Radio

The pictures are better on the radio. That was the first sentence of a blog I wrote back in November 2021 on the topic of ‘Listening’ and that article more or less covers all that I would want to say on the subject of my preferring radio over television. Here is the link: https://deadgoodpoets.blogspot.com/2021/11/listening.html

But how did it all start? I’m going to stick to the UK as otherwise this article would be as long as the marvellous book ‘The BBC. A People’s History’ by David Hendy. There are other books and articles on this subject and it has been fascinating to read the various ways writers have approached the birth of broadcasting in this country. Most of the following information comes from that book.

However, I should mention that, as far as I can find out, the first voice and music signals heard over radio waves were transmitted in December 1906 from Brant Rock, Massachusetts when Canadian experimenter Reginald Fessenden (below) produced about an hour of talk and music for technical observers and any radio amateurs who might be listening.

One of the world’s first scheduled radio broadcast services (known as PCGG) began in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on November 6, 1919. Other early Dutch stations were operated by the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (to send information to new members) and by a news agency that was seeking a new way to serve newspaper subscribers. Another early station appeared in Montreal transmitting experimentally in September 1919 and on a regular schedule the next year.

Here in the UK radio broadcasting began with hobbyists who even before the First World War had been assembling cables, switches and valves in their sheds or spare rooms to listen to the thousands of messages already on the airwaves. They were called ‘listeners-in’ and many formed wireless clubs. These messages were from such places as the Marconi training schools for ship’s wireless operators.

Towards the end of 1919 a few people began to think that there may be a market for something other than time signals etc so the Marconi’s ‘Publicity and Demonstration Department’ opened a transmitter in Chelmsford and over the course of two days it radiated two daily half hour programmes including ‘news and vocal and instrumental selections’. Reports came flooding back as they were heard thousands of miles away on ships as well as by around four hundred of the ‘listeners in’ here at home.

This caught the attention of the Press and by December 1921 sixty three wireless clubs had petitioned for a new service of speech and even music. I’m going to cut most of what happened over the next year but suffice it say that so many wireless stations had sprung up that it was recognised that due to interference and overlapping of signals something had to be done. I should mention the first advertised live public broadcast, which took place on 15th June 1920 when the famous Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba sang into Chelmsford's microphone.

What was done was that on Wednesday, October 1922, a consortium was formed to be licensed by the GPO and open not just to the six largest firms who provided the initial capital of £100,000 but to each and every radio manufacturer in the country willing to pay £1 for an ordinary share. Operational costs would be met from half of the 10 shilling licence fee that the GPO levied on all owners of domestic receivers plus a small royalty on all owners of domestic receivers. The resultant company was called the British Broadcasting Company.

At 6pm on Tuesday the 14th of November the BBC came onto the airwaves for the very first time. What an exciting time that must have been. Arthur Burrows announced ‘Hello, hello, 2LO calling. 2 LO calling. This is the British Broadcasting Company. 2 LO. Stand by for one minute, please.’ And he then read a short news bulletin and a weather forecast.

Within a couple of years the BBC covered the whole country through its local stations such as Birmingham and Manchester and people couldn’t imagine a time without radio. A historic moment.

Preston fm

For a live broadcast
be on time,
be prepared,
don’t upset the manager,
studio two,
turn down the light,
check the levels,
get the nod,
you’re on your own
and you’re on.

Sixty minutes
where what you are
is what they want,
happy in the dark,
watching needles
flick silently
to the sound of a voice,

my voice
across the table,
children playing,
part of the family.
I’m another mate
in a student flat.
I’m hitching a lift
in a neighbour’s car,

filling the space,
what more do I need,
my black box is a city,
I’m touching people
103.2 million times a second.
It’s enough.
No one, anyone,
can cope with more than that.

First published in Purple Patch in 2008

Terry Q