BBC Third Programme: Difference between revisions

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The '''BBC Third Programme''' was the third national radio network broadcast by the [[BBC]], and has since become '''[[BBC Radio 3|Radio 3]]'''. The other two were the [[Home Service]] (mainly speech based) and the Light Programme, dedicated to light music, usually cover versions of popular music of the day played by the "in-house" BBC orchestras. The Home Service is now known as [[BBC Radio 4|Radio 4]] and the [[Light Programme]] is [[BBC Radio 2|Radio 2]]. The Third Programme continued as a separate evening service on the same frequency after the inception of Radio 3 in 1967, but was absorbed into Radio 3 in April 1970.

The Third Programme was dedicated to the discerning or "high-brow" listener providing serious classical music, concerts and plays as well as room for modern composers, and jazz. It was the first station to multifrequency on 909 KHz ([[Medium frequency|MF]]) and 90.0 to 92.5 MHz ([[FM radio|FM]]). It was the first channel to broadcast in [[stereo]] and in [[quadraphonic]] (matrix HJ) which enjoyed only short term success. A number of broadcasts were experimental for the engineering department and the listener, for instance one play consisted mainly of sound effects to be listened to wearing headphones only.

After the death of [[Henry Wood (conductor)|Sir Henry Wood]] the BBC stepped in to sponsor his [[The Proms|Promenade concerts]], carrying them live every night on the Third Programme. It initially broadcast for 5 hours a night from 7pm to midnight, then from 07.00 to midnight (although with only the evening output branded as "Third Programme"); now it broadcasts 24 hours a day, following the useful technique commenced in Milan of repeating the day's output late at night.

To improve the quality of outside broadcasts over telephone lines the BBC designed a [[NICAM]] style digitisation technique called [[pulse code modulation]] running at a sample rate of 14,000 per second per channel. It later designed digital recording machines (transportable) sampling at the same rate. Following the shake up of radio frequencies in [[1978]] it lostmoved to an inferior medium wave frequency, and left MW altogether in 1992, but retained its MFFM channelfrequency. Radio 3 is renowned for its quality and quantity of [[chamber music]] output, tending to play pieces in its entirety rather than small parts of pieces. It is now available world wide on the [[Internet]] and is broadcast digitally throughout the [[United Kingdom|UK]].