1940 in British radio

none October 2023 1940 British radio British television British music This is a list of events from British radio in 1940. Events January 7 January – The BBC Forces Programme begins broadcasting in the United Kingdom; it becomes the most popular channel among civilians at home as well as its primary target audience. February 7 February – The BBC Overseas Service begins Bulgarian language programming, the first of 18 new foreign-language service it will introduce by the end of the year. 25 February – The Proud Valley is the first known film to have its premiere on radio when the BBC broadcasts a 60-minute version.Stephen Bourne Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television Second Edition https://books.google.com/books?id=0N1Ou7V5IJUC&pg=PA28 2001 A&C Black 978-0-8264-5539-0 28 29 February – Welsh Rarebit first broadcast by the BBC from its Cardiff studio;John Davies Broadcasting and the BBC in Wales https://books.google.com/books?id=R7kVAQAAMAAJ 1994 University of Wales Press 978-0-7083-1273-5 132 the resident 25-strong male voice choir, the Lyrian Singers, premieres the song "We'll Keep a Welcome" with music by the programme's producer Mai Jones. March 20 March – Antisemitic MP Archibald Maule Ramsay uses a Parliamentary question to set out the times and frequency of nightly broadcasts by the 'New British Broadcasting Service', a Nazi propaganda radio station broadcasting from Germany.Hansard, Oral Questions, HC Deb 20 March 1940 vol 358 cc1970-1. Richard Griffiths Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, the Right Club and British Anti-semitism, 1939–1940 London Constable 1998 9780094679207 April 9 April – The BBC Overseas Service begins Danish and Norwegian programming. 11 April – The BBC Overseas Service begins Dutch language programming. May May – The evacuated BBC Radio Variety Department relocates to Bangor in north Wales from where it will broadcast until August 1943.British Broadcasting Corporation BBC Handbook https://books.google.com/books?id=pIYiAQAAIAAJ 1944 50 10 May (9.00 pm) – Neville Chamberlain makes the first public announcement of his resignation as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and his replacement by Winston Churchill, on the BBC Home Service. 11 May – The BBC Overseas Service begins Hindi programming. 14 May – BBC reporter Charles Gardner working in Reims incorporates the live sounds of a German air raid in a broadcast report.Edward Stourton (journalist) Edward Stourton Auntie's War: the BBC during the Second World War London Doubleday 2017 978-0-857-52332-7 June 2 June – Secretary of State for War Anthony Eden gives a radio address claiming success of the Dunkirk evacuation.http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1940/1940-06-02a.html The Battle of the Ports ibiblio 2015-12-11Cerutti Joseph 1940-06-03 Four-Fifths of British Saved, Eden Asserts Chicago Daily Tribune 1 5 June – Yorkshire-born novelist and playwright J. B. Priestley broadcasts his first Sunday evening radio Postscript, "An excursion to hell", on the BBC Home Service, marking the role of the pleasure steamers in the Dunkirk evacuation, just completed. 8 June – BBC airs the first weekly episode of Radio Rhythm Club, a programme of jazz and rhythm music presented by Charles Chilton. On 29 June, it broadcasts its first associated jam session.5: 'Radio Rhythm Club': race, authenticity, and the British swing boom Victory through Harmony: the BBC and popular music in World War II Christina L. Baade Oxford University Press 2012 978-0-19-537201-4 18 June General Charles de Gaulle, de facto leader of the Free French Forces in World War II, uses the airwaves of the BBC to make his Appeal of 18 June from London to the French people for resistance to the German occupation of France. Prime minister Winston Churchill repeats his "This was their finest hour" speech, made earlier in the day to the House of Commons, on the BBC Home Service. 23 June – Music While You Work debuts on the BBC Home Service (mornings) and BBC Forces Programme (afternoons).http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/radio/mwyw.htm Music While You Work whirligig-tv 2011-01-11 26 June – Secretary of State for War Anthony Eden broadcasts to the British people.Library of Congress Radio Broadcasts in the Library of Congress, 1924–1941: A Catalog of Recordings https://books.google.com/books?id=kMfaT7uXFXIC 1982 Library of Congress 978-0-8444-0385-4 44 June – Mrs Olive Baker (mistress of Barry Domvile) is arrested for distributing leaflets promoting Nazi propaganda station Reichssender Hamburg in Britain. She tries to commit suicide in prison and is sentenced to five years' imprisonment.Julie V. Gottlieb Feminine Fascism 28 March 2003 London Tauris 1-86064-918-1 July 13 July – BBC newsreaders first identify themselves by name on air, beginning with Frank Phillips on today's lunchtime bulletin.http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/spl/hi/history/noflash/html/1940s.stm About BBC News 1940s BBC 2023-10-01 14 July – The BBC Home Service 9.00 pm news bulletin includes a vivid account of an air battle over the English Channel recorded live the previous day by reporter Charles Gardner.News Report – Air Battle off Dover https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/news-report--air-battle-off-dover/zby9f4j BBC 2020-04-18 The bulletin is preceded by a speech by Churchill, "The War of the Unknown Warriorsˮ,https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/churchill-recordings-speeches-memoirs/ Hillsdale College The Churchill Project Churchill Recordings: Speeches and Memoirs Ronald I. Cohen 2016-11-18 2020-04-18 and followed by J. B. Priestley's Postscript describing the seaside resort of Margate in wartime.https://specialcollectionsbradford.