There was another excellent one about "Flowers in The Rain" and how The Move had to give all Royalties from it to Harold Wilson and thus never made a bean from it
Wilson sued the Move and their then manager, Tony Secunda, and the artist, advertising agency and printers responsible for the cartoon which depicted him and his political secretary naked. He won his case and the court ordered that royalties from the song be paid to charities of Wilson's choice, as damages for the libel.
The BBC lists some of the charities which have benefited; in addition to the Spastics Society and Stoke Mandeville Hospital, which received royalties whilst the song was a hit, the following received funding from repeated airplay over the years:
Friends of D'Oyly Carte
University of Huddersfield
A Soviet poster exhibition
Liverpool Tate
Variety Club
Jewish National Fund for Israel
British Film Institute
British Screen Advisory Council
Attlee Foundation
Oxford University
Joyce Butler Memorial Trust
33 Signals Unit
Central Lads Club
Ratlingate Scout Appeal
Whitehall Choir
Victor Brusa Memorial Appeal
St Mary's Ladies' Lifeboat Guild
Oxford Operatic Society
Lloyd George Parliamentary Centenary Appeal
Bolton Lads Club
Tring Lane Workshops
Harold Wilson himself is not listed as a beneficiary.
Tony's first show was recorded. I've got a telescoped version of it. I keep meaning to get around to re-inserting the music.
It's one of those things I'll do when I'm less bored !!!
A quote from Chapter One of Johnny Beerling's book I mentioned earlier.
"On Saturday September 30th Paul Hollingdale presented the early show on both Radio 1 and Radio 2 at 0530 and we were waiting in the next door studio ready to go. Tony had done all the tests with the Technical Operator, given volume checks on his microphone and jingles."
and later
"Tony was still smiling nervously as he checked and rechecked that the first disc was cued up and all his tape cartridges were in the right slots."
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.
Philip Birch had also applied for the London licence which was awarded to Capital Radio.
Now, if he'd managed to win that licence, then we would, indeed, have had Radio London in London. Unfortunately, the government of the day were never going to allow that to happen!
It was of course said that several transmitter control rooms called London BH when Theme One was played for the first time because at that time the networks were monitored by ear and they thought there was a audio quality problem.
A quote from Chapter One of Johnny Beerling's book I mentioned earlier.
"On Saturday September 30th Paul Hollingdale presented the early show on both Radio 1 and Radio 2 at 0530 and we were waiting in the next door studio ready to go. Tony had done all the tests with the Technical Operator, given volume checks on his microphone and jingles."
and later
"Tony was still smiling nervously as he checked and rechecked that the first disc was cued up and all his tape cartridges were in the right slots."
I think people are mixing up recorded for posterity and pre recorded, which TB's show certainly wasn't.
Philip Birch had also applied for the London licence which was awarded to Capital Radio.
Now, if he'd managed to win that licence, then we would, indeed, have had Radio London in London. Unfortunately, the government of the day were never going to allow that to happen!
That must have been as part of a consortium though. The service was advertised as a "general entertainment" licence with all the restrictions on needletime, had to appeal to the widest possible audience etc on it. If his consortium had decided to call it "Radio London", a name Philip Birch didn't like as he wanted it to have more national appeal, his choice was Radio Galaxy, it couldn't have had anything like the format of the offshore one.
Wilson sued the Move and their then manager, Tony Secunda, and the artist, advertising agency and printers responsible for the cartoon which depicted him and his political secretary naked. He won his case and the court ordered that royalties from the song be paid to charities of Wilson's choice, as damages for the libel.
The BBC lists some of the charities which have benefited; in addition to the Spastics Society and Stoke Mandeville Hospital, which received royalties whilst the song was a hit, the following received funding from repeated airplay over the years:
Friends of D'Oyly Carte
University of Huddersfield
A Soviet poster exhibition
Liverpool Tate
Variety Club
Jewish National Fund for Israel
British Film Institute
British Screen Advisory Council
Attlee Foundation
Oxford University
Joyce Butler Memorial Trust
33 Signals Unit
Central Lads Club
Ratlingate Scout Appeal
Whitehall Choir
Victor Brusa Memorial Appeal
St Mary's Ladies' Lifeboat Guild
Oxford Operatic Society
Lloyd George Parliamentary Centenary Appeal
Bolton Lads Club
Tring Lane Workshops
Harold Wilson himself is not listed as a beneficiary.
