#104 The Radio Times is Launched! A Browse Through Issue 1

On 28 September 1923, a new magazine hit news-stands.   The Radio Times was a BBC publication, born out of a listings ban seven months earlier, when the press tried to charge the Beeb advertising rates to print what was on. The BBC’s General Manager John Reith saw an opportunity: they’d just print their own.   We previously (on episodes 75 and 76) brought you the history of the Radio Times for its centenary, but as our moment-by-moment timeline of British broadcasting finally reaches September 1923, we just had to zoom in a little further on issue number one.   So join us for a look at the first listings, the first letter (a listener from Spain!), ads including headphones and - oddly - height-lengthening, the first cartoon (about listening to the wireless en masse in a village hall), plus listeners complaints mourning the “murder” of composer Tannhauser at the hands of the London Wireless Orchestra. Everyone’s a critic…   Our guests include Radio Times editor Shem Law, Radio Times collector Dr Steve Arnold, Radio 4’s Justin Webb and Dr Martin Cooper author of Radio’s Legacy in Popular Culture.   

SHOWNOTES:

• Original music is by Will Farmer. 
• Books referred to include Those Radio Times by Susan Briggs and The Radio Times Cover Story by Tony Currie. Martin Cooper’s book is Radio’s Legacy in Popular Culture https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/radios-legacy-in-popular-culture-9781501360442/
• Steve Arnold’s website is radiotimesarchive.co.uk/. Martin Cooper’s website is prefadelisten.com
• Paul's latest Substack is here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-171149075
• Paul's live show on the BBC origin story - at time of writing, soon in Ealing, Petersfield, Norfolk, Hertfordshire: www.paulkerensa.com/tour.
• This podcast is nothing to do with the BBC. 
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Next time: Episode 105: The launch of Aberdeen 2BD. Advance reading: see Gordon Bathgate’s book Aberdeen Calling: https://amzn.to/4pi9FBW

More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio