This episode of "History of Music Radio" was tremendously well done. Sadly, it is only available for a few more hours. I recommend it to anyone who considers pop music radio to be unfathomable and wonders why serious music radio has been turned into light entertainment. Specifically, it brilliantly describes how music broadcasting evolved in the 1950s/1960s, bringing out the nuances of what is good and bad in lighter entertainment. As with serious music radio, a considerable percentage of the good has been lost. It also provides background that is relevant to the evolution of R3. For example, what was Britain's first legal all music station - or as near to one that any distinctions would be petty? Answer - the Third Programme in 1965. And why was R2 so different from the Light Programme? Because the Third Programme had set a precedent that "should be made available to a wider range of people"!!!
In Britain, we had needle time until the late 1960s. This meant most music broadcast was in the form of live performance. The BBC didn't acknowledge the first modern pop music phenomenon, rock n roll, and it avoided Americana even in the mid 1960s, preferring British acts. The emphasis on live music was a double edged sword. It was out of step with modern trends but at the same time there are recordings we wouldn't have had otherwise. This is an issue that is directly relevant to today. Even in America, many radio stations had maintained orchestras until the 1950s. The arrival of records, with DJs, was arguably of immense assistance to cost-cutters. And the fact that stations were funded by commercials meant that DJs were salesmen as well as entertainers.
Pirate ships based on an American format arrived in Britain in 1964. There were also radio stations on forts. The regulatory system did not apply to broadcasts three miles or more offshore. The programme transported me into that completely different world. One that I can recall but only just. One key entrepreneur was a Texan who noted that there were more stations in one Texan town than in the whole of Britain! There will be many on this forum who would draw little distinction between the presentation style introduced in that era and what we have broadly now. For them, it would be the beginnings of the slippery slope. In truth, it was very different. The presentation of the pirate DJs was a kind of music to me, with its innovation and occasional brilliance. There were echoes of commercials but also of the music hall. What it shared with serious music radio was a sense of making an effort.
There is then little linkage in my mind between the pirate DJs and the bland personality DJs we know too well today. The latter fall between what the pirates did and the serious music radio we all like. Arguably, early Radio 1 was to blame. It arrived with the new Radio 2, 3 and 4 in the late 1960s following new marine offences legislation. But the programme described the earlier advent of the Top 40 format in the US which started to be a problem here in the 1970s. The idea that the same pieces of music should be played over and over again. That only became thoroughly awful in Britain 20 years later with the deregulation of commercial radio here and its spread to all music genres. Lawful commercial radio in the 1970s wasn't too bad. Attenborough was at the helm at Capital.
Whether it is BBC Radio or Classic FM or Planet Rock, what radio too frequently lacks today is a sense of energy, imagination and romance. We heard about the sheer beauty - and discomfort - of broadcasting 3 miles out of Frinton which had never seen the like before. I am not sure I agree with those who said in the programme that the voices were more human - that rather depends on how one defines such things - but they didn't sound so obviously in a studio. It was theatre. It was about the wider elements, it had a strong sense of its time, it was technologically experimental. It wasn't downbeat and it didn't sound like routine in an office.
I think I could enjoy running a pirate radio ship or a fort or some planks placed across the bases of abandoned windfarms in the sea. Off the Thanet coast, perhaps, in 2018. What I need to do is find out where AM and FM will stand when it all goes digital, set up a station and manufacture radio sets accordingly. The alternative is simply to do it just off some distant tropical island.
In Britain, we had needle time until the late 1960s. This meant most music broadcast was in the form of live performance. The BBC didn't acknowledge the first modern pop music phenomenon, rock n roll, and it avoided Americana even in the mid 1960s, preferring British acts. The emphasis on live music was a double edged sword. It was out of step with modern trends but at the same time there are recordings we wouldn't have had otherwise. This is an issue that is directly relevant to today. Even in America, many radio stations had maintained orchestras until the 1950s. The arrival of records, with DJs, was arguably of immense assistance to cost-cutters. And the fact that stations were funded by commercials meant that DJs were salesmen as well as entertainers.
Pirate ships based on an American format arrived in Britain in 1964. There were also radio stations on forts. The regulatory system did not apply to broadcasts three miles or more offshore. The programme transported me into that completely different world. One that I can recall but only just. One key entrepreneur was a Texan who noted that there were more stations in one Texan town than in the whole of Britain! There will be many on this forum who would draw little distinction between the presentation style introduced in that era and what we have broadly now. For them, it would be the beginnings of the slippery slope. In truth, it was very different. The presentation of the pirate DJs was a kind of music to me, with its innovation and occasional brilliance. There were echoes of commercials but also of the music hall. What it shared with serious music radio was a sense of making an effort.
There is then little linkage in my mind between the pirate DJs and the bland personality DJs we know too well today. The latter fall between what the pirates did and the serious music radio we all like. Arguably, early Radio 1 was to blame. It arrived with the new Radio 2, 3 and 4 in the late 1960s following new marine offences legislation. But the programme described the earlier advent of the Top 40 format in the US which started to be a problem here in the 1970s. The idea that the same pieces of music should be played over and over again. That only became thoroughly awful in Britain 20 years later with the deregulation of commercial radio here and its spread to all music genres. Lawful commercial radio in the 1970s wasn't too bad. Attenborough was at the helm at Capital.
Whether it is BBC Radio or Classic FM or Planet Rock, what radio too frequently lacks today is a sense of energy, imagination and romance. We heard about the sheer beauty - and discomfort - of broadcasting 3 miles out of Frinton which had never seen the like before. I am not sure I agree with those who said in the programme that the voices were more human - that rather depends on how one defines such things - but they didn't sound so obviously in a studio. It was theatre. It was about the wider elements, it had a strong sense of its time, it was technologically experimental. It wasn't downbeat and it didn't sound like routine in an office.
I think I could enjoy running a pirate radio ship or a fort or some planks placed across the bases of abandoned windfarms in the sea. Off the Thanet coast, perhaps, in 2018. What I need to do is find out where AM and FM will stand when it all goes digital, set up a station and manufacture radio sets accordingly. The alternative is simply to do it just off some distant tropical island.
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