15. A History of BBC Election Night Broadcasting - Crossover with The British Broadcasting Century Podcast
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I'm Paul Carenza of the British Broadcasting Century podcast.
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And I'm Harry White of the Modern British History podcast.
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And you're listening to both of us at the same time in this collaboration.
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We're joining forces for one special episode to bring you a history of election night broadcasts because at time of recording we're about to have another one.
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It'll be our 28th episode.
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in 102 years since British broadcasting began, and almost literally from day one, well day two, broadcasting brought us the results, live as they came in.
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First via radio, and then later via television, swingometers, dimblebees.
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At least two dimblebees.
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Talking us through every election night special there's been, we have a special guest, author of the book Swing, a brief history of British general election night broadcasting.
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Buy it now folks, it's Gary Roger.
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Hello, thank you very much indeed for inviting me.
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Lovely, with Gary and Harry and Paul.
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What a combination, the three of us here.
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Well, we've got a lot to pack in.
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28 election night broadcast to get through.
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But do we begin with the very first election, or do we mention the one, the US presidential election before it, 1920?
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Oh yeah the, the prototype.
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To begin with, free broadcasting, you had elections via phonograph, campaign speeches distributed on records, in fact.
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But then literally as broadcasting began on KDKA Pittsburgh, 2nd November, 1920, you get the election results.
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First radio station broadcast in the world of any kind.
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It's 18 hours of coverage of KDKA Pittsburgh.
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The license came just days earlier and the Pittsburgh Post newspaper got the results via phone as the listeners got the results as well.
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a revolutionary act, as Warren G.
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Harding became president.
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But we don't care about that, it hasn't got American in the title of either of our podcasts, has it Harry?
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So should we come to Britain?
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Our first election that we're going to look at is a Conservative victory, with the Prime Minister, Bonar Law, coming into office.
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Relatively short term in office, only 209 days, and the former Liberal Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, very memorably said, it is fitting that we should have buried the unknown Prime Minister by the side of the unknown warrior in Westminster Abbey, where Bonar Law was buried.
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We may look at other Prime Ministers, for example Liz Truss, that had a short term, in a similar way, century's time will people look at the likes of Liz Truss and go, who is that Prime Minister?
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And that's very much where Bonar Law fits in.
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Garrah, you're the author of the book, what happened on the 15th of November 1922?
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So the, the BBC The British Broadcasting Company, which was available in London and then on night number two in Manchester and Birmingham, they carried election results interspersed with, well actually, I'm going to say election results interspersed with music, it's actually the other way around, the way it was billed was Here's some music, and we will endeavor to provide you with some election results.
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This is, of course, the first time for people that would have had a chance to hear results with this kind of immediacy, because normally you'd either have to be at a count itself waiting for the dignitaries to go out to the balcony to deliver the result to the awaiting crowd, or most people would be waiting for the next day's newspaper.
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That opening night, when the programs ended with the announcement of the general election results, And the staff had to walk home at two o'clock in the morning because no taxi would make the journey through the impenetrable fog outside.
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That's Percy Edgar, the Birmingham station director, recalling the very first night of broadcasting in Birmingham, and the election results, which also came from Manchester and London.
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Well, where was John Reith in all this?
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Well, oddly, he was actually working for an electoral campaign.
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He thought his future was in politics at this point.
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He'd never heard of broadcasting, so he was secretary to Sir William Bull MP, and essentially his campaign manager, helping him be re elected in Hammersmith.
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John Reith also became secretary to a group of London Conservatives trying to tackle the aftermath of coalition.
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And Reith let them meet in his office as he snuck out for the interview to become the general manager Of the BBC.
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The BBC had someone else, as a competitor also giving out al results the same night.
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It was for a relatively select audience.
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The Marconi company, themselves had an agreement, to send the white star line ships and election bulletin for a passengers on board.
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My competitive spirit wants to know who won that competition to be the, the broadcaster back then unless you were, I'm not saying that the, the, the well to do would be the, the exclusive.
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patrons of the White Star Line ships, but I think for most people it would have been the BBC.
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I mean, the Daily Mirror certainly was quite effusive.
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They said that broadcasting was an aid to the excitement of election night, so it had something of an immediate impact.
