{"id":16398,"date":"2015-12-23T21:08:17","date_gmt":"2015-12-24T01:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=16398"},"modified":"2015-12-23T21:08:17","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T01:08:17","slug":"download-the-1923-first-wireless-christmas-edition-of-the-radio-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/download-the-1923-first-wireless-christmas-edition-of-the-radio-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Download the 1923 &#8220;first Wireless Christmas&#8221; edition of The Radio Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16399\" src=\"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/RadioTimes1923.jpg\" alt=\"RadioTimes1923\" width=\"640\" height=\"852\" srcset=\"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/RadioTimes1923.jpg 640w, https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/RadioTimes1923-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/blogs\/genome\/entries\/dbd2cfd7-f32c-4138-90fd-fd25e94e3694\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Genome Blog<\/a> via Mike Barraclough)<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h4><strong>The much-loved Christmas edition of the Radio Times made its first appearance in 1923.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>It was all very different to today&#8217;s multi-channel, on-demand world. There was only radio, and London station 2LO had a meagre <a title=\"five and a half hours\" href=\"http:\/\/genome.ch.bbc.co.uk\/schedules\/2lo\/1923-12-25\" target=\"_blank\">five-and-a-half hours<\/a> of programmes on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n<p>But to some extent, the first Christmas issue set many traditions which have <a title=\"prevailed for decades\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/blogs\/genome\/entries\/f488faca-7045-480b-9280-9959bdf06ada\" target=\"_blank\">prevailed for decades<\/a> in various guises. The cover was a warm splash of colour and very festive in tone, while the publication&#8217;s austere masthead was festooned with snow and holly.<\/p>\n<p>John Reith, who went on to become the BBC&#8217;s first director general, was given the first page to deliver a message to listeners, in which he deliberated the meaning of Christmas and then inevitably talked about the joy of broadcasting and the &#8220;first Wireless Christmas&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The loud speaker is such a convenient entertainer,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;He doesn&#8217;t feel hurt if a cracker is pulled in the middle of a song, or offended if the fun grows riotous during his performance&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>While Reith was keen to talk up the virtues of broadcasting, the magazine was packed with adverts for radio sets and cartoons about the joys of consuming radio programmes.<\/p>\n<p>But Christmas is all about giving, and we&#8217;d like to offer you the chance to download the first Christmas issue. It&#8217;s a fascinating document and we hope you will enjoy it. Happy Christmas from<a title=\"BBC Genome\" href=\"http:\/\/genome.ch.bbc.co.uk\/%20\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Genome!<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Download a PDF version of the 1923 Christmas Radio Times by <a title=\"1923 Christmas issue - PDF\" href=\"http:\/\/genome.ch.bbc.co.uk\/blog\/RadioTimesChristmas1923.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">clicking on this link<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Source: BBC Genome Blog via Mike Barraclough) The much-loved Christmas edition of the Radio Times made its first appearance in 1923.\u00a0 It was all very different to today&#8217;s multi-channel, on-demand world. There was only radio, and London station 2LO had a meagre five-and-a-half hours of programmes on Christmas Day. But to some extent, the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,960,3,305,288,43],"tags":[4569,104,3387,4094,1302,4568,4516],"class_list":["post-16398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-broadcasters","category-international-broadcasting","category-news","category-nostalgia","category-radio-history","category-shortwave-radio","tag-4569","tag-bbc","tag-mike-barraclough","tag-nostalgia","tag-radio-nostalgia","tag-the-radio-times","tag-vintage"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-4gu","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11108,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/the-bbc-genome-project\/","url_meta":{"origin":16398,"position":0},"title":"The BBC Genome Project","author":"Thomas","date":"October 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to\u00a0Mike Barraclough who shares this news: \"BBC has today launched a website publishing every BBC programme ever broadcast by the Corporation from digitised editions of the Radio Times 1923-2009. Getting occasional internal errors at the moment presumably due to heavy use following publicity. Well designed and easy to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Broadcasters&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Broadcasters","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/broadcasters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"RadioTimes","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/RadioTimes.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/RadioTimes.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/RadioTimes.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7530,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/40th-anniversary-montage-of-ilr-radio-stations\/","url_meta":{"origin":16398,"position":1},"title":"40th Anniversary Montage of ILR Radio Stations","author":"Thomas","date":"October 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Hat tip to Mike Barraclough for sharing a link to this audio\/video montage on the BBC website celebrating the 40th anniversary of Independent Local Radio (ILR) with air check clips from stations across the country. Even if you have never lived in the UK, there's some serious radio nostalgia in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;AM&quot;","block_context":{"text":"AM","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/am\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IRL-StationLogos","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IRL-StationLogos-300x168.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10154,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/bbc-world-service-documentary-hang-on-ill-just-speak-to-the-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":16398,"position":2},"title":"BBC World Service Documentary: &#8220;Hang On, I&#8217;ll Just Speak to the World&#8221;","author":"Thomas","date":"July 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to Mike Barraclough\u00a0who shares this documentary about the BBC World Service from 1982: \"Hang On, I'll Just Speak to the World.\" I've embedded video players and linked to each of the four parts on YouTube: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Broadcasters&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Broadcasters","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/broadcasters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"BBC-WorldService","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BBC-WorldService.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":52524,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/radio-prague-1965-20th-anniversary-of-the-liberation-of-czechoslakia-7-record\/","url_meta":{"origin":16398,"position":3},"title":"Radio Prague: 1965 20th Anniversary of the Liberation of Czechoslakia 7&#8243; record","author":"Thomas","date":"April 19, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mike Barraclough, who shares the following partially in response to Sam's search for the Radio Prague's Forward Left interval signal: In 1965 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the liberation of Czechoslovakia Radio Prague offered their listeners a free copy of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Radio-Prague-LP-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":33950,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/skelton-penrith-and-the-world-1943-1993\/","url_meta":{"origin":16398,"position":4},"title":"Skelton, Penrith and the World 1943-1993","author":"Thomas","date":"September 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor,\u00a0Mike Barraclough, who notes the following update to\u00a0BBCeng.info: Skelton, Penrith and the World 1943-1993 A personal account by the author Ken Davies. Following my request I have been notified that Cumbria County Council, the publishers of this book, would have no objection to it being\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Broadcasters&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Broadcasters","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/broadcasters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Skelton-Penrith-and-the-World-cover.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18923,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/bbc-waveguide-archives-now-available-online\/","url_meta":{"origin":16398,"position":5},"title":"BBC Waveguide and Letterbox archives now available online","author":"Thomas","date":"May 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mike Barraclough, who writes: BBC World Service Archives continue to put up programmes on the main site, they were previously available on a beta site you had to register for and were allowed to add tags or edit data. 64 editions of Waveguide, their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Broadcasters&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Broadcasters","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/broadcasters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Waveguide","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Waveguide.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Waveguide.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Waveguide.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}