachelor, spends most of the novel failing to get off with Christine and instead returns to the dull but dependable Margaret. Patterson, after various sexual dalliances, returns home to Jane and the kids.

I said "not heard since 1981" but that's about to change. My tapes of Patterson (since digitised) were beginning to wear out so I'm delighted to say that a new audience can finally appreciate this comedy when, after a 39-year wait, it gets a repeat next month on BBC Radio 4 Extra (weekly on Friday from the 4th).

You can read more about Radio 3's comedy output in my 2016 blog post The Intelligent Chuckle and in Tim Worthington's book The LarksAscending.  

March 2021 postscript: It seems that Patterson did have at least one repeat after its initial Radio 3/Radio 2 airings and that was for overseas listeners to the BBC World Service. An edition of London Calling for August 1986 lists the programme amongst the drama offerings for that month. 

Broadcasting in the Seventies

From today's perspective the furore over Broadcasting in the Seventies seems like a storm in a teacup. But at the time it threatened the corporation with industrial action,  the withdrawal of labour by the Musician's Union and letters from the great and good describing it as a threat to "the unique role the BBC has played in the cultural and intellectual life of the country".

It was fifty years ago this week that a number of BBC national radio programme changes came occurred brought about by the implementation of the policy document Broadcasting in the Seventies. Essentially the plan was to redefine the characteristics of each of the four radio networks: Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 and move away from the existing mixed programming - a style of programming that had existed since Reith's day. We're now used to tightly formatted radio output but at the time this was both novel and controversial. But, if listeners expected an overnight shift in the sound of the favourite station this didn't really happen and it took years for it to pan out - the result of insufficient funds and insufficient wavelengths.

There were several factors that convinced the BBC to act and shake-up its radio services. Financially the Government was tightening the purse strings and refusing any licence fee increases, whilst at the time the BBC had ambitions to expand their services and to adopt  new technology (the roll-out of colour TV and VHF stereo for instance).  Radio listening figures, particularly those in the evening, had started to fall. There was also a notion to hive off the new Open University programmes, as well as existing schools programmes, onto a separate VHF network paid for by government - something which never happened and continued to lead to AM/FM splits and headaches for schedulers for another couple of decades. The BBC had been forced to start a new pop service in 1967 with the launch of the pirate-replacement Radio 1. And finally, with a view to what might happen, and did arrive four years later, there was the threat of commercial radio competition.

The document, published in July 1969, was part of a process that had started over a year before with a wealth of consultation and working parties during which the Corporation had, for the first time but by no means the last, used independent management consultants, in this case McKinsey and Co.

On streamlining network radio the report had this to say:

"Traditionally, broadcasting has been based on the principle of mixed programming. On a single channel, the public is offered the whole range: news, documentaries, plays, music, light entertainment, serials, sport - all types of programmes, covering all interests and all 'brow' levels.

But experience, both in this country and abroad, suggests that many listeners now expect radio to be based more on a different principle - that of the specialised network, offering a continuous stream of one particular type of programme, meeting one particular interest. One channel might offer pop, another serious music, another talk programmes, and so on". 

When the document was released on Thursday 10 July 1969 the Corporation held staff briefings, press conferences and published a special edition of the staff magazine Ariel. The proposals were discussed on air including an hour long Q&A session on the Third Programme the following Tuesday. This is how that evening's Radio Newsreel covered the news with the summary: "Radio 1 strictly pop. Radio 2 carrying light music from Sinatra to Lehar. Radio 3, perhaps only on VHF, with more classical music and Radio 4 with mostly talk".  The newsreader is Peter Barker and the reports from Brian Curtois and Jim Biddulph.

In 1969 Radio 1 and Radio 2 shared a great deal of programming but, to quote the report, "to their respective fans, Emperor Rosko and Eric Robinson barely inhabit the same planet let alone the same air waves". So Radio 1 was to be an "all-pop network". No surprises here but at the time it still carried some jazz shows. Radio 2 was to play "light music" and to shed some of its speech elements. So Any Questions? and Midweek Theatre moved over to Radio 4, and Woman's Hour would follow two years later. News Time with Derek Cooper was dropped and Your Hundred Best Tunes transferred over to Radio 2 from Radio 4. Another programme, still running to this day as part of the Radio 2 breakfast show, also started with the religious slot Pause for Thought replacing Five to Ten.       

