During the course of 2002 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launched five new national radio stations.1 This was the first time a new national BBC network had been established since BBC Radio 5 went on-air in August 19902 and before that the creation of Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 back in 1967. Outlining her plans for the five new national radio services on 28 September 2000, Jenny Abramsky (Director, BBC Radio)3 emphasised the fact that the services would:
⊠aim to attract audience groups under-served by existing BBC Network
Radio, such as young families and people from ethnic minority
backgrounds. Not only would the commissioning of new, quality
programming be paramount, the new stations would also draw on the
BBCâs speech and music archives and give wider exposure to events,
such as sports, where the corporation already owned the rights.4
Also, simply extending the range of BBC Radio output by creating distinctive, public service radio stations, Abramsky highlighted another priority, namely, the need to take advantage of emerging digital platforms, and emphasised that:
⊠each of the new services would be available via digital satellite,
digital cable, the internet and digital radio sets.5
The unique feature of the new services was that they would be digital services and therefore not available through the ubiquitous, standard, analogue radio receiver which had dominated the radio listening market for the previous 75 years.
Changes to its radio portfolio had already occurred on a few occasions throughout the corporationâs history. The BBC had fostered a strong relationship with its audience during the 1920s and 1930s but had also encountered a formidable foe in the form of unlicensed commercial broadcasters bombarding British listeners with popular programming from abroad. With the Second World War looming, the corporation became more alert to the varying needs of its audience and began to consider the necessity of catering for differing listener tastes and aspirations. This saw the eventual creation of the Empire Service and the emergence of the Home Service from the National and Regional Programmes. By 1946 the then Director General, Sir William Haley, recognised a need to reflect a wider range of tastes and develop a more settled system of programmes which resulted in the post-war triumvirate of the Home Service, the Light Programme and the Third Programme.
Commentators often describe the 1930s as the âGolden Age of Wirelessâ,6 but in many ways the post-war years represented a zenith of radio broadcasting in the UK,7 fulfilling a significant role as informer, educator and entertainer8 during these austere years, even as the new medium of television began to encroach on radioâs erstwhile hegemonic status. Although BBC Radio faced little radio competition at this time, the steadily increasing demand for television and the arrival of Independent Television (ITV) in 19559 meant BBC Radio was to suffer, as the medium in ascendancy was favoured in terms of resource allocationâparticularly after the success of television during coverage of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953, marking it as a âwatershed in broadcasting historyâ (Holmes 2005, 47).
Since Haleyâs changes in 1946, the face of BBC Radio remained unaltered for a further 21 years. It was competition from offshore pirate stations which would send a shot over the prow on Portland Place.10 The BBC could not ignore the popularity of the popular music service provided by the pirates during the 1960s to an avid young audience, which the corporation had been neglecting, and Radio 1 was deemed the perfect vehicle for this disaffected group to board.11 As the pirates were eventually banned under the Marine, &c., Broadcasting (Offences) Act 1967 and Radio 1 came to air; the Light Programme, the Third Programme and the Home Service were respectfully renamed Radios 2, 3 and 4.
In 1973, BBC Radio had to emerge from its cocoon as LBC, and Capital Radio in London became the first legalised commercial contenders in the marketplace. Such competition was to spread on a local level and eventually on a national level as Classic FM became the first national offspring of the 1990 Broadcasting Act.12 As more and more stations entered the arena, offering alternative listening brands for an increasingly demanding and selective audience, the weaknesses of the BBC national networks became exposed through a plummet in listening figures. For example, Radio 2âs share in London dropped from 22% in 1988 to 11% in 1991,13 and by 1993 Radio 1 had lost around eight million listeners to commercial alternatives.14 By the time of the launch of the new digital services in 2002 however, BBC national radio had undergone something of a renaissance and was again beginning to enjoy successful listening across all networks with Radio 4 pushing 10 million listeners and Radio 2 consistently reaching 12.5 million.15 Radio as a medium had been holding its own against other media with RAJAR16 figures suggesting that for the first time in at least three decades, radio listening, both BBC and commercial, had exceeded television viewing in the UK.17 Street (2002, 135) proposes that history will judge May 2002 as a âsignificant milestone in radio historyâ as audience figures began to signal a recovery of the BBCâs position and also demonstrate a strong performance for the commercial sector and hence the industry as a whole.
This cursory summation of the history of the UK radio industry in the twentieth century is intended to briefly outline three aspects of radio history which this book aims to examineâthe BBC, the commercial radio sector and the relationship between the two. It attempts to account for the long-term success of the medium and the roles played by the BBC and the commercial sector in ensuring that longevity. It is not a series of linear histories covering well-trodden ground, but instead represents a historiography which examines each in relation to the other, identifying the particular roles played by each in maintaining the continued survival of the industry as a whole. I intend to develop an argument which proposes the BBC and commercial radio played distinct and separate roles during the era of analogue radio, with very little common direction, but that the digital era heralded a new and unique period of cooperation and that this working in concert shifted the established dynamic within the UK radio industry. So, with the move in technology from analogue to digital there also came a change in relationshipsâfrom competition to cooperation. The history of radio in the UK is typified by singular actions by the public service broadcaster and its commercial opponents in various guises. Such actions have been important in helping radio maintain its powerful media presence and I wish to highlight the crucial roles each party has played. I also seek to underscore the joint actions taken in order to launch digital audio broadcasting (DAB) digital radio and demonstrate how this model of cooperation was both novel and indeed fruitful in its simple task of keeping radio at the forefront of an ever-expanding media environment.
A mere historical account does in itself make fascinating reading for any student of radio, but beyond the timeline approach it is also critical on an academic level to illustrate this history of radio within a comparative context, namely as a succession of relationships between the BBC and the commercial radio sector. If narratives of radio history tend to be skewed heavily towards the BBC, then this book aims to demonstrate how both the BBC and the commercial sector have played important roles in radioâs position in the media terrain while at the same time illustrating how the move from analogue to digital radio represented a landmark in the history of radio in the UKâone defined not just by the introduction of a new technology but also in the shifting of relations between the industryâs two leading players. Also, by highlighting the steps taken by each party to bolster radioâs general success, I seek to demonstrate how a previously distant rapport was transformedâfor a periodâinto one of overt cooperation in order to promote a technology which both parties envisaged as necessary for the survival of the greater industry as a whole. This is a key period in the history of the UK radio industry but also in the history of BBC Radio and in the history of UK commercial radio, when the dynamic of existing relations altered. By questioning why such a change took place and illustrating its form, the study provides an insight into a unique era and one which represents a significant deviation from the preceding eras.
There are two broad questions which this account seeks to address. Firstly, what has been the historical relationship between the BBC and the commercial sector, and secondly, how did that relationship change in order t...