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/postscript-14-july-1940/ Postscript 14 July 1940 2010-07-14 Alison Cullingford Special Collections – University of Bradford 2020-11-02 19 July Adolf Hitler makes a peace appeal ("appeal to reason") to Britain in an address to the Reichstag, broadcast simultaneously in English translation by Paul Schmidt.Paul Schmidt Hitler's Interpreter 1951 London Heinemann BBC German-language broadcaster Sefton Delmer unofficially rejects it at onceSefton Delmer Black Boomerang and Lord Halifax, British foreign minister, flatly rejects peace terms in a broadcast reply on 22 July. Radio Caledonia, ostensibly a nationalist anti-government station of a Scottish Peace Front but in fact a black propaganda operation of the Nazi Büro Concordia, begins broadcasting to Scotland, presented by Donald Grant. It continues nightly broadcasts intermittently until 24 July 1942, although with poor reception.Graham Smyth Radio Caledonia: Scottish Nationalism and Nazi Radio Propaganda, 1940–1942 Journal of Scottish Historical Studies https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/jshs.2024.0376 44 2024 47–71 2024-10-11 28 July – The BBC Overseas Service begins broadcasting Radio Oranje, supported by the Dutch government-in-exile, to the German-occupied Netherlands. August August – This year's National Eisteddfod of Wales becomes a purely radio event, with broadcasts on the BBC Home Service.http://www.literaturewales.org/encyclopaedia/i/130659/ Literature Wales: Encyclopedia – Broadcasting 2013-01-05 https://web.archive.org/web/20160304031019/http://www.literaturewales.org/encyclopaedia/i/130659/ 2016-03-04 dead 10 August – This and the following year's abbreviated seasons of The Proms are without sponsorship by the BBC.History Of The Proms https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1sgMxZvFzHQG3Y1HktMfg6w/history-of-the-proms Proms BBC 2020-11-02 September 2 September – The BBC Overseas Service begins broadcasting Burmese programming. 28 September – The BBC Overseas Service begins broadcasting Radio Belgique/Radio Belgie, supported by the Belgian government in exile, to German-occupied Belgium. October 15 October – Seven staff are killed when an attempt to eject a delayed-action German bomb from Broadcasting House in London fails. Listeners to the nine o'clock evening news bulletin hear a dull thud as it explodes but newsreader Bruce Belfrage continues unperturbed though covered in debris. November 12 November – The BBC Overseas Service begins broadcasting the BBC Albanian Service. December 8 December – Explosion of a land mine outside Broadcasting House in central London causes the BBC's European service to be evacuated to its Maida Vale Studios. Station debuts 7 January: BBC Forces Programme (1940–1944) Debuts 13 January – Garrison Theatre, BBC Home Service, later Forces Programme (1940–1941)Garrison Theatre Genome 13 January 1940 BBC 2021-03-24 https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/2514daf8a3e045079f8f66235e979417 29 February – Welsh Rarebit, BBC Forces Programme (1940–1944, 1948–1952) 23 June – Music While You Work, BBC Home Service and BBC Forces Programme (1940–1967) 14 July – Sunday Half Hour, BBC Home Service (1940–2018) Summer – The Kitchen Front, BBC Home Service Programme endings Band Waggon, BBC (1938–1940) Continuing radio programmes 1930s In Town Tonight (1933–1960) Births 2 February – David Jason, broadcast comedy actor 1 April – Annie Nightingale, radio music presenter (died 2024) 10 April – Gloria Hunniford, Northern Irish broadcast presenter 21 May – Ronan O'Rahilly, Irish-born media entrepreneur (died 2020) 11 July – Tommy Vance, born Richard Weston, radio music presenter (died 2005) 17 July – Tim Brooke-Taylor, broadcast comedy performer (died 2020) September – Dickie Arbiter, royal broadcast presenter 13 November – Wally K. Daly, radio scriptwriter (died 2020) Deaths 9 April – Mrs. Patrick Campbell, actress, 72Mrs. Campbell, 75, Famous Actress https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0E1FF93E54117A93C3A8178FD85F448485F9 The New York Times 11 April 1940 29 June 2008 30 October – Hilda Matheson, pioneering radio talks producer, 52 (Graves' disease)Hunter Fred Matheson, Hilda (1888–1940) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/49198 2016-06-27 May 2012 10.1093/ref:odnb/49198 subscription See also 1940 in British music 1940 in British television 1940 in the United Kingdom List of British films of 1940 References Category:Years in British radio Radio