The BBC National Programme was a radio service which was on the air from 9 March 1930 – replacing the earlier

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's experimental station 5XX – until 1 September 1939 when it was subsumed into the

BBC Home Service The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4. History 1922–1939: Interwar period Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...

, two days before the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Both the National Programme and the Regional Programme provided a mixed mainstream radio service. Whilst the two services provided different programming, allowing listeners a choice they were not streamed to appeal to different audiences, rather they were intended to offer a choice of programming to a single audience. While using the same transmitters, the National Programme broadcast significantly more speech and

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

than its successor, the BBC Light Programme. Similarly, the Regional Programme broadcast much more

light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400– ...

and

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded dance musi ...

than its successor, the Home Service.

History

Development

When the British Broadcasting Company (later to be nationalised as the

British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public broadcasting, public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved in ...

) began transmissions on 14 November 1922, the technology for both national coverage and joint programming between transmitters did not exist – transmitter powers were generally in the region of 1

kilowatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

(kW). From 9 July 1924, however the company began experimenting with higher power

longwave In radio, longwave (also spelled long wave or long-wave and commonly abbreviated LW) is the part of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave (MW) broadcasting band. The term is historic, dati ...

transmissions from the

Marconi Company The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 which was a pioneer of wireless long distance communication and mass media broadcasting, eventually becoming on ...

's site near

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Colchester and Southend-on-Sea. It is located north-east of London ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, using the call sign 5XX. The experiments proved successful and on 27 July 1925, the Chelmsford longwave transmitter was relocated to a more central site at Borough Hill near

Daventry Daventry ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in the West Northamptonshire unitary authority area of Northamptonshire, England, close to the border with Warwickshire. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census, Daventry had a populati ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

. This provided a "national service" of programmes originating in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, although it remained somewhat experimental and was supplementary to the BBC's locally based services including its main station, 2LO. Initially, it was transmitted on 187.5 kHz longwave; this was later changed, with the opening of a new high-power longwave transmitter site at Droitwich to 200 kHz on 7 October 1934. This remained the frequency for the National Programme, through its successors the

and

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

, which moved its frequency slightly to 198 kHz on 1 February 1988, where it currently remains.

Medium wave Medium wave (MW) is a part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytim ...

transmitters were used to augment coverage.

Regional scheme

On 21 August 1927, the BBC opened a high-power medium wave transmitter at the Daventry 5GB site to replace the existing local stations in the

English Midlands The Midlands is the central region of England, to the south of Northern England, to the north of southern England, to the east of Wales, and to the west of the North Sea. The Midlands comprises the ceremonial counties of Derbyshire, Herefordshi ...

, that allowed the experimental longwave transmitter 5XX to provide a service programmed from

for the majority of the population, this came to be called the ''National Programme''. By combining the resources of the local stations into one regional station in each area with a basic sustaining service from London, the BBC hoped to increase programme quality whilst also centralising the management of the radio service known as the "regional scheme", and eventually resulted in the gradual extension throughout the decade of a separate Regional Programme. The local stations were gradually either converted to regional relays or closed entirely and replaced by high-power Regional Programme transmitters. Some local studios were retained to provide for programming from specific areas within each region. Most transmitters also carried the National Programme on a local frequency to supplement the longwave broadcasts from 5XX, initially these were on three separate frequencies in order to minimise interference. By 1939 as the Regional Programme network expanded, the three remaining medium wave transmitters – at Brookmans Park (for London and the South East), Moorside Edge (for the

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

), and Westerglen (for central Scotland) – were all using 1149 kHz.

Broadcasting hours

The National Programme's broadcasting hours were from Mondays to Saturdays at around 10.15 am until midnight, with Sundays commence broadcasting at 3.00 pm. However by the mid-1930s, broadcasting on a Sunday was extended to commence at around 10.30 am.

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

on the National Programme would not air until at least 6.00 pm each day, this was in agreement with several

newspapers A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

to ensure people would buy a morning edition. Thus did not have a dedicated news department until 1934, and only then was it used to edit and broadcast news material from other wire agencies in the country and around the world. The start of

on 1 September 1939 would see the start of a proper news on the new

, with morning news bulletins commencing at 7.00 am each day.

Closure

Upon the outbreak of

, the BBC closed both existing National and Regional radio programmes to replace them with a single channel known as the

. The main transmitter network was synchronised between just two groups, using 668 and 767 kHz, each of which could be turned off during air raids to prevent their signals being used as navigational beacons (with listeners required to retune in such an event to a low-powered single-frequency network on 1474 kHz). On 29 July 1945, within 12 weeks of Victory in Europe Day, the BBC reactivated the Regional Programme but retained the name "Home Service" (until 30 September 1967 as the station became

). On the same date, the BBC Light Programme was launched by taking over the style and much of the function as an entertainment channel of the

BBC Forces Programme The BBC Forces Programme was a national radio station which operated from 7 January 1940 until 26 February 1944, when it was replaced by the BBC General Forces Programme. History Development Upon the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1 ...

which had begun broadcasting on 7 January 1940, as well as the Droitwich 200 kHz longwave frequency which had been used by the pre-war National Programme.

History

Development

Regional scheme

Broadcasting hours

Closure

Sources

References

Further reading