Following the cessation of hostilities the BBC immediately restructured its services. The provincial regional programmes resumed but the Regional Programme itself didn’t. The BBC reintroduced the six pre-war regional services, on the same transmitters and frequencies as before, retaining the wartime name BBC Home Service. So, for example, the Scottish regional station on medium wave was now called the Scottish Home Service. This was the first part of the BBC’s post-war restructuring of radio into three networks.
The second phase was implemented on 29 July 1945. The BBC Light Programme commenced broadcasting on the longwave frequencies that had previously carried the General Forces Programme.The Light Programme also had the use of nine medium wave transmitters, giving full national coverage. Launch day programmes included the ubiquitous Sandy McPherson at the organ and an afternoon performance by the Torquay Municipal Orchestra.
The longwave signal was transmitted from Droitwich in the English Midlands and gave fairly good coverage to most of the UK. Some medium wave frequencies were added later, using low-power transmitters to fill in local blank spots.
The new service was generally well received, though some listeners regretted that the American acts they had listened to on the Forces Programme had been dropped. Several long-running programmes were gradually introduced including Woman’s Hour, Dick Barton Special Agent and Housewife’s Choice.
Responding to the public’s growing interest in the arts, the BBC introduced the Third Programme on 29 September 1946. Broadcast initially for six hours each evening, the Corporation defined the new service as ‘being for the educated rather than an educational programme.’ It gradually became one of the leading cultural and intellectual forces in Britain, playing a crucial role in disseminating the arts.
At first, the Third Programme used 583 kilohertz from Droitwich. However, as this was not an internationally cleared frequency, coverage was limited. Therefore, twenty-two of the old Matrix H transmitters were brought back into service to supplement coverage outside the Midlands.
The Third Programme was given a unique freedom from form and routine. No news bulletins or fixed periods were allowed to interfere with the output. Plays, operas and concerts were given in their entirety. The new station became a major patron of the arts with music filling a third of its output and providing a wide range of serious classical music and live concerts. Jazz music was also heavily featured. The new network also played a crucial role in the development of contemporary composers such as Benjamin Britten by commissioning new works.
Speech formed a large proportion of the Third Programme’s output. Its drama productions included plays by Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Joe Orton. It also commissioned new plays by leading writers, probably the most celebrated of which was Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas.
The Third Programme was the single largest source of copyright payments to poets for many years. Young writers such as Philip Larkin, David Jones and Laura Riding received early exposure on the network. The radio talk, a staple of the early days of the BBC, also made a comeback. Nationally known intellectuals such as Isiah Berlin, Fred Hoyle and Bertrand Russell were frequently heard talking on philosophy or cosmology.
The esoteric character of the service turned out to be harmful rather than advantageous to the BBC. Although normally exalted for its noble objective of raising cultural standards, the Third Programme’s high production costs and small audience figures made the service an easy target for critics and politicians.
In fact, the Third Programme’s existence went against the principles of its founding father. John Reith had been opposed to fragmenting audiences by splitting programming genres across different networks. From the outset, though, it had influential supporters: the Education Secretary in the Attlee government, Ellen Wilkinson, spoke rather optimistically of creating a ‘third programme nation’.
Despite its influential supporters, and following an internal reorganisation, the cultural programmes were reduced in hours in 1957. The Third programme had to share its frequency with other programming strands. This situation continued until the launch of the BBC Music Programme on 22 March 1965, which broadcast classical music between 7am and 6.30pm daily.
While the Third Programme attracted a niche audience the other BBC services delivered listeners en masse. Programmes like Much-Bindingin-the-Marsh, Take it from Here and Ray’s a Laugh became hugely popular with the British public.
Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh starred Kenneth Horne and Richard Murdoch as senior staff in a fictional RAF station. Over the years the station became a country club and finally a newspaper. The show had a chequered history and was broadcast on BBC radio from 1944 to 1950. It transferred to Radio Luxembourg between 1950 and 1951. Then it returned to the BBC until it ended its run in 1954. One of the most fondly remembered parts of the show was the closing theme tune, which featured topical lyrics sung by members of the cast.
