Radio Moments - Clips

American radio and ads seem to go together better than UK radio and ads. Maybe because they started in earnest half a century before.

Having used print since 1885, Coke embraced the new medium of radio by the 1920s. A singer called Jessica Dragonette became ‘Vivian, the Coca Cola Girl’ on WEAF in New York. Through the next three decades, Coke sponsored all manner of entertainment shows.

By 1963, as advertisers began to make use of spot ads, the slogan ‘Things go better with Coke’ had been adopted. McCann-Erickson persuaded the big music stars of the day to re-lyric their songs and celebrate the great fizzy drink. The likes of the Who, Roy Orbison, Marvin Gaye, the Four Seasons, Gladys Knight, Petula Clarke, Ray Charles and the Supremes joined in the fun. Enjoy here, the great Tom Jones, grabbing his microphone like the famous contoured Coca Cola bottle. If only we could play this in an ad break now. Pretty please.

The ads work. They prove that commercials with melody are remembered. If Coke know that, maybe we should listen to that lesson, rather than decry the sung ad jingle as too many programmers do.

And – yes – the famous ‘I’d like to buy the World a Coke’ was a commercial before it was a New Seekers hit; and it was a 1971 radio ad before it became a TV ad.

Each week, the fine Radio Academy podcast features interviews and content from the world of radio at http://www.radioacademy.org/podcasts/.

The Academy podcast concludes with a slice of audio memories from the radio week in history, as they invite me to assemble a weekly compendium of my daily #radiomoments tweets @davidlloydradio, with audio and narrative.

Here's just that #radiomoments weekly review on its own, for the week ending 26th Sept 2014, without the sensible interviews and discussion.

This audio is now also heard at the end of the excellent weekly @radiotoday podcast http://audioboo.fm/channel/radiotoday

It’s simplistic to presume that the BBC Third programme transformed itself neatly into today’s Radio 3. As the BBC re-assembled domestic broadcasting after the War, it vowed to create a ‘Third’ channel ‘when frequencies could be found’, in addition to the Home Service and the new Light Programme. What is amazing is that such plans were being assembled with such care in such a timely manner, as the Nation was preoccupied by War.

The Third Programme was duly launched in 1946. on 203.5m AM for listeners in London, Manchester, and nineteen other areas. In the Central Midlands, transmissions were on 514.6m.

"It will be unique in freedom from routine and in acceptance of artistic responsibility." No news bulletins or fixed periods are to cramp the opportunities of the third programme. Plays, operas, and concerts will be given in their entirety”. Over a third of the content was to be devoted to music, with ‘none of it background’; and you can hear here a lengthy introductory speech by the BBC’s then DG, Sir William Haley.

It broadcast just throughout the evening, with even that being truncated 10 years later as educational programmes were inserted onto the frequencies under the banner ‘Network Three’. Then, in 1965 classical music programmes were added on the frequencies during the day as the ‘BBC Music Programme’. The Third Programme lumbered on, even marginally beyond the creation of Radio 3. It wasn’t until 1970 that this medley of offerings became simply Radio 3.

The Third Programme attracted a small and enthusiastic band of vocal and intelligent supporters: “Thank God for the Third Programme! I begin to feel that I live in a civilised country. I am proud of your venture, and will gladly pay my increased licence. Persevere with it. “

John Lawson, Lincoln

Each week, the fine Radio Academy podcast features interviews and content from the world of radio at http://www.radioacademy.org/podcasts/.

The Academy podcast concludes with a slice of audio memories from the radio week in history, as they invite me to assemble a weekly compendium of my daily #radiomoments tweets @davidlloydradio, with audio and narrative.

Here's just that #radiomoments weekly review on its own, for the week ending 19th Sept 2014, without the sensible interviews and discussion.

This audio is now also heard at the end of the excellent weekly @radiotoday podcast http://audioboo.fm/channel/radiotoday

Radio fundraisers are commonplace, but try this one for size. In its time, the biggest ever.

