100 Years of Radio Times (Part 2)

 

This week the UK’s oldest listings magazine celebrates its centenary. The Radio Times –‘the official organ of the BBC’ – hit the newsstands on 28 September 1923 listing the programmes for the radio stations in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff, Newcastle and Glasgow. 

The centenary issue – which now carries listings for 86 TV channels and 63 radio stations -  includes an article looking at significant events or personalities in the last century linked to some of the more memorable Radio Times covers. Here are Melvyn Bragg on the birth of television, Dan Snow on WWII, Jonathan Dimbleby on the Coronation, David Hepworth on The Beatles, Professor Brain Cox on moon landings, Angela Rippon on Eric & Ernie, Tony Jordan on the shared experience of watching TV, David Dimbleby on the 97 General Election, Mike Gunton on The Blue Planet, Seb Coe on the 2012 Olympics and Simon Schama on the Covid pandemic.   

Following the disagreement with the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of the printing of radio schedules (see previous post) Reith and the BBC were determined to take matters into their own hands. In May 2023 the Board of the BBC minuted that “it was resolved that the General Manager make the appointment of an individual to deal with propaganda publicity and the production of a magazine. ”

John Reith sought a deal with a publisher on the basis of a share of profits and a minimum annual sum guaranteed to the BBC. That deal was with George Newnes Ltd who already published Tit-Bits and it was that magazine’s editor, Leonard Croscombe, who became the first editor of the Radio Times. More accurately he was the first joint editor as an article recently added to the Radio Times Archive website notes the BBC also made their own internal appointment for editor in the person of Herbert Parker.   

Croscombe’s grandson, journalist and broadcaster Justin Webb, writes about him There’s also a nod to the magazine’s colourful third editor, “songwriter, spy, Hollywood screenwriter and more” Eric Maschwitz in an article by Paul Hayes (aka Radio Norfolk’s Questmaster).

Finally Caroline Frost recounts how the Radio Times stills proves indispensible to the National Grid, the police and continuity announcers.   

100 Years of Radio Times (Part 1)

The Radio Times was “launched in a fit of pique”. So says Joe Moran writing for the listing magazine’s 90^th anniversary edition. This week the Radio Times celebrates a full century on the nation’s newsstands. In this post I am dipping into the magazine’s history to look how it marked its 90^th.

In his article Moran continues: “In January 1923, the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association announced that it would be charging the three-month old British Broadcasting Company the standard advertising rates for publishing its radio listings in newspapers. Although the newspapers capitulated the following month, realising that not including broadcasting schedules would affect their circulations, the BBC’s general manager, John Reith, was irritated by their attitude and it gave him an idea.  On 10 September he wrote in his diary: ‘Everything is now in shape for a BBC magazine, and from various alternatives I chose Radio Times for the title.’”

From the 28 September 2013 edition here’s a look at some classic Radio Times covers over the decades.

I’ve written about the Radio Times before back in 2013 considering my own archive of back issues and looking at the first issue in The Bradshaw of Broadcasting.

In the next post a look at some of the pages of the centenary edition. 

Sixty Years Ago

22 November 1961. Elvis is number in the UK hit parade with His Latest Flame. Jimmy Dean's Big Bad John tops the Billboard Hot 100. The Biblical epic King of Kings is the latest cinema release. Macmillan's government has implemented a wage freeze and is considering joining the Common Market. JFK is not yet a year into his Presidency and the date two years on would prove fateful. Meanwhile at Hull's Hedon Road Maternity Hospital I was born.

But this is a radio blog. So what, I hear you cry, was on the radio that day? The BBC Programme Index helps fill in the blanks but you can't beat going back to the Radio Times listings.    

My edition of the Radio Times is for the north of England so on the Home Service we only get the first edition of Today with Jack de Manio. Replacing the second post 8 am news edition is Today from the North with John Watmaugh. It's term-time so schools programmes take a chunk out of the daytime hours. Wednesday means Choral Evensong and from 5 pm programmes badged as Junior Time in what was the old Children's Hour timeslot include a drama The Immovable Object produced by long-time Manchester-based producer Trevor Hill. From the current perspective the evening schedule seems a little odd, the Home Service carries the Bizet opera Carmen in four acts, so taking up most of the night. However, the Third Programme has the drama, in this case an adaptation of Un Caso Clinico (A Hospital Case) by Italian playwright Dino Buzzati.

The Light Programme offerings include Housewives' Choice with Kenneth Wolstenholme who was in a for a busy day with tv commentary to follow in the afternoon. Radio commentary on the second half of the England v Ireland international was by Raymond Glendenning and Robert Rosser. Lunchtime music was provided by Bob Miller and the Millermen and guests in Parade of the Pops. We now know how this show sounded thanks to a chance discovery of a recording of the programme from 30 August 1961 in my earlier post Back in Time On the Light - Part 1.   

