Tonight’s BBC-1… in 1965 

26 August 2014 tbs.pm/5412

19650826 BBC-1

From the Radio Times for Thursday 26 August 1965 comes this run down of what you could be watching on BBC-1. Things worth noting:

  • There’s no BBC-2 listings. This is the Northern Ireland edition of the Radio Times and BBC-2 hasn’t reached here yet. BBC-2 still gets mentioned in the editorial pages, however
  • The news programme Six-Five is on at 6.35pm
  • Yes, that Kurt Russell
  • A foreign film with subtitles on BBC-1 at 9.25pm wouldn’t happen now. Once BBC-2 was everywhere, such films disappeared from BBC-1 anyway
  • I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again on the Light Programme satirised Having a Baby as “How to Have a Baby: First Steps”
  • Road Works Reports existed because there were few motorways at the time and the ‘A’-road network had been allowed to become run down. A government investment programme meant there were a lot of roadworks underway

You Say

2 responses to this article

Arthur Nibble 26 August 2014 at 9:39 pm

So how many BBC regions would have received the Welsh programme “Heddiw” (“Today”)? I’m guessing those transmitters would probably have powered North West, Midlands, North, London and Wales. Was this the same arrangement that gave us “Ryan and Ronnie” and (if my memory’s correct) a Welsh pop charts programme, complete with spinning BBC Cymru logo beforehand? Was there a similar arrangement for an Indian programme I remember called “Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan”?

Russ J Graham 27 August 2014 at 4:59 pm

Yes, the lunchtime Welsh-language programme went out on transmitters that had a strong overlap with Wales (Sutton Coldfield was, at the time, the only transmitter serving mid-Wales). They also went out on transmitters covering areas with a large Welsh diaspora, hence the London coverage.

The arrangement for programmes for New Britons was a similar one – they went out on transmitters covering where the new British Asian population had largely settled – London, the Midlands, the North, Central Scotland and so forth.

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