BBC Third Programme

BBC Third Programme
	The Third Programme headquarters was at Broadcasting House in London.
Country	United Kingdom
Headquarters	Broadcasting House, London, England
Programming
Language(s)	English
Ownership
Owner	BBC
History
Launch date	29 September 1946;78 years ago
Closed	29 September 1967;57 years ago
Replaced by	BBC Radio 3
Coverage
Stations	647 kHz, 1547 kHz

Last updated October 07, 2024

The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and became one of the leading cultural and intellectual forces in Britain, playing an important role in disseminating the arts, broadcasting music (mainly classical), plays, documentary features and talks.^[1] It was the BBC's third national radio network, the other two being the Home Service (mainly speech-based) and the Light Programme, principally devoted to light entertainment and music.

History

When it started in 1946, the Third Programme broadcast for six hours each evening from 6.00 pm to midnight, although its output was cut to just 24 hours a week from October 1957, with the early part of weekday evenings being given over to educational programming (known as "Network Three"). The frequencies were also used during daytime hours to broadcast complete ball-by-ball commentary on test match cricket, under the title Test Match Special .

The Third's existence was controversial from the beginning, partly because of perceived "elitism" – it was sometimes criticised for broadcasting programmes of "two dons talking" – and also for the cost of its output relative to a small listener reach. Its existence was against the corporation's founding principles, as Reith himself had during his time at the BBC been against segmenting audiences by splitting programming genres across different networks. From the start, though, it had prominent supporters: the Education Secretary in the Attlee government, Ellen Wilkinson, spoke rather optimistically of creating a "third programme nation". When it faced those 1957 cuts, the Third Programme Defence Society was formed and its leaders included T. S. Eliot, Albert Camus, and Sir Laurence Olivier.

This situation continued until the launch on 22 March 1965 of the BBC Music Programme, which began regular daily broadcasts of classical music (with some interruptions for live sports coverage) on the Network Three / Third Programme frequencies between 7.00 am and 6.30 pm on weekdays, 8.00 am and 12.30 pm on Saturdays, and 8.00 am and 5.00 pm on Sundays. The Third Programme continued as a distinct evening service, and this continued to be the case for a short while after the inception of BBC Radio 3 on 30 September 1967, before all the elements of the BBC's "third network" were finally absorbed into Radio 3 with rebranding effect from Saturday 4 April 1970.

Output and programming

The network was broadly cultural, a Leavisite experiment dedicated to the discerning or "high-brow" listener from an educated, minority audience. Its founders' aims were seen as promoting "something fundamental to our civilisation" and as contributing to "the refinement of society".^[2]^{[ page needed ]} Its musical output provided a wide range of serious classical music and live concerts, as well as contemporary composers and jazz; popular classical music such as Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky primarily remained on the Home Service until 1964. Voice formed a much higher proportion of its output than the later Radio 3, with specially commissioned plays, poetry readings, talks and documentaries. Nationally known intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell and Isaiah Berlin on philosophy or Fred Hoyle on cosmology were regular contributors.

The network became a principal patron of the arts, within commissioned many music works for broadcast by the BBC Music Department, playing an important role in the development of the career of composers such as Benjamin Britten. Particularly notable were its drama productions, including the radio plays of Samuel Beckett, Henry Reed (the Hilda Tablet plays), Harold Pinter, Wyndham Lewis, Joe Orton and Dylan Thomas, whose Under Milk Wood was written specially for the programme. Philip O'Connor discovered Quentin Crisp in his radio interviews in 1963. The series Inventions for Radio aired in 1964 and 1965, with sound collages by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.^[3] Martin Esslin, BBC Director of Drama (Radio), was associated with the network's productions of European drama, and Douglas Cleverdon with its productions of poetry and radio plays.

The Third Programme's contribution to contemporary poetry and criticism was significant, under producers and presenters such as John Wain, Ludovic Kennedy, George MacBeth and Patrick Dickinson. It promoted young writers such as Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis, as well as the "difficult" work of David Jones and Laura Riding. The Third Programme was for many years the single largest source of copyright payments to poets.

The decision to close down the Third Programme was opposed by many within the BBC, some of them senior figures. Within the music division, a 'BBC rebellion' gathered force, with its most vocal members including Hans Keller and Robert Simpson. Ultimately however, the attempt to prevent the culture-conscious Third being replaced by what Keller called "a daytime music station" proved unsuccessful.^{[ citation needed ]}

Controllers

1946–1948: George Barnes
1948–1952: Harman Grisewood
1953–1958: John Morris
1959–1967: Howard Newby

Announcers

Patrick Butler
Patricia Hughes
Alvar Lidell
Christopher Pemberton
Philip O'Connor

Related Research Articles

The BBC News channel is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel owned and operated by the BBC. The channel is based at and broadcasts from Broadcasting House in the West End of London from which it is anchored during British daytime, with overnight broadcasts anchored from Washington, D.C. and Singapore. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17:30, as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989.

