Radio War of BBC

In 1940s BBC 

Radio’s War 

With the television  service  closed for the  duration, it  was radio’s war and the BBC nearly lost it  in the opening skirmishes. Listeners wrote in  to complain  about the new Home  Service, which had  replaced the National and Regional  programme services. There was  criticism of too many organ recitals and public  announcements. But the BBC had some  secret  weapons  waiting in the wings. Colonel (‘I don’t mind if I do’) Chinstrap and Mrs  (‘Can I do yer now, sir?’) Mopp  were just of the two famous  characters in Tommy Handley’s It’s That Man Again (ITMA) team. The comedian attracted 16 million listeners each week to  the programme. This, and  other popular  comedy shows like Hi, Gang!, boosted morale during the war. 

Vera Lynn’s programme Sincerely Yours (dismissed by  the BBC Board of Governors with the words: "Popularity noted, but deplored.") won her the title  of "Forces’ Sweetheart”. In 1940 the Forces programme was launched for the troops  assembling in  France. The  lighter touch  of this new programme was a great success with both the Forces  and audiences at home. After the war it was replaced by the Light Programme which  was modelled on the Forces Programme. Distinguished correspondents, including  Richard Dimbleby, Frank Gillard, Godfrey Talbot and  Wynford VaughanThomas, helped to attract  millions  of listeners every night with War  Report, which was heard at  the end of the main evening news. 

We shall defend our island,  whatever  the  cost may be,  we shall fight on the beaches, we  shall fight on the landing  grounds, we  shall fight in the fields and in  the streets…we shall never surrender. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, address  to the nation on BBC Radio. 

Lifeline news 

Churchill, who had no love  for the BBC in the Thirties  when  he was  virtually boycotted, found that the BBC did have  its uses. Many of his inspirational wartime speeches  were broadcast on radio, including "This was their finest hour…" in the summer of 1940. The BBC emerged from  the war with  an enhanced reputation for honesty and accuracy in its news broadcasts. Half  the nation regularly listened to the nine o’clock news every  evening. For listeners in the occupied countries the  BBC’s wartime radio  services  were a lifeline. The Ici Londres  broadcasts  proved  vital in passing  messages to the French  Resistance. General de Gaulle’s broadcasts from London were an important factor in encouraging the resistance  movement. By the end  of the war, the  BBC was broadcasting  in 40 languages. Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s  master of propaganda, was said to have admitted that BBC Radio had won the "intellectual invasion" of Europe.   

New  creative radio formats 

The Forties  was a rich period for new styles of radio. This  is  when  Workers’  Playtime, Music  While You Work and Desert Island  Discs were first broadcast and became firm favourites.  The Reith Lectures were inaugurated in 1948 and Bertrand Russell gave  the first series. The post-war period  saw a significant expansion of radio with the launch of  the Third Programme in 1946. The new cultural network offered concerts, opera, drama,  talks and features. When  the Third Programme opened, Sir William  Haley,  the Director-General, said: “Its whole  content will be  directed to an  audience that  is not of one class but that is perceptive and intelligent”. In the austerity  of postwar Britain, listeners enthusiastically welcomed  having access to the great classical  repertoire in music, drama, literature as well as  talks by leading academics, philosophers and  authors. 

1940s Behind the Scenes 

AN INDEPENDENT  VOICE 

In 1940, Churchill contemplated a BBC  takeover. He was no lover of the Corporation  since the General Strike. The BBC was  Churchill’s ’enemy within the gates’. He loathed Reith  - called him “old  Wuthering  Heights” – and sacked him from the Ministry of Information. But Churchill needed radio’s power to ’shake a fist at the beastly  gang’. When  Brendan Bracken joined Information, talk of takeovers ceased.

 WARTIME CENSORSHIP 

Ministry of Information ’guidance’ on  censorship took  two forms. One covered Defence Forces  security and the other the morale of  the nation. Scripts  had to have both stamps before being broadcast. Regiment names, troop numbers or  locations were  never given, nor were the whereabouts of Cabinet members or the Royal Family. And there were no  weather forecasts - which would reveal  conditions for bombing. 

POST-WAR TELEVISION Many who worked in television after the  war feared  that their ’Sleeping Beauty’ had become the ’BBC’s Cinderella’. There were differences  of opinion between  Broadcasting  House and Alexandra Palace about how television  should be financed and  controlled. The  slowness of  progress  eventually forced the resignation of Controller Norman Collins  - who  went on  to do more than anyone else to bring commercial television  to Britain.

 1940s Technology 

 WAR REPORT 1944 

The BBC's War Reporting Unit was established in1943. Its members underwent rigorous training in military survival techniques - and learned how to work in battle conditions by non-broadcast reporting of secret army exercises. Correspondents used a new, light recording device developed by BBC engineers and, because they recorded straight onto disc, had to learn the art of instant 'censorship'. 

THE OLYMPICS 1948

Coverage of the XIV Olympiad was the most ambitious television event yet undertaken. It took 12 months to plan. A cable was laid from Broadcasting House to Wembley and two new mobile units were brought into service - using, for the first time, cameras with turret lenses. 32 channels, 200 engineers, 25 venues and 130 commentary positions were controlled from a 1924 British Empire Exhibition building. 

SUTTON COLDFIELD OPENS 1949 

When the Postmaster General announced the standardisation of the 405 line transmission system, television began to expand. Sutton Coldfield, serving the Midlands and central Wales, was the first transmitter to be built outside London. Sylvia Peters announced its opening. It became, in its time, the oldest working television transmitter in the world. It was dismantled in 1982. 

TELEVISION NEWSREEL 1948 

During  wartime the BBC had, by arrangement with Movietone and Gaumont-British, screened two newsreels a week. Post-war, as the agreement lapsed, television produced its own newsreel from the Film Department at Alexandra Palace. Television began to play a crucial role in the development of broadcast news - although it took several more years before television news bulletins broke free from Broadcasting House control.