It was the changes to the Third Programme that caused the most uproar, not unlike the protests over the 1957 cut in hours and the introduction of Network Three. Now it was such luminaries as Sir Adrian Boult, James Cameron, George Melly, Jonathan Miller and Henry Moore who supported the Campaign for Better Broadcasting and fired off letters to The Times.

Since the network shake-up in September 1967 the Third Programme title had been retained for the evening schedule of music, drama, arts and talks - the same highbrow mix that had defined the station since its launch in 1946. In addition the wavelengths carried a daytime schedule of classical music as the Music Programme, on weekday evenings there was a Study hour of further education programmes and on Saturday afternoons the Sports Service.

Under Broadcasting in the Seventies the proposal was to re-badge the whole lot as Radio 3 and to continue the music programming into the evening. The Sports Service was dropped and moved over to Radio 2 to become Sport on 2. Sport wasn't totally lost on Radio 3 however as it still carried Test Match Special.  Meanwhile some speech programming would move over to Radio 4. In addition the idea of having Radio 3 as a VHF only service was floated, with the medium wave frequencies used to supplement local radio expansion. (Radio 3 did finally become FM only in February 1992).    

What also caused upset was the decision to axe the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the London Studio Players, the BBC Chorus, the BBC Training Orchestra and, heard only on Radio 2, the Northern Dance Orchestra. Earlier proposals from the internal Policy Study group had also put the Concert and the Northern Ireland Orchestras in the frame. In the event there was a reprieve, at least in the short-term. Writing in The Listener Director-General Charles Curran admitted that the Government basically said "You have too many orchestras but we want you to continue to employ them because somebody has to. They are needed nationally".

The Scottish SO continues to this day, the London Studio Players stayed playing until 1984, the BBC Chorus went back to its original name of the BBC Singers in 1972, the Training Orchestra was finally wound up in 1977, the Northern Ireland Orchestra was subsumed into the Ulster Orchestra in 1981 and the NDO became the Northern Radio Orchestra in 1975 but was disbanded in 1980.  

The longer lasting changes were seen on Radio 4 this week in 1970. As well as inheriting some speech programmes from Radios 2 and 3 the proposals saw an increase in news and current affairs coverage and plans to "develop the four main news and magazine periods - breakfast time, lunch time, early evening, and late evening". Today with Jack de Manio and The World at One with William Hardcastle already existed but new to the schedules were the teatime PM "the news magazine that sums up your day and starts off your evening." Replacing Home This Afternoon (a magazine show aimed a older listeners)  and produced by the WATO team, PM was presented by William Hardcastle to cover the hard news and either Derek Cooper or Steve Race (who also regularly hosted Home This Afternoon), who would look after the lighter elements.

There was another half-hour news programme at 7 pm, News Desk with former US correspondent Gerald Priestland and newsreader Meryl O'Keeffe. Priestland describing the programme as "news with a human voice". Finally, taking a more serious tone and a more international outlook was The World Tonight with Douglas Stuart, which replaced Ten O'Clock. Though News Desk was dropped in 1976 - replaced by The World in Focus which itself ended in July 1977 when the Six O'Clock News was extended from 15 to 30 minutes - PM and The World Tonight remain key programmes.

Elsewhere on Radio 4 some other equally long-lasting programmes were launched: Week Ending (1970-98), Start the Week with Richard Baker and Analysis with Ian McIntyre who said of the programme that "our business was to get behind the news and dig and illuminate and go a bit further." You and Yours would follow in October 1970. Music shows didn't completely disappear, there was Steve Race's daily Invitation to Music for instance and occasional classical concerts. 

The report also covered local radio and expected the network to expand to 40 stations, though financial restrictions saw this stall at 20 until 1980. On regional production the idea was the phase out the opt-outs from Radio 4, apart from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and to restructure the BBC English regional map around eight production centres rather than the old Regional and Home Service ones determined by transmitter range.

In the lead-up to the on-air changes for the week commencing 4 April 1970 the Radio Times printed a series of Q&As with BBC management. Here's the final set with Ian Trethowan, MD Radio and Gerard Mansell, Director of Programmes, Radio.

