Radio 4 Six O'Clock News

bluesdiamond · 31/01/12 - 12:08

I was wondering how long this had been on for? Was it part of the Home Service prior to the re brand to Radio 4?

Phil Ander · 31/01/12 - 12:46

I have been listening to Radio since the 50s. On the old home service the 6.00 News was always on though its length was 10 minutes. At 610 there were regional bulletins such as Voice of the North from Newcsatle

Shrewn · 31/01/12 - 12:57

I tend to listen to this of an evening, as I find it's TV counterpart rather poor these days!

Phil Ander · 31/01/12 - 14:38

Jeff Randall(no fan of the BBC) calls this bulletin the Gold Standard News Programme

Andy Walmsley · 31/01/12 - 14:58

There was a 6 pm news on the Home Service for many years, certainly back into the 1940s.

The Six O'Clock News as a named 30 minute programme specifically dates back to Radio 4 on Monday 4 July 1977.

Prior to that it was a 15 minute bulletin - followed by a comedy or panel game and then The Archers at 6.45 pm. That in turns dates from April 1970. Up to that time Radio 4/Home Service carried a 6 pm news bulletin followed by Radio Newsreel.

Radio Newsreel had started off on the Light Programme but moved across to the Home Service sometime in the mid-60s. From April 1970 it became a World Service programme.

Andy Sennitt · 31/01/12 - 17:50

Andy Walmsley wrote: »

There was a 6 pm news on the Home Service for many years, certainly back into the 1940s.

I have a copy of the Radio Times from March 1930. There was a 25-minute bulletin on the National Programme at 6.15 pm called "The First News" and another at 9 pm called "The Second News". So the early evening bulletin must have moved to 6 o'clock some time in the 1930s.

[Deleted User] · 31/01/12 - 18:16

Shrewn wrote: »

I tend to listen to this of an evening, as I find it's TV counterpart rather poor these days!

Both my parents will go as far as listening via the widescreen TV in our front room for possibly the same reasons.

mw963 · 31/01/12 - 18:33

Andy Walmsley wrote: »

There was a 6 pm news on the Home Service for many years, certainly back into the 1940s.

The Six O'Clock News as a named 30 minute programme specifically dates back to Radio 4 on Monday 4 July 1977.

Prior to that it was a 15 minute bulletin - followed by a comedy or panel game and then The Archers at 6.45 pm. That in turns dates from April 1970. Up to that time Radio 4/Home Service carried a 6 pm news bulletin followed by Radio Newsreel.

Radio Newsreel had started off on the Light Programme but moved across to the Home Service sometime in the mid-60s. From April 1970 it became a World Service programme.

At some point (c 1970 - 1972) it ran I think to 25 minutes, and was followed by 20 minutes of regional news; ("London at 6.25; the south east news......").

I would entirely agree with Mr Randall's description. We may be being old-fashioned, but mostly this bulletin is sensibly paced (both editorially and presentationally), wide-ranging without descending too far into pointless detail, and of course subjected to the welcome discipline of being read by a proper announcer rather than a journalist.

I always worry when Mr Mair says "This is PM" after the 5.57 pm weather forecast - he should of course say "That was PM" and it scares me that he's engaging in a bit of attempted empire building to subsume the six o'clock news into the PM programme. If that were ever to happen I really would go and set fire to my licence at the entrance to LBH.

(And yes I do know that I don't need a licence to hear Radio 4!)

[Deleted User] · 31/01/12 - 21:19

... and there's something commendable about its later sibling the midnight news. Maybe it's the regularity of the closing FTSE and exchange rates ("making the euro worth 84 pence") and the newspaper headlines. I rarely make it to the end.

Spot · 31/01/12 - 21:27

What I find extraordinary is that apart from a brief summary, BBC radio ignores news an hour later at 7 p.m, when many people will still be on their way home and perhaps weren't able to listen at 6. I'd have said that either Radio 4 or Radio 5 Live should have some sort of news magazine at that hour, as Radio 4 indeed used to in the 1970s.

[Deleted User] · 31/01/12 - 21:32

Spot wrote: »

I'd have said that either Radio 4 or Radio 5 Live should have some sort of news magazine at that hour, as Radio 4 indeed used to in the 1970s.

Well it can't be Radio 4, or the good people of Ambridge will have their dinner and their milking routine disrupted.

Spot · 31/01/12 - 21:38

Aerial Jock wrote: »

Well it can't be Radio 4, or the good people of Ambridge will have their dinner and their milking routine disrupted.

Put them back on the Light Programme.

Bandspread199 · 31/01/12 - 21:42

The Six O'Clock News has always been a benchmark news programme on The Homer Service and now Radio 4.
No sensational headlines like "Cameron slams the Eurozone", but calm well read items such as "The Prime Minister, David Cameron, today said that the Eurozone were acting wrongly and he would not support it".
Brian Perkins was one of the great news readers. Clear distinct delivery in a precise monotone - never any inflection to indicate emotion when reading a story.

Beats 'Today' and 'The News at One' into a cocked hat anyday!

bluesdiamond · 31/01/12 - 22:32

Thanks everyone for the replies, I sometimes wonder how many people listen to Simon Mayo, skip the guest and listen top the Radio 4 news as they sit on that car park called the M1 from London. It is delivered better than other services,

Andy Walmsley · 31/01/12 - 23:00

bluesdiamond wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the replies, I sometimes wonder how many people listen to Simon Mayo, skip the guest and listen top the Radio 4 news as they sit on that car park called the M1 from London. It is delivered better than other services,

That's pretty much what I latterly used to do when I was on my commute home, that was on the crawl out of York on the A1079.

mw963 · 02/02/12 - 08:15

Very interesting, I thought I was practically on my own on this one.

