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Radio 1 Magazine 15th Anniversary Edition
Lofts...fantastic places aren't they! Whilst rooting in the loft of a member of the family, I found yet another piece of radio gold dust. Priced at 95p back in 1982, we now feature the radio highlights and pictures from the Radio 1 Magazine 15th Anniversary Edition from 1982. Many thanks to Jeff Martin ( www.oocities.org/jeffgold220 ) for allowing this new item to be featured here on AIRCHECK's Museum. Dave Watts wrote on the AIRCHECK Guestbook that he'd like to see more on the Radio 1 Roadshow. Well, look no further that this special edition which looks at ten years on the road for Radio 1 too. Originally published by Radio 1 Offers, PO Box 275, Portishead, Bristol. B20 9SG with the help of Johnny Beerling. The material is shown here for nostalgia purposes only. Please contact ianmsperry@hotmail.com if any material offends. In we go then, with the introduction... The text that follows is obviously shown as per 1982....for nostalgia reasons if nothing else!
'It's right and proper on our 15th birthday to give you all a present, and this magazine is it. Bigger and better than any previous issues with sixty four pages of news, articles, and competitions about your number 1 station, Radio 1, and the people who appear on it.
For those of you who like history, there are quite a lot of stories inside about the various things we've done on Radio 1 during our first fifteen years, and if you are into photography, don't forget to enter our great Fuji Photo graphic competition....
Don't forget too that although there are lots of imitations on the air now, there is only one original Radio 1 that's on 275 and 285 or if you've got a new set marked in Khz, it's 1089 and 1053 on your dial. Stay tuned and happy listening.
THE FIRST 15 YEARS OF RADIO 1 by Johnny Beerling
(Johnny was the producer of the first programme on the network, Tony Blackburn's Breakfast Show on September 30th 1967 and who still works for the station, currently as Executive Producer.) Fifteen years, that's a third of my life gone in a flash working on the chain gang! Not than it has really been like hard labour, I have loved every minute of it since we first started out with Tony Blackburn on the Breakfast Show that Saturday morning. I don't suppose the younger readers of this magazine can even remember the impact of that opening - Tony with Arnold and all his gags. He's still using most of the same ones today! Rosko, Emperor Rosko as he was then, a DJ superstar resident in Paris where he lived like an Emperor of old, the original Royal Ruler who was so outrageous that when we got to the mid-programme news summary, the regular announcer felt obliged to say "here is the News in English."
A year later it was time to get onto the road to start meeting all the fans - The Radio 1 Club opened for membership. A different DJ presented each day's shows, all of which were live from either the BBC's Paris studio, in Central London, or from dance halls, schools, colleges, universities or youth clubs up and down the country. They nearly all had a live band playing which meant some very sleepy starts by groups of young rock musicians who were more used to crashing out at the very time we wanted them to start rehearsing. The DJs sometimes cut it a little fine too. I remember one occasion when a DJ arrived fifteen minutes after we were due to go on the air and as we were miles from anywhere, the only alternative was for me to do the production and the presentation. My one chance of glory, but it didn't last long and no one invited me back again to do another spot.
In 1972, following the successful purchase of the Elvis Presley Story from an American Syndication company, my boss invited me to produce the Beatles Story. It gave me the opportunity to travel the World tracking down the people and places visited by the Fab Four during their spectacular career. In Liverpool, Hamburg, Stockholm, Montreal, New York and Los Angeles, I recorded friends, club owners, promoters and managers all of whom told me about John, Paul, George and Ringo. Months of editing followed before I could assemble the 12 programmes with that veteran broadcaster Brian Matthew. The series sold around the World and with the twentieth anniversary of the Beatles happening this year (1982), interest in them and their music is as big as ever.
In 1973, I started the Roadshow, you can see and read all about that elsewhere in the magazine but it was the natural successor to the Radio 1 Club and now, ten years on, it just goes on getting bigger and better each Summer.
In 1976, we started organising Radio 1 Fun Days from Motor Racing circuits and we sponsored the Radio 1 Production Saloon Car Championships. Hopefully introducing some of our fans to the exciting world of car racing, not just the fans either, quite a few pop personalities took up the offer to drive in celebrity races against the DJs and although Noel Edmonds was the outstanding driver, Cozy Powell, David Essex and Rosko were all capable of giving him a good race.
In 1977, we started even bigger outside broadcasts, whole weeks away, lifting the network wholesale out of London and dropping it down so that broadcasting activities were spread over two City Centres. Lots of personal appearances by the DJs and charity events staged to let as many people as possible see the DJs they normally only hear.
The fund raising activities for charity have over the years been very important and we channel our efforts through The Variety Club of Great Britain into Sunshine Coaches, Outward Bound Scholarships and into Radio Lollipop. This year, 1982, we are hoping to raise enough to pay for an entire studio at Kings College Hospital, Denmark Hill, in London. Peter Powell helped the Queen Mother to lay the foundation stone in mark this year and when the hospital ward is finished, the Radio Lollipop studio will provide hospital radio for the children there all day.
Over the years, it's been very worthwhile and very friendly. The DJs come and go, the music changes but the station goes on, fifteen years already, you ain't seen nothing yet. I wonder what it will be like when it's as old as the rest of the BBC is now, 60 years? All day music with wall to wall stereo no doubt but not without our DJs, they provide the personal magic that make us better than any other station. Fifteen years? We've only just begun!
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