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A Brief History of Radio Announcers

Their history is as long as that of public radio broadcasting. They are a constant presence on air but few get the recognition afforded to other on air “talent”. They are the “glue” that holds the programme schedule together. Or, at least that was the case …..

Continuity announcers have been with us in Britain since the 1920s. Names such as Arthur Burrows, Rex Palmer, Cecil Lewis and John Dodgson (the first full-time announcer) graced the airwaves.

Announcers Stuart Hibberd, John Snagge and Alvar Lidell

Some of the early announcers did attain a degree of fame as they went on to read the news through the dark days of World War II. Stuart Hibberd was one of the longest serving starting in 1924, becoming Chief Announcer four years later. “This is London” became his classic phrase and later the title of his autobiography. He retired in 1949 signing off with his closedown “Good night everybody…goodnight”. The pause designed to give listeners a chance to say “Good Night” in reply.

John Snagge also joined the BBC in 1924. His was the voice that announced D-Day, V-Day and VJ-Day. He was also well known for his Boat Race commentaries, a run that lasted, incredibly, from 1931 to 1980.


Alvar Lidell was first on air in 1932 and is best remembered for “Here is the news and this is Alvar Lidell reading it.” He was part of the Third Programme’s first announcing team in 1946. Older readers may also remember Bruce Belfrage, Frank Philips and Freddy Grisewood (later the first presenter of Any Questions’1948-1966).

Some announcers became well-known personalities through their involvement in comedy and variety shows of the time: Philip Slessor on Variety Bandbox’ David Dunhill on Take It From Here, Wallace Greenslade on The Goon Show, Douglas Smith on Round the Horne, Robin Boyle on The Navy Lark and Richard Clegg on The News Huddlines.

The serious measured tone of the BBC announcer has often been the subject of affectionate humour and spoofs. Spike Milligan gave some very funny lines to aforementioned Wallace Greenslade as well as John Snagge and Andrew Timothy. Barry Took and Marty Feldman did the same for Douglas Smith “who” to quote Barry Took “excelled at inanimate objects, including a sacred volcano, a motor boat, a drophead Bentley, and a semi-detached house.” The false endings on The Burkiss Way could trap the unsuspecting Radio 4 announcer. More recently the Dead Ringers team portrayed a thuggish Brian Perkins and a sensuous Charlotte Green.

Perhaps the best known early announcers on pre-war commercial radio (Radio Normandy and Radio Luxembourg) were Stephen Williams and Bob Danvers-Walker, later the voice of Pathe News.

Of course announcers did more than introduce the next programme or read the closing cast list; most also worked news reading shifts and many eventually went on to present music shows or introduce concerts. It was members of the announcing team that filled the airwaves at the beginning of the day and late at night taking the helm of Breakfast Special and Night Ride for instance.

Cormac Rigby, who joined the BBC in the 60s recalls “what I was joining was a Presentation Department that served all radio networks. So you might do an overnight shift reading the news and Today in Parliament on the Home Service, and then open up the Music Programme the following morning.”

The arrangements for working across all the three networks had operated since 1957, due to economies being required in radio to help the TV service compete against the new commercial channel. This change meant that announcers could join the “inner sanctum of those permitted to do Third (Programme) Continuity.”

The BBC’s Broadcasting in the Seventies policy published in 1969 sought, in part, to more clearly define the roles of the new national networks – Radios 1, 2, 3 & 4 having launched in September 1967 - which, Radio 1 apart, were little changed from their old Light, Third and Home predecessors. One consequence of this shift, implemented in 1972, was the splitting up of Radio Presentation into the separate stations. Each network was to have their own team of announcers and newsreaders. Presentation Editor for Radio 1 and 2 (still sharing much of their programming and the VHF frequencies at the time) was senior announcer Jimmy Kingsbury best known for hosting Friday Night is Music Night. Over at Radio 3 the role went to Cormac Rigby and at Radio 4 Jim Black.



With the separation of presentation duties staff had to opt for their chosen network, or were presumably transferred. Jon Curle, for instance, long associated with the Light Programme and then a presenter on Radio 1 & 2 on Night Ride moved to Radio 3. Peter Donaldson who had also joined Radio 1 & 2 in 1970 and also worked on Night Ride moved to Radio 4. In Peter’s case he cited the music he was allowed to play on Breakfast Special and Night Ride as “dire”. He found himself “in trouble with the management and decided, as I’d always been interested in news – where you can’t ad-lib – to ask for a transfer to Radio 4”.

