A Theme For All Reasons
I cannot imagine that there are many Transdiffusion writers - or readers, for that matter - who are not fans of startup themes of one sort or another. Virtually all the stations we write about have had themes, just as they had startups. And it's hardly surprising: a station theme was an early media industry approach to the now-popular and overworked idea of branding - and a very good one too.
It is perhaps rather strange that the fundamental concept of linking a radio station's identity indelibly to the listeners' consciousnesses by means of a characteristic theme, played every day at the same time, is so easily forgotten. It has all the hallmarks of successful psychological conditioning: we can still remember startup themes from decades ago, and the ethos of the station that employed them. And on radio, without the ability to use a visual identity within the medium itself, 'audio branding' of some sort is vital, whether it's a jingle package or a theme tune.
So, it is perhaps unsurprising that I'm personally in favour of Radio Four retaining a 'startup theme' (apart from anything else, I have this suspicion there is a campaign to eradicate 'Light Music' from BBC radio altogether, which is a Bad Thing in my view). Whether or not the current theme is the right one is another question.
But before we go any further, I would note that this year - actually in a month or so - sees the publication of the Government's White Paper, which may propose all manner of changes for the BBC, and perhaps the end of the BBC as we know it. I do hope, therefore, that the extensive both popular and heavyweight support for keeping things as they are at the BBC as far as the ?UK Theme? is concerned will extend to keeping things more or less as they are at the world's leading broadcaster in the event that Government plans call the future of ?the BBC as we know it? into question.
We might also wonder if the new Controller in charge of Radio Four - imbued, as all new Controllers are, with the burning desire to blow away the past like the floating globes of history and make their own personal mark on that which they control - really ought to be wasting his time tweaking the way the station starts the day (which is surely never going to cause anything less than major controversy) when the whole channel itself may be off the air, available by digital subscription only, or be turned into some other shadow of its former self in one or more of a million other ways in which the Government might seek to limit the BBC or even pay it back for past alleged indiscretions, in the not too distant future.
So on to the UK Theme itself. Is it still appropriate? It's been around for some 33 years, in different incarnations: the score for the current version has been lost, and as a result our colleague, the redoubtable Sir Gavin, has had to painstakingly reconstruct it from the recorded version for inclusion in a new album. It's a beautiful bit of writing, with ingenious counterpoint: as I've noted previously, the art of a medley, when everyone knows the tunes already, is more in how you link them together into a whole than how you handle the tunes themselves, and Spiegl did a fine job here. However, one can certainly on the one hand criticise it for its hints of jingoism - though on the other, note how well those ?patriotic? tunes in the medley tie in with Gordon Brown's slightly surprising recent calls for a renewal of the concept of 'Britishness'.
But surely, political correctness is not behind the threat to the UK Theme. We don't do things like that any more, if we ever did: virtually all reports of rampant PC gone mad were constructs of the tabloids. No, this is a plain ordinary outbreak of Newcontrolleritis: the urge to change and leave your mark on the channel you now control.
The idea of building a station theme by combining familiar tunes from the different countries that make up the United Kingdom, however, is surely an excellent one. There are wonderful precedents in the history of British broadcasting, where folk tunes from a region have been masterfully combined into a memorable medley, ranging from Hastings Mann's exhilarating 'Westward Ho!' and its successor, Paul Lewis's 'English Overture' for Westward, to Ray Terry's ?Scotlandia? for STV. Then there's what many may regard as the best: Arthur Wilkinson's ?Three Rivers Fantasy? for Tyne Tees.
And there is the grandaddy of them all, Jack Byfield's gorgeously-crafted medley of traditional melodies from the constituents of the UK, the direct ancestor of Spiegl?s UK Theme. Called ?National Airs?, it was commissioned for the BBC Television Service in the 1950s and either it or Coates?s ?March For Television? started the day for most of a decade. It includes ?Early One Morning? (England), ?The Ash Grove? (Wales), ?Londonderry Air/Danny Boy? (Northern Ireland) and ?The Campbells Are Coming? (Scotland). National references without jingoism.
?National Airs?. Now how about that for a theme for Radio 4, Mr Damazer, if you really have to change it?
Listen to National Airs here (near the bottom of the page)
