BBC Third Programme: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 10:28, 19 April 2021

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The '''BBC Third Programme''' was a national radio service produced and broadcast by the [[BBC]] from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by [[BBC Radio 3]]. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and quickly became one of the leading cultural and intellectual forces in [[Great Britain|Britain]], playing a crucial role in disseminating the arts.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hewison |first=Robert |year=1995 |title=Culture and Consensus: England, Art and Politics Since 1940 |publisher=[[Methuen Publishing]] |___location=London |isbn=0-413-69060-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NHDbCQAAQBAJ |via=[[Google Books]]}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=February 2020}} It was the BBC's third national radio network, the other two being the [[BBC Home Service|Home Service]] (mainly speech-based) and the [[BBC Light Programme|Light Programme]], principally devoted to [[light entertainment]] and [[light music|music]].

==History==

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==Output and programming==

The network was broadly cultural, a [[F.R. Leavis|Leavisite]] experiment dedicated to the discerning or "high-brow" listener from an educated, minority audience. Its founders' aims were seen as promoting "something fundamental to our civilisation" and as contributing to "the refinement of society".<ref>{{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Humphrey |date=1996 |title=The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the Third Programme and Radio Three |publisher=[[Weidenfeld and Nicolson]] |___location=London |isbn=0-7538-0250-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oYLHQgAACAAJ |via=[[Google Books]]}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=February 2020}} Its musical output provided a wide range of serious [[classical music]] and live concerts, as well as contemporary composers and [[jazz]]; popular classical music such as [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]] and [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]] primarily remained on the [[BBC Home Service|Home Service]] until 1964. Voice formed a much higher proportion of its output than the later Radio 3, with specially commissioned plays, poetry readings, talks and documentaries. Nationally known intellectuals such as [[Bertrand Russell]] and [[Isaiah Berlin]] on philosophy or [[Fred Hoyle]] on cosmology were regular contributors.

The network became a principal patron of the arts. It commissioned many music works for broadcast by the BBC Music Department, playing a crucial role in the development of the career of composers such as [[Benjamin Britten]]. Particularly notable were its drama productions, including the radio plays of [[Samuel Beckett]], [[Henry Reed (poet)|Henry Reed]] (the [[Hilda Tablet]] plays), [[Harold Pinter]], [[Wyndham Lewis]], [[Joe Orton]] and [[Dylan Thomas]], whose ''[[Under Milk Wood]]'' was written specially for the programme. [[Philip O'Connor]] discovered [[Quentin Crisp]] in his radio interviews in 1963. [[Martin Esslin]], BBC Director of Drama (Radio), was associated with the network's productions of [[Europe|European]] drama, and [[Douglas Cleverdon]] with its productions of poetry and radio plays.

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{{BBC Radio}}

{{BBC Radio 3}}

[[Category:Defunct BBC national radio stations]]