I am a journalist and radio presenter by trade, an academic historian by training, and a writer by vocation. All together they just about pay the rent and put food on the table. They also feed my passion for broadcasting.
But I’ve spent the summer and autumn of 2023 sharing the sadness of the BBC’s “Digital First” changes to its local radio network – a place I spent the best years of my working life. Read my pieces so far here, here and here. There’s also a November ‘23 update at the end of this article.
My motivation to write about radio is my love of the medium. I reckon that’s worth sharing – the good as well as the bad.
So, we need reminding that radio – done well – is about entertainment, information, and education. Reith may have been many things, but his simple concept of the medium continues.
The idea that writing has “something to say” is not a new concept. Clearly current affairs journalism has lots to say about facts.
But so too does fiction. I’ve based several years of my life’s research on comments by the French critic and philosopher Jacques Rancière.
He suggested in his book The Edges of Fiction that novels can offer some form of explanation, description and analysis of our daily worlds.
The reasoning goes like this: even fiction is grounded to some extent in reality.
For example, Rancière argues, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert opens a window on French provincial morals of the 1850s. Read it for yourself to find out, and let me know what you think.
So, my history of radio’s first 100 years is based on the idea that movies, songs, novels and poetry tell a story – the history of the medium – and how creatives used representations of the wireless to drive their plot and narrative, or how it could show up a personality trait of one of the characters in their story.
Or how the medium could be used to make a point about the sign ‘o’ the times (©️Nelson) as well as times like these (©️ Grohl). And – even though they’re not connected to the topic of radio – when you think about it, both those tracks “say” something about the modern world (©️ Weller)…
What follows is some TV and movie clips. They show how scriptwriters make assumptions about radio: how we listen, how we speak on air, and how Anthropocene creatures like us connect with aspects of this technology.
I’ll try not to labour the points in the humour in these examples. Academics can have a habit of sucking all the fun out of comedy. Each of these clips is about radio.
The first two (both with the paw prints of Richard Curtis all over them) highlight the laughs and teenage sniggers available in saying rude words. The audience, knowing that radio presenters have to watch what they say at all times, love to giggle at profanities.
They particularly adore detailed descriptions of haemorrhoids… It’s The Vicar of Dibley…
Swearing in the radio studio, and a disarming honesty from a washed-up pop star, provide the laughs in this clip from the movie Love Actually. The acting by Brigstocke and Nighy is pitched at just the right level of understatement.
In my book (details below) you’ll find examples from TV shows such as Midsomer Murders (ITV), New Tricks (BBC), and Father Brown (BBC).
But from the USA I’ve included here the usual removal of all health and safety rules for this short from 1930.
“Mrs Hardy wants to hear Japan”, and a reminder to be careful of “binding post A”, are lines of dialogue in a radio-based narrative which sadly peters out in the last few moments as this movie becomes a serious encounter with a Los Angeles tram. The radio, it seems, was an excuse for some roof-top prat-falls.
And a reminder of my book Radio’s Legacy in Popular Culture. It’s out now in paperback. It features more examples – plus a couple of hundred other movies, pop songs, novels, poems, and sculpture… Yes, you can make radio into an artwork and get it into a world-class gallery. Read more at my publisher’s website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/radios-legacy-in-popular-culture-9781501388231/
And you can see more about my methods in my chapter one – which is available to look at for free online here: https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/61c091c75f150300016f10af
By the way, if you need evidence of the circularity of social media, here’s my publisher Bloomsbury on X-formerly-known-as-Twitter posting a post that I posted previously. Here I am, reposting it now. https://twitter.com/bloomsburymedia/status/1681605232688504833?s=43
Next month, December 2023, I’ll have more radio tales from the video archive. Sign up to make sure you don’t miss it
In the meantime, a couple of topical items. Firstly, in October there was the start of the war between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel. The BBC was criticised by some sections of the popular press for not describing Hamas as terrorists.
The Beeb has a clear and very long-standing editorial policy on this issue. In October former staffers recirculated an internal briefing for colleagues at the World Service from the late 1980s.
I was there at the time as a producer on the daily programme Twenty-Four Hours (Read my article here). That newsroom editorial note still stands more than three decades later as wise journalistic guidance on the matter of impartiality. The Corporation’s policy remains the same.
And finally, some updates on the progress of Digital First (read my series of articles here, here, and here).
In late October the BBC press office released this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2023/online-traffic-bbc-local-news-stories-england-increase/ The stats refer to July to September 2023, the period before the Digital First changes came into full effect.
And on 25th October, news of the latest English region to announce new schedules. https://radiotoday.co.uk/2023/10/adam-dowling-to-host-afternoons-on-bbc-local-radio-in-the-south-east/
A full list of the 2023 changes is available from the BBC Media Centre here.
There’s also more on Ray Clark’s move to Caroline on this link. You can read about Ray here as well: https://prefadelisten.com/2023/10/14/bbc-local-radio-digital-first-news-october-2023/
And on 30th October, news of Andrew Edwards of BBC Radio Leeds https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/people/bbc-radio-leeds-presenter-andrew-edwards-becomes-latest-long-serving-host-to-confirm-they-are-leaving-the-station-4390132
On 31st October… https://radiotoday.co.uk/2023/10/jason-rosam-to-depart-the-bbc-after-15-years-as-local-radio-early-breakfast-ends/
On 2nd November https://radiotoday.co.uk/2023/11/conditional-offer-made-by-the-bbc-to-end-local-radio-strikes-and-industrial-action/
Meanwhile, it is now a matter of official record that a government committee continues to be…
concerned about the impact of the BBC’s Digital First strategy on linear TV and radio audiences. Sharing content across large areas risks undermining the sense of localness that has, until now, made BBC local radio distinct. […] While we recognise that the latest license fee settlement is difficult for the BBC, its changes to local radio and local TV provision are evidence that the drive to prioritise digital strategies can often come at the expense of local audiences.
That’s from pp. 14-15 of https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/41530/documents/204478/default/ which is the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Draft Media Bill: Final Report published on 19 September 2023. Follow the link to read it for yourself. It’s interesting.
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