El método de la Vía Silenciosa

Versions of Media History

Having explored the available historical writings in the previous chapter, I will now place them in the context of media and broadcasting studies and work out where a history of BBC Local Radio might fit, aside from being an addition to the canon. James Curran‟s narratives might provide a useful starting point when examining the framework.¹⁹²

The first one that Curran outlines is the liberal narrative, which espouses the process of democratisation through the development of mass media.

The media break from direct government control and reach true

independence with the establishment of the commercial sector. Such media freedom, so the narrative goes, empowers people, and narrows the gap between the political elite and the general public, through the principles of public service broadcasting. Next is the populist narrative, which according to Curran, only evolved in the writings of media commentators in the 1980s.

Yet it has its roots in the efforts of an enlightened intelligentsia, such as GM Trevelyan and Matthew Arnold, who proposed to democratise areas of knowledge and high culture with institutions supported by the state, such as workers‟ education associations, libraries and public service broadcasting.

The reality of this, argue critics, was the reassertion of a cultural hierarchy, by a different structure – a state monopoly replacing the intellectual elite – with restricted opportunities for intervening market forces.¹⁹³

With the rise of pluralism and different „moralities‟ in terms of social attitudes, for example the social reforms of the 1960s concerning divorce, abortion and homosexuality, competing forces began to break away from the accepted norms. This led to the libertarian narrative (as distinct from the liberal one above) as these competing forces clashed over the way the media should be regulated, or abandoned completely. The outcome was

192 Curran J Media and Power (London: Routledge 2002) Chapter One. I am omitting the feminist narrative, which I do not think is relevant to this discussion.

193 LeMahieu D L A Culture for Democracy: Mass Communication and the Cultivated Mind in Britain Between the Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988)

greater freedom and tolerance in many respects though how long this endured is debatable.

The anthropological narrative grasps the part played by the media in forging social bonds between people and sustaining a sense of national community. It emphasises the constructed and changing nature of identity and place, leading to the aspiration of greater social inclusion. As Curran points out, these four narratives all have positive elements, which promote progress and greater freedoms. The fifth narrative argues instead that democratic involvement has been constrained, as the mass media have fallen under the influence of marketing, public relations and big business.

This narrative, named as radical, suggests that the ongoing march of prosperity and choice has been halted by apathy and the re-assertion of elite control.

These narratives are not mutually exclusive, and it is not necessary to choose one or the other. They have varying degrees of applicability to the historiography of radio as related in the previous chapter. For example, the populist narrative is supported by Scannell and Cardiff‟s assessment that the BBC went through a period of popularisation from 1931 onwards.¹⁹⁴ They demonstrate how more output was devoted to parlour games, drama serials, variety and comedy shows, in a break from the previous sense of paternalism in programmes. As I have shown, from the wartime years onwards, there was increasing pressure on the BBC to address the needs of specific groups, in an effort to serve audiences more effectively and secure their loyalty, with varying degrees of success. Curran takes the process further, to the introduction of commercial television and says that it reached its apotheosis when commercial local radio was created.¹⁹⁵

Similarly an anthropological interpretation can be given to the evolution of BBC radio. In the late 1920s and 30s it was essentially nation-centred, despite the regional variations.¹⁹⁶ In the post-war years, the radio networks followed broad class distinctions in terms of scheduling, but with the

underlying aspiration that listeners might chose to move from one network

194 Scannell P & Cardiff D A Social History of British Broadcasting Volume One 1922-1939 (Oxford: Blackwell 1991) Chapter 11

195 Curran ibid pp 20 - 22

196 Scannell & Cardiff ibid Chapter 13

to the other. As Curran and Scannell have made clear, radio in its heyday was especially good at portraying a particular brand of national unity and identity by broadcasting key events, such as cup finals, major sporting events, royal occasions and so on. This became entrenched in a BBC calendar that seemed to epitomise national order and stability.¹⁹⁷

My hypothesis is that no single media narrative can be used to explain local radio but that various facets from some of them illuminate the story.

One clear goal of the research is to produce an „ideology,‟ or ecology of local radio, which might in part be explained by concepts of media theory.

For example, I will argue that there are firm roots of an ideology of local radio to be found within a liberal narrative, in particular the focus on public service broadcasting as a way of empowering the audience and providing an outlet for more demotic involvement in the output as local stakeholders.

Going further, there were strong aspirational desires for local radio to harness widespread popular participation. By creating stations that had a degree of autonomy, whose airtime was devoted to responding to the immediate needs, concerns and interests of the local audience, the BBC could be said to be breaking free from any residual elite paternalism, to create so-called „access media‟.

Conversely a radical narrative interpretation could be used to argue that the BBC was motivated more by the desire to stem commercial competition and preserve their sound broadcasting monopoly rather than to provide genuine choice and a local alternative. Equally useful may be the anthropological interpretation. As I have argued, the roots of local radio originated in the shifting needs of different and emerging communities – however these are defined. Creating local radio can be seen as one outcome of this changing landscape, which resulted in different groups of the population finding representation and ways of expression on the airwaves. In summary I intend drawing on elements from all of Curran‟s narratives to conclude which, if any, best serves as a theory to underpin local radio.

