The BBC Radio 4 programme Archive on 4 on Saturday 14 March will be about Radio Sales. Brian Hayes examines some of the best and worst of independent radio - the adverts. He looks back over the last 80 years of advertising on radio in the UK, the rise and fall of the jingle, how ads have used humour and the the changing voices of radio adverts. Brian also looks back to the earliest radio advertising in the UK - on Radio Luxembourg during the interwar period - which drew on expertise from the US and was remarkably sophisticated for its time. The programme features contributions from DJs who have relished their role of on-air salesmen, including Tony Blackburn.
Radio Sales will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 2000-2100 UTC on Saturday 14 March, with a shortened repeat at 1500-1545 UTC on Monday 16 March. The programme will also be available for a limited time after transmission on the BBC website. Thanks to Benny Brown, one of the contributors, for advising me of this programme, details of which have not yet been published on the BBC website.
on Mar 11th, 2009 at 13:21
Some more information on the programme from Paul Rowley. Many of the archives recordings are from his collection including ads from Radio City, Piccadilly Radio, LBC, Capital, Hallam and Beacon.
The programme features the last ad on Caroline South before the Marine Offences Act. It was for Consulate cigarettes.
He suggested some of the guests including Terry Bate, the man behind Caroline Cash Casino ; Andy Wint who organised the Caroline North convention last year, and used to be a travelling local radio voiceover man ; and John Leech, the man who did his own ads on Radio City for the Widnes Car Centre.
on Mar 13th, 2009 at 15:22
There’s now an article based on the programme on the BBC News website, includes some audio including the Smith and Jones Philips, or indeed Firrips, advert:
Lament for the radio ad jingle
The jingle used to rule the radio airwaves - an advertiser’s secret weapon in the drive to sell, sell, sell. But just as Smashie and Nicey have been banished from the studio so the ad jingle is meeting its comeuppance, says Brian Hayes.
Full article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7940524.stm
on Mar 14th, 2009 at 22:02
I have just finished listening to this program. In the segment relating to ‘The World Tomorrow’ - with a tape clip played at least twice the speed (!) it was implied that this program was just ‘one more source of revenue’ when in reality it was the bedrock of the offshore stations’ income. It was also claimed that the source was a NY ad agency when in reality it was a London ad agency that also handled the Billy Graham account. I found the comment that the British Government took over from the Armstrongs (US Government) when commercial radio was finally licensed to become its biggest source of revenue, somewhat interesting. My research on this was published some time ago as “Prophecies of Dystopic ‘Old World, New World’ Transitions Told: ‘The World Tomorrow’ Radio Broadcasts to the United Kingdom, 1965-1967,” New/Old Worlds: Spaces of Transition - Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2007 (pp. 205-23).
on Mar 23rd, 2010 at 16:42
Just came across the comment above. All the religious programming (Paid) on Radio Caroline came from an ad agency in New York, that handled only religious accounts. Whatever brand of God you were selling they would place the business!
This I know, I was there and took the money, which was considerable.
As a matter of interest my policy on Caroline was that religious programming was only broadcast during the night.