Options
Radio 1 - What really happened on 30 September 1967?
Bemiamigo
Posts: 35 Forum Member
✭
Last Thursday 14 August was 47 years since the day the offshore pirates were silenced.
The governments replacement Radio 1 was famously opened by Tony Blackburn six weeks later. But what followed Tonys show that day and on the following days was an audio con.
This topic is explored in a new feature on MiAmigo http://wp.me/p33t2I-nn
What are your memories of the early days of Radio 1? Did you feel cheated? Did any of the shows actually work?
The governments replacement Radio 1 was famously opened by Tony Blackburn six weeks later. But what followed Tonys show that day and on the following days was an audio con.
This topic is explored in a new feature on MiAmigo http://wp.me/p33t2I-nn
What are your memories of the early days of Radio 1? Did you feel cheated? Did any of the shows actually work?
0
Comments
Compared to the Pirates,yes it seemed tame but compared with the old light programme it was a step in the right direction.Hardly a complete alternative though.
It was good to have a genuine middle of the road station like Radio 2....The Edmundo Ross show would certainly not get a peak time airing now!
The programmes were presumably transmitter as listed in the schedule and I don't think anyone had claimed that Radio 1 would put out a separate schedule from Radio 2 all day.
Some programmes also were more suitable for a Radio 1 audience so were just on Radio 1 whilst Radio 2 carried something else, are you suggesting that all old programmes and presenters should be dropped?
Was it some sort of con ? We didn't feel that, because the BBC physical networks had to undergo major technical revolutions to accommodate a fully national fourth network. Don't forget that for the previous three to four decades, there had just been three national channels.
It took considerable time to make the technical changes, firstly to analogue, then through two digital changes to give four fully stereo national networks.
But even from the start, the station had its own character, as all stations do. There were broadcasting guidelines that the presenters had to adhere to, which weren't the same as those on the offshore stations that they'd left a few weeks earlier. The BBC has always expected a more mature broadcasting style from its presenters, and at that time, it wasn't noted for taking on young presenters.
There was one exception - Kenny Everett - who had actually secured a job on the Light programme before he decided to go to the offshore stations. Personally, I feel that had he gone to the Light Programme, he might still be here today, because there would have been far more career guidance given to him. As it was, he fell foul of the broadcasting expectations that the BBC expected from those early presenters.
I see the finest decade for Radio 1 as the 1970s, when it developed its own character fully. It rebroadcast some great concerts on Saturday evenings, had fantastically popular roadshows, broadened the audience to include many housewives, factory workers and small business people who had been Light Programme listers rather than offshore ones, and made a name for itself as a quality brand within the entertainment world ( which is a very lethargic entity as it is ).
Where things went wrong was in the 1980s. The original band of still-young presenters who started out in the late 1970s were still in their slots, now very much middle-aged. The fact that they had millions of listeners allowed them to remain at the microphone, whereas a decade of young people 15 to 25 wanted a national station that they could relate to.
Various Radio 1 controllers have made good efforts to solve this problem "I'm famous and bigger than the BBC - you can't move me on !", but it still exists to a lesser extent.
No - everything that happened at the end of the 1970s was what we all expected. If we could rewrite history, Big L should have had a landbased regional licence for the South East, and would have been a huge success. But it was not to be...
Kenny Everett sent a tape "The Maurice Cole Quarter of An Hour Show" to Wilfred De'Ath, the youngest BBC producer. He produced a 30 minute magazine programme on the Home Service Midweek. He was so impressed with it he invited him down to London and had him interviewed on Midweek and played most of the tape. He got rapped on the knuckles by his bosses for turning it into a pop music programme.
De'Ath then fired memos off to various people and got Kenny an audition at Broadcasting House which he failed. He was excited and nervous and had "a drink or eight" before the audition.
Radio London asked various people to help them look for disc jockeys, De'Ath gave one of them a copy of Kenny's tape, someone else who was also involved also dug it out as De' Ath had sent him a copy, he auditioned and got the Radio London job.
Johnny Beerling visited the Galaxy in February 1967, Kenny Everett was one of the DJs who showed him round. Soon afterwards he left Radio London, did an audition tape for the Light Programme which was passed and started appearing on Where It's At as well as helping Robin Scott and Johnny Beerling set up Radio One.
All from Kenny's own autobiograpy and the recent one by James Hogg and Brian Sellers.
Wikipedia says he was interviewed by Charles Fletcher and offered a job which he declined, source a BBC programme Wireless Kenny Everett but the above seems more plausible.
If you look at the Radio London business structure, Texan investors many anonymous using an offshore trust to avoid any US taxation, there was no way Radio London would have been invited on land. There were commercial radio companies set up in the UK from as far back as the 50s ready to apply for any commercial radio licences. The Piccadilly Radio application had Philip Birch onboard and went for a Top 40 format similar to Big L. The consortium was put together by Paul Bryan who in 1967 was opposition spokesman for broadcasting.
