BBC offers fascinating glimpse into earliest days of radio to mark 100 years since first broadcast

Programme listings from the very first day of broadcasting, 100 years ago today, and the year that followed are now available to view

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From today audiences can visit the online BBC Programme Index to view a list of the pioneering programmes first broadcast in the early days of BBC radio, known then as the British Broadcasting Company.

Programme listings from the very first day of broadcasting, 100 years ago today, and the year that followed are now available to view. The listings reveal an unfolding media revolution as the wireless became the mass media format of the age.

The listings include a number of BBC ‘firsts’, including the first weather forecast, the first sports commentary, the first live concert, the first outside broadcast and the first children’s radio programming. They also reveal the first election coverage which remarkably fell on day two of broadcasting, the day the country went to the polls to elect a Conservative government led by Bonar Law.  

To bring the discoveries alive, the BBC Philharmonic have recorded a selection of musical pieces inspired by and reflecting the music from the first days of broadcasting, arranged by Dan Whibley. The recordings will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 Breakfast every day this week, with a medley featuring on Sunday.

Also across the week on Radio 4, in Property of the BBC, Robert Seatter, Head of BBC History, plucks three BBC objects each episode from the past and tells the stories behind their creation - what they tell us about the changing history of the organisation, about expansion of the media and the nation at large.

Robert Seatter says: “As we mark the BBC’s original broadcast one hundred years ago today, we offer for the first time ever a published listing of the earliest radio programmes from 1922 to 1923. It paints a vivid picture of the evolution of broadcasting as well as capturing a unique snapshot of the social history context of the UK.”

The Programme Index is a searchable database of 100 years of BBC TV and radio broadcast listings. The newly assembled listings provide the most comprehensive record available of the known programmes that went on air from November 1922 until the publication of the first Radio Times in September 1923.

This includes listings from the BBC’s first radio stations: 2LO in London, 2ZY in Manchester, 5IT from Birmingham, 5NO from Newcastle, 5WA from Cardiff and 5SC from Glasgow. Until now complete listings from the first year were largely unavailable to view in one place.

This new compiled information, alongside the previously published complete Radio Times listings, means it is now possible to explore details on the BBC Programme Index of over 10 million programmes, from the BBC’s first day of broadcasting up until the present day. 

The Programme Index now holds stories about the early workings of the BBC and the pioneering staff that exploited the power of this new technology while inventing the very idea of broadcasting. 

BBC ‘firsts’, listed in the BBC’s Programme Index, include:

In the early days of broadcasting, there were few rules or standards to follow, and the listings show BBC radio pioneers innovating, experimenting and organising their output into what would become the established language of broadcasting. One example of this is, in the early days, news bulletins were read twice - once quickly and once slowly - and listeners were asked to write in with their preferences.

The first sport commentary: Mr E. S. King, secretary of the West Ham United Football Club (that year's English Cup finalists with Bolton Wanderers), gave the first sports talk on, "Our prospects Wembley", on 20 April 1923.

The first example of election coverage: On election day, 15th Nov 1922, every effort was made not to interfere with the newspapers, with no broadcasting before 5pm or beyond 1am, and Sir William Noble, Chairman of the BBCo (British Broadcasting Company) was quoted in a newspaper saying: “We hope that many people will take up broadcasting who otherwise might not take a great interest in the world's news, and that, by giving them a brief synopsis of events, we shall whet their appetite for news and thus induce them to buy more newspapers.”

A more detailed account of the election day broadcast on 2ZY is provided by the Liverpool Echo: “At 8pm a musical programme (from gramophone records) was given interspersed with election results, both of which were still coming through at midnight. The first result sent out from London was timed 10 o'clock and was heard in this manner by those listening in: - "Hullo, hullo! 2 L.O. London Broadcasting Station calling.' Stand by for the first election result. The first result is from the Wallasey Division. Sir R. R . Chadwick, Conservative, 17,108; Morris, Liberal. 9,984, Conservative majority, 7,524”.”

The first outside broadcast: An operatic programme (excerpts from the British National Opera production of The Magic Flute from Covent Garden) broadcast on 2LO on 8 January 1923.

First weather report: The first regular daily weather forecast was broadcast as early as 14th January 1923 on 2ZY from Manchester.

About

Notes to Editors

BBC Programme Index can be accessed at www.bbc.co.uk/programmeindex  

The 2LO London listing for November 14 1922, the first day of broadcasting, can be found here: https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/service_rt_2lo/1922-11-14

A simulation of the first ever radio announcement: “2LO calling” by Arthur Burrows, the first Director of BBC Programmes can be downloaded and used with media reports here: https://www.dropbox.com/t/7R5sMEK0Q6f8e3TI

The Programme Index is a searchable database available to everyone – from historians and researchers to people of all ages who are interested in delving into the BBC’s archives. It tells a history of the UK and the wider world in a huge range of radio and TV broadcasts - encompassing news, documentaries, current affairs, drama, entertainment and music. 

More information about the Programme Index, launched in September 2021, can be found on the BBC’s Media Centre. 

BBC Genome, the precursor to Programme Index, was the BBC’s first database to provide audiences with an overview of our historical programmes listings. It showed broadcast schedules for most weeks between 1923-2009, as printed in the listings magazine, Radio Times. The Radio Times wasn't created until 1923 brought about from demands of listeners to know what was going to be broadcast.

The BBC Philharmonic recordings will include pieces such as ‘Three O'Clock in the Morning’, a waltz composed by Julian Robledo, a popular Argentine composer born in Spain; ‘Narcissus’, a piece of music composed for the piano in 1891 by Ethelbert Nevin; and ‘Why Dear’, a foxtrot, written by American Composer Henry R Cohen, which was popular in the early 1920s and which was regularly heard on the radio in that period.

The new information added to Programme Index supports other social history projects launched to celebrate the BBC’s centenary, including the introduction of BBC Rewind, the largest release of digital archive content in BBC history, as well as a scheme launched in January which saw universities and schools from across the UK provided access to millions of television and radio programmes under the ERA licensing scheme.

Source BBC One

November 14, 2022 4:00am ET by Pressparty  

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