Take It from Here ran on the BBC between 1948 and 1960. It starred Jimmy Edwards, Dick Bentley and Joy Nichols. Nichols left the show in 1953 and was replaced by June Whitfield and Alma Cogan. The show’s writers were Frank Muir and Denis Norden, who are credited with reinventing British post-war radio comedy. It was one of the first shows with a significant segment parodying film and book styles but the show is probably best known for a series of sketches featuring an uncouth, dysfunctional family called ‘The Glums’.
The Glum family were the antithesis of cosy middle-class families portrayed in the media at the time. Pa Glum (Edwards) was a cantankerous old soak. His son, Ron (Bentley), was a feckless layabout, despite the relentless efforts of his ambitious fiancée, Eth (Whitfield). Mrs Glum, the family matriarch, was often heard incoherently in the distance. Singer Alma Cogan usually provided Ma Glum’s off-stage noises.
Ray’s a Laugh, starring Ted Ray, was a more traditional show. It was essentially a domestic comedy with musical items. Kitty Bluett played Ray’s wife and Fred Yule played his brother-in-law. The supporting cast included a fine array of comedy stalwarts such as Patricia Hayes, Kenneth Connor and Pat Coombs. Another early cast member was a talented newcomer called Peter Sellers, who would go on to more anarchic humour later in his career. Ray’s a Laugh ran from 1949 until January 1961.
The year 1947 was an important one for the BBC but it didn’t start too well for them. A hard winter and a fuel crisis forced the Corporation to take drastic action. They suspended the Third Programme and amalgamated the Light Programme and Home Service for a short period during February and March. Full daytime programming was not reinstated until April.
On 14 November the BBC celebrated its Silver Jubilee by publishing a pamphlet called Twenty-Five Years of British Broadcasting. They also transmitted a number of special programmes. On 20 November the BBC broadcast the wedding of Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey.
The International Broadcasting Company (IBC) stations didn’t return after the war. Changes in French media law meant that private stations couldn’t operate with the same freedom as they had done before the war. In 1947 discussions were held regarding the possible revival of Radio Normandy’s English Service. However, these talks were never concluded satisfactorily and the service never returned. Instead, the IBC headquarters in Portland Place became one of the best independent recording studios in Britain and during the 1960s and 1970s, they were used by some of the biggest recording artists in the world.
Radio Luxembourg remained in the hands of Allied forces for some time after the war. Special programmes were broadcast for the American occupying forces. It was also strongly rumoured that Winston Churchill wanted to use the transmitter facilities as a propaganda weapon against the Soviet Union. This plan never came to fruition and Radio Luxembourg was handed back to its owners during the summer of 1946.
When Luxembourg returned it was business as usual and Stephen Williams resumed his role as manager of the English service. Transmissions had restarted on the same pre-war longwave frequency. Unfortunately, Radio Luxembourg found it difficult to attract English advertisers and the broadcasts were gradually reduced and replaced by other languages.
On 2 July 1951 the English programmes were transferred to a less powerful medium wave frequency of 208m. These transmissions could only be received satisfactorily in Britain during the hours of darkness, when the signal was able to bounce off the ionosphere and reach the United Kingdom.
Geoffrey Everett was in charge by this time and the station adopted the slogan ‘208 – Your station of the stars’, which referred to the performers heard on the station. Despite the relegation to medium wave, this became a golden period for Radio Luxembourg. Popular programmes at the time included Dr Kildare, Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future and the Top Twenty Programme. The latter was a show featuring the best-selling records of the week and was the first time such a programme had been attempted in Europe. The Top Twenty Programme became Radio Luxembourg’s most popular show and received around 1,500 letters a week. Sponsored programmes made up the majority of airtime. Quiz programmes such as Take Your Pick and Double Your Money became immensely popular. The Ovaltineys also returned to enthral a new generation of children.
Halfway through the decade Luxembourg’s English service became mainly a music station. Numerous presenters fronted shows sponsored by record companies such as EMI, Decca and Capitol. The move to nightly music shows coincided with the introduction of the transistor radio and the emergence of youth culture and rock ‘n’ roll. Radio Luxembourg fully embraced the new musical phenomenon. Teenagers all over Europe would listen under the bedclothes to ‘The Great 208’, which offered a non-stop diet of popular tunes in marked contrast to the sparse offerings of the BBC. Such music on BBC radio was limited to a Sunday afternoon review of the current charts and a Saturday morning programme called The Saturday Skiffle Club, later renamed Saturday Club when the skiffle craze ended.
