Tag: Radio Culture

The BBC century: the World Service and the Cold War – part 1 of 2

This is the first of two articles about the BBC World Service. I spent some time working there, and it features in my new book Radio’s Legacy in Popular Culture. The second part of this online mini-series is published in June 2022. You can sign up for an e-mail alert by clicking the blue "subscribe" … Continue reading The BBC century: the World Service and the Cold War – part 1 of 2 →

100 Years of British Radio: Why do we love the pirates so much?

The BBC – and radio in Britain – is now celebrating its centenary. But almost from the start the official broadcasters: initially the BBC then later the commercial ILR companies fretted about competition from pirate stations. First there was home-made equipment in the 1930s, then in the 1960s we had the offshore pirates, and from … Continue reading 100 Years of British Radio: Why do we love the pirates so much? →

The BBC at 100: how the Corporation, Auntie Beeb, is talked about

Click this image to see a sample chapter The BBC has, throughout its one hundred years, had a delicate relationship with politicians and governments. From the standpoint of early 2022 that sentence may seem to be something of an understatement. Let me fill in some historical context, and explain how I've been researching other ways … Continue reading The BBC at 100: how the Corporation, Auntie Beeb, is talked about →

Writing for radio: it’s what we do…

Martin Cooper. So, after forty years in the broadcast media business, including two decades teaching young journalists about the arts of the trade, I’m still finding that I have to explain what “writing” has to do with “radio”. Over the course of listening to hundreds of hours of BBC and commercial radio output for my … Continue reading Writing for radio: it’s what we do… →

Broadcasting into the void… (part four)

In this series of articles so far I’ve considered what BBC radio producers, presenters, and TV editors have thought about their audiences. The people they’ve been broadcasting to for a century who’ve sat there quietly listening and watching this stuff every day. Were they ever even listening or actually paying attention? Since radio’s earliest days … Continue reading Broadcasting into the void… (part four) →

Radio goes to the movies, and how art imitates life…

In this article I consider a number of writers and journalists past and present, including Pete May, Philip Knightley, Harold Evans, and Michael Green. All good and true men devoted to the art of the printed word. But first, imagine a broadcast journalist, working for a national radio station, who is so comfortable with telling … Continue reading Radio goes to the movies, and how art imitates life… →