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The Marconi company, as we know, sort of almost gave birth to the BBC in a way, but there was before that in World War One, actually, the Marconi company was sending out news to ships at sea, and that was thought of as a possibility before broadcasting happened, that it might catch on, that they could actually just keep on sending out news bulletins to ships.
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So the Marconi company, even back then, was sometimes in competition with themselves as they were developing new technology, still sending out news bulletins, but also developing this new broadcasting thing.
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So you have this oddity there.
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But we've loitered far too long on election result number one, haven't we?
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Shall we crash on to election result number two, which was only a year later.
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Next up we have Stanley Baldwin winning another conservative victory in 23.
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Nope.
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By this point, the BBC, still the British Broadcasting Company, even by this point, they had expanded far and wide.
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So they are now available in Aberdeen, in Birmingham, in Bournemouth, in Cardiff, in Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield.
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Very similar to the previous year.
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Again, the music, from the Savoy Hotel was taking, precedence and yes, every once in a while, you'd have a selection of election results.
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to hear.
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Simultaneous broadcasting was a big thing that year that summer that came in so that's like networking sending out the same broadcast from one station to others via landline so for big moments they did it for news and they did it for the occasional concert so a thing like an election was a great use of that I suppose.
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And another election a year later 1924! Yes indeed, the turn of Stanley Baldwin.
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By this point, you could hear the BBC in Belfast, in Edinburgh, in Hull, Leeds and Bradford, Liverpool, Nottingham, Plymouth and Stoke on Trent.
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This was the first election that would have party political broadcasts to an extent.
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Each leader of the three main parties had 20 minutes each on the radio.
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Baldwin's government was well known for extending the vote to women over 21 and that clearly had a long lasting policy impact.
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It eventually fell as a result of the Wall Street crash of 1929, and the depression that followed.
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So, as with many Prime Ministers, events, dear boy events, often bring Prime Ministers down as much as, their own actions.
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I've heard it said that Stanley Baldwin was, like, the first solid radio politician, that he had a way of conversing with the people.
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I think in the same way that in America, You can have the Al Jolson thing of you, you boomed very loudly to the back of the balcony, but the Bing Crosby thing was using the microphone to actually kind of almost whisper and speak up close and use nuance and stuff.
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That Stanley Baldwin was doing that was actually saying, look, you and me, you know, electorate, we're kind of, we're above all of this.
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You know, inviting and stuff, whereas his competitors were a bit more the town hall style, I guess.
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That's very interesting.
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I do think there's something about creating a certain sense of intimacy, isn't there?
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I mean, there's the fireside chats that presidents have used.
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Here's a speech by gramophone for this election, by the first female liberal MP, Margaret Wintringham.
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One outstanding result of the enfranchisement of women has been that party policies have had to become really practical or else we'll fail in their appeal to women who are numerically the larger half of the electorate.
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1929, the first Labour victory, Ramsey Macdonald.
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He is seen in a negative light by large proportions of the Labour party, primarily for not being seen as radical enough.
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He is very much seen as a traitor in parts of the Labour Party, mainly for forming a coalition with Stanley Baldwin and for creating a national coalition.
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Stanley Baldwin.
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Return a national government consisting of men of all parties.
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Men of all parties.
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Ramsay Macdonald.
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United in serving the national interest.
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And I hope most sincerely.
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This is a big one.
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So, first of all, there was, by now, an agreement with the newspapers because they were concerned about the BBC taking away their readership.
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So, even though radio was on until 4am on this occasion, with the results service.
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From that point onwards, there was no more radio news until 6pm following day.
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So that was effectively preserving the newspapers, you know, little window of opportunity.
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This is also under the new British Broadcasting Corporation.
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So they've got a more solid footing in society.
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Working out that actually you don't wanna upset the government too much.
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Don't look controversial broadcasts.
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We've also got quite an interesting little aside here.
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The Station five GB Daven Tree, which is an experimental station for the Midlands.
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They broadcast at 9:00 PM the very first instance of a post poll sat statistical election program, which called a Vote V.
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It was a baton by the name of Alfred Butler.
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He was a regular performer on the station, and supporting cast, and this of course was timed for when the polls had closed.
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Former BBC Dog's body, Arthur Phillips.
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My job was to bring the sheets of results down from the newsroom to the studio.