197 Scannell, P „Public Service Broadcasting: The History of a Concept‟ in Buscombe E (ed) British Television: A Reader (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000) pp 46 - 59

Research Questions

This section pulls together the various strands of enquiry and summarises the critical issues for further investigation and the questions that need addressing in the course of the research. The overall objective is to re-examine the chronology of events as it appears surrounding BBC Local Radio, from c 1960 to 1980 – its gestation, birth, evolution and growth. As I have explained, previously published work has covered some aspects of the history, to varying degrees, and whilst this work does not claim to be THE definitive history, just as Briggs deliberately avoided the same claim for his magnum opus,¹⁹⁸ there is an explicit intention to re-position the story of local radio more centrally to the discourse and narrative of radio media history. The reason for this claim rests on the breadth and extent of the themes, narratives and ideas that local radio connects with, and which in turn yield the questions that need to be addressed.

The areas under investigation break down into various social and cultural debates of the time. These include definitions of community and „localness‟;

the desire for greater democratic involvement and empowerment; the

policies of political parties, governments, regulators and the opportunities of open market competition; the impact of technology; the position(s) of the BBC towards local radio as an institution and the role of key individuals within it; the structure and operation of the local radio stations, the content of the output and its relationship to existing production strands such as news. And finally the connections that local radio as a concept and in practice had with media narratives and whether they inform each other.

In terms of social history, I have made the claim in the previous chapter that local radio was in some way connected to the prevailing debates around culture, society and communication. It provided a link that validates the arguments proposed by Williams and Hoggart in favour of greater involvement and empowerment for the audience, in terms of education, political awareness and media consumption – and even production. In the course of the research I intend to look more closely at what the evidence tells us about the impact of this new form of media.

198Briggs A: „Problems and Possibilities in the writing of Broadcast History‟ in Media, Culture

& Society 1980 Number 1 pp 5 - 13

Fundamentally I want to ascertain whether local radio was actually a response or solution to the deficit that Hoggart and others identified,

whether there was a cause and effect at work here that brought local radio into being. Essentially, this means the extent to which local radio was advanced by this social upheaval and to what degree local radio could justify its role as providing more cohesion for fractured communities. This extends to the geophysical location of the stations, where they were sited, the transmission areas they covered and the names they used.

As Briggs identifies, political ideology and market forces were at the heart of broadcasting history in the period under consideration and beyond.

No matter what the extent of the broadcasters‟ or sociologists‟ or business sector‟s aspirations, the media were also a significant factor in party politics.

And it did not divide neatly along party lines. For example it was a Labour government that gave the go-ahead for local broadcasting by the BBC, it was also a Labour Minister (Tony Benn) who came closest in this period to making parts of BBC radio take advertising and inventing an entirely

different model for local radio.¹⁹⁹ And it was an earlier Conservative government, under Macmillan – who had already taken away the BBC‟s television monopoly – that pulled away from creating commercial local radio despite the opportunity to do it. So the key question is what impact the nuances, twists and turns of political agendas, manifestos and pledges had on the history. The task is also to assess where the range of influences came from at any particular time, including the lobby for commercial broadcasting from the business, local newspaper and independent television sectors, and whether events led politicians, or vice versa, or elements of both.

Central to the issues under consideration is the role of the BBC as an institution. This includes asking how far the BBC believed local radio was created as part of its public service ethos. This question can be extended to incorporate the structure of the organisation and how – in theory and reality – the relationship between the diffuse and scattered stations was mediated

199 Freedman D „Modernising the BBC: Wilson‟s Government and Television, 1964-1966‟

Contemporary British History 2001 15:1 pp 21 - 40

with the centre. The role of key individuals, notably Frank Gillard but many others as well, needs to be addressed, to identify the impact they had on local radio and to what degree the service bears their imprint.

Returning to the notion of an ideology or ecology of local radio,

assessing the look and feel of the stations and how they operated will help provide some definition to the concept. This includes the role of the Station Manager, who was given considerable autonomy within the BBC structure, the evolution of new production practices, the schedules, the style of broadcasts and the range of voices being heard on air. As already documented, many felt proud of the creativity and quality of their

craftsmanship in producing local radio programmes. So was there a legacy here in terms of the aesthetic quality of what was produced and the

practical considerations that this entailed in terms of new production techniques? And what could the audience expect from a service that they had never heard before?

Those best placed to translate the aspirations into programmes were of course the radio producers themselves and Scannell‟s interpretation of the production process in one celebrated instance is informative. In terms of speech content, broadcasters had learned from the early days of radio to avoid sermonising and „talking at‟ the audience. Talk on the radio had developed into a „conversation‟ – where the spoken words were directed at the audience, they understood that it was intended for them, speakers were clearly identified and did not talk over one another, and finally (in an ideal world) it was entertaining.²⁰⁰ That was part of the „care structure‟ that was invested in making these programmes, the „intentionality‟ of the producers.