The use of separate continuity teams or shifts was phased out on Radios 2 & 3 in the 1990s – quietly on Radio 2 but amidst some controversy on Radio 3. I’ll be going into more detail about the teams at Radios 2 & 3 in my next posts. Radio 4 is now the only national network to maintain a full team of announcers (doing live announcements) and newsreaders, both staff and freelance. A similar arrangement is used on the BBC World Service. Radio 4 Extra (formerly Radio 7) uses pre-recorded announcements.

The main audio for this post is an amiable quiz from the late 1980s called The Announcers’ Challenge. Hosted by Michael Aspel the teams consisted of announcers from the national radio networks. In this first programme the Radio 2 team of Patrick Lunt, Jean Challis and Steve Madden take on the Radio 4 team of Charlotte Green, Eugene Fraser and Laurie MacMillan. The programme was first broadcast on Radio 2 on 30 December 1988. This recording is from the repeat on Radio 4 on 2 January 1989.

The programme returned the following year as The Announcers’ Challenge II. Representing Radio 2 are James Alexander Gordon and Steve Madden. The Radio 4 team comprises Laurie MacMillan and Charlotte Green. Radio 3 joined the programme with Peter Barker and Susan Sharpe. The programme was first broadcast on Radio 2 on 26 December 1989. This recording is from the Radio 3 repeat on 1 January 1990.

 

Further information

Chris Aldridge writes about being an announcer here
You can see masses of excellent photographs of the BBC’s coverage of the Boat Race on Roger George Clark’s website

I am indebted to Denis Gifford’s book The Golden Age of Radio for some of the historic information in this post.

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You can now find Random Radio Jottings on Facebook. All future posts (including this one!) should appear on the Wall and link through to the News Feed on your Facebook account. I'll also be posting the occasional snippet of audio, generally 1 or 2 minutes long, that doesn't fit into my blog posts.

I'm just getting to grips with Facebook so please bear with me. I generallly leave all the Facebook stuff to Val. And speaking of the other half can I just make a blatant plug for the new website we've been putting together for Val's French Property Finder/Management business at Poitou Property Services. Big thanks to Steve for all his technical help.

Music Off the Shelf

Tucked away in the Radio 4 schedule this Tuesday afternoon (April 12th) is what should prove to be a fascinating listen, Into the Music Library presented by Jonny Trunk.

Much beloved by tv and radio producers alike library music has been used to provide background music and theme tunes for decades. Increasingly the older pieces of library music can instantly create a particular mood or era. Truly music 'off the shelf'.

Here are some examples (short clips only) you may recognise:

From the KPM Library a composition by Alan Moorhouse, played under the pseudonym of Oscar Brandenburg, called Music to Drive By familiar to Radio 2 listeners as the theme used by Charlie Chester.

Also from KPM another Alan Moorhouse piece called Peter Piper used as the theme to the Radio 4 comedy panel game You've Got to be Joking.

From the De Wolfe Library an Ivor Slaney composition called Top Dog as used in the long-running comedy seriesThe Men from the Ministry.

A TV theme first used by ITN in 1967 this was written by Johnny Pearson and called The Awakening taken from his 20^th Century Portrait. Another KPM Library recording.

Johnny Pearson died just last month. Over on Radio Six International Tony Currie paid tribute to Johnny in a special edition of The Lively Lounge and also broadcast in interview he conducted with Johnny back in 1974. Here’s a small part of that interview.

Alan Dell

Alan Dell was associated with three long running series on BBC Radio 2.

Starting in 1972 was Dance Band Days:


Starting in 1969 Big Band Sound:


And on Sunday afternoons from 1980 Sounds Easy:

Alan Dell’s broadcasting career started in the 1940s when he worked for the South African Broadcasting Corporation as an announcer and then producer and presenter. “I hadn’t been there five minutes” he said, “when I saw some 78s of Count Basie. I asked if they had ever done a programme with them and they said ‘Jazz, we don’t do jazz’ ! So, I wrote a programme and asked the Programme Manager if I could broadcast it and he said ‘Yes’.

In 1952 Alan left for the States to study acoustics at Capital Records. On his way back to South Africa he came to Britain and decided to stay. Joining the BBC he was soon working with the Ted Heath Band and introducing Late Night Swing Session. He was an early presenter of Pick of the Pops in 1956 and 1957 and also hosted other Light Programme shows such as Jazz Club, Roundabout, Morning Call, LP Parade, Music Through Midnight, Session at 6 and Date with a Disc.

On Radio 2 Alan’s relaxed style was also suited to late night broadcasting and he was a regular on Music to Midnight, Music Through Midnight and The Late Show. He would also present concerts when the likes of his friend Billy May was in the UK.


Alan worked on a number of recording sessions and compiled LPs, most notably those for Frank Sinatra. I have in my collection The Rare Sinatra album released in August 1978 with sleeve notes by Alan that includes some tracks getting their first world release. Alan continued to champion Frank and played one of his records in every edition of Sounds Easy.