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I also ran to the Lions Corner House, Strand Corner House, to bring them supper boxes.
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There were about eight people who were engaged on this exercise.
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Some many, many years later, as a producer on a similar exercise doing a part of the job as one of a team of over 100 people.
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That was the development of how the elections were covered.
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On the night itself, in response to listeners telephone complaints of perceived bias from the on air announcers, Sir John Reith decided to interrupt proceedings and informed the newscasters that he himself would take over the task of reading the results on the air.
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Sir John Reith, in evening dress, sat in Studio 3 all night and read the results.
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Eric Dunstan, who was supposed to have been the duty announcer, got very angry because he wasn't allowed to do the job.
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Eric Dunstan informed the Guardian.
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that upon Director General Reif taking up the microphone, the telephone started ringing, listeners asking that the announcements should be clearer and slower.
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Dunstan relates information to Reif who refused to alter his delivery and continued as before.
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And I can remember a very angry scene taking place in the cubicle of the Variety studio because Sir John was going to read the results and Dunstan walked out and they were to darken the doors of Savoy Hill again.
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Dunstan then left.
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BBC Studio at Savoy Hill.
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And went on to an election night party where he talked, perhaps indiscreetly, of my dispute with the result that my resignation is prematurely recorded in today's press.
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We can only presume beverages were available at this election night party.
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So, and Reith then, at this point, he announced the end of the general strike a couple of years earlier.
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And it seemed he had this rather grand opinion of himself.
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To the degree that he thought he should be the one to announce these things on the air.
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It's what the people wanted.
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Always a scary moment when your boss steps in and says, do you know what?
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I think I'm gonna take this one on I'm just, I'm just imagining the, the storm on Twitter in 2024.
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The DG just, you know, walked in and said to James Ley, right?
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Oh, okay.
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I can, I can take it from here.
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So it flows over into the 1931.
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Then the next election after that.
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When they actually stated in the Radio Times, please do not ring up the BBC during the election broadcast, because there were so many the previous time, it seemed, that listeners needed to be told, they are busy, they cannot take your call while they are on air doing the election results.
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It's a manic time.
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1935, Stanley Baldwin.
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Any man or woman who abstains from voting at this crisis, In the nation's history is failing in his or her duty for the country.
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Again, conservative victory.
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Now, Baldwin, this is in the period of the thirties where Hitler was gaining power and Germany was re-arming, and Baldwin is.
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It's often condemned for failing to begin to rearm the UK when it had become very clear to many people that Nazi Germany was building up its armed forces.
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And that's the last election for 10 years then, isn't it?
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Yes.
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One noticeable aspect about this one, of course, nobody knew at the time that this was going to be our last election for a decade or so but Will Hay was appearing on his Saturday evening variety show and it was curtailed before it was due to finish.
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The BBC's director of variety explained in an official letter of apology It was necessary for the 10 p.
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m.
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News to start on time Because this was going to be followed by one of the campaign's party election broadcasts in this case It was gonna be funded by Neville Chamberlain it was important for that to take place on schedule as the corporation wished to offer its listeners the Opportunity at the inclusion of that broadcast to hear a talk by Sir Samuel Hoare live from Switzerland And that couldn't be delayed because not only was a telephone line to Geneva boot, but also so Samuel had a train to catch afterwards.
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Vital, vital these things.
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But, Wilhite did accept BBC's apology and said, we are friends again.
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Oh, very good.
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Very good.
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This is a time, the 30s, where Germany and particularly Hitler himself was pioneering techniques in radio in a very malignant way.
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And I wondered if there was any kind of looking across going on from Britain to what was happening in Germany in terms of kind of new media strategies.
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We had an episode on the podcast of the British Broadcasting Century about radio propaganda in World War II, and you could see the certain elements that were on both, all sides of the war really, you know, those things of trying to, undermine by dropping in fake news reports about pay rises in German factories that weren't existing, but just to make the other factories go on strike and, and the like.
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So, nefarious means in terms of their broadcasting sometimes.
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Now, this is the sixth election night special, but it's the final.
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Radio only election night special.
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Could you unpack that for us?
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Yes, so the election in 1945, with the Attlee Labour landslide, that was on the 5th of July.
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But of course, there were still many people from the UK who were still serving overseas.
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Normally, the count takes place the day after polling day.