Thanks for that, I knew he'd given it all to charity, quite a few it seems.
A bit of name dropping, but i chatted to Roy Wood in a bar in the late 1980s, a very aimiable chap, at least until i mentioned "that f******g song". It was only years later when i heard the documentary i realised why he said that
I think people are mixing up recorded for posterity and pre recorded, which TB's show certainly wasn't.
Sorry, I might have misunderstood this thread.....I was reading it while working!!! and didn't read all posts.
The first programme was recorded for archival purposes but was broadcast live. There were two technical faults during the programme which would have been edited out if it had been recorded in advance.
That must have been as part of a consortium though. The service was advertised as a "general entertainment" licence with all the restrictions on needletime, had to appeal to the widest possible audience etc on it. If his consortium had decided to call it "Radio London", a name Philip Birch didn't like as he wanted it to have more national appeal, his choice was Radio Galaxy, it couldn't have had anything like the format of the offshore one.
If the consortium that Philip Birch had won a London ILR franchise then there was no way that they could have used the name Radio London, because there already was a BBC Radio London on the air.
If the consortium that Philip Birch had won a London ILR franchise then there was no way that they could have used the name Radio London, because there already was a BBC Radio London on the air.
Yes, you beat me to pointing that out.
Was there any kerfuffle about the name when BBC Radio London launched by the way ?
I'm not sure what the Beeb would have called the station instead ? BBC Greater London Broadcasting, or BBC Capital Radio
Was there any kerfuffle about the name when BBC Radio London launched by the way ?
The first phase of BBC local radio was launched in late 1967, just after the Marine Etc Broadcasting (Offences) Act, in a failed attempt to make commercial radio unnecessary.
Initially there was no BBC local station in London, one reason being that there would have been significant confusion with the popular offshore station Wonderful Radio London
BBC Radio London launched in late 1970. It had little impact because it was FM only at a time when FM radios were a rarity, and it was further eclipsed when LBC and Capital Radio launched three years later.
So there was no kerfuffle about the name, although the confusion meant that they received an angry letter demanding to know why they had not made any music copyright payments in 1968 and 1969 !
Was there any kerfuffle about the name when BBC Radio London launched by the way ?
I'm not sure what the Beeb would have called the station instead ? BBC Greater London Broadcasting, or BBC Capital Radio
Had the Philip Birch consortium managed to gain a London ILR franchise then they could well have used the name Piccadilly Radio ( there is a London district named Piccadilly).
Had the Philip Birch consortium managed to gain a London ILR franchise then they could well have used the name Piccadilly Radio ( there is a London district named Piccadilly).
I see what you're getting at, but it's not really a place most Londoners would identify with. London's too big to have a radio station named after one street - which is presumably also why the Piccadilly brand was dropped in Manchester.
Here is the first 40 mins of the Rosko Show on Radio 1's first day Keith Skues is just finishing Saturday Club the theme tune sounds like somthing Benny Hill would use on the TV, Plus the news at 12.30 with John Dunn priceless:D http://www14.zippyshare.com/v/53297063/file.html
Although this is an interesting discussion the original point of the MiAmigo feature http://wp.me/p33t2I-nn was that after the Tony Blackburn Show on the first day of Radio 1 we actually got a re-named Children's Favourites which had been there since 1954 and Saturday Club with Keith Skues replacing Brian Matthew - and that had been there since 1958!
In fact Radio 1 provided a 6 Hour Service that day if you strip out the Light Prgramme material.
Even Chris Denning and Pete Brady had Pete Murray sandwiched in between them in the afternoon.
Compared to Radio London broadcasting pop for 20.5 hours a day - this was a con.
It was a con that listeners had 6 hours of pop broadcasting per day as opposed to 20.5 hours on Radio London , that issue should have been addressed when Radio 1 was being set up to ensure that listeners had a proper replacement with more needle time and the musicians union being put in their place, to ensure that the listeners came first .