There are some very familiar titles in the afternoon and early evening including Listen with Mother, Woman's Hour (it would not be until 1973 that it moves to Radio 4), Mrs Dale's Diary and The Archers, as well as the teatime magazine show Roundabout. The evening on the Light moves from the long-forgotten comedy Once Over Lightly, Jimmy Young presenting Younger than Springtime, a Mid-Week Theatre story by Philip Levene who would later script some classic episodes of The Avengers, through to Jack Jackson's Record Roundabout and the BBC West of England Players who bookend this day with appearances on Morning Music and the pre-closedown Late Date.               

Of course it wasn't just the BBC you could tune into to. There were any number of foreign stations, perhaps the AFN, but more than likely it'd be 208 metres for some alternative night time listening on Radio Luxembourg. The schedule for the 22nd can be found in the issue of Disc ("the top record and musical weekly") tracked down online by Mike Barraclough. Essentially its full of lots of very short  pre-recorded sponsored shows with not much clue, at least in this publication, as to who the DJs were

6.00 Record Show

          7.00 Pops at the Piano

7.17 Wednesday's Requests

7.45 Jimmy Young Sings

8.00 Honey Hit Parade

8.15 In the Groove

8.30 Sound of Fury

9.00 Internationalities

9.30 David Jacobs

10.00 Teen and Twenty Club

10.30 Record Show

11.00 Request a Golden Guinea

11.15-11.30 Hits for Six

12.00-12.30 Midnight on Luxembourg 

Meanwhile over on the telly ITV offered us Zoo Time from Whipsnade Zoo, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, Coronation Street (so some things never change), Rawhide, the musical programme Pop! Vintage '48 and The Blackwell Story,  a drama about America's first woman medical student Elizabeth Blackwell. Over on the BBC it was an afternoon of live football with Kenneth Wolstenholme commentating of the England v Ireland international, The Flowerpot Men, Tales of the Riverbank, Cliff and the team with Tonight, the US series Frontier Circus, Peter Dimmock with Sportsview and the start of a new 6-part drama A Chance of Thunder by Z Cars scriptwriter John Hopkins.    

The Radio Show (Revived)

In October 1988 to celebrate the 21st anniversary of the national radio stations the BBC revived the old Radio Show format: an exhibition at Earl's Court to celebrate the medium. These national exhibitions had been running since the 1920s until the mid 60s, with a break for the war, styled as Radiolympia and later The Radio Show.

For the 1988 show the BBC had two working studios and a purpose built theatre for recordings of Gardeners' Question Time and Any Questions? The Radio Times joined in with a special cover designed by Bob Murdoch and six feature pages looking at each of the four radio networks, local radio, the World Service and the latest technology, Radio Data Systems.  

A number of shows were broadcast live or recorded at Earl's Court including Bruno Brookes, Gary Davies, Singled Out, Woman's Hour, You and Yours, Desert Island Discs, Folk on 2 and Friday Night is Music Night. On Saturday 1 October Adrian Juste was live on Radio 1 (in this recording uploaded by David Cunningham).

To celebrate 21 years of Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 David Frost presented a live variety show on Radio 2 on the evening of Friday 30 September titled The Radio Show Radio Show. Unfortunately I've only got 30 minutes of the hour long show so if you a complete copy please contact me. The opening announcements come from Stuart Grundy for Radio 1, James Alexander Gordon for Radio 2, Piers Burton-Page for Radio 3 and Peter Donaldson for Radio 4. In this recording  you'll also hear the BBC Radio Orchestra, the Stephen Hill Singers, Richard Murdoch, the Week Ending team of Sally Grace, David Tate and Jon Glover and star guest Frankie Howerd.

The Radio Show Exhibition

It was in 1922, just months after the launch of 2MT and 2LO, that the nascent radio industry held its first exhibition at the Horticultural Hall in Westminster. It offered the opportunity for the public to experience the new technology and encouraged the sale of wireless sets and all the various components for building your own receiving equipment. Further demonstrations were held at the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition in 1923 the Royal Albert Hall in 1925.

Annual shows were established in 1926 coming from the Empire Hall in Olympia organised by the Radio Manufacturers Association. When the BBC came onboard the Radiolympia exhibitions included live broadcasts from the hall and gave listeners the opportunity to meet the stars and to fill their autograph books. After the August 1939 Radiolympia there was an interregnum until 1947.  

In the 1950s the exhibition moved to Earls Court and it regularly generated a special cover on the Radio Times.  From my archive are these editions from 1955, 1959, 1961 and 1962.

These extracts come from the 1956 Radio Show booklet by which time it was organised by the Radio Industry Council. Exhibits and demonstrations weren't confined to radio of course as stands included BBC television and the newly launched ITV.

The Radio Show was discontinued in 1966 but there was a one-off revival in 1988. More on that tomorrow.