Nationwide (TV Programme)
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''Nationwide'' was a BBC current affairs television programme which ran from 9 September 1969 until 5 August 1983. Originally broadcast on
BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...
from Tuesday to Thursday, and then each weekday from 1972, it followed the early evening news, and included the regional opt-out news programmes.


Outline

It followed a magazine format, combining regional news, political analysis and discussion with consumer affairs,
light entertainment Light entertainment encompasses a broad range of television and radio programming that includes comedies, variety shows, game shows, quiz shows and the like. In the UK In the early days of the BBC, virtually all broadcast entertainment would b ...
and sports reporting. It began on 9 September 1969, running between Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00pm, before being extended to five days a week in 1972. From 1976 until 1981, the start time was 5:55pm. The final edition was broadcast on 5 August 1983 and, the following October, it was replaced by ''
Sixty Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style of ...
''. The long-running ''
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'' programme began as a ''Nationwide'' feature. The light entertainment was quite similar in tone to ''
That's Life! ''That's Life!'' was a satirical consumer affairs programme on the BBC, at its height regularly reaching audiences of fifteen to twenty million, and receiving between 10,000 and 15,000 letters a week. The series was broadcast on BBC1 for 21 yea ...
'', with eccentric stories such as a
skateboarding duck Herbie the skateboarding duck (-83) was the subject of an item first broadcast on the ''Midlands Today'' insert to the BBC news magazine programme '' Nationwide'' on 24 May 1978. Herbie, an Aylesbury duck, was bought by Jacky and Paddy Randall of ...
and men who claimed that they could walk on egg shells.
Richard Stilgoe Sir Richard Henry Simpson Stilgoe (born 28 March 1943) is a British songwriter, lyricist and musician, and broadcaster who is best known for his humorous songs and frequent television appearances. His output includes collaborations with Andrew ...
performed topical songs. The show's tendency to sidestep serious matters in favour of light pieces was parodied in an episode of ''
Monty Python's Flying Circus ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' (also known as simply ''Monty Python'') is a British surreal humour, surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, w ...
'', where the show, instead of reporting on the opening of the Third World War, chose to feature a story about a "theory" that sitting down in a comfortable chair rests one's legs. After the introduction and round-up, the BBC regions opted out for their main news magazine programmes (''
Midlands Today ''BBC Midlands Today'' is the BBC's regional television news service for the West Midlands (region), West Midlands. It was launched in 1964 and is presented by Mary Rhodes, Nick Owen, Elizabeth Glinka, Rebecca Wood and Shefali Oza. Overview ...
'', '' Points West'', ''
Wales Today ''BBC Wales Today'' is the BBC's national television news programme for Wales, broadcast on BBC One Wales from the headquarters of BBC Cymru Wales in Central Square, Cardiff. According to the BBC, it is the world's longest-running television n ...
'', ''
South Today ''BBC South Today'' is the BBC's regional television news service for the south of England, covering Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, West Sussex, much of Dorset and parts of Surrey and Wiltshire. The service is produced and bro ...
'', '' Look East'', ''
Reporting Scotland ''BBC Reporting Scotland'' is the BBC's national television news programme for Scotland, broadcast on BBC One Scotland from the headquarters of BBC Scotland in Pacific Quay, Glasgow. The programme usually followed after the nationwide bulletin ...
'', ''
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'', ''
Look North ''BBC Look North'' is a name used by the BBC for its regional news programmes in three regions in the North of England: * ''BBC Look North (North East and Cumbria), BBC Look North'' for the BBC North East and Cumbria region * ''BBC Look North (Y ...
'', '' Scene Around Six''). Once they had handed back to
Lime Grove Studios Lime Grove Studios was a film, and later television, studio complex in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England. The complex was built by the Gaumont Film Company in 1915. It was situated in Lime Grove, a residential street in Shepherd's Bush, and ...
in London, the regions remained on standby to participate in feedback and
two-way Two-way or Two Way may refer to: Music * " 2-Way", a 2002 song by Lil' Romeo * "Two Way" (song), by KT Tunstall and James Bay, 2016 Other uses * Two-way, Cincinnati chili Cincinnati chili (or Cincinnati-style chili) is a Mediterranean-spic ...
interviews to be transmitted across the whole BBC network. The programme's second, and best remembered theme tune, was a library piece called ''The Good Word'', composed by Johnny Scott. The show was used in an influential
cultural Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
/
media studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but it mos ...
project at the
University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...
, known as
The Nationwide Project The ''Nationwide'' Project was an influential media audience research project conducted by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, England, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Its principal researchers were Da ...
.


''Nationwide'' for London and the South East

For all of its run, ''Nationwide'' presented and provided the regional news for the BBC London/South East region, as this was the only BBC region not to have its own dedicated news team. A further peculiarity was that as this segment had no regional branding at all in London and the South East, it carried the ''Nationwide'' title despite only covering local news. Indeed, the first opening credits in 1969, which displayed the all the regional news programme titles, simply had "London" added on at the end. Later credits omitted reference to any London programme at all. This changed at the start of 1982, when the regional programmes and ''Nationwide'' were separated. Now, ''Nationwide''s title sequence was shown after the regional programmes and the London/South East news was now called ''South East at Six''. However, it was still presented by the Nationwide team, used the ''Nationwide'' theme and, for the first few months, the opening titles were the same as for ''Nationwide'', but with local images superimposed. Later that year, when ''Nationwide'' introduced a new title sequence, ''South East at Six'' started using different graphics that had no reference to ''Nationwide'', though still with the ''Nationwide'' music. When ''Nationwide'' was replaced by ''Sixty Minutes'', the situation returned to how it had been before 1982 and lasted until 1984.