It was a con that listeners had 6 hours of pop broadcasting per day as opposed to 20.5 hours on Radio London , that issue should have been addressed when Radio 1 was being set up to ensure that listeners had a proper replacement with more needle time and the musicians union being put in their place, to ensure that the listeners came first .
Good point but back in 1966/7 life wasn't like that, The Wilson Government didn't want to have any pop music service at all it was the house of lords that said they wouldn't pass the Marine etc act without a replacement so that's why they had the BBC do it, The government didn't want commercial radio at any price, Yes the so called needle time was a pain & I think it was 8 hours a day not 6 I might be wrong. The pop music fans didn't come first in the government eyes they thought in those days it was cheap programming "Prattle & Pop " is how they discribed it pop music fans had no say hard to imagine now for young people because 20 years old's don't know any thing different they wouldn't would they but in 1967 it was a different time.
Good point but back in 1966/7 life wasn't like that, The Wilson Government didn't want to have any pop music service at all it was the house of lords that said they wouldn't pass the Marine etc act without a replacement so that's why they had the BBC do it, The government didn't want commercial radio at any price, Yes the so called needle time was a pain & I think it was 8 hours a day not 6 I might be wrong.
The reverse is true, the Government wanted an alternative to the pirate stations but it was the BBC who originally said there were no frequencies or finance.
The allocation of 247 metres to a pop music service was suggested in a January 1966 paper Possibilities for Local Radio by Rachel Powell of Birmingham University. The Government didn't want to increase the licence fee, hence the idea was floated on introducing advertising to the Light Programme and the pop music service being run by the Post Office or a public corporation. The Cabinet was still deadlocked about an alternative service in October 1966 and Edward Short was unable to answer questions about it in Parliament on October 26. A few days later the Sunday Times reported a clash between the Cabinet and the BBC over rumoured plans to set up a new public corporation, financed largely by advertising, to run a pop music service.
A few days after that a press conference was held by the BBC attended by the Chairman and Director General.
"The BBC's attitude was plain. It regarded any plans to set up a breakaway sound broadcasting sound authority as meaning a wasteful duplication of resources when the BBC had adequate staff, experience and technical facilities available."
"They were both very guarded in their references to the possibility of a BBC replacement for the pirates. Neither would say precisely how much 'pop' such a service would contain but it was clear that it would not be an entirely new service; it would include large portions relayed from the Light Programme and Lord Normanton (Chairman) significantly talked about 'entertainment' rather than pop music."
This wrongfooted members of the Cabinet who supported the idea of a separate authority as suddenly the BBC decided there was a frequency for this part time service and they could fund it without raising the licence fee.
The White Paper was published in December proposing this. Despite the BBC's previous reservations the White Paper said that the Government "recognised the need for a continuous popular music programme" and had been in discussions with the BBC.
The BBC had suddenly decided that there was no need to provide the Light Programme on both long and medium wave now that their longwave transmissions by BBC VHF transmissions and portable VHF sets were available at reasonable costs. The BBC informed the Government that the programme would broadcast popular music continuously from 5.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. and again from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m and on Sunday for most of the days broadcasting, over 6 hours each day on record. Which takes us back to the original post.
Quotes from Paul Harris, When Pirates Ruled the Waves 1968.
The amendment in the Lords was to delay the introduction of the Marine Offences Act by six weeks until Radio One started.
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
I was living in Bournemouth in 1967 and the 247m signal was a complete mess!
During the day it was possible to get some reception with careful positioning but
after dark the signal was drowned out by Albanian and Russian stations. The BBC
started in a relay , after many complaints, on 202m, which improved things there.
Absolute Radio still using 1215khz, still a bad signal along much of the south coast!
Good point but back in 1966/7 life wasn't like that, The Wilson Government didn't want to have any pop music service at all it was the house of lords that said they wouldn't pass the Marine etc act without a replacement so that's why they had the BBC do it, The government didn't want commercial radio at any price, Yes the so called needle time was a pain & I think it was 8 hours a day not 6 I might be wrong. The pop music fans didn't come first in the government eyes they thought in those days it was cheap programming "Prattle & Pop " is how they discribed it pop music fans had no say hard to imagine now for young people because 20 years old's don't know any thing different they wouldn't would they but in 1967 it was a different time.
