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The first two entertained the middle-aged middle and upper-class audiences with various types of programme, none of which particularly appealed to the new youth culture. The Light Programme was the only one which made even a token attempt at youth programming, offering mainly trad jazz and skiffle, but was generally hosted by presenters who were uncomfortable with the material.

Shows in the late Fifties and early Sixties consisted of offerings like Worker's Playtime, Pop Inn, 12 O'Clock Spin, and the slightly more youth-oriented Drumbeat and Go Man Go - 'your Friday tonic, the show with the most'. The latter was presented by 'your swinging man Friday' David Ede and was broadcast live from the B.B.C. Playhouse in London featuring resident session bands, such as Bob Millar and his Millarmen, Arthur Greenslade and the G-Men and Colin Day and The Hound Dogs, who played a half-and-half mixture of 'pop' music and standards. Both these shows originally entertained a live studio audience and Drumbeat even contained an early version of 'Juke Box Jury'. The B.B.C. did make a couple of minor concessions to the new music culture with a programme on Saturday mornings called ' The Saturday Skiffle Club' ( later to drop the 'Skiffle' ) and a review of the singles record chart on Sunday afternoons ( although more short-lived shows were added at various times during the Sixties to try and compete with the 'pirate' phenomenon).

Even in this, the shows were hosted by presenters, like Don Moss, who were more used to the usual B.B.C. output, making the end result rather uninspired. Things improved slightly in 1961 when Alan 'Fluff' Freeman took over Sunday's 'Pick Of The Pops' slot from the more sedate David Jacobs (left) but his upbeat style was not particularly to the taste of the corporation management and he was not infrequently requested to 'tone it down'. The following year saw another programme called 'Teenager's Turn - Here We Go' on which The Beatles made their radio debut in March 1962. There were few alternatives, the best of which was probably in frequenting one of the multitude of small coffee bars with the obligatory jukebox that sprang up ever faster around this time although they were not a new phenomenon.

The major record companies such as Decca, Columbia, Philips, Capitol, Warner Brothers and E.M.I. paid huge amounts of money to sponsor 15 or 30 minute time slots on the station and because of this generally only the first 30 seconds or so of a record were played, linked by a 'live' disc jockey doing quick intros, in order to get as many of their artists and new records as possible into the time allocation. This was sometimes as high as 13 or 14 records crammed into a 15 minute 'slot'. Many of the shows were pre-recorded at London's Hertford Street studios and a typical night's programming consisted of 30 minutes of singles, 30 minutes of L.P. tracks followed by lighter music until 'Music In The Night' came on at midnight, catering to a much wider selection of musical tastes. On Sundays at about 11p.m. Barry Aldis hosted a 'Top 20' show. The station also produced its own weekly magazine, 'Fabulous 208', a feature which was to be emulated by the major offshore 'pirates'.

The early Sixties saw mainland Europe address the lack of youth-oriented shows in their own countries by setting up privately-owned offshore 'pirate' radio stations to broadcast the music that they wanted to hear, transmitting unlicensed broadcasts from ships anchored outside territorial waters. 1960 saw the launch of Radio Veronica and, within a few years, it was followed by Radio Nord, Radio Mercur and Radio Syd who covered some Scandinavian countries. Belgium had Radio Antwerpen for a short while and Radio Veronica, soon joined by Radio Nordzee, was belting it out to the lowland countries from off the coast of Holland. This was great for the mainland of Europe but the signal strength these stations generated wasn't high enough to reach over here with the exception of Radio Veronica which could sometimes be picked up on the east coast when conditions permitted. With the B.B.C. failing to cater adequately for the new 'beat generation' and the limited reception quality from the European stations the only apparent ( some would say obvious ) solution was for someone to start a brand new station a bit nearer to home.

Technically, Manx Radio did not need a broadcasting licence from the UK authorities as it was a Crown Dependency and not part of the United Kingdom, but after two years of negotiations with the Home Office and other bodies success was finally achieved when the G.P.O. agreed to issue a licence for a local station which could only be heard within the confines of the island. The telecommunications company PYE were to build the station but it was still forced, by the licence conditions, to use a VHF transmitter even after an earlier offer of a medium-wave frequency of 1594 kilocycles had been rejected on technical grounds.

The man employed to manage the station was Richard Meyer who had previously been manager of the International Broadcasting Company ( which had organised the start of Radio Luxembourg before World War II ) and the commercial manager of Associated television ( ATV ). From the outset he was less than enthusiastic about using VHF as there were comparatively few receivers for this medium around at the time. Nevertheless, test transmissions were carried out initially on VHF, the first broadcast being a commentary on the Isle of Man T.T. of 5th June 1964. The station continued throughout the summer in stereo on FM 89.0 MHz.

Despite this, the station's controllers still had ambitions of reaching a larger audience with a more powerful transmitter which caused a great deal of ill feeling between Tynewald and Westminster. The result of this was that the island had a much better relationship with a potential rival, the recently arrived Radio Caroline North, than it did with the B.B.C. The two stations co-existed quite happily side by side, Manx Radio retaining the aspect of a local station providing a service to the island while the more powerful 'Caroline' transmitter with its bigger audience helped achieve the island's aim of increasing tourism.

Bernie Quayle 1967 A Career in Radio

Also in October 1965 RADIO LUXEMBOURG had a new medium wave transmitter installed which meant improved reception on 208 metres for the station in the U.K. A Gallup Poll during the year had put its estimated listening audience at 37 million. Up until 1967 the broadcasting of 'pop' music had been almost completely confined to the various pirate radio stations. The Marine Offences Act of 1967 was responsible for the shutdown of most of these, every one having stopped broadcasting by 14th August 1967 except Radio Caroline, North and South. As if finally realising the size of the potential audience that it had been ignoring, the B.B.C. completely revamped its setup, announcing its future plans in December 1966. The Home Service became Radio 4, the Third Programme and Network 3 became Radio 3, the Light Programme became Radio 2 on long wave.

With these changes on 30th September 1967, along came a brand new B.B.C. radio station accompanied by a huge amount of pre-publicity that took up where the pirate stations had left off - Radio 1 was born. The first voice heard, which announced ". . . and welcome to the exciting sound of Radio 1..." was, ironically, that of Tony Blackburn who had previously worked for both Radio Caroline and Radio London. His opening announcement was followed by The Move's 'Flowers In The Rain', the station broadcasting for 5 hours and 35 minutes on its first day, combining with Radio 2 in the evening. The Record Controller, Robin Scott said of it "It's not bash-bash-bash and nothing but the harsh, strident, way-out thing. We hope that it will have more than a teeny-bop audience. It would be absurd to have just a teeny bop network". First day's schedule in full