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But in this election, it is held up until the forces ballot papers have been flown back from the various frontiers.
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So the counting was three weeks after polling day.
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And so in that instance there was no necessity for any kind of overnight count.
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So the results came in during the day.
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And instead of clearing the schedules, as they would normally have done for a night time programme, The BBC decided that they would stick largely with their existing pattern, so they had shows such as Worker's Playtime, Music While You Work, and Children's Hour, and then interspersed with that were the results as they gradually came in.
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And during that decade long wartime gap between general elections, well something else of note occurred.
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John Reith, who had left the BBC in 1938, was appointed Minister of Information, and to do this he had to become an MP himself in the Southampton constituency.
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The BBC.
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He was then elevated to the House of Lords soon after that, but surely that makes John Reith the only person who's ever worked on an electoral campaign in 1922, announced general election results on air, 1929, and then become an MP in 1940.
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Dimbleby MP has not happened yet.
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So I mean, it was very much expected that Winston Churchill would, would win in terms of the man who was pivotal in winning the Second World War and quite a surprise that He didn't.
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Atlee, who's considered quite a mild mannered person, won.
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But there was a sense in the country broadly that Churchill had won the war, but it was Labour who would win the peace, essentially, and build the new Britain, the new Jerusalem, as Atlee said.
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And you had huge policies announced, probably most memorably the birth of the NHS.
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The eighth broadcast election results came in 1950, 23rd of February, announcing Attlee as the leader once again.
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On the Home Service and Light Programme, you'd have authoritative voices like Stuart Hibbard and John Snag, decades into their BBC announcing career.
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But away from radio, something else at the BBC had been around for over a decade.
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Television.
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Yes, indeed.
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If you happen to live in London or the Midlands and you at the television service.
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Then you could have switched on on election night.
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The former D Day reporter was the host, a chap called Chester Wilmot.
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Hello BBC, this is Chester Wilmot.
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A lot of this is at the suggestion, behest, that just the overall energy, the force of nature that was Grace Wyndham Goldie.
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I became a producer in 48 in television.
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There was practically no politics or current affairs on television at all at that time.
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Talk, talk, talk.
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It wasn't visual, it was a great cry that went out at that time.
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And the first thing that put politics on the map in television was the general election of 1950.
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It was the first time it had ever been done.
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Grace Windham Goldie's main argument was that television itself should be a medium for the discussion of news and current affairs and should be utilised in a way that radio could not.
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So, for example, on the radio.
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An entire result, party, name, number of votes, repeat, repeat, repeat, and you have to read every single line of that.
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Whereas on television, you can have a caption with the key points emphasised and instantly you're able to convey all of that information.
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The caption cards at this time were written, they were painted onto cards that took about 45 seconds or so.
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That allowed the team of psephologists, one of whom was the late great David Butler, that allowed them the time for them to interpret that information because David Butler had pioneered the idea of swing in British elections.
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This argument basically that the UK, at least at that time, tended to vote in a relatively uniform manner.
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So from a handful of results you could then extrapolate what the likely outcome of the entire election was going to be.
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And at that time, black and white television for best part of 20 years, so there was a system of white, black and black and white diagonal stripe for liberal to indicate to the viewers on the board, the back of the set, what was happening.
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Richard Dimbleby was out on location, was reporting at Trafalgar Square, where of course they Big screen, crowds would turn out for election night at that time.
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And Grace Windham Gordy herself said there was something quite democratic about the politicians watching the results.
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come in at the same time as the rest of the general public.
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When I went up to television, they were just beginning to have interviews, not about politics, in the main, about how to make cakes or something, you know, that sort of thing.
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And they put, two chairs, one sitting side by side, two people.
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There was one camera.
00:19:42.222 --> 00:19:44.103
I didn't think this was very attractive to look at.
00:19:44.462 --> 00:19:51.067
So, I asked one of the producers of drama, he said, well, Why don't you try what we do in drama?
00:19:51.147 --> 00:19:52.798
We've got two people talking to another.
00:19:52.837 --> 00:19:55.278
We have two cameras, and we cross cut.
00:19:55.567 --> 00:19:57.077
And I say, well, we only have one camera.
00:19:58.798 --> 00:20:02.387
So he said, well, you should insist on having two cameras and try it.
