''loud & proud'' was a series on

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

aimed at young lesbians and

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

men and their friends. It was presented by

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and broadcast weekly in 1993. It was made by OutSpoken Productions, an independent

production company A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, and v ...

based in

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, run by Christopher Kelly and

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. Although only six programmes (and a Christmas special) were commissioned, it was the first series for gay people on a national UK radio network and was the first radio series in the world to target young gay people. Such was the prevailing level of homophobia at the time that

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was reported in the press as saying that "The BBC have gone completely out of control. They are following their own agenda. We should cancel their licence fee". The pilot of the series was first produced by OutSpoken during early 1992 (in the studios of Ocean Sound), with celebrity gay footballer Justin Fashanu as the presenter. It was initially submitted to BBC Radio Five but turned down in May 1992. When the series began on Radio 1 the following year (16 August 1993), its success and generally favourable press coverage (for example in

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

called the programme "an impressive example of public service broadcasting"), encouraged the network to cover London's

Gay Pride LGBT pride (also known as gay pride or simply pride) is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to s ...

event for the first time the following year. Those reports into the general days output, also produced by OutSpoken Productions and fronted by

Kevin Greening Kevin Greening (30 December 1962 – 29 December 2007) was a British radio presenter, who co-hosted ''Radio 1 Breakfast'' on BBC Radio 1 with Zoe Ball from 13 October 1997 to 25 September 1998. Early career Kevin Greening grew up in Bristol whe ...

led to Radio 1 becoming a regular fixture at Gay Pride events for several years. Also, the following year, BBC Radio 5 Live began broadcasting a weekly programme for the

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

community called ''

Out This Week ''Out This Week'' is a pioneering LGBT+ weekly news programme that ran on BBC Radio 5Live for five years from 2 April 1994 - 1999, with as one of its founder/presenters Nigel Wrench and also featuring Justine Buchanan, Alison Hennegan and latter ...

'', which aired on that network until the end of the decade. The term "loud and proud" was also used in 2017 by BBC 6 Music for a celebration of 50 years since the "first steps towards legalising sexual freedom"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1644646185559585

References

BBC Radio 1 programmes LGBT-related mass media in the United Kingdom LGBT-related radio programs 1993 radio programme debuts 1993 radio programme endings 1990s LGBT-related mass media {{LGBT-media-stub