Margaret Thatcher ''On the Spot''

In May 1983, during a
general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...
special of its "On the Spot" feature, Diana Gould, a teacher from
Cirencester Cirencester ( , ; see #Pronunciation, below for more variations) is a market town and civil parish in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire, England. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames. It is the List of ...
, persistently challenged
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
about her ordering of the sinking of the '' General Belgrano'' when it was sailing away from the
Falklands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Du ...
. Thatcher denied that the ''Belgrano'' had been sailing away, but Gould quoted map references and continued to push her point across, encouraged – so the Conservative Party claimed – by presenter
Sue Lawley Susan Lawley (born 14 July 1946) is an English retired television and radio broadcaster. Her main broadcasting background involved television news and current affairs. From 1988 to 2006, Lawley was the presenter of ''Desert Island Discs'' on BBC ...
. When Thatcher asked her whether she accepted that the ''Belgrano'' had been a danger to British shipping when it was sunk, Gould told her that she did not. Thatcher was extremely angry about the BBC for allowing the question. Thatcher's husband
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lashed out at Roger Bolton, the editor of the programme, in the entertainment suite, saying that his wife had been "stitched up by bloody BBC poofs and Trots". Lawley said she was never permitted to interview Thatcher again, and later Thatcher refused an invitation to appear on ''
Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight audio recordin ...
'' which Lawley was then presenting.


Archive status

As a contemporary programme ''Nationwide'' was only recorded on broadcast
videotape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually Sound recording and reproduction, sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog signal, analog or Digital signal (signal processing), digital signal. V ...
in case of possible
complaint In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...
or
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; after a period of time tapes would be
wiped Lost television broadcasts are television programs that were not preserved after their original airing, rendering them permanently unavailable for both public and private screening. Because of this, they are considered a form of lost media, par ...
and re-used although filmed reports were archived. Consequently, only a few complete editions exist in their original form. However, in his book ''The Television Heritage'' (1989), author Steve Bryant claimed that "a virtually complete collection of the BBC magazine programme ''Nationwide'' from 1971 to 1980" existed as domestic recordings. He wrote:
"Already virtually doomed is material held on early domestic tape formats manufactured by Sony, Shibaden and Philips. The pictures from these tapes are very poor – indeed, the Sony and Shibaden
reel-to-reel Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is plac ...
tapes are monochrome only – but some unique collections exist on these formats. Most significant is a virtually complete collection of the BBC magazine programme ''Nationwide'' from 1971 to 1980, mostly on Sony and Shibaden, but on Philips for the programmes after 1977. This collection is held by the NFA ( National Film Archive) and represents the only copies of the complete programmes in existence. The BBC has all the film reports and a small selection of pre-recorded video inserts, but the programmes themselves were live and were not recorded off-air. Neither the machinery nor the funds are currently available to save the contents of these tapes, so a valuable daily record of British life in the 70s, including a large number of live interviews with leading politicians and celebrities of the time, looks like being lost."
The
British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
website stated in 2003 "so far we have successfully dubbed 500 hilipsN-1500
apes Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a superfamily of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and Europe in prehistory, and counting humans are found glo ...
as part of an HLF-funded Nationwide preservation project". In November 2016, the BFI's holdings of Nationwide, described as being on an "exceptionally rare" video format, were included in a list of 100,000 most at risk television episodes which were to be digitised following £13.5 million of
National Lottery National Lottery may refer to: *National Lottery (Ireland), the state lottery of Ireland *National Lottery (United Kingdom), the lottery franchise in the United Kingdom *South African National Lottery, established in 2000 *A number of countries con ...
funding.


Documentaries

* ''Three Dates with Genesis'', BBC2, 1978; a documentary following the
progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...
band
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...
for a portion of their 1978 tour. * ''Let's Go Nationwide'', BBC2, 1991; Transmitted as part of ''The Lime Grove Story'', 26 August 1991, marking the closing of the studios * ''It's Time to Go Nationwide'', BBC4, 2009; Shown 5 February 2009


See also

*
The One Show ''The One Show'' is a British television magazine and chat show programme. Broadcast live on BBC One weekdays at 7:00 pm, it features topical stories and studio guests. It is currently co-hosted by Alex Jones, Roman Kemp, Ronan Keating ...


Notes


References


External links

*
Let's Go Nationwide
TV Cream TV Cream was a British television nostalgia website, which had expanded to cover not only television, but film, toys, books, and other objects. ''The Daily Telegraph'' called it "a labour of love" and praised "the standard of the writing". In 20 ...
* Ian Jones
The Good Word
Off the Telly, July 2002 {{BBC News BBC television news shows 1983 British television series endings