I never heard Radio 1 start up in the morning, I heard them later on that Saturday afternoon with Rosco & The news reader saying at 12.30pm now hears the news .......read in english! & I thought well this is the BBC for you like the war was still on, The BBC's Home Service didn't like the change of name but they had to change their name to Radio 4, The BBC's comedy Round The Horne went to Radio 2 from the Light Programme they called Radio 1 " Radio Balls Pond Road " I wonder why:D
That newsreader, was John Dunn by the way,
I had heard it was Paul Hollingdale?
There's a dispute about that IIRC. I did google search for a recording of the announcement which was found last time we discussed this but can't find it.
I just wonder where Radio 1 would be today had Johnny still been at the station or stayed there at least beyond 1993, I still think it is a shame that it changed so soon after nearly getting FM nationwide as I don't think it had FM everywhere in October 1993 did it as there was at least a couple of places still to get it.
Not only that but I wonder if Neale James maybe even now presenting the 9am-12.30pm slot as his own show or at least The Evening Session?, what do you think as did the station need to change so soon as there were shows brought in for younger listeneres in the way of Mega Hits and Mark Goodier's Evening Session and as I said it changed so soon after FM being nearly completed everywhere.
As for the future and will Radio 2 need to or be forced to return to The Light Programme way of doing things with Radio 1 going back slightly to the days of pre 1993?, having said that what with getting a Rock show ot rather the Radio 1 Rock Show back in an earlier slot as well as longer slots such as Weekend Breakfast I wonder if it is the start of the station going back to pre 1993 scheduling apart from weekdays 6.30am-7pm?.
I heard a recording of the event a long time ago, it sounded like Dunn to me, and the programme I heard it on, credited him as the person, but I suppose could have been any of the R1/2 duty announcers of that time, Bruce Wyndham, Roger Moffitt, Keith Skues ?
That's an understatement !! It was unlistenable here in North Hampshire, and in many other places, and was one reason why ILR was a huge success in many areas in the 70s
The BBC merely added a few transmitters (Droitwich etc) to the series of isolated filler stations that had been designed to fill in the gaps in the Light Programme's LW coverage. Predictably, far from becoming an instant national network, it sounded terrible in many areas even during daylight and only 38% could receive it clearly at night..
And what were the 'two digital changes'? DAB is one, but what's the other?
Not the impression you get from Johnny Beerling's book and the only audience figure I can find from that period is 10.6 million listeners a day in 1975 out of a population of 56.2 million, though that will be adults so presume RAJAR was counting 15+.
"Even if we get the cuts restored who will be able to hear us on 247 metres only with no FM stereo. Is there any hope for us in the long term. I doubt it, to my mind we will finish up like our colleagues in the Canadian Broadcasting System, poor and second rate." Beerlings diary November 1976.
247 was a dreadful frequency particularly in winter, poor coverage and Radio Tirana operating slightly off channel.
Tony Benn was interested in the idea, proposed by Labour MP's on the backbench broadcasting committee, of letting a public corporation or the Post Office run a national pop service channel supported by advertising and even considered a regional opt out as the BBC said they had no money, no needletime, no frequencies etc etc. He was having difficulty getting this through Cabinet.
The BBC suddenly changed its mind, said they could do it out of their existing budget, Labour was worried about having to raise the licence fee to pay for it which was politically unattractive, and had found a frequency and the Cabinet went along with it. Thus the monopoly and centralisation of radio broadcasting was preserved, same situation as in most parts of Europe, one exception being Spain a fascist dictatorship where you could do independent commercial broadcasting as long as you didnt criticise Franco.
I don't think the MW signal put off any young person of the day from listening to his or her's radio, who wanted to walk round with a bloody great Ariel up in the hope of finding a FM signal strong enough to give you decent reception.
Hell even today if you go to a football match it's best to take a small MW radio to hear other clubs results because FM can't cut it when it comes to portability in different locations. ;-);-)
Luxembourg didn't suffer from co-channel interference from an off channel station or the phasing effect of picking up two different Radio One transmitters on the same frequency, I got the former daytime and the latter nightime in North Yorkshire, admittedly not a priority for BBC coverage, but this occurred in more densely populated areas as well. Fading was the only problem with Luxembourg who only broadcast at night from a powerful transmitter.
Was that "Mouldy old dough"??:o:D:D
Is/was 247m/1214Khz a "bad frequency" as such or was it the combination of having to use multiple medium powered stations to cover population centres with large mush zones between there areas (Norfolk, Stoke, the south coast), along with a powerful co-channel - or almost co-channel - signal coming from Albania?
Had Radio 1 had a single MW channel that wasn't 247m, would the reception problems have been as bad?
I'm thinking that if 202m up at the top end of the band had been used with say 500w in each town or city of any size would the fact that signals at that end of the band don't travel as far made thing better? Mush zones would have still existed but could fewer areas have been disadvantaged as a result.
Totally anoraky question.....Discuss!
247/1215 kHz is too high a frequency for a single site, UK wide, or even England wide service. However, some of us are old enough to remember Radio 3 on 647 kHz from Daventry, that was superbly clear over a very large area,
Holme Moss was (and still is) a VHF only site. You mean Moorside Edge ?
A licence for listening to the radio. Never heard of that one before.
Is there really a higher broadcast quality the higher up the kHZ or mHZ scales on the AM and FM wavebands?
92.1 mHZ sounds just the same reception quality as 103.1 mHZ.