As Radio 1 reaches 40, Gillian Reynolds explains the key role pirate broadcasters played in its inception – and why it owes so much to the commercial stations
Get out your loon pants, it's Radio 1's 40th birthday this weekend. And Radio 2's and Radio 3's and Radio 4's as well. Next month, it will be BBC local radio's, too. What was it about 1967 that made it such a turning point in broadcasting history?
Anyone born after 1987 may wonder what all the fuss is about. They can't remember the time when BBC radio was pretty much all there was.
Radio Luxembourg played records and carried advertisements, but only after dark. If you pressed your ear to the fretwork of your parents' radio, you might catch American Forces Network.
But, from the end of the war to the early 1960s, it was the BBC Light and Home services that people listened to, on medium wave and long wave, where the playing of records was strictly limited. No one broadcast round the clock.
Read more at Telegraph.Co.Uk
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