00:20:02.397 --> 00:20:08.428
So, I suppose, with the added force of his help, I invented cross cutting for television interviewing.
00:20:08.478 --> 00:20:15.178
We'll next move on to 1951, which is a Conservative win, and we have Winston Churchill.
00:20:15.728 --> 00:20:21.748
coming back to office after his period in World War II, which he's much more well known for.
00:20:22.248 --> 00:20:27.647
The lesson from this administration, I think, for prime ministers is knowing when to retire.
00:20:27.778 --> 00:20:31.887
Prime ministers don't always know when the right time to go is.
00:20:31.958 --> 00:20:44.768
I mean, Margaret Thatcher very much is another example of a prime minister who really struggled to let go of power, even when her abilities had started to naturally and understandably recede.
00:20:44.857 --> 00:20:52.637
And this then, 1951, is the first televised party political broadcast that Lord Samuel of the Liberal Party, which wasn't good from what I gather.
00:20:53.032 --> 00:21:23.347
Rather scripted and sounded it forgetting it was television and that you could be seen so televisions come along But they didn't instantly know how best to use television You mentioned there but the the first one being the Liberal Party the following night was the Conservatives and then followed by Labour That conservative broadcast I would say there's a clip of that which is frequently misused in modern day documentaries because Anthony Eden is interviewed by Leslie Mitchell, later associated with the early days of ITV as well.
00:21:23.807 --> 00:21:28.248
And Mitchell is basically asking Eden, what would you like to speak about?
00:21:28.298 --> 00:21:29.807
Would you like to speak about home affairs?
00:21:29.807 --> 00:21:31.048
Would you like to speak about foreign affairs?
00:21:31.067 --> 00:21:33.117
Whatever, you know, whichever you prefer.
00:21:33.567 --> 00:21:40.557
And this is quite often cited as an example of deferential interviewing in television news.
00:21:40.728 --> 00:21:53.962
Now it's certainly the case that at this time Yes, television news interviewing is quite deferential, but it's misleading to use that particular clip because that is a party political broadcast, it's not actually a news report.
00:21:54.682 --> 00:22:08.593
And you also get that at this one, outside broadcasts from some actual counts for the first time, only three of them, I believe, and Salford West was the first of those, making Salford West the first televised declaration of an electoral win, Charles Royal of the Labour Party.
00:22:09.093 --> 00:22:09.702
So there you go.
00:22:09.833 --> 00:22:11.182
Richard Dimbleby on location.
00:22:11.182 --> 00:22:15.133
That was something he particularly got going on location reporting where it happened.
00:22:15.423 --> 00:22:26.093
The Salford Corporation Parks Department was ready for Dimbleby's arrival because they erected temporary guardrails to protect their flowerbeds from damage by the expected crowd.
00:22:26.093 --> 00:22:30.423
Because as soon as the crowd realized that Dimbleby was going to be there, they were of course going to try and get on the TV.
00:22:30.522 --> 00:22:35.373
I don't think they used the expression necessarily Vox Pops at that time, but as it turned out, that.
00:22:35.593 --> 00:22:43.462
Declaration came so early at 21 minutes past 10, so only six minutes after the BBC had started the programme, there were no such interviews.
00:22:43.772 --> 00:22:52.042
Had the drama of the election started to be televised, of when I think of elections now, you often think of the running about with ballot boxes and doing the count.
00:22:52.053 --> 00:22:52.768
Had that started to happen?
00:22:52.928 --> 00:22:55.627
sunk in by this time or is that rhythm still to come?
00:22:55.698 --> 00:23:05.577
Now sadly we don't have any footage from this or 1950 but it is something that you spot as early as our first surviving election, 1955.
00:23:05.617 --> 00:23:20.798
In the course of the next six or seven hours and in the 13 or 14 hours after that we're going to try to give you not only the story of the development of everything that's happened since voting finished and the course of the election and its results.
00:23:21.208 --> 00:23:24.897
But individual results just as fast as they come in to us.
00:23:24.907 --> 00:23:28.698
There's three hours of material which survives out of 17 hours.
00:23:29.157 --> 00:23:38.887
Richard Dimbleby acknowledges the existence of this horse race, as some people put it, between the constituencies which are vying to be first.
