One of America’s most popular entertainers from the 1940s, Kate Smith’s big career was launched on the radio.
In the U.K., public broadcasting has followed a pattern different from any other country owing to the early establishment of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a non-commercial independent institution that maintained control over radio and television until the 1970s. The independence and high standards set by the BBC have made British broadcasting the envy of the world. Since the 1970s, commercial radio in Britain, which has more in common with modern American radio than the traditional BBC, has had an ever-growing listenership.
Radio began with the experiments of Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor who moved to the U.K. in 1896. He filed a patent for wireless transmission with the British Patent Office on June 2, 1896, and the first public demonstration was arranged by the engineer-in-chief of the General Post Office (GPO) on July 27 when a message was transmitted from the GPO’s headquarters in London to a receiver a mile away. In 1904, the government took control of wireless transmission in the Wireless Telegraphy Act. This control was further strengthened during World War I when all amateur transmission was banned.
Radio programmes as such began on February 14, 1922, when the Marconi Company started to send out regular transmissions of speech and music from its station near Chelmsford, Essex. Listeners tuned in on crystal sets with earphones. Later that year, a group of companies including the Marconi Company and the General Electric Company amalgamated to form the British Broadcasting Company and John Reith was appointed its first general manager.
Reith became director-general when the company was relaunched as the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927, and he remained there until 1938. More than any other individual, Reith had an enormous influence on the development of broadcasting in Britain. Born in 1889, Reith belonged to an era that had a profound belief in the importance of education and culture and he saw broadcasting as a medium for general improvement.
The official debate on the independence of broadcasting in the U.K. was revived countless times over the century, but Reith and others remained firmly in favour of a non-commercial service. Revenue was derived from licences, which in 1923 cost ten shillings. Radio became enormously popular in the period between the wars in Britain: amusements were fewer and the Depression meant that people stayed at home. There was also an enormous hunger for self-improvement which radio fed. In 1922 the number of households that had radio licences was 35,774. By 1938 that number had risen to 8 million. This guaranteed income for the BBC enabled it to plan ambitious programmes of plays and orchestral music as well as lighter fare.
The BBC was closely associated with classical music from early days. In 1927, the BBC took over the organising and financing of the “Proms,” the summer series of promenade concerts in London’s Royal Albert Hall. The concerts were broadcast on radio and most continue to be aired today on Radio 3.
In 1930, the BBC Symphony Orchestra was formed with Adrian Boult as conductor. This orchestra rapidly became one of the most notable in the country and has boasted Sir Malcom Sargent, Colin Davies, and Pierre BOULEZ among its conductors. Later, this was joined by the BBC Salon Orchestra for light programmes, the BBC Singers, a permanent professional choir, and the BBC Symphony Chorus, a larger amateur body.
In 1939, the National and Regional networks were replaced by the Home Service. After World War II, the “light” Forces Programme became the Light Programme and the Third Programme was inaugurated to send out plays and classical music with a remit that it would not have fixed points (like the 6 o’clock news) in its programming, but each programme would simply take the time it needed. The second point that the new director-general of the BBC, William Haley, insisted on was that the best possible performers should be used. The Third Programme opened at a healthy period in British music: many festivals started in the post-war period and composers like WALTON and BRITTEN were writing adventurous new works.
In the beginning, Reith had been against the division of broadcasting into high-brow and low-brow channels and the National and Regional networks were a mix of everything. However, the streaming of programmes seemed inevitable and World War II witnessed a decisive break from Reith’s policy. The Forces Programme broadcast light cheerful music, such as Vera Lynn’s Sincerely Yours and the long-running Music While You Work, to the troops. After the war, the Light Programme continued in this vein with Palm Court evenings of dance music and the BBC Concert Orchestra in Friday Night is Music Night.
Amid this culture and light entertainment, there was no provision at all during the 1950s for either the new rock’n’roll and pop music or the potential new audience of young listeners. This changed, however, in the 1960s with exciting developments led by pirate stations that forced the BBC to rethink its policy.
The pirate radio stations on offshore ships were in fact only significant for less than a decade but had an enormous impact on broadcasting. But “independent” (that is, not BBC) radio had been heard in Britain since the 1930s on Radio Normandy and Radio Luxembourg. These stations were founded by Captain L. F. Plugge and had offices in London. The GPO refused them telephone facilities to transmit concerts live, so they recorded concerts, touring seaside resorts and recording bands on 16-inch 78rpm gramophone records that were then shipped to Brussels and taken by train to Luxembourg to be relayed.
