Editorial: April 2006
By Richard G Elen
Why Spiegl should stay
I’m very pleased to see that our friend ‘Sir’ Gavin Sutherland’s excellent new recording of Fritz Spiegl’s Radio 4 UK Theme is now on the shelves, metaphorical or actual - backed with a very pleasant rendering of Sailing By, I should add, far better than the generally-peddled version with its distorted right-hand channel. Do go and buy a copy, won’t you.
I don’t know about you, but my support for the effort to encourage the BBC to refrain from replacing their opening theme with some common-or-garden news or sports report has nothing to do with patriotism. To me, it’s about the idea of broadcasters starting and ending their day with a sense of purpose.
Radio or television, time was when a station would open the day’s broadcasting with a piece of music - often a medley of traditional themes from the area - or, in the case of the BBC, the nation, as was the case with the BBC Television Service’s ancestor of the Radio 4 UK Theme, National Airs - and close with the National Anthem. These natural, circadian rhythms of broadcasting have become largely subsumed by 24-hour programming, but on the odd occasions where they remain, they represent a welcome tradition that serves a useful purpose.
In any event, BBC Radio 4 listeners are not huge fans of changes to their daily rhythms. This being the case, why not leave well enough alone? Is it good sense to upset the audience?