Listening to Radio Luxembourg, however, could be a frustrating experience for the dedicated music fan. The sponsored shows aimed to publicise as many of their new releases as possible, therefore the DJs never played a complete record and would usually fade it halfway through. Another problem was the famous ‘Luxembourg fade’. Luxembourg’s signal suffered from atmospheric interference and would often fade in and out. So if the DJs didn’t fade your favourite record, the atmosphere would do it instead. Tuning to the station required endless patience and almost constant readjustment.
BBC radio continued to have some huge successes through the early part of the fifties. Woman’s Hour is a magazine programme that began on the Light Programme in 1946 and still continues today. The programme contained reports, interviews and debates on health, education, cultural topics and short-run drama serials. Although aimed ostensibly at women, Woman’s Hour also featured items of general interest. The programme switched to a morning slot in 1991 where it has remained ever since.
Alistair Cooke began his long-running series Letter from America on 24 March 1946. Originally born in Salford, Lancashire, Cooke relocated to America shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. Letter from America was originally commissioned for only thirteen instalments, but finally came to an end fifty-eight years (2,869 episodes) later, in March 2004.
Down Your Way began on 29 December 1946. The programme visited towns around the United Kingdom, spoke to residents and played their choice of music. The programme vividly evoked the local and regional distinctiveness of Britain as it moved around the country. But while undoubtedly popular, the programme was not without its critics. Their view was that Down Your Way portrayed an increasingly old-fashioned and rose-tinted view of Britain. The critics’ opinion was that the programme concentrated too much on market towns with pre-industrial roots and ignored industrial towns and urban conurbations. From 1987, until its demise in 1992, it was hosted by a different personality every week. This effectively turned it into ‘Down My Way’ as the guest presenters would visit a place of significance in their own lives.
Listen with Mother was a programme featuring stories, songs and nursery rhymes for children under five (and their mothers). It was broadcast on the Light Programme for fifteen minutes every weekday afternoon at 1.45pm, just before Woman’s Hour. The theme music, which became synonymous with the programme, was the ‘Berceuse’ from Gabriel Fauré’s Dolly Suite for Piano Duet, Opus 56. The programme’s opening phrase ‘Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin,’ etched itself into the British consciousness. At its peak, Listen with Mother had an audience of over a million. Like Woman’s Hour, it was later transferred to the Home Service and lasted until 1982.
The BBC decided to try out an American radio format, the ‘Soap Opera’, although they called these programmes ‘Serial Dramas’. Mrs Dale’s Diary was the first major example of this type to appear on the BBC. The storyline featured a doctor’s wife, Mrs Mary Dale, and her husband, Jim. Each episode began with a brief narrative spoken by Mrs Dale as if she were writing her diary. The programme began on the Light Programme on 5 January 1948, and subsequently transferred to the newly formed Radio Two in 1967, where it ran until 25 April 1969. A new episode was broadcast each weekday afternoon, with a repeat the following morning.
The Archers was first transmitted in the Midlands area as a pilot series on 29 May 1950. The BBC decided to commission the series for a longer national run. The series began on New Year’s Day 1951 and continues to this day. In fact it is now the world’s longest running soap opera. The programme was originally billed as ‘an everyday story of country folk’, but is now described by the BBC as ‘contemporary drama in a rural setting’. The Archers is set in the fictional village of Ambridge in the equally fictional county of Borsetshire, which is supposedly situated between the real counties of Worcestershire and Warwickshire.
The BBC transmitted several other landmark broadcasts during the 1950s. The funeral of King George VI was broadcast on BBC Radio and Television on 15 February 1952. Nine days before, on the day the king died, all BBC programmes had been cancelled except for news bulletins and essential shipping forecasts.
The first ball-by-ball Test Match Special appeared on BBC radio on 30 June 1957. Live cricket had been broadcast since 1927, but originally it was thought that Test match cricket was too slow for ball-by-ball commentary to work. It was suggested that the Third Programme’s frequency would be ideal for full ball-by-ball coverage, since at that time the Third Programme only broadcast in the evening. It soon became apparent that ball-by-ball commentary was compelling and Test Match Special has been heard on BBC Radio ever since.
The Goon Show
Undoubtedly the comedy hit of the 1950s was a programme that starred Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and, initially, Michael Bentine. The first series, broadcast between May and September 1951, was titled Crazy People. After Bentine’s departure at the end of the first series, the show was renamed The Goon Show.