Prime-time, or peak-time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults. It is used by the major television networks to broadcast their season's nightly programming. The term prime-time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.. In India and some Middle Eastern countries, prime time consists of programmes that are aired on television between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. local time.

BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. Since 2019, the station controller has been Mohit Bakaya. He replaced Gwyneth Williams, who had been the station controller since 2010.

BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations covering the majority of musical genres, as well as local radio stations covering local news, affairs and interests. It also oversees online audio content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delia Derbyshire</span> English musician and composer of electronic music (1937–2001)

Delia Ann Derbyshire was an English musician and composer of electronic music. She carried out notable work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s, including her electronic arrangement of the theme music to the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who. She has been referred to as "the unsung heroine of British electronic music", having influenced musicians including Aphex Twin, the Chemical Brothers and Paul Hartnoll of Orbital.

BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also featuring. The station has described itself as "the world's most significant commissioner of new music".

BBC Radio Leeds is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of West Yorkshire.

BBC Radio Sheffield is the BBC's local radio station serving South Yorkshire, north Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire.

BBC Radio York is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of North Yorkshire.

The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4.

Capital Cymru is a local Welsh-language radio station owned and operated by Global. The station broadcasts to Gwynedd and Anglesey from studios in Gwersyllt, Wrexham via the Arfon transmitting station.

In broadcast programming, dayparting is the practice of dividing the broadcast day into several parts, in which a different type of radio programming or television show appropriate for that time period is aired. Television programs are most often geared toward a particular demography, and what the target audience typically engages in at that time.

Newsbeat is the BBC's radio news programme broadcast on Radio 1, 1Xtra and Asian Network. Newsbeat is produced by BBC News but differs from the BBC's other news programmes in its remit to provide news tailored for young people.

BBC West is one of the BBC's English Regions serving Bristol, the majority of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire; northern and eastern Somerset and northeastern Dorset.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Radio 5 (former)</span> British national radio station (1990–1994)

BBC Radio 5 was a national radio station that broadcast sports, children's and educational programmes. It ran from 1990 to 1994 and was transmitted via analogue radio on 693 and 909 kHz AM.

BBC Radio Sussex is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Sussex.

This is a list of events in British radio during 1987.

BBC Radio 1Xtra is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts black music and urban music, including hip hop and R&B and is a sister station to Radio 1. Launching at 18:00 on 16 August 2002, it had been code named "Network X" during the consultation period. At the time, the station was listed as "1 Xtra BBC" on many electronic programming guides. The station broadcasts from the 8th floor of Broadcasting House, shared with Radio 1 and the Asian Network.

A timeline of notable events relating to BBC Radio 3, a British national radio station which began broadcasting in September 1967.

This is a timeline of the history of television news in the UK.

References

↑ Hewison, Robert (1995). Culture and Consensus: England, Art and Politics Since 1940. London: Methuen Publishing. p. 55. ISBN 0-413-69060-1 – via Google Books.
↑ Carpenter, Humphrey (1996). The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the Third Programme and Radio Three. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-7538-0250-3 – via Google Books.
↑ Butler, David (4 December 2019). "The Origins of Certain Lives: The Development, Reception and Influence of the 'Inventions for Radio' by Barry Bermange and Delia Derbyshire" (PDF). Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 40 (4): 823–846. doi:10.1080/01439685.2019.1697034.

External links

BBC Third Programme Scripts catalogue The collection of Douglas Cleverdon, a leading talks and drama producer for the Third, at the University of Delaware Library.
The Third Programme – 60 Years On at BBC Online

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Hewison, Robert (1995). Culture and Consensus: England, Art and Politics Since 1940. London: Methuen Publishing. p. 55. ISBN 0-413-69060-1 – via Google Books.

[2] Carpenter, Humphrey (1996). The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the Third Programme and Radio Three. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-7538-0250-3 – via Google Books.

[3] Butler, David (4 December 2019). "The Origins of Certain Lives: The Development, Reception and Influence of the 'Inventions for Radio' by Barry Bermange and Delia Derbyshire" (PDF). Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 40 (4): 823–846. doi:10.1080/01439685.2019.1697034.

[1]

[2]

[3]