Taking up Spot's point to a certain extent, it's a terrible shame that so much "actuality" and "vox pops" has crept into so many of the over-shortened Radio 4 hourly bulletins.

It's not *so* long ago that the R4 seven pm news bulletin ran to a full five minutes and EXCLUDED all reporter's pieces and other extraneous material. It was a simple announcer-read round up of the news. It covered a huge amount of ground in its alloted time.

Now it's barely two minutes and full of pointless clips and covers only the top stories that we've heard countless times during the days.

The 4 pm news used to be five minutes (although it included clips and reports).

I had hoped that with WATO regaining a longer slot they'd "untruncate" the news at the start (used to run to nine minutes) but oh no those journos are oh-so-important that they can't be kept waiting, bore us with what they're going to agonise over during the programme (thus delaying and eating into the news slot) and it's still only four minutes or so.

A lot of this was down to the wretched Birt who interfered in the way news was handled and wanted more in-depth analysis even on news bulletins. Which is precisely the opposite of what I (and apparently others) want, ie sensible reporting without getting bogged down, and a wide-ranging news coverage.

commseng · 02/02/12 - 08:26

The Six and Midnight News on Radio 4 are times in the day I'll turn over specifically to listen.

The other one which has grown on me is the News Briefing at 05:30 if I'm awake then.
Just under 15 minutes of everything you need, News, Weather, Sport, On this day etc. Perfect to wake up to without people shouting over the top of each other or other clutter.

Mike_1101 · 02/02/12 - 20:15

I listened to it tonight and will listen again.

A refreshing change from the current style of television news, on the radio you don't get restless presenters pacing up and down in front of the camera - or a constant stream of distracting "special effects".

[Deleted User] · 03/02/12 - 18:18

Spot wrote: »

What I find extraordinary is that apart from a brief summary, BBC radio ignores news an hour later at 7 p.m, when many people will still be on their way home and perhaps weren't able to listen at 6. I'd have said that either Radio 4 or Radio 5 Live should have some sort of news magazine at that hour, as Radio 4 indeed used to in the 1970s.

When 5 Live began it had a proper news programme at 7pm rather than the current over-long sports news show. I seem to remember something similar at midday and 11pm too. Now the only programme on 5 Live like that is the rather weak Morning Reports at 5am.

TonyCurrie · 03/02/12 - 20:55

The evening bulletin made its debut on The British Btroadcasting Company's 2LO station in 1922 and was broadcast at 7pm, becoming one of the first "SB" programmes in 1923 when the BBC established the technique of feeding the same programme simultaneously to all of its transmitters. When the Company became a Corporation, the "First News Bulletin" (now being heard on the National Programme as well as all of the Regional stations) was advanced to 6.30 from Monday, January 3rd, 1927. It was advanced by a further fifteen minutes from Monday, September 4th, 1928, and finally landed in its permanent six o'clock slot on Monday, August 31st, 1931, where it has remained ever since, making the transition from National Programme to Home Service in September 1939, and of course from the Home Service to Radio 4 in 1967. It also survives separately in Scotland as a fifteen minute bulletin on BBC Radio Scotland which, for many years, I had the privilege of reading.

Andy Walmsley · 03/02/12 - 23:34

Thanks for the historic background Tony.

lundavra · 04/02/12 - 00:27

It should not be difficult to go back through online newspaper archives checking at various dates. I think the Times Digital Archive goes up to 1985 and the Manchester Grauniad archive to 2005.

mw963 · 04/02/12 - 09:48

I'm still waiting for the Radio Times on-line archive project (was it called Genome?) that the BBC have undertaken. Hoping it won't be a victim of the cuts.

Andy Walmsley · 04/02/12 - 11:32

The Genome project is still on course as far as I understand, but there's no go-live date yet.

Tony has a very large Radio Times collection, hence his trawl back to the 20s.

Ingohoff · 06/02/12 - 09:20

Bandspread199 wrote: »

The Six O'Clock News has always been a benchmark news programme on The Homer Service and now Radio 4.
No sensational headlines like "Cameron slams the Eurozone", but calm well read items such as "The Prime Minister, David Cameron, today said that the Eurozone were acting wrongly and he would not support it".
Brian Perkins was one of the great news readers. Clear distinct delivery in a precise monotone - never any inflection to indicate emotion when reading a story.

Beats 'Today' and 'The News at One' into a cocked hat anyday!

Quite agree. I find the professional, calm presentation of the six o'clock and midnight news far more satisfying than Today, The World at One and PM. If I'm not in the mood, I become easily irritated by the journalistic / jokey /confrontational / personality driven elements of these three.
Peter Donaldson, Harriet Cass, Corrie Corfield.....much more my cup of tea!

[Deleted User] · 06/02/12 - 16:38

Another fan of the 6 o' clock and midnight news. Cannot stand the chatty style of WAO and PM. It is lovely to hear news read in a clear way. Nowadays it's not quite "Queen's English" as regional pronounciations have crept in but it's clear and informative.

Hey there!

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