Radio Luxembourg had the most powerful transmitter in Europe at the time. British firms were soon paying a total of £400,000 a year for advertising on programmes and sponsoring them. One of the most popular was the Ovaltine Show featuring the Ovaltineys and the Ovaltineys’ Orchestra. These first commercial stations were largely lost in World War II when most of the transmitters were destroyed— although the Germans took over Radio Luxembourg to transmit propaganda. It survived after the war and took the new format of the Top 20 series from U.S. radio, presented at first by Teddy Johnson. This was the beginning of the DJ era in Britain with David Jacobs, Jimmy Savile, and Jimmy Young becoming household names, playing records of Cliff Richard, Billy Fury, Marty Wilde, and the Ted Heath Band.
However, on March 29, 1964, a new development hit the airwaves and captured the imagination and loyalty of the young listeners. Radio Caroline first broadcast from a ship anchored off the Essex coast just outside British territorial waters. There had been other pirate offshore radio stations before that, broadcasting to Scandinavian and other northern European countries, but Radio Caroline was to become the most successful and long-lived. It was the child of an Irish businessman called Ronan O’Rahilly, who had been trying to promote a young singer named Georgie Fame. He was turned down by the main record companies and decided therefore to start his own company. He then took the records to Radio Luxembourg and was in turn rejected by them as their airtime was mostly taken by the large record companies. In desperation, O’Rahilly decided to start his own radio station.
One of America’s most popular entertainers from the 1940s, Kate Smith’s big career was launched on the radio.
He bought an ex-passenger ferry and refitted it in secrecy in a port in southern Ireland and then moored it off Harwich. The first disc played was the Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” with Simon Dee as the DJ. Pirate stations proliferated off the British coast in the next years: Radio Atlanta, transmitted from the ship Mi Amigo, merged with Radio Caroline and the original Caroline ship went north to anchor off the Isle of Man to become Radio Caroline North.
One of the most colourful developments was the “capture” of the Thames Estuary anti-aircraft tower, the Shivering Sands Fort, by ex-Parliamentary candidate and singer Screaming Lord Sutch. Sutch Radio never really took off (possibly because its record library consisted largely of Sutch’s own performances) but the fort was taken over by Radio City.
However, this was the beginning of the writing on the wall: in 1966, a row broke out between Radio Caroline and Radio City over a loaned transmitter. Major Oliver Smedley of Project Atlanta and 11 Gravesend ship-riggers raided the Shivering Sands fort at 3 A.M. one morning and then, later, in a meeting in their London offices, the Major produced a shotgun and shot dead the manager of Radio City, Reg Calvert.
Faced with the increasing chaos and lawlessness of the situation, the British Government had to act: a law was passed making it illegal to supply the ships, or to advertise on the programmes. The stations fought on for a few years and Caroline lasted into the 1970s by renting out their transmitter but the offshore radio stations were over.
In the same year, the BBC reformed its network to offer for the first time a continuous popular music channel. Radio 1 was born and the old Light, Third, and Home Programmes became Radios 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Many DJs joined Radio 1 from the pirate stations including Simon Dee, Tony Blackburn, Dave Cash, and John Peel. They provided 24-hour music and introduced British listeners to new bands. John Peel had learned his trade in the U.S. with radio stations in Oklahoma and California. He then joined the Radio London pirate station, introducing the music of the VELVET UNDERGROUND and Captain Beefheart to U.K. listeners. On Radio 1, he took the Sunday afternoon slot with Top Gear and gave airtime to PINK FLOYD, Jethro Tull and Fleetwood Mac among others.
In 1970, the last great development began in British broadcasting: the Conservative government pledged itself to open the door to commercial radio. This led in 1973 to the formation of the Independent Broadcasting Authority, which advertised for tenders for local radio stations. In 1973, the first independent radio stations went on the air—the London Broadcasting Company (LBC), Capital Radio, and Radio Clyde. Capital Radio was formed by an amalgam of interests and headed by David Attenborough. Its format was continuous music with news and traffic information every hour. The music was unadventurous, and only occasionally deviated from chart hits. In the 1970s, the station ran into financial problems and, after a battle with the unions, closed down its newsroom in 1974, but it continues to broadcast music.
In the 1980s, this development was taken further by the Thatcher government which authorised the expansion of radio with “incremental” stations—stations judged to fill a geographical or ethnic gap. The first of these was Sunset Radio for multi-ethnic groups in Manchester and Sunrise Radio for Asians in west London. Some of these stations—Jazz FM, Melody, and Classic FM—also filled gaps in listening genres.
Radio in the U.S. followed a more commercially orientated development. In 1927, Congress created a Federal Radio Commission empowered to license and regulate stations. Interest in radio grew in the late 1920s as the Great Depression set in. Radio was a cheap source of entertainment and comedy dominated the airwaves with stars such as Eddie CANTOR and Fred Allen. By 1952, 95 percent of American households had a radio.
