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London After Dark was a joint venture radio program between CBS Radio and BBC Radio that ran during the 1940 London Blitz.
The show began on August 24, 1940 when CBS News Chief Paul White and CBS European Events Director Edward R. Murrow began to arrange the show by cable and short wave conference. Murrow lined up nine commentators from America, Britain and Canada, with the help of the BBC and the CBC, and set them up all over London with microphones.
The commentators featured on the first edition of London After Dark were Murrow, CBC radio reporter Robert Bowman, Raymond Glendenning, Larry LeSueur, Eric Sevareid, Vincent Sheean, Michael Standing, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, and J. B. Priestley.
The program opens with light organ music played by Canadian-born theatre organist Sandy MacPherson.
The first commentator heard on London After Dark was none other than Edward Murrow himself. He broadcast live from Trafalgar Square in London, a broadcast now world-famous. "This is Trafalgar Square. The noise you hear at the moment is the sound of the air-raid siren," Murrow said as he calmly described the scene.
From the square that first program moved on to Robert Bowman who was stationed in the kitchen of the Savoy Hotel. Bowman described the menu, eight hors d'oeuvres and eight different kinds of meat and talked to famed Chef François Latry. The atmosphere at the Savoy was seemingly joyous.
The program then jumped to an anti-aircraft battery and then to and Air Raid Precautions Station. Then, onto Hammersmith Palais, London's big dance hall where Eric Sevareid was set up and remarked, "There was an air raid alarm, as you know, 15 minutes ago. The orchestra leader simply announced they'd go on playing as the crowd wished to stay and I don't expect more than half a dozen people have left."
Vincent Sheean was up next on that first edition of London After Dark. Sheean spoke briefly on the silent streets of Piccadilly Circus before the program went to some interviews with trainmen in Euston Station by the BBC. Finally the show wound up with J.B. Priestley in Whitehall.
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The year 1940 saw a number of significant events in radio broadcasting history.
Arnold Eric Sevareid was an American author and CBS news journalist from 1939 to 1977. He was one of a group of elite war correspondents who were hired by CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow and nicknamed "Murrow's Boys." Sevareid was the first to report the Fall of Paris in 1940, when the city was captured by German forces during World War II.
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This I Believe was originally a five-minute program, originally hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow from 1951 to 1955 on CBS Radio Network. The show encouraged both famous and everyday people to write short essays about their own personal motivation in life and then read them on the air. This I Believe became a cultural phenomenon that stressed individual belief rather than religious dogma. Its popularity both developed and waned within the era of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Cold War.
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The CBS World News Roundup is the longest-running network radio newscast in the United States. It airs weekday mornings and evenings on the CBS Radio Network.
William Randall Downs, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He worked for CBS News from 1942 to 1962 and for ABC News beginning in 1963. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys.
Paul Welrose White was an American journalist and news director who founded the Columbia Broadcasting System's news division in 1933 and directed it for 13 years. His leadership spanned World War II and earned a 1945 Peabody Award for CBS Radio. After his departure from CBS in 1946 he wrote a textbook on broadcast journalism, News on the Air (1947). Since 1956 the Radio Television Digital News Association has presented the Paul White Award for lifetime achievement as its highest honor.
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This is a list of events from British radio in 1943.