00:23:39.238 --> 00:23:42.887
Although he does add as a caveat that this is somewhat disputed.
00:23:43.012 --> 00:23:54.173
by the constituencies at that time because they certainly didn't want to give the impression that they were racing through the count and, you know, potentially, you know, miscounting, in order to then be the first one to declare.
00:23:54.323 --> 00:23:57.222
And we gained a new prime minister, Anthony Eden.
00:23:57.542 --> 00:24:02.742
Not a very well known prime minister, primarily known for what's called the Suez Crisis.
00:24:02.752 --> 00:24:14.928
So, following Egypt's decision to nationalise the Suez Canal, Britain, the main shareholder, France, and Israel invaded to essentially near universal condemnation.
00:24:15.038 --> 00:24:23.298
So there was an embarrassing climb down and Eden left the country for a holiday at the Jamaican home of James Bond author Ian Fleming.
00:24:23.448 --> 00:24:27.407
Perhaps a lesson about foreign policy and how it can bring a Prime Minister down.
00:24:27.448 --> 00:24:31.778
And that 1955 one, it's the last BBC solo one before ITV comes along.
00:24:32.182 --> 00:24:33.692
And it's huge because you get the swing o meter.
00:24:34.032 --> 00:24:38.752
It's hand operated, just a small chart, a nail and a wooden arrow to begin with and from there.
00:24:38.752 --> 00:24:46.093
Yeah, and it would remain hand operated all the way through to Robert McKenzie's final election in 1979.
00:24:46.093 --> 00:24:51.863
It was not until Peter Snow with the all new swing o meter in 92 that it would be fully electronic.
00:24:52.002 --> 00:24:57.692
See behind me here, this, it has on it lights to show places to which we are going.
00:24:58.268 --> 00:25:03.907
At the sides there on the left you'll see names of some of the places that we hope with television during this night and tomorrow to visit.
00:25:03.998 --> 00:25:07.377
Richard Dimbleby was the anchor for the first time.
00:25:07.538 --> 00:25:13.837
As you mentioned this is the first appearance obviously of the spingometer although it's not at this point a pivotal.
00:25:14.063 --> 00:25:17.792
part of the the operation and isn't coming from the main studio.
00:25:17.843 --> 00:25:27.913
It was a presenter from BBC West who was trying to explain the swing in the two Southampton constituencies and he displayed this pendulum device.
00:25:28.313 --> 00:25:37.073
David Butler then saw this and recommended that this was adopted for the national coverage and then of course became an established part of the setup from 59.
00:25:37.073 --> 00:25:43.042
In 1959 we have another Conservative victory, Harold Macmillan becoming Prime Minister.
00:25:43.482 --> 00:25:46.242
Often known for the quote, you've never had it so good.
00:25:46.353 --> 00:25:54.192
Although what's missed in that quotation is him saying, what is beginning to worry some of us is, is it too good to be true?
00:25:54.482 --> 00:25:58.393
It's true that there was a great deal of prosperity in Britain.
00:25:58.492 --> 00:26:00.823
There was a consumer goods revolution.
00:26:00.913 --> 00:26:07.492
Many people were living a lifestyle that their grandparents would have thought was very luxurious and very comfortable in many ways.
00:26:07.833 --> 00:26:21.538
However, The, is it too good to be true, I think is a really interesting point because the 70s rolled round and it turned out that a lot of British industry was not very efficient compared to international competitors.
00:26:21.698 --> 00:26:27.722
There were many issues with strikes in the 70s, there was a sense that Britain had been too slow to modernise.
00:26:27.972 --> 00:26:32.823
1959 also had the first female election correspondent in Polly Elwes.
00:26:32.962 --> 00:26:40.972
The BBC broadcast was a more relaxed affair than previously, thanks to Cliff Mitchell Moranco, bringing that informal vibe you got from the Tonight programme.
00:26:41.073 --> 00:26:44.393
But it was tricky for politicians to know how informal they should be.
00:26:44.772 --> 00:26:52.413
A couple of years earlier, Harold Macmillan had been advised to avoid jokes for a rather serious TV interview and he got some criticism for it.
00:26:52.482 --> 00:27:00.452
The Economist said that viewers were generally more used to seeing entertainers on screen, so what they wanted from their politicians were people who would try to amuse.