From the beginning, businesses were quick to see the potential of nationwide exposure on radio. Sponsors’ names appeared on programmes with titles such as the Firestone Orchestra, the General Motors Family Party. In 1929, Archibald M. Crossley began gathering viewing figures by morning-after telephone calls and then sold the data, called the Crossley ratings, to networks, stations, and the advertisers. It was Crossley who formulated the concept of “prime time” listening for the hours between 7 P.M. and 11 P.M.
In 1922, radio stations WSB in Atlanta, Georgia, and WBAP in Fort Worth, Texas, broadcast shows they called “barn dances.” WLS in Chicago, Illinois, started what was to become the National Barn Dance in 1924 and WSM in Nashville, Tennessee, unveiled its own barn dance—the future Grand Ole Opry, in November of 1925.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Metropolitan Opera in New York began to broadcast productions every Saturday afternoon in December 1931 and continues to do so today during the opera season. The Bell Telephone Hour, The Prudential Family Hour, The NBC Symphony Orchestra, and The Longines Symphonette presented mainly classical entertainment.
In 1932, Al Jarvis of KFWB in Los Angeles introduced a new format which, in only a few years, became the standard for popular music programmes. Make Believe Ballroom was a nonstop programme of records and commentary. Martin Block began the same kind of show for WNEW in New York, and these two are considered to be the first disc jockeys.
In the mid-1950s, the big band era brought popular dance music by Benny GOODMAN, Tommy DORSEY, Count BASIE, Duke ELLINGTON, Guy LOMBARDO, and others to the air-waves in programmes including Your Hit Parade, which featured the top songs of the week performed live by singers such as Frank SINATRA, Dinah Shore, and Doris DAY. For years, teenage dances were planned round this Saturday night programme. At the same time, Hollywood’s “singing cowboys”—Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Tex Ritter—brought country music to the air and Kate Smith, remembered for her rendition of “God Bless America” on Veterans Day, had her first radio show in 1931, and continued in radio until the 1940s.
In the 1950s, the shows that had been the heart of radio programming—the variety-comedy shows, soap operas, and dramas—began moving to the new medium of television. The central radio music programme of that time—Your Hit Parade—moved to television in 1951.
In the early 1950s in Nebraska, Todd Storz and Bill Stewart introduced a format that dominated music programmes for the decade and marked the marriage between record producers and radio. This was the Top 40 programme, which introduced listeners to the week’s Top 40 records, which they could then go out and buy. Unfortunately, this led to the great “payola” scandal in 1959, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) realised that some disc jockeys were accepting bribes for promoting records and many DJs were fined.
In 1955, a recording by Bill HALEY and His Comets became the No. 1 radio disc. “Rock Around the Clock” was the beginning of the rock era on radio. This was fostered by DJs such as Rick Sklar, who began to programme for WABC in 1962. He researched record sales in stores and noticed that the top three songs sold more than twice as many copies as the next dozen. He cut his air-play list down to 18–24 singles a week, with the addition of some past hits from the archive. The top three songs were put on fast repeat cycles controlled by time clocks and this formula invaded the air-waves like wildfire.
However, in the 1960s, underground radio stations became the showcase for more marginal record labels that had been squeezed by the larger ones. “Big Daddy” Donahue of KPMX in San Francisco played the “other” tracks from albums that had never got an airing before. He also removed the jingles from hits. In the liberal atmosphere of the 1960s, these stations became a counter-culture in America, and the prevailing use of drugs gave them the name of “voices from the purple haze” or “acid rockers.”
In the 1980s and 1990s, specialised minority programmes took a back seat again and major stations reverted to the Top 40 format, rechristened Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR). This coincided with a boom in nostalgia for the music of the 1950s and 1960s, and its emphasis on DJ personalities.
Despite the changes in format and the phenomenal advance of television, radio is still the prime medium for hearing new music, both classical and pop. It is also the main vehicle for creating hit artists and selling millions of records.
Renee Jinks
SEE ALSO:
COUNTRY; GOSPEL; NASHVILLE SOUND/NEW COUNTRY; POP MUSIC; POPULAR MUSIC; ROCK’N’ROLL; SOUL.
FURTHER READING
Barnard, Stephen. On the Radio: Music Radio in Britain (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1989);
Chapman, Robert. Selling the Sixties: The Pirates and Pop Music Radio (London: Routledge, 1992);
Keith, Michael C. Voices in the Purple Haze: Underground Radio and the Sixties (London: Praeger, 1997).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
The Jimmy Young Show, John Peel Sessions 1990–95; Last Night at the Proms-100 Years On; Opry Time in Tennessee; Saturday Night Barn Dance; The Twist Goes to College; Your Hit Parade; Chubby Checker: Chubby’s Dance Party.