The reverse is true, the Government wanted an alternative to the pirate stations but it was the BBC who originally said there were no frequencies or finance.
The allocation of 247 metres to a pop music service was suggested in a January 1966 paper Possibilities for Local Radio by Rachel Powell of Birmingham University. The Government didn't want to increase the licence fee, hence the idea was floated on introducing advertising to the Light Programme and the pop music service being run by the Post Office or a public corporation. The Cabinet was still deadlocked about an alternative service in October 1966 and Edward Short was unable to answer questions about it in Parliament on October 26. A few days later the Sunday Times reported a clash between the Cabinet and the BBC over rumoured plans to set up a new public corporation, financed largely by advertising, to run a pop music service.
A few days after that a press conference was held by the BBC attended by the Chairman and Director General.
"The BBC's attitude was plain. It regarded any plans to set up a breakaway sound broadcasting sound authority as meaning a wasteful duplication of resources when the BBC had adequate staff, experience and technical facilities available."
"They were both very guarded in their references to the possibility of a BBC replacement for the pirates. Neither would say precisely how much 'pop' such a service would contain but it was clear that it would not be an entirely new service; it would include large portions relayed from the Light Programme and Lord Normanton (Chairman) significantly talked about 'entertainment' rather than pop music."
This wrongfooted members of the Cabinet who supported the idea of a separate authority as suddenly the BBC decided there was a frequency for this part time service and they could fund it without raising the licence fee.
The White Paper was published in December proposing this. Despite the BBC's previous reservations the White Paper said that the Government "recognised the need for a continuous popular music programme" and had been in discussions with the BBC.
The BBC had suddenly decided that there was no need to provide the Light Programme on both long and medium wave now that their longwave transmissions by BBC VHF transmissions and portable VHF sets were available at reasonable costs. The BBC informed the Government that the programme would broadcast popular music continuously from 5.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. and again from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m and on Sunday for most of the days broadcasting, over 6 hours each day on record. Which takes us back to the original post.
Quotes from Paul Harris, When Pirates Ruled the Waves 1968.
The amendment in the Lords was to delay the introduction of the Marine Offences Act by six weeks until Radio One started.
What many people forget is that in the 1960s, the vast majority of of pop music fans were under the age of 30 and despite the baby boom, at that time they weren't anywhere near a majority of the population. It's a very different world today when no one bats an eyelid if a cabinet minister chooses eight rock songs on Desert Island Discs. That would have been shocking in the extreme. I can remember it being a major talking point when the actress Irene Handl chose an Elvis Presley track on the programme, as it was so rare for anyone of that age to admit to any liking of pop music.
It's a completely different world now where it's not only acceptable, and completely normal, to enjoy any sort of music at any age but also the artists performing it can likewise be any age. The gradual evolution of music radio reflects that. It's absurd to suggest that what we have now could have somehow magically come about in 1967 because life just wasn't like that then.
Another point was back in 1967 the ignorance of the Wilson Labour government in thinking let's stop these pop music stations for various reasons with no replacement! Anyone here who remembers the BBC Light Programme pre September 1967 will well understand the nightmare of that, Womans Hour in the afternoon followed by Music While You Work [ mostly songs the last two world wars] followed by Mrs Dale's Diary a 15 min soap opera that started in 1946 that later went to Radio 2, No pop music at all & there was a programme called Roundabout at 4.30pm after the racing results yes racing results that played music from around London's West End show tunes just rubbish as far as young people rightly thought, But it's worth remembering that a lot of mp's were from the war era & had little interest in pop music then. I have to say most goverments don't care that much about broadcasting in general why? because there isn't any votes in it sad but true. I wonder what young people will think now when back then if you were out of range of say Caroline South & Caroline North from August 14th 1967 having to wait while the 30th of September to hear pop music in the daytime via Radio 1 more than 6 weeks not very good.
...followed by Music While You Work [mostly songs from the last two world wars]...
