The Broadcast Century | How radio determines technology… Perhaps…

Warning: the following Beeb-orientated material contains mentions of butchery, brothels, and breaches of health and safety. As well as sheep… This article, and its sister (due to be published next month around the 15th of August), is an imperfect and only partial list of ideas. However, this is not a “listicle”; I detest such things … Continue reading The Broadcast Century | How radio determines technology… Perhaps… →

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

In the previous episode I talked about W. H. Auden and his worries about world events in the 1930s, heard through radio reports on the BBC both at home, and abroad. I also recalled my time on attachment as a producer – plucked from the frontier outpost of Local Radio in Derby to work on … Continue reading The BBC century: the World Service and the Cold War – part 2 of 2 →

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 two)

This is a series of articles about what broadcasters think of their audiences. In part one I established that, probably, radio producers haven’t really got much of a clue. In fact, some of what they do has been based on guesswork – for almost one hundred years. You can read that first article here - … Continue reading Broadcasting into the void… (part two) →

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… →

Foreign languages, radio journalism, and football: what you speak, what you hear, and what you know…

The importance of a foreign language. In my opinion it’s key. I am old enough to remember my schooldays and my struggles with Latin, “Gaul as a whole is divided into three parts”. I opted for German when I turned into a teenager: “Good day Hans, why are you here? I’m here for the trade … Continue reading Foreign languages, radio journalism, and football: what you speak, what you hear, and what you know… →

Emerging into the world…

This article was published on Monday 15 June 2020, the day when some non-essential shops started to re-open in England, and when social distancing rules were being slowly changed. It was, in a word, a tentative British déconfinement. Say it with a French accent as befits the Gallic source of such an evocative word. The … Continue reading Emerging into the world… →

Listening to the experts…

This article was written on Tuesday 26 May 2020. The COVID-19 lockdown caused by the Coronavirus pandemic started in Britain on 23 March. The country had, at the time of writing this, been sheltering in place (more or less, give or take a few individuals) for ten weeks. During this period your correspondent had put … Continue reading Listening to the experts… →

Movies and radio memories…

There is a connection. Honestly. Do please bear with me. This article was written on Wednesday 29th April 2020, in the sixth week of the Covid-19 confinement for Britain. Easter had come and gone. The dry warm-ish spring weather had continued and by and large the nation had heeded the Governments instructions to “stay home, … Continue reading Movies and radio memories… →