00:27:00.593 --> 00:27:07.972
So 1959 is the first time that the BBC has competition, of course, because independent television news had arrived in 55.
00:27:08.593 --> 00:27:10.333
And shortly before 1 a.
00:27:10.333 --> 00:27:10.613
m.
00:27:10.887 --> 00:27:19.978
The Labour leader, Hugh Gaitskell, was ready to concede the election quite early in the evening, and he did so whilst he was live on ITV's programme.
00:27:19.978 --> 00:27:32.252
He was speaking to an ITN reporter called Neville Clark, and this was the first such occasion in which a party leader conceded in this manner, and it was not universally popular.
00:27:32.323 --> 00:27:36.843
It was seen as a sort of American habit, so to speak, in presidential elections.
00:27:36.932 --> 00:27:44.452
But nevertheless, yeah, that gave ITV a scoop in an election which, which otherwise the BBC fairly comfortably won.
00:27:44.772 --> 00:27:48.383
Next we have another, I would say, change election.
00:27:48.587 --> 00:27:51.038
in 1964 Harold Wilson and the Labour Party.
00:27:51.198 --> 00:28:00.117
Harold Wilson's known for things like devaluing the pound and some of the economic troubles that were starting to brew in the UK.
00:28:00.627 --> 00:28:10.867
I think not well known enough is the amount of liberalising legislation that came in though at the time, which the Labour Party had a significant role in.
00:28:11.157 --> 00:28:21.018
So, The legalization of abortion, being one which has stood the test of time, still has wide support amongst most parts of the population.
00:28:21.178 --> 00:28:29.938
And that's often a sign of a policy well done when it stands the test of time and there's not much resistance to it and people almost treat it as a granted.
00:28:29.988 --> 00:28:34.248
The other would be abolishing the death penalty, which again has a great deal of support.
00:28:34.607 --> 00:28:38.607
And there's not been substantial efforts to really roll that back.
00:28:38.688 --> 00:28:43.077
But, not much activity in Downing Street, and there won't be much more until Mr.
00:28:43.077 --> 00:28:44.798
Wilson himself gets back here.
00:28:45.107 --> 00:28:46.407
Otherwise, things much the same.
00:28:47.228 --> 00:28:48.778
The constabularies still guard the gate.
00:28:48.817 --> 00:28:51.107
One of these constables here is called Twinkle Toes.
00:28:51.117 --> 00:28:51.768
What have I done with him?
00:28:52.387 --> 00:28:55.188
was a semi finalist in the cum dancing competition recently.
00:28:55.788 --> 00:28:57.627
Anyway, Michael Charlton in Downing Street.
00:28:57.667 --> 00:28:58.768
I'll tell you what you've done with him.
00:28:58.768 --> 00:29:00.678
You've upset him by discovering his secret.
00:29:00.718 --> 00:29:01.998
That's precisely what you've done.
00:29:02.048 --> 00:29:08.107
Bizarrely, Steptoe and Son made an appearance in this campaign because that was being repeated at the time at 8pm.
00:29:08.448 --> 00:29:17.428
Harold Wilson asked the BBC if they wouldn't mind nudging it till after the polls closed because he was worried about the impact that it would have on people.
00:29:17.498 --> 00:29:20.258
Because, of course, Labour voters tended to vote later in the day.
00:29:20.462 --> 00:29:21.833
following their work.
00:29:22.282 --> 00:29:26.673
And the BBC acquiesced and nudged Steptoe to nine o'clock.
00:29:26.742 --> 00:29:29.452
And Richard Dimbleby's final election.
00:29:29.823 --> 00:29:32.903
Also David Dimbleby's first as an outside broadcast reporter.
00:29:32.903 --> 00:29:38.452
ITN also introduced the permanent seat counter on the screen in this year 1964.
00:29:38.653 --> 00:29:42.222
The first time that you had the seat tally on the screen at all times.
00:29:42.403 --> 00:29:43.313
It's nine 29.
00:29:45.932 --> 00:30:12.212
66 was the first colour television coverage, although that's of course entirely misleading because if you were in the UK you couldn't see it, unless you happened to be a reporter for the Observer, in which case you might have been given access to the special production area and television centre, Studio 7, and you were able to see the output from ABC and NBC in America who were covering the British election using television.