Although I used to record loads of big band music from Alan’s shows regrettably I kept very little in the way of complete programmes. From 30 December 1991 he’s part of Dance Band Days. The announcer is Tim Gudgin.

Alan continued to host his Monday night shows until he became ill in late 1994. Malcolm Laycock, who would eventually take over Alan’s shows permanently, Campbell Burnap and Bob Holness all deputised until he was well enough to return in early 1995. Alan died in August of that year.

Here’s an edition of Big Band Sound featuring Alan’s favourite Ted Heath. This was broadcast 19 November 1984. The announcer after the programme is Steve Madden.

This edition of Sounds Easy from 23 March 1980 was the last in the series, well not quite! The end of the series seemed to come as a surprise to Alan and he announces this as “the last Sounds Easy until…who’s know when”. The following week Benny Green took over the slot. However, after protests from listeners, Sounds Easy did return to the airwaves that winter. Both Alan’s and Benny’s shows became Sunday afternoon regulars until late 1994 when David Jacobs took over from Alan when he became unwell.

On this recording you’ll also hear newsreader Paddy O’ Byrne and announcer Chris Aldred as well an a chance to hear rather more than usual of the theme tune That’s All by, I think, Andre Previn & his Orchestra.

Wavelength Changes 1978 - Part 4

Radio 4 UK


With BBC Radio 4 moving to long wave in November 1978, and the improved national coverage that brought, it was able to promote itself as “Radio 4 UK.” 

In the run-up to the wavelength changes the network sought to publicise both the new programmes as well as the existing services it provided. Most of this promotional work was voiced by David Symonds.  



Radio Times 23 November 1978



In this sequence lasting just under nine minutes you’ll hear David plus, at the end, John Timpson on Today:

The UK Theme

When, in 2006, the then Controller of Radio 4 Mark Damazer axed the UK Theme that opened the station each morning even the BBC got into a muddle about when it was first used. The history of Radio 4 online continues to erroneously state that the UK Theme was introduced in 1973 when, of course, it was launched in 1978 to coincide with Radio 4 UK.

The UK Theme was aired on Radio 4 before 23 November 1978 whenever there was an appropriate gap in the schedules. Here, for example, you can hear it played on the 20^th and introduced by announcer Edgar Martin:

Despite what a certain online encyclopaedia says this is not the first play for the theme. My own recording is from Friday 17 November when Charles Collville was on duty. Here’s what he had to say after playing the theme:

Let’s hear the theme in use to open proceedings on Radio 4. Moving forward to 29 January 1982 this is Eugene Fraser welcoming in a new day of broadcasting:

Before the UK Theme was introduced Radio 4 started each day with another Fritz Spiegel composition known as 'A Skipping Tune'. This had been in use from the summer of 1973. Here's an on-air recording from 1977. The music starts 30 seconds in after the test tone beeps:

It's Dee Time



The rise and rapid fall of Simon Dee is a morality tale of the 1960s. Star of radio, TV, and even the odd film appearance, for six years and then nothing again for nearly two decades.

His radio broadcasting career started with the launch of Radio Caroline in the Easter of 1964, he was at the station for a year. Back on shore he joined the BBC Light Programme presenting ‘Midday Spin’ and ‘Housewives’ Choice’. In 1966 he was hosting a Saturday night show between 11 p.m. and 1.30 a.m. Simon was also working on Radio Luxembourg with shows like ‘Simon’s Scene’, ‘Battle of the Giants’ and ‘Night and Dee’.

Simon Dee interview on Radio Caroline 1964

When Radio 1 started in late 1967 he was one of the initial team with Monday’s ‘Midday Spin’. But his stay was short-lived as he dedicated more time to his Saturday night BBC1 chat show ‘Dee Time’. After a dispute over pay with the BBC in 1969 and then a falling out with LWT the year after he didn’t appear regularly on air again until 1987 when Radio 2 asked him to host ‘Sounds of the Sixties’.

In 1984 Simon appeared on Radio 4’s Sunday magazine show ‘The Colour Supplement’. In the feature called ‘A Year of My Own’ he recalls 1969. The show’s presenter is Sarah Kennedy. The news headlines are read by McDonald Hobley.

More Simon Dee audio here

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Testing...One, Two

In the days before round-the-clock radio if you tuned in before the start of the day's broadcasting you'd have heard lots of beeps and whistles. Not some alien communication from outer space but test tone transmissions. These were designed to "assist in the setting-up and checking of stereo receivers."

Here's what they sounded like (yes I really am posting a few buzzing sounds!):


You could get a BBC Engineering Information sheet to explain exactly what you'd hear:

More BBC Engineering information sheets can be found here.