The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
The giants of radio who felt like our friends
As Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 celebrate theirir 50th birthdays, Gillian Reynolds recalls alls the stars who changed the airwaves
Anthropologists wondering why tribes survive need look no further than the BBC. For almost a century, the British Broadcasting Corporation has staked out territory and fought for it. It has grown, expanded, survived hostile governments, wars (internal and external,) sociological and technical change, always fighting competition.
Take radio, the communications marvel of its age, the reason the BBC came into being in 1922 and was established by Royal Charter in 1927. It began experimenting with television in 1929 but, until the Fifties, radio remained the BBC’s prime business. Few would have bet that radio’s appeal would last so long but nine decades on and, commercial radio firmly established, the BBC still captures half the national audience, sometimes with programmes that have been there from its earliest days. What’s the secret?
First, the medium itself. It’s personal. Sound makes its own pictures in each listener’s mind, voices connect. Think of Alistair Cooke, John Peel, Kenny Everett, John Arlott, Jean Metcalfe, Peter Donaldson, all long gone, each a cherished memory. Think of Sue MacGregor, Mishal Husain, Jane Garvey and Eddie Mair on air now. We know they are talking to millions; we feel they’re really talking to us.
Then there’s the BBC’s genius for metamorphosis. As society changes, it changes. Some 50 years ago, on September 30 1967, BBC Radio 1 was born; Radio 2 was re-constituted from the Light Programme; the Third Programme, (still uneasily sharing airspace with sport and education) was retitled Radio 3; and Radio 4, replacing the old Home Service, became mainly a speech network. As we celebrate them all, bear in mind that Radio 1 was the BBC’s urgent priority.
Why? Because of a demographic shift. In the austerity decade after the Second World War, the birth rate went up. Babies born then became the generation that, ever since, has influenced politics, economics, education and culture. By the time those babies were starting to be teenagers, television (BBC in competition with ITV) had taken over from radio as the dominant medium. But the transistor radio – small, portable, affordable and (above all) personal – was the preferred companion of Sixties teenagers. What were they listening to?
Not BBC radio – the BBC played stuff for parents. Teenagers’ radios were tuned to pirate stations, broadcasting from boats far enough offshore to be beyond Home Office jurisdiction. Pirate DJs were only slightly older than their listeners. Pirate stations were playing The Beatles. And Chuck Berry. And Bo Diddley. And advertisements.
Commercial radio has a useful adage: there may be a niche in the market but is there a market in the niche? The pirates were showing the existence of a significant new niche, and advertisers were flocking to it. Lobbyists for legal commercial radio woke up.
The BBC went into public service overdrive. It lobbied government to close the pirates, claiming its broadcasts were a danger to shipping. The result was the Marine Offences Act of 1967. Prime Minister Harold Wilson said it was in exchange for the BBC supporting his pet project, the Open University. The BBC knows how to bargain. As Tony Benn’s Act cleared the airwaves, the BBC filled the gap with a network that sounded like a pirate station.
Robin Scott, the new network’s controller, went to the Dallas company that made jingles for pirate Radio London and
We know they’re talking to millions, but we feel they’re really talking to us