The introduction of the BBC Light Programme was a key moment in the development of the corporation as we know it today. The forerunner of Radio 1 and 2, it was intended to replace the General Forces Programme, which had been popular with listeners in the UK as well as the armed forces.
Looking at the schedule for the first day, the approach was to provide continuity between stations, with many strands and personalities such as Sandy MacPherson carried over. The music mix initially favored classical music over popular.
Perhaps one notable addition was a forty-five-minute radio adaptation of the Gainsborough film, I'll Be Your Sweetheart, starring many of the same cast, including Margaret Lockwood. Presumably, it was in a similar format to the Lux Radio Theatre shows, which had already been running in the US for a couple of decades.
The Light Programme's remit would change over the years, and a number of its shows later transferred to talk stations where they continue today. The likes of Desert Island Discs, The Archers, and Woman's Hour still appear on Radio 4, and archive episodes of the former reach back into these early days.
The End of the War
"Radio report with the eyewitness account of Sergeant Major Edwin Austin, a member of the British army, about the suicide of Heinrich Himmler."
[Austrian Media Library]
"It was late in the evening on 1 May 1945 and Karl Lehmann was working at his desk on the outskirts of Reading, 40 miles (65km) to the west of London. Soviet forces were closing in on Berlin and the war with Germany had reached its final stages. The 24-year-old was monitoring German state radio when listeners were told to prepare for an important announcement."
[BBC News]
"Richard Dimbleby was the first broadcaster to enter the camp and, overcome, broke down several times while making his report. The BBC initially refused to play the report, as they could not believe the scenes he had described, and it was only broadcast after Dimbleby threatened to resign."
[BBC Archive]
"This year marks the centenary of the birth of the BBC. To celebrate, Taylor Downing looks at how the Corporation came of age during the Second World War."
[The Past]
"Indo-Anglian novelist, lawyer, journalist, and politician, Khushwant Singh describes a 1945 BBC broadcast that sticks in his mind: on a railway car, having slipped off it's rails between Barog and Shimla, the driver turned on the BBC."
[BBC Sounds][BBC Programme Index]
"One of the earliest visitors to Broadcasting House on VE-day was an American soldier. He waited with his camera at the ready, till the very moment when the flags of Victory broke from the curved front of the building. The Stars and Stripes, the Russian flag, and the Union Jack flew in the wind together, and the American took his photograph and departed."
[World Radio History]
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