The magazine also published this example weekday schedule to summarise to give listeners an idea of what to expect. 

So did Broadcasting in the Seventies make a difference. It's an unequivocal yes. Station controllers had inherited  mishmash schedules from the old Home, Light and Third. Listening habits had changed; there was TV to divert you, particularly in the evening, more folk listened in the car and on their transistor radios. No longer would the family sit round the wireless to enjoy an evening of mixed entertainment. In the era of increasing consumer choice radio schedulers had to make it easier for listeners to find what they wanted. Having said that the sound of the networks didn't totally change overnight, it was more of a gradual shift. As Trethowan admitted " the changes were not nearly as dramatic as we made out in public." There was still music on Radio 4, drama serials on Radio2 and current affairs on Radio 3.

But the real issue was financial. Although the final report put such considerations well down the list it still talked of predicted annual deficit in the radio budget of £4.5 million by 1974. The figure in the earlier McKinsey report was worse with an £8m deficit forecast by 1972. The Corporation had been frustrated in its attempts to get an increase in the licence fee by Wilson's government which was too embroiled in devaluation issues and cabinet in-fighting. At a Downing Street meeting in 1966 the PM had told the BBC  "drastically to prune its expenditure".    

Typically the BBC fudged and delayed any economies but by the time of the 3-day week and the oil crisis it was squeezed even further and broadcasting hours were trimmed back and programme sharing invoked between Radios 1 and 2 and between Radios 3 and 4.    

I'll leave the final word on this to listener Frederick Chamberlain who sent in his A Listeners Prayer to the BBC in 1968:

Were I in charge of the BBC,

The Radio Programmes - they would be-

Channel 1 - Pop all day; low brow sounds, to some quite gay.

Channel 2- that would go-harmonic music for the medium brow.

Channel 3-Symphonic noise, for the high brow girls and boys, Prose and Poetry, Opera too, not for the many but just for the few.

Channel 4-Would surely be -talks-religion-plays and views-odds and ends and of course the News.

And so-all-would be satisfied-

Not one listener ere denied.

The full document and an article on the evolution of BBC radio post 1967 by Dr Alban Webb is on the History of the BBC website.

Christmas Countdown - 7 December - In Tune

Radio 3 was just coming to the end of a two-month celebration of 70 years since the launch of its predecessor the Third Programme when In Tune hosted this finale from the Goonhilly Earth Station on this day last year.

Joining Sean Rafferty are Will Gregory (of Goldfrapp) with his suitably space-aged Moog Orchestra, members of the BBC Concert Orchestra, composer Graham Fitkin, boys and girls of Truro Cathedral Choir, and award-winning Cornish folk group The Changing Room. 

Radio 3 at 50 - Part 2

Radio 3 enjoyed a classical music monopoly for the first quarter of a century of its existence until the arrival of Classic FM in 1992.

You could, of course, hear drama and talks over on Radio 4. Radio 3 even covered current affairs on programmes such as Six Continents (1979-87). There was a smattering of classical music elsewhere on the dial on Radio 2 and Radio 4 on These You Have Loved, Baker's Dozen and Melodies for You. Even some of the new ILR stations got in on the act - Capital sponsored the Wren Orchestra of London - but it amounted to no more than an hour or so a week. So when Classic FM came along Radio 3 had to up is game.    

Ahead of Classic FM's September 1992 launch, in June the BBC announced 'BBC Radio 3 FM's New Look' with controller Nicholas Kenyon explaining he wanted to create "access points" for new listeners, whatever that meant. They appointed Saatchi and Saatchi as advertising agents and in the Autumn launched the glossy BBC Music Magazine.

The morning sequence of records linked by a staff announcer, Morning Concert, was dropped in favour of On Air, while the teatime Mainly for Pleasure would become In Tune. The BBC described the new programmes as "two weekday programmes with named presenters, of mostly popular classical music with new headlines, weather, traffic information, previews, news of the music world". The main loss for listeners was a reduction in drama on the station. "Music Plus" was the strapline, but one critic described this as a euphemism for "Drama Less".