The show’s chief creator and main writer was Spike Milligan, whose scripts mixed preposterous storylines together with surreal humour, puns, catchphrases and peculiar sound effects. Many elements of the show satirised various aspects of life in Britain at the time. The talented cast complemented the bizarre scripts by utilising a wide range of increasingly wacky voices to portray the eccentric characters.
The Goon Show remained popular long after the show finished in 1960 and is continuously repeated at regular intervals. A special one-off edition of the show was broadcast as part of the BBC’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Generations of subsequent British comedians cite the show as one of their main influences.
Hancock’s Half-Hour
Hancock’s Half-Hour was less fanciful than the Goons but equally influential. Comedian Tony Hancock was the star of the show. The series broke with the variety tradition, which was then dominant in British radio comedy. Instead of the normal mix of sketches, guest stars and musical interludes, the show’s humour derived from characters and situations developed in a half-hour storyline. It could be said that Hancock’s Half Hour was the first British situation comedy.
Hancock played an exaggerated version of his own character who lived at the dilapidated 23 Railway Cuttings in East Cheam. His sidekicks or, more often than not, his own embarrassing shortcomings, constantly thwart Hancock’s fanciful ambitions in life. Sid James played Hancock’s criminally inclined friend and Bill Kerr appeared as Hancock’s dim-witted Australian lodger. From the third series, Hattie Jacques played Griselda Pugh, who was Hancock’s secretary and Sid’s occasional girlfriend. The show started on radio in 1954 and transferred to television two years later, so Hancock was the first British comedian to make the transition from radio to television.
Radio stations in the USA began experiments with broadcasting on VHF (very high frequency) using FM (frequency modulation) in January 1941. The first BBC VHF-FM radio transmissions started on 2 May 1955 from Wrotham in Kent. These transmissions offered better quality and were less susceptible to the interference often encountered on medium and longwave broadcasts. Medium wave transmissions frequently suffered interference from continental stations after dark. Longwave broadcasts experienced interference from unsuppressed electrical motors, thermostats etc.
This new service brought high-fidelity radio to around thirteen million potential listeners in London and the South East of England. The BBC gradually introduced more high-power transmitters followed by many low-power relay stations that filled in some significant pockets of poor reception. Development of the FM radio network was comparatively fast as most of the transmitters shared masts with BBC television. All the initial FM transmissions were in mono. By 1961 there were twenty-seven FM transmitters in service and extra regional programmes were carried on FM only for the North East, East Anglia and South West regions.
The first stereo test transmissions began on 28 August 1962. The BBC used the Third Programme transmitter at Wrotham, which remained the only source of stereo radio for some years. It would take several decades for all the BBC’s main networks and local stations to be broadcast in stereo.
The problem for the BBC was the distribution of stereo to its transmitters. At that time the organisation relied totally on the GPO’s network of landlines for programme distribution and stereo required not one but two such lines. Also, these lines had to be carefully matched in terms of their quality and their length, and this proved to be difficult.
The BBC eventually solved the problem by using a system they called Pulse Code Modulation. This system could convert thirteen audio channels into one digital bit stream. This stream could be carried easily using the sort of link that carried television pictures. The BBC added stereo capability to Radios 2 and 4 in 1973 and stereo radio finally began to extend across the British Isles.
The BBC reorganised their three networks on 30 September 1957. The majority of the Home Service’s lighter content transferred to the Light Programme. The Third Programme was renamed the BBC Third Network and cultural programmes were reduced from forty to twenty-four hours a week. The extra hours were used to incorporate the Home Service’s adult education content and the Home and Light’s sports coverage.
Despite its prominent position for nearly four decades, radio’s popularity declined swiftly during the 1950s. The main reason for this was undoubtedly the ascendancy of radio’s electronic progeny, television.
During the early part of the 1950s the BBC concentrated most of its efforts on radio. In 1950 there were twelve million radio-only licences and only 350,000 combined radio and TV licences. The BBC budget for television was a fraction of the radio one. However, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953 was a turning point. This was the first time that a television audience exceeded the size of a radio audience. An estimated twenty million TV viewers saw the young Queen crowned. The following year saw the amount of combined sound and vision licences rise to over three million. The television age had arrived in Britain.