BBC Third Programme: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 02:56, 17 September 2020

Revision as of 20:50, 21 September 2020

Line 39:

}}

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 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.co.ukcom/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 music.

==Description and history==

Line 50:

==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.co.ukcom/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 Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky primarily remained on the 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 European drama, and [[Douglas Cleverdon]] with its productions of poetry and radio plays.