The BBC Regional Programme was a radio service which was on the air from 9 March 1930 – replacing a number of earlier BBC local stations between 1922 and 1924 – until 1 September 1939 when it was subsumed into the Home Service, two days before the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Both the National Programme and the Regional Programme provided a mixed mainstream radio service. Whilst the two services provided different programming, allowing listeners a choice they were not streamed to appeal to different audiences, rather they were intended to offer a choice of programming to a single audience. While using the same transmitters, the National Programme broadcast significantly more speech and classical music than its successor, the Light Programme. Similarly, the Regional Programme broadcast much more

light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...

and

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded danc ...

than its successor, the Home Service.

History

Development

When the

British Broadcasting Company The British Broadcasting Company Ltd. (BBC) was a short-lived British commercial broadcasting company formed on 18 October 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom. Licensed by the British General ...

first began transmissions on 14 November 1922 from station 2LO in the Strand, which it had inherited from the

Marconi Company The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company that did business under that name from 1963 to 1987. Its roots were in the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 ...

(one of six commercial companies which created), but technology did not yet exist either for national coverage or joint programming between

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to ...

s. Whilst it was possible to combine large numbers of

trunk Trunk may refer to: Biology * Trunk (anatomy), synonym for torso * Trunk (botany), a tree's central superstructure * Trunk of corpus callosum, in neuroanatomy * Elephant trunk, the proboscis of an elephant Computing * Trunk (software), in rev ...

telephone line A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or oth ...

s to link transmitters for individual programmes, the process was expensive and not encouraged by the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state mail, postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II of En ...

as it tied up large parts of the telephone network. The stations that followed the establishment of 2LO in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

were therefore autonomously programmed using local talent and facilities. By May 1923, simultaneous broadcasting was technically possible at least between main transmitters and relay stations, the quality was not felt to be high enough to provide a national service or regular simultaneous broadcasts. In 1924, it was felt that technical standards had improved enough for London to start to provide the majority of the output, cutting the local stations back to providing items of local interest.

Main stations

Each of these main stations were broadcast at approximately 1

kilowatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after Jame ...

(kW):

Relay stations

Each of these relay stations were broadcast at approximately 120

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s (W):

Regional scheme

On 21 August 1927, the BBC opened a high-power

medium wave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the dayt ...

transmitter 5GB at its

Daventry Daventry ( , historically ) is a market town and civil parish in the West Northamptonshire unitary authority in Northamptonshire, England, close to the border with Warwickshire. At the 2021 Census Daventry had a population of 28,123, making ...

site to replace the existing local stations in the

English Midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the In ...

, that allowed the experimental

longwave In radio, longwave, long wave or long-wave, and commonly abbreviated LW, refers to parts of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave broadcasting band. The term is historic, dating from the e ...

transmitter 5XX to provide a service – which eventually came to be called the National Programme from

and available to the majority of the population. By combining the resources of the local stations into one regional station in each area with a basic sustaining service from London, the BBC hoped to increase programme quality whilst also centralising the management of the radio service known as the "regional scheme". The local transmitters were gradually either converted to a regional service relay or closed entirely and replaced by high-power regional broadcasts. Some local studios were retained to provide for programming from specific areas within each region. Most transmitters also carried the National Programme on a local frequency to supplement the longwave broadcasts from 5XX; initially these were on three separate frequencies and programming included some local variations. As the regional network expanded these transmissions were fully synchronised with those from Brookmans Park and several other frequencies initially: A

relay station A relay is an electric switch operated by a signal in one circuit to control another circuit. Relay may also refer to: Historical * Stage station, a place where exhausted horses being used for transport could be exchanged for fresh ones * Cursus ...

for Brookmans Park on 1402 kHz was due to open at

Acle Acle ( ) is a market town on the River Bure on the Norfolk Broads in Norfolk, located halfway between Norwich and Great Yarmouth. It has the only bridge across the River Bure between Wroxham and Great Yarmouth.Ordnance Survey (2005). ''OS Explorer ...

near

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

in 1940, but construction was postponed by the outbreak of

. The station was never completed and was replaced by one at Postwick.

Closure

Upon the outbreak of

, the BBC closed both existing National and Regional radio programmes to replaced with a single channel known as the Home Service. The transmitter network was synchronised on and in order to use the other frequencies for

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loa ...

broadcasts in foreign languages. Each transmitter group would be turned off during air raids to prevent their signals being used as navigational beacons (with listeners were required to retune to a low-powered single-frequency network on ). On 29 July 1945, within 12 weeks of

Victory in Europe Day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easte ...

, the BBC reactivated the Regional Programme but kept the name "Home Service" (until 30 September 1967 as the station became Radio 4). The National Programme was also reopened under a new name as the Light Programme.

Sources

Notes

# Until 16 February 1935. # The Brookmans Park transmitter covered

South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshi ...

and much of

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

. However as the sustaining service for the rest of the network, the London programme was not normally referred to on-air such as ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...

'', but simply as the "Regional Programme" (internally, "the basic Regional Programme"). # Until 13 June 1939.