It was far worse than that. Tunes, not songs, because it was a ghastly 45-minute orchestral segue played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards, the Northern Dance Orchestra or whatever. Radio's equivalent of a long, ice-cold shower.
It was far worse than that. Tunes, not songs, because it was a ghastly 45-minute orchestral segue played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards, the Northern Dance Orchestra or whatever. Radio's equivalent of a long, ice-cold shower.
I know as a kid I thought this was junk older people thought it was good a kind of comfort zone for them, I got a transistor radio & in 1966 Radio 270 came on & the middle aged woman in the flat below us & if went in her flat she liked the BBC Home Service in the morning & The Light programme in the afternoon for Music While You Work, I got told to turn off Radio 270 a lot of times then or go out & guess what? I went out:D
Comments
The BBC lists some of the charities which have benefited; in addition to the Spastics Society and Stoke Mandeville Hospital, which received royalties whilst the song was a hit, the following received funding from repeated airplay over the years:
Friends of D'Oyly Carte
University of Huddersfield
A Soviet poster exhibition
Liverpool Tate
Variety Club
Jewish National Fund for Israel
British Film Institute
British Screen Advisory Council
Attlee Foundation
Oxford University
Joyce Butler Memorial Trust
33 Signals Unit
Central Lads Club
Ratlingate Scout Appeal
Whitehall Choir
Victor Brusa Memorial Appeal
St Mary's Ladies' Lifeboat Guild
Oxford Operatic Society
Lloyd George Parliamentary Centenary Appeal
Bolton Lads Club
Tring Lane Workshops
Harold Wilson himself is not listed as a beneficiary.
A quote from Chapter One of Johnny Beerling's book I mentioned earlier.
"On Saturday September 30th Paul Hollingdale presented the early show on both Radio 1 and Radio 2 at 0530 and we were waiting in the next door studio ready to go. Tony had done all the tests with the Technical Operator, given volume checks on his microphone and jingles."
and later
"Tony was still smiling nervously as he checked and rechecked that the first disc was cued up and all his tape cartridges were in the right slots."
Philip Birch had also applied for the London licence which was awarded to Capital Radio.
Now, if he'd managed to win that licence, then we would, indeed, have had Radio London in London. Unfortunately, the government of the day were never going to allow that to happen!
I think people are mixing up recorded for posterity and pre recorded, which TB's show certainly wasn't.
That must have been as part of a consortium though. The service was advertised as a "general entertainment" licence with all the restrictions on needletime, had to appeal to the widest possible audience etc on it. If his consortium had decided to call it "Radio London", a name Philip Birch didn't like as he wanted it to have more national appeal, his choice was Radio Galaxy, it couldn't have had anything like the format of the offshore one.
Thanks for that, I knew he'd given it all to charity, quite a few it seems.
A bit of name dropping, but i chatted to Roy Wood in a bar in the late 1980s, a very aimiable chap, at least until i mentioned "that f******g song". It was only years later when i heard the documentary i realised why he said that
Sorry, I might have misunderstood this thread.....I was reading it while working!!! and didn't read all posts.
The first programme was recorded for archival purposes but was broadcast live. There were two technical faults during the programme which would have been edited out if it had been recorded in advance.
you prove i am wrong
If the consortium that Philip Birch had won a London ILR franchise then there was no way that they could have used the name Radio London, because there already was a BBC Radio London on the air.
Yes, you beat me to pointing that out.
Was there any kerfuffle about the name when BBC Radio London launched by the way ?
I'm not sure what the Beeb would have called the station instead ? BBC Greater London Broadcasting, or BBC Capital Radio
Initially there was no BBC local station in London, one reason being that there would have been significant confusion with the popular offshore station Wonderful Radio London
BBC Radio London launched in late 1970. It had little impact because it was FM only at a time when FM radios were a rarity, and it was further eclipsed when LBC and Capital Radio launched three years later.
So there was no kerfuffle about the name, although the confusion meant that they received an angry letter demanding to know why they had not made any music copyright payments in 1968 and 1969 !
Had the Philip Birch consortium managed to gain a London ILR franchise then they could well have used the name Piccadilly Radio ( there is a London district named Piccadilly).
