 The Forces Programme headquarters was at Broadcasting House in London. | |
| Country | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Broadcasting House, London, England |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | English |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | BBC |
| History | |
| Launch date | 7 January 1940 |
| Closed | 26 February 1944 |
| Replaced by | BBC General Forces Programme |
The BBC Forces Programme was a national radio station which operated from 7 January 1940 until 26 February 1944.
Upon the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the BBC closed both existing National and Regional radio programmes, combining the two to form a single channel known as the BBC Home Service.
Domestically, the BBC's medium wave transmitters continued to broadcast only the Home Service until the start of 1940, when the lack of choice and of lighter programming for people serving in the British Armed Forces having been noted – some of the former regional frequencies (804 and 877 kHz) were given over to a new service known as the Forces Programme.
The BBC Home Service had been put together in a hurry and many of the pre-war favourite programmes had been lost. The new network mainly concentrated on news, informational programmes and music – in the early days of the war, the theatre organist Sandy MacPherson provided several hours a day of light organ music to fill gaps in the schedule. It became clear that the members of the armed services during the Phoney War, especially those in France who had been expecting to fight, were now mainly sat in barracks with little to do. The BBC Forces Programme was launched to appeal directly to these men.
Although intended for soldiers and civilians in England could receive the Forces Programme, among them it became more popular than the Home Service and after the Battle of France, will also continue to broadcast in the United Kingdom. [1] The Forces Programme's mixture of drama, comedy, popular music, features, quiz shows and variety was richer and more varied than the former National Programme, although it continued to supply lengthy news bulletins, informational and talk. Programming was developed for specific services include:
Initially, the station was on the air from 11.00 am until 11.00 pm. However from Sunday 16 June 1940, the station would commence its broadcasting day from 6.30 am and would continue until 11.00 pm. These broadcasting hours remained in place until the new BBC General Forces Programme began on Sunday 27 February 1944, with the service maintaining the same broadcasting hours.
Commonwealth troops had broadcasts designed for them on the Forces Programme. From 1942, American troops also received their own broadcasts on the service; popular American variety programming, such as Charlie McCarthy, The Bob Hope Show , and The Jack Benny Program , appeared on the BBC for the first time. The British benefited from wartime co-operation only had to pay $60 for The Bob Hope Show, which cost $12,000 to produce.[ citation needed ] A brief daily programme on American sports also began, as did rebroadcasts of the American military's Command Performance and Mail Call . The broadcasts led to concerns over "Americanisation" of the BBC, but an executive stated that 90% of British soldiers would choose American music if they had a choice. [1]
The BBC Forces Programme was replaced when the influx of American soldiers used to a different style of entertainment programming, had to be catered for in the run up to 'D-Day'. The replacement service was named the BBC General Forces Programme and was also broadcast on the shortwave frequencies of the Overseas Service (which itself had been known until November 1939 as the Empire Service, and it was relaunched again on 1 May 1965 as BBC World Service).
After Victory in Europe Day, the frequencies of the former National Programme (200 and 1149 kHz) were taken over by the new BBC Light Programme.
The pre-war National Programme, whilst using the same frequencies and transmitters as the post-war Light Programme, was not the general entertainment network its successor the Light Programme became. The Light Programme was more of a child of the Forces and General Forces Programme, with a style of presentation and programming that had not existed in the United Kingdom before the war.
International broadcasting, in a limited extent, began during World War I, when German and British stations broadcast press communiqués using Morse code. With the severing of Germany's undersea cables, the wireless telegraph station in Nauen was the country's sole means of long-distance communication.
The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the long wave frequency which had earlier been used – prior to the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939 – by the BBC National Programme.
BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcasting virtually all major sports events staged in the UK or involving British competitors.
The British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) provides radio and television programmes for His Majesty's Armed Forces, and their dependents worldwide. Editorial control is independent of the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces themselves. It was established by the British War Office in 1943. In 1944, it was managed by Gale Pedrick.
RTÉ Radio 1 is an Irish national radio station owned and operated by RTÉ and is the direct descendant of Dublin radio station 2RN, which began broadcasting on a regular basis on 1 January 1926.
BBC Hereford & Worcester is the BBC's local radio station serving the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire which was one county from 1974 to 1998.
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.
Independent Local Radio is the collective name given to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom. As a result of the buyouts and mergers permitted by the Broadcasting Act 1990, and deregulation resulting from the Communications Act 2003, most commercial stations are now neither independent nor local. The same name is used for Independent Local Radio in Ireland.
FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting that uses frequency modulation (FM) of the radio broadcast carrier wave. Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to transmit high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting offers higher fidelity—more accurate reproduction of the original program sound—than other broadcasting techniques, such as AM broadcasting. It is also less susceptible to common forms of interference, having less static and popping sounds than are often heard on AM. Therefore, FM is used for most broadcasts of music and general audio. FM radio stations use the very high frequency range of radio frequencies.
Howard Thomas CBE was a Welsh radio producer and television executive.
The BBC Regional Programme was a radio service which was on the air from 9 March 1930 – replacing a number of earlier BBC local stations between 1922 and 1924 – until 1 September 1939 when it was subsumed into the BBC Home Service, two days before the outbreak of World War II.
The BBC National Programme was a radio service which was on the air from 9 March 1930 – replacing the earlier BBC's experimental station 5XX – until 1 September 1939 when it was subsumed into the BBC Home Service, two days before the outbreak of World War II.
The BBC General Forces Programme was a national radio station operating from 27 February 1944 until 31 December 1946.
The BBC Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme was a national radio station during World War II in the mid-1940s.
Radio Caroline is a British radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly and Alan Crawford initially to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly. Unlicensed by any government for most of its early life, it was a pirate radio station that never became illegal as such due to operating outside any national jurisdiction, although after the Marine Offences Act (1967) it became illegal for a British subject to associate with it.
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.
Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL.
2BD was a local radio station opened on 10 October 1923 in Aberdeen, Scotland, by the British Broadcasting Company. Operating from a studio at the rear of a shop belonging to Aberdeen Electrical Engineering at 17 Belmont Street and a transmitter located on the premises of the Aberdeen Steam Laundry Company, the station broadcast on a frequency of 606 kHz medium wave.
2ZY was the name of a radio station established by the British Broadcasting Company in Manchester, England, in 1922. Part of the newly nationalised British Broadcasting Corporation from 1 January 1927, the station continued broadcasting under the 2ZY name until its transmissions came to be referred to, from 9 March 1930, as "the Manchester programme". Subsequently, on 17 May 1931, the Manchester station – broadcasting from a new high-powered station at Moorside Edge – became the main production centre of the newly launched BBC North Regional Programme, which was to remain on air until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
This is a list of events in British radio during 1973.
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