Radio and TV Simulcasts

Just watched it. My guess is that the Radio Three presenter was watching BBC Two off-air (i.e. very delayed) and not a network feed or taking a count from the PA in the TV gallery (or a cue from the director). If they took their cue from off-air they'd be very late indeed. Which they were.

Have the BBC always shared Radio Three's commentary rather than having a commentator of their own?

I think it's always been a Radio Three presenter doing the tv commentary. Richard Baker did it from the mid 60s onwards, then Brian Kay in the late 90s. More recently Petroc Trelawny has provided commentary. It must be one of the very few radio-television simulcasts left (in the sense that television take pictures and a radio commentary, rather than having their own commentator).

Back in the day, a simulcast also meant that people could set up their stereo around the telly, tune to VHF and watch pictures with quality stereo sound, which was always bang on in synch because analogue broadcasting had virtually no delay.

For some younger forumers, this was still promoted for programmes like Top of the Pops as late as 1991 before NICAM stereo was launched on television. The stereo sound for TotP was transmitted via Radio 1.
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/a390302060304477b2de6c17be00a8cf

However even the BBC's premier pop music show wasn't a simulcast for very long. Radio 1 and Radio 2 actually shared a VHF (FM) frequency for donkeys years, so you'd be taping the Top 40 one minute and listening to "Sing Something Simple" the next... The Pops wasn't a simulcast until Radio 1 got its own FM network.

Anyway, sorry, rather off topic here...

I remember we did this watching live Aid!

And just to give you an impression just how much of a gear change it was to have Radio 1 and 2 sharing the FM frequencies, it went straight from this

Sing Something Simple


To this:

U.K. Top 40 with Bruno Brookes


And I was misremembering, Sing Something Simple was on before the chart.

That's true, though for recorded programmes it was still quite complex. The old Quad VTR format had dreadful quality audio, and I'm not sure it even supported stereo ? There was a Saturday night series
on BBC 2 and Radio 1/2 FM, Sight and Sound in Concert . The pictures came off VT at TVC, and so did the TV sound, but the radio audio came from 1/4 inch reel to reel audio at BH, slave locked via a control line from TVC, (once or twice the control line died ! )

There was a period in the 70s when it was after the chart, so you didn't necessarily mis-remember

There was an episode of Arena, I think, where the TV broadcast had one half of the narration in a male voice, and a radio simulcast had the other half in a female voice (or something like that).

Can't believe Sing Something Simple ran until 2001, it would have felt like an awful anachronism long before then!

And back in those days not all programmes were in stereo. I remembering programme junctions on Radio 4 where the 'stereo' light on our hi-fi would go off half way through as they turned the stereo pilot off, with accompanying loss of hiss on the speakers.

Tell the kids of today that, they won't believe you....

Even Capital turned off the stereo carrier for 45 mins every afternoon for Roger Scott's 'Three O'Clock Thrill' oldies slot. Kenny Everett on one of his shows mucked about turning the beacon on and off, saying
"I can even turn your fridge off if I want". My mother looked at me with a worried look, and asked, 'can he ?!'

Looking on Genome, certainly in 1988 (Celine Dion's win in Ireland) they advertised the fact that you could get "stereo sound" by muting the TV and putting Radio 2 on. I used to do this pretty much every year. 1999 (Israel) was the first year BBC One and Radio 2 weren't in Sync.

Then I got Sky Digital and it definitely wasn't in sync!

The interesting thing is that the contest was produced in stereo as early as 1983. There's a few YouTube clips from the 80's kicking around which mix between BBC for Wogan's commentary and the World Feed for the music. Certainly Sweet Dreams' performance in Munich exists in stereo.

Indeed, Arena Radio Night - http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/3a839bae20c64e0f8217f2bcb77da017



And of course 1983 was I think the only year it wasn't on the radio, Radio 2 broadcasting a St George's Day Concert instead. Some people complained to the Radio Times about this and David Hatch replies to say that they considered this a more important programme, especially as Eurovision made for quite boring radio. They changed their mind a year later, though, seemingly.