Radio Moments - Clips

Another fond look back to this week in radio history, for the week ending 6th February 2015, as heard at the end of the week's RadioTalk podcast from Radio Today.

Despite huge pride, BBC Local Radio, as such, does not exist anywhere in Scotland. Indeed, BBC Radio Scotland itself was but a Radio 4/Home Service optout until 1978. Some opt outs were established in Inverness (BBC Radio Highland), Orkney, Shetland, Dumfries (BBC Solway) and this one, BBC Radio Tweed), which came on air on 11 April 1983.

Another fond look back to this week in radio history, for the week ending 30th Jan 2015, as heard at the end of the week's RadioTalk podcast from Radio Today.

Another fond look back to this week in radio history, for the week ending 23rd Jan 2015, as heard at the end of the week's RadioTalk podcast from Radio Today.

Another fond look back to this week in radio history, for the week ending 16th Jan 2015, as heard at the end of the week's RadioTalk podcast from Radio Today.

In the days when radio stations were not twenty four hours, they had the daily task of opening up each morning. For some, it was a single jingle and off they went. Others made a song and dance about it.

If you were a paper boy in the late eighties, or a rival breakfast show host, you may have awoken to this jingle medley on Britain's favourite, Radio 1.

Thanks to Neil Rudd for sending me the audio.

Women on-air at the BBC were relatively rare in its early days. The tale is often told of the first female newsreader, Sheila Borrett, who was moved from the task after three months in the wake of bags of adverse mail, the majority written by women. In truth, the BBC was probably ahead of many organisations in those days, trying to push women forward to appropriate opportunities.

Olga Collett was another formidable early women broadcaster whose services were used by the Corporation. She’d held down a significant post at ICI, helping to manage 650 staff. At the BBC she became the first women to commentate at outside broadcasts, beginning, I believe in June 1937.

Like so many gifted commentators, she excelled at ‘filling’. On 21st March 1939, along with John Snagge, Olga was notably charged with commentating at a Command Performance at Covent Garden , in honour of the visit by the French President and Mme Lebrun. The press reported they would ‘describe the scene in the auditorium’. When the special guests arrived fashionably late, Olga rose to the challenge of filling for 35 minutes. She was, rightly, later applauded for her own performance.

Here, enjoy hearing Olga reflecting on her art in 1983, albeit taking exception to the questions from the interviewer, John Lane. The press, who dubbed her ‘the woman commentator’, had suggested she had commentated on Ascot ‘from a woman’s point of view’ and John came to regret he’d leant on that quote.

Another fond look back to this week in radio history, for the week ending 9th Jan 2015, as heard at the end of the week's RadioTalk podcast from Radio Today.

To this day, radio stations have procedures poised for responding to major events or significant deaths. In the case of commercial radio, these were even prescribed by the regulator until the 90s.

Now, alongside the necessary news coverage, it’s a case of simply responding with the right tone rather than switching quickly and wholly to ‘obituary mode’, although sensible stations still have everything needed for an adjustment in a single place, with staff briefed.

Different formats will respond in different ways, dependent on the significance of the event to the likely audience.

By the 90s, as the UK became increasingly casual about its relationship with the Royal Family, many programmers half-smiled at the dog-eared obit procedures, as they suspected they’d be unlikely to plough into serious music for hours on any death. Those thoughts were cast aside on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, where the majority of stations did adjust their output significantly in the wake of the shock announcement.

Witness here one announcement of the death of wartime Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, on the BBC World Service in January 1965. Note too the overall style - with lengthy gaps - and the original pips, without the last one lengthened.

BLOG on the issue of obituary broadcasts: http://davidlloyd-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-darkest-moments.html