The Media School

Audio archive brings radio history to life

17 November 2009

Online radio archive provides a unique insight into the history of UK commercial radio.

The UK’s first online commercial radio sound archive has been launched preserving over 5,000 searchable recordings including the first hour of UK commercial radio in 1973, coverage of five UK general elections and the end of apartheid.

The LBC/Independent Radio News (IRN) Radio News Audio Archive is available online for researchers, lecturers and students.

The original LBC/IRN archive is housed at Bournemouth University (BU) and consists of 7,000 reel-to-reel tapes in a collection that runs from 1973 to the mid-1990s. Thanks to funding from JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) in excess of £760,000, the Centre for Broadcasting History based at BU has spent the last three years digitising some 4,000 hours worth of noteworthy LBC/IRN content from the original tapes.

Making that material available online has been the role of the British Universities Film and Video Council (BUFVC) which has extensive experience in the online delivery of moving image and sound.

Users can now listen to these recordings via a website which combines access to the archive catalogue and digital audio files of reports filed by some of the UK’s leading journalists including Jon Snow, the late Carol Barnes, Ben Brown and Dickie Arbiter.

Amongst the 5,400 searchable recordings are a number of historic events covered by LBC/IRN including:

Broadcasts of the Falklands War, the miners’ strike and Northern Ireland;
The live reporting of UK election results from five general elections, giving a unique sense of the political shaping of the country;
News related to the whole of the Thatcher period of government;
Significant material relating to the ending of apartheid in South Africa.

“This is the most important commercial radio archive in the UK and provides a unique audio history of the period,” said Professor Sean Street, Project Director and Director of BU’s Centre for Broadcasting History. “We are extremely grateful to the JISC without whom none of this would have been possible.”

Jonathan Richards Programme Director of LBC 97.3 said, “It is only right that the UK’s first commercial radio station has its proud history preserved in this fashion for future generations to learn from. I wish to pay tribute to Professor Sean Street and his team at Bournemouth University for this invaluable resource.”

The LBC/IRN archive is the third of three audio collections of UK commercial radio digitised by BU and now available via the BUFVC website. The Independent Local Radio (ILR) Programme Sharing Archive also known as The Felicity Wells Memorial Collection of independent radio (1973-1990) and the Wessex Film and Sound Archive Commercial Radio Collection (1973-1990) comprise parts one and two.