Twenty Years of the Thunderclaps

I suspect the next "delivering quality first" move might be to replace all non simulcast bulletins with a countdown to the next BBC1 bulletin.

Don’t give them ideas!

Here’s a thought - I wonder why the distinctive BBC News sounds have never made it to any of their radio news programmes?

Radio 1 used it.

They have done - I certainly recall Radio 1 Newsbeat having a David Lowe theme in about 2003/2004 and, of course, the World Service.

Are news broadcasts on Radio 4 still completely music-free? I guess this lack of themes is part of their distinctive sound.

Indeed - PM had one, but it was dropped in 1997. (I think Eddie Mair may have snuck it out once or twice)

Radio 4 very briefly in the late ’70s had jingles - well, as close as you can get to jingles for Radio 4, musical interludes really. As you might imagine they didn’t last long…

Kenny Everett liked them so much, he used to play them on his Capital Radio show, saying how lovely it was for R4 to have jingles

This was the classic PM Theme ......



(at 2:50)

That PM theme is OK - but the late 70s/early 80s one is also fab http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2011/08/pm-signature-tune.html has a nice interview with Paddy Kingsland about it.

Was there another one between that and the late 80s version? I listened to PM a lot in the car in the Valerie Singleton era and have a dim recollection of a more synthy-synth signature tune in the latter part of the 80s?

BBC Radio York used quite a bit of the David Lowe music in the early 00s. I think they lifted anything they could - I remember them using the Newsline, Wales Today and Reporting Scotland themes for various station sequences.

Also the 2004 IQ Beats package for Radio Leeds, which was resung for Radios Kent and Stoke, incorporated the thunderclaps rather nicely at the top of the hour.

I’ve always thought though that it would have been a good branding exercise for the national networks (at least those that use jingles) to have included more David Lowe elements around bulletins to tie them in with the BBC News brand. I’m surprised in particular that Five Live, with all its rolling news, never adopted any of it.