BBC Home Service

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station between 1939 and 1967.

1 Development
2 World War II
3 Post-war
4 Regions
5 Programming
6 Closure
7 Regional radio legacy
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Between the 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme. As the name of the latter suggests, as well as a "basic" service programmed from London, the Regional Programme included a large measure of additional, alternative, or rescheduled programming originating in six regions. Although the programmes attracting the greatest number of listeners tended to appear on the National, the two services were not streamed – that is, they did not attempt to appeal to different audiences; instead, they appealed to a single audience but provided a choice of programming.

On 1 September 1939, the BBC merged the National and the Regional Programmes into one national service from London. The reasons given for this included the ability of enemy aircraft to use the Regional Programme's transmitters as navigation beacons during the Blitz.

The new service was named the Home Service, which was also the internal designation at the BBC for domestic radio broadcasting (the organisation had had Television Service and Overseas Service departments).

On 29 July 1945, the BBC resumed its previous regional structure and began "streaming" its radio services. Following the wartime success of the Forces and General Forces Programmes, light entertainment was transferred to the new BBC Light Programme, whilst 'heavier' programming - news, drama and talks - remained on the now-regionalised Home Service.

However, popular light programming from the former national Home Service - such as ITMA - remained on the new Home Service; similarly, some speech programming of the type pioneered by the Forces Programmes - the newly-launched Woman's Hour being very much in this mould - remained on the new Light Programme.

The Home Service had seven regions.

London and South East England was served by the "basic Home Service", which was not considered a region by the BBC and acted as the sustaining service for the other regions.

A shortage of frequencies meant that the Northern Ireland Regional Home Service was treated as part of the North Regional Home Service, as the Northern Ireland service used the same frequency as a North service booster. The Northern Ireland service was separated from the North region on 7 January 1963.

Regional Home Service	Home city	Frequency
Basic	London	330 meters 908kHz (plus a local booster on 202 meters 1484kHz)
Midland	Birmingham	276 meters 1088kHz
North	Manchester	434 meters 692kHz (plus local boosters on 261 meters 1151kHz and 202 meters 1484kHz)
West	Bristol	285 and 206 meters 1052 and 1457kHz
Welsh	Cardiff	341 meters 881kHz
Scottish	Glasgow	371 meters 809kHz
Northern Ireland	Belfast	261 meters 1151kHz until 1963; 224 meters 1340kHz thereafter.

As well as providing five news programmes a day nationally from London, the Home Service also provided drama, talks and informational programmes. After the BBC Third Programme began broadcasting on 29 September 1946, non-topical talk programmes and heavier drama output was transferred to the new network.

During the day, the Home Service provided programmes of serious (classical) music. These were reduced in number when government limits on radio broadcasting hours were relaxed in 1964 and the BBC Music Programme began broadcasting during the daytime on the frequencies of the (night-time only) Third Programme. The music programmes disappeared entirely when the BBC Music Programme began regular 0700-1830 daily broadcasting on 22 March 1965.

The Home Service broadcast educational programmes for use in schools during the day, backed with booklets and support material available from the BBC.

Programmes were reorganised across the three BBC networks on 30 September 1957, taking more of the lighter programming from the Home to the Light and establishing the BBC Third Network, on the frequencies of the Third Programme, to take the Home Service's adult education (BBC Study Session) and the Home and Light's sports coverage (BBC Sports Service).

On 30 September 1967, the BBC split the Light Programme into two services - a popular music service and an entertainment network. The Corporation took the opportunity of renaming the national networks from the same date. The Light Programme became BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2. The Third Network became BBC Radio 3, with the Music Programme losing its separate identity (the Third Programme, Study Session and Sports Service retained their identities - under the banner of BBC Network Three - until 4 April 1970).

The BBC Home Service was renamed BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4 continued as a regionalised service and continued to use the term "Home Service" to refer to regional programming and scheduling, with the Radio Times listings being headlined "BBC Radio Four - Home Service".

With the introduction of BBC Local Radio, starting with BBC Radio Leicester on 8 November 1967, it was felt that the future of non-national broadcasting lay in local rather than regional services. To this end, the BBC produced a report, Broadcasting in the Seventies, on 10 July 1969, proposing the reorganisation of programmes on the national networks and the end of regional broadcasting.

The report began to be implemented on 4 April 1970 and the Home Service regions gradually disappeared, until 23 November 1978 when Radio 4 was given the national longwave frequency previously used by Radio 2 and was relaunched as Radio 4 UK.

The "national regions" survived to become separate stations - BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio Ulster -, at first relaying the majority of Radio 4 programming but later becoming completely independent.

The last remaining Regional Home Service was an FM-only opt-out of Radio 4 for Devon and Cornwall. This "South West Region" continued in existence until BBC Radio Cornwall and BBC Radio Devon opened on 17 January 1983.

Various authors BBC Year Book 1947 London: British Broadcasting Corporation 1947
Various authors BBC Year Book 1948 London: British Broadcasting Corporation 1948
Various authors BBC Handbook 1967 London: British Broadcasting Corporation 1967
Various authors BBC Handbook 1972 London: British Broadcasting Corporation 1972
Various authors BBC Annual Report and Handbook 1987 London: British Broadcasting Corporation 1986 ISBN 0-563-20542-3
Paulu, Burton British Broadcasting: Radio and Television in the United Kingdom Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1956