As Scannell points out, practices have their history – what was produced was the result of experience and time and accumulated knowledge. A

further research question is therefore how does the „care structure‟ translate this to a „new‟ practice, such as local radio and a style of broadcasting where there was no precedent?²⁰¹ Scannell talks about the „phenomenology

200Scannell, P „The Brains Trust: A Historical Study of the Management of Liveness on Radio‟ in Simon Cottle (ed) Media Organization and Production (London: Sage 2003) pp 103 - 106

201 Or if there is a near relation – local broadcasting of the 1920s – one that had slipped out of the public and BBC‟s consciousness.

of broadcasting‟. By this he includes aspects of „intentionality‟, „dailiness‟, the „technological care structure‟ and the meaning of „live‟.²⁰² Scannell demonstrates how life became „historicised‟ in the late 1940s and 50s as

„mass culture‟ evolved more into separate private and public spheres, echoing Briggs‟ conclusion that the original revolution in „mass

entertainment‟ (cinema and variety shows) took place outside the home while the second revolution (radio and television) took place within.²⁰³ The resulting use of radio and then television gave the audience the opportunity to see into and share everyday experiences for the first time, to make

connections and confound expectations of an atomised existence. Can local radio be said to be a cause or an effect of this evolution? Certainly I will explore whether there is a correlation between this process and the beginnings of interest and discussion about reflecting everyday life on a more local level in terms of broadcast media, as they emerged in the late 1960s and beyond.

This raises two further issues. One concerns those who were brought before the microphone. While the mechanics of broadcast production may have been similar to network practices – tape recordings, live studio, outside broadcast – technology helped with newer, more portable

equipment. Local radio‟s avowed aim was to get ordinary men and women on air – and access to portable equipment and the invention of the phone made this easier to achieve. But how practical was this aspiration and how was it received by those listening? This leads to the second question, that of programme genres and scheduling. As Scannell has demonstrated, there was an intimate and ritualised relationship between the listener and their involvement with the radio. This incorporated daily routines, the unspoken acknowledgement of the formats and conventions of what was heard, and how the listener constructed some kind of meaning. The challenge facing the listener in terms of local radio was hearing unfamiliar voices from different locations, in a non-conformist structure where the daily pattern of listening was being re-configured. For example hearing local traffic and

202 Scannell P Radio, Television & Modern Life (Oxford: Blackwell 1996) pp 169 - 171

203 Briggs A: Mass Entertainment – The Origins of a Modern Industry (Adelaide: The Griffin Press 1960)

weather reports at breakfast time, listening to news items relevant to a relatively small area of the population, hearing from music or drama enthusiasts from the community. How would local radio transcend this phenomenology? Or to put it in a less abstract way, what was it about local output – the scheduling, the production values, the programme content – that made listeners switch to their local station and not a national or commercial one?

I also return to the question posed in the previous chapter, concerning the relative lack of scholarly interest in BBC Local Radio until now. There is a perception of local radio as being „second class‟ broadcasting, with a penchant for trite items and uninteresting phone-ins, lampooned easily by the likes of Alan Partridge and indeed by many network presenters. Is there something within the history that explains how it acquired this reputation and whether it is deserved?

Sources

Media history does not follow a specific methodology, yet there has been a debate over the years about the connections between histories of the media and other social sciences. The impetus for Briggs, Hendy, Lewis & Booth and others has been to focus not just on one or more medium of

broadcasting, but also on the relevance of wider social, political, cultural, technical and economic factors. As Briggs identifies, writing about his own history of the BBC, the relationship between the media and society is not one of foreground to background: „broadcasting registers perception and experience and the extent to which it influences them.‟²⁰⁴ Citing the

emergence of multi-layered social history in the 1950s, O‟Malley argues that the break with „politically orientated, empirically dominated constitutional history into a more theoretical style of history….facilitated the emergence of studies on media and communication history.‟²⁰⁵ This helped to create a climate where questions about communications and media could develop further. As I have argued in the earlier chapters using previously published

204 Briggs A „Problems and Possibilities in the writing of Broadcast History‟, Media, Culture &

Society 1980 Number 1 January p 10

205O‟Malley T „Media History & media Studies: aspects of the development of the study of media history in the UK 1945-2000‟ Media History 2002 8: 2 p 164

sources, there are connections to be made between the BBC and certain aspects of British life, which underpin the key questions being explored in this thesis.

The main source for primary research about BBC Local Radio is the BBC‟s Written Archive, which contains reports, research documents,

memos, letters and minutes relevant to this period. Despite the breadth and quantity of material available, there are a number of drawbacks to be

acknowledged. First, it should be noted that the BBC operates a policy that prohibits access for scholars and researchers to any files post-1979. Even those files which are made available are vetted prior to reading, for legal and other reasons. This calls into question the reliability and completeness of the archive material. Marwick highlights the difference between „witting‟

and „unwitting‟ testimony, in the sense that varying interpretations are possible by looking at deliberate and unintentional meanings in the

evidence.²⁰⁶ Contradictions are therefore likely to be found, sometimes at face value, but also in the subtext and nuances of documents and sources.

I argue that such tensions should be regarded as a matter of course for a historian, to view archival material sceptically and to interrogate them fully.

I argue that such tensions should be regarded as a matter of course for a historian, to view archival material sceptically and to interrogate them fully.