During the dark days of War, America was selling its war bonds – a device to cut the amount of money in circulation, reduce inflation and fund the War. With the goal, accordingly, to persuade hard-up Americans to part with yet more cash, media and celebrity were called upon to sway the public mood.

A number of ads and programmes were devised, but few as powerful as the initiative from singer and star, Kate Smith, later dubbed ‘the First Lady of Radio’.

Kate’s keynote song was Irving Berlin’s ‘God Bless America’; and she entertained for over five decades both in song and as host in a variety of radio programmes. In the States on radio, she was simply huge.

Her most powerful fundraising effort was staged on the CBS Radio network in September 1940, when she aired repeated appeals over 16 hours. With a much-loved performer using the power of radio, manipulating the techniques of tension, endorsement and repetition, alongside the identification of the reasons which would best chime with Americans, it’s little wonder this appeal was promptly researched extensively and became a text book case study.

Here she is, conveying momentous news, just after a sponsor announcement and then singing her signature song.

Kate died on June 17th 1986.

Local radio is a pretty obvious idea. It wasn't always so. The point of it, and its sustainability, had to be proven. Local commercial radio could well have preceded BBC Local Radio, were it not for the efforts of the BBC's former War Correspondent, Frank Gillard. Despite VHF being available for local radio, and recommended for its use by the 1951 Beveridge Report, progress was slow.

Evidence was provided by a series of closed circuit 'radio stations', between 1961 and 1962. These comprised recorded programmes, and not actually transmitted, but their contents could afford the Pilkington Committee some idea of the content the public might expect from a BBC Local Radio network.

The stations were mounted in: Bristol; Norwich; Portsmouth; Hull; Dundee; Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch; Swansea; Wrexham; Portsmouth; Durham; Dumfries, the Isle of Wight; the Vale of Evesham; and Lyn Ac Afrom. These excerpts are culled from the Durham and Hull tapes.

This is delicious. The last words on the station which got listeners through thick and thin. The end of the BBC Home Service as 29th September 1967 drew to a close; ready for the start of Radio 4. David Dunhill was on late continuity duty, and he'd clearly given more than a passing thought to what he might say as he drew the curtains on this powerful station. It's beautifully done, with British under-statement.

There were those who suggested that 'Radio 4' was a name which ill-suited the legacy of the fine service, and, at the time, it must have sounded a pretty weak solution. Amazing how time changes the meaning imbued into a brand name. Few would disagree that the Home Service calm, reassuring and trustworthy DNA is still firmly part of its successor.

David Dunhill, who died in 2005, was a fine man. Son of a composer and brother of the chap who'd founded the familiar Dunhill tobacco firm, he'd worked across the Light Programme, the Third Programme and the Home Service as a staff announcer. In later life, he was often called upon as a voice coach; and I treasure a typed report he compiled of my performance, having spent some time with me. What a gentleman.

If you bump into anyone with a Manx connection, don’t go banging on about commercial radio starting in 73. You’ll annoy them.

The idea for Manx Radio stems back to the 50s, and it came on air officially on 23rd November 23rd 1964, with the opening announcement by Lieutenant Governor, Sir Ronald Garvey, who’d been part of the battle to open the station.

Richard Meyer and the telecoms company Pye, owned the station, later sold to the Manx Government. The station continued with a mix of government and commercial support.

It is much loved by its Island to this day and part of its fabric and tradition. Here, its first general Manager, John Grierson, talks to me about those early days as it launched from its caravan.

Deputising for Steve Wright on Radio 1 in the 80s was a tough gig, given the scale of the audiences and the reputation of his distinctive approach. When it’s your first show, it makes matters worse.

Pat Sharp made his Radio 1 debut in those very circumstances on September 6th 1982. It was, nevertheless, a decent relaxed show, in which he wisely did not try to do Steve’s act.

It’s tough to believe the music policy on 1 was quite so, well, varied as recently as this. Amongst the greyer electro new releases, witness no less than Sandie Shaw, illuminated by a few choice cuts from several JAM jingle packages and a promo for the station’s worthy ‘Staying Alive’ programme.