I found this old Radio Times dated 1949. It bought back a memory that most will find it had to believe.
It was the day the late King George V1th. died.
How did we know this you might wonder. Well for the first time in my school life we were going to listen to the radio. I know this sounds corny but it was going to be a first. It was February 1952. It was a Music lesson and for the first time we were going to listen to some music on the radio. In those days there were some lessons on the radio just for schools.
Well the teacher turned on the radio and at first there was nothing at all, then came a solemn announcer saying. "The King is dead". In a very sombre voice then there were 4 low da da da da . This was then repeated, well it was repeated until the teacher turned off the radio. At mid morning break, we all went outside to tell the other schoolboys the news. Most didn't believe us, some stating that it was King George V.th that was dead. Eventually though everybody knew that this was true.
What most people don't realise is that there was no comedy programmes broadcast for several weeks and the music was a sombre selection.
Heaven alone knows what the youngsters would think of this today, most would never believe it.
This is the main reason I have decided to show a page from the Radio Times of 1949. Nothing much had changed in the few years since then and 1952. As one can see, there is only 3 radio stations. The Home Service, the Light Programme and the Third Programme. The nearest stations today would be Radio 2 for the Light Programme, Radio 4 for the Home Service and Radio 3 as the Third Programme.
One will also notice that the content of the programmes are limited. Very little music on records. Now of course CDs. Most music was of Bands in the studios and were live.
To be honest, there was very little of interest to the younger audience. Perhaps that is why a few years later Radio Luxembourg started. Mind you the reception was very very poor indeed. Still it did have popular music that was broadcast, I think every evening from 6.00pm until midnight. Nothing like today when you get music whenever you wish. How times have changed. To be honest, I think this is definitely for the better. I hope you find the bad photograph of the Radio Times informative. Pity my American friend is not on hand to show me how to take a photograph which would illustrate everything. Oh well!. More soon.
Our two countries took totally opposite paths with radio. Yours opted for Government-owned radio while ours went the way of private enterprise, though somewhat government regulated through the granting of licenses to operate at a particular frequency. Keeping a license required licensees to periodically provide documentation that they did at least a modicum of programming in the public interest.
ReplyDeleteAs a result we got thousands of stations with a tremendous variety of programming, both local and through national networks. You guys got just a few stations. Of course, we also got commercials!!
From what I understand,though, you now do have a mix of Government and commercial stations.
I think the our system resulted from the profound distrust of government, which has been a major characteristic of our population going all the way back to the Revolution.