This is how On Air sounded when its first edition was heard on the morning of Monday 13 July 1992. Piers Burton-Page, a music presenter and producer and previously a continuity announcer and newsreader on both Radio 3 and Radio 4.
 



Those news headlines that Piers reads every 20 minutes were an unwelcome addition with Kenyon later admitting "our presenters talked too much" Adding "I now tell them to be economical with words. I also accept that perhaps we went slightly too far and threw out too many well-known programme labels." 

In 1993 the BBC produced this glossy 24-page booklet promoting Radio 3's wares. The quote on the back cover from composer Harrison Birtwistle hints that this was the BBC firing its big guns at Classic FM: "Radio 3 is in danger of becoming the last refuge of the serious music-lover. In times when concert programmes show a remarkable similarity, and classical music through the popular media is reduced to a mere cosmetic continuum to our lives, its excellence is increasingly more important". 

Radio 3 at 50 - Part 1

When the Third Network - the umbrella title for the Music Programme, the Third Programme, the Sports Service and the Study Session - became Radio 3 on 30 September 1967, listeners won't have noticed any difference. It was very much business as usual. All the component parts retained their own names, controllership of the Third remained under Howard Newby and the Music Programme continued to be the responsibility of the Controller of the Home Service, which became Radio 4 of course, Gerard Mansell.  

Here's the final Saturday schedule for the Third Network for 23 September 1967, the start of the 21st anniversary week for the Third Programme.

And here's the Radio Times listings a week later under the Radio 3 banner for 30 September 1967.

Daytime on the Third Network was given over to the Music Programme that had been introduced in August 1964; prior to that the channel was mostly silent during the day. About 99% of the daytime music was classical, but during the week there was the odd programme devoted to light music, brass bands and jazz. On weekdays the service ran from 7.00 am to 6.30 pm with an hour's Study Session acting as a buffer before the evening's listening on the Third Programme.

You'll no doubt spot a couple of programmes that still crop up on Radio 3's Saturday schedule. Jazz Record Requests dates from 1964 when Humphrey Lyttelton was the first presenter, from April 1967 Steve Race took over the role. The other is Record Review which had first appeared back in 1957.

Occupying the afternoon slot between 12.30 pm and 6.00 pm was the Sports Service. This had originally started as a summer fixture in 1961 but became an all year programme from, yes you've guessed it 1964. It incorporated Sports Report that had started out on the Light Programme. Note that the presenter for both afternoons is staff announcer Michael de Morgan. This is typical of that period; sports journalists didn't really take over the role until Peter Jones joined the team in 1968.

The evening was given over to the Third Programme offering its mix of classical music, drama and talks. For the opening night under the new network the prime offering was a concert from the Berlin Festival featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez. 

The network didn't fully shift over to its new name for another two and a half years when the policies of the internal review Broadcasting in the Seventies were formally adopted. By 1969 an internal working party had already concluded: "We recommend dropping the names 'Third Programme' and 'Music Programme' and uniting the whole network and programme service under the single title 'Radio 3'. The Third Programme in particular has made a great name for itself and the loss of this title will be depreciated by some but it undoubtedly has connotations which discourage a large number who might have enjoyed many of its programmes from tuning into it. A new title will help to emphasise that we are making changes and that we intend to be free from  past commitments".  

D-Day for the first phase of the network realignment was Saturday 4 April 1970. Here's the Radio 3 line-up, and it's now music all the way from 8.00 am to 11.30 pm with three evening talks, one on Bertrand Russell, the second from economics historian Robert Skidelsky and the third on Frank Lloyd Wright.  There's no drama, that's over on Radio 4's Saturday Night Theatre, but on Sunday there's Marva from Russian playwright Isaac Babel with a cast that includes Paul Eddington and Fenella Fielding. As for the sport that had now shifted over to Radio 2 as Sport on 2.   

On Radio 3's 40th anniversary Tom Service traced the changes in the station's sound and its cultural impact. This edition of Music Matters was heard on Saturday 6 October 2007 and includes contributions from Lord Asa Briggs, Georgina Born, Robert Ponsonby, Harrison Birtwistle, Ned Chaillet, Paul Gambaccini, Nicholas Kenyon and Roger Wright. 




Read more about Network Three and the Study Session at The University of the Air: Network Three and the Study Session