I see what you're getting at, but it's not really a place most Londoners would identify with. London's too big to have a radio station named after one street - which is presumably also why the Piccadilly brand was dropped in Manchester.
It was a con that listeners had 6 hours of pop broadcasting per day as opposed to 20.5 hours on Radio London , that issue should have been addressed when Radio 1 was being set up to ensure that listeners had a proper replacement with more needle time and the musicians union being put in their place, to ensure that the listeners came first .
Good point but back in 1966/7 life wasn't like that, The Wilson Government didn't want to have any pop music service at all it was the house of lords that said they wouldn't pass the Marine etc act without a replacement so that's why they had the BBC do it, The government didn't want commercial radio at any price, Yes the so called needle time was a pain & I think it was 8 hours a day not 6 I might be wrong. The pop music fans didn't come first in the government eyes they thought in those days it was cheap programming "Prattle & Pop " is how they discribed it pop music fans had no say hard to imagine now for young people because 20 years old's don't know any thing different they wouldn't would they but in 1967 it was a different time.
The reverse is true, the Government wanted an alternative to the pirate stations but it was the BBC who originally said there were no frequencies or finance.
The allocation of 247 metres to a pop music service was suggested in a January 1966 paper Possibilities for Local Radio by Rachel Powell of Birmingham University. The Government didn't want to increase the licence fee, hence the idea was floated on introducing advertising to the Light Programme and the pop music service being run by the Post Office or a public corporation. The Cabinet was still deadlocked about an alternative service in October 1966 and Edward Short was unable to answer questions about it in Parliament on October 26. A few days later the Sunday Times reported a clash between the Cabinet and the BBC over rumoured plans to set up a new public corporation, financed largely by advertising, to run a pop music service.
A few days after that a press conference was held by the BBC attended by the Chairman and Director General.
"The BBC's attitude was plain. It regarded any plans to set up a breakaway sound broadcasting sound authority as meaning a wasteful duplication of resources when the BBC had adequate staff, experience and technical facilities available."
"They were both very guarded in their references to the possibility of a BBC replacement for the pirates. Neither would say precisely how much 'pop' such a service would contain but it was clear that it would not be an entirely new service; it would include large portions relayed from the Light Programme and Lord Normanton (Chairman) significantly talked about 'entertainment' rather than pop music."
This wrongfooted members of the Cabinet who supported the idea of a separate authority as suddenly the BBC decided there was a frequency for this part time service and they could fund it without raising the licence fee.
The White Paper was published in December proposing this. Despite the BBC's previous reservations the White Paper said that the Government "recognised the need for a continuous popular music programme" and had been in discussions with the BBC.
The BBC had suddenly decided that there was no need to provide the Light Programme on both long and medium wave now that their longwave transmissions by BBC VHF transmissions and portable VHF sets were available at reasonable costs. The BBC informed the Government that the programme would broadcast popular music continuously from 5.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. and again from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m and on Sunday for most of the days broadcasting, over 6 hours each day on record. Which takes us back to the original post.
Quotes from Paul Harris, When Pirates Ruled the Waves 1968.
The amendment in the Lords was to delay the introduction of the Marine Offences Act by six weeks until Radio One started.
I was living in Bournemouth in 1967 and the 247m signal was a complete mess!
During the day it was possible to get some reception with careful positioning but
after dark the signal was drowned out by Albanian and Russian stations. The BBC
started in a relay , after many complaints, on 202m, which improved things there.
Absolute Radio still using 1215khz, still a bad signal along much of the south coast!
Very interesting post
Very interesting post
It's a completely different world now where it's not only acceptable, and completely normal, to enjoy any sort of music at any age but also the artists performing it can likewise be any age. The gradual evolution of music radio reflects that. It's absurd to suggest that what we have now could have somehow magically come about in 1967 because life just wasn't like that then.
I know as a kid I thought this was junk older people thought it was good a kind of comfort zone for them, I got a transistor radio & in 1966 Radio 270 came on & the middle aged woman in the flat below us & if went in her flat she liked the BBC Home Service in the morning & The Light programme in the afternoon for Music While You Work, I got told to turn off Radio 270 a lot of times then or go out & guess what? I went out:D