00:30:13.292 --> 00:30:17.762
And there is the first result of the night, Hull City 1, Chelsea 3.
00:30:18.222 --> 00:30:36.758
A result I think that'll have more electoral repercussions in Hull, and they'll certainly have Then 1970 with the enormous BBC set and this one is hugely significant because this was the one that gave us the very first exit poll.
00:30:36.798 --> 00:30:39.968
BBC and Nuffield College identified Gravesend.
00:30:40.198 --> 00:30:51.258
as the UK's most typical constituency and the shock and result of their exit poll was that the Conservatives were slightly in the lead and this turned out to be spot on on the night.
00:30:51.387 --> 00:30:57.018
I've heard it said that 1970s when Harold Wilson started doing the walkabouts that he sort of copied from the Queen.
00:30:57.067 --> 00:31:02.667
An image so important, Harold Wilson actually preferred smoking cigars to pipes but would smoke a pipe.
00:31:03.077 --> 00:31:06.178
on TV to give that sense of a Labour politician.
00:31:06.577 --> 00:31:08.327
So it shows you the power of TV.
00:31:08.377 --> 00:31:15.698
And then also since by then being influenced by American television because the JFK versus Nixon one was quite exciting televisionally.
00:31:16.387 --> 00:31:18.988
So suddenly people getting a bit more gripped by election night specials.
00:31:19.127 --> 00:31:22.347
So who won in Harold Wilson versus Edward Heath?
00:31:22.468 --> 00:31:25.198
Edward Heath, another conservative victory.
00:31:25.653 --> 00:31:33.123
So the Heath government is mainly known for the number of strikes at the time and the sense that things were starting to fall apart.
00:31:33.242 --> 00:31:36.032
Many, many headlines about the number of strikes.
00:31:36.133 --> 00:31:41.732
It's worth pointing out Edward Heath took Britain into the European economic community as well.
00:31:41.843 --> 00:31:47.752
At the time it was primarily a economic union about trade, less about the idea of greater political union.
00:31:47.813 --> 00:31:55.528
Certainly part of Heath's legacy is us joining and there was failed attempts to join prior to to 1973.
00:31:56.208 --> 00:31:57.208
1974, two elections.
00:31:57.367 --> 00:31:58.958
Two elections in 74.
00:31:59.038 --> 00:32:05.077
The first one producing a minority of Labour government and the second with a Labour majority of three.
00:32:05.208 --> 00:32:11.528
Good evening and welcome to BBC television's coverage of this razor's edge election 74.
00:32:11.728 --> 00:32:26.377
Alistair Burnett had been the ITN anchor from 64, he swapped sides, he was on BBC during this time, and certainly the first election of 74 was all the way through to Monday, half past six, when we actually saw the new Prime Minister enter Downing Street.
00:32:26.708 --> 00:32:37.278
One Louis Byrne stood by mistake as a property development candidate, in fact he meant to be standing as an Irish civil rights candidate and he put his occupation down as a builder when he should have put what party he was standing for.
00:32:37.488 --> 00:32:44.587
So 1979 then, Thatcher, I've heard of her, but also this is David Dimbleby's first time as host, isn't it, I believe?
00:32:44.667 --> 00:32:53.137
It is indeed, yes, otherwise still familiar faces there, but barely touched on the principle sort of free BBC stall version at that time.
00:32:53.407 --> 00:33:07.883
David Butler mentioned before, Bob McKenzie, Robert McKenzie, who was Canadian professor politics and a regular BBC presenter and of course Robin Day who started in ITN and then switched to BBC in time for the 64 election.
00:33:08.042 --> 00:33:10.333
And so all three of those are in place.
00:33:10.383 --> 00:33:20.303
But of course David Dimbleby for the first time is the host and it's not a great night for the BBC because they inadvertently managed to miss the first two results.
00:33:20.597 --> 00:33:29.178
The following day, the whole business of Callaghan going to Buckingham Palace, followed by Thatcher, was taking a little bit longer than expected.
00:33:29.208 --> 00:33:39.107
And the BBC believed that they had enough time to break off for 25 minutes for play school, as would normally be the case, around about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
00:33:39.698 --> 00:33:45.998
And during that time, that's when Thatcher arrived, gave that famous speech, quoting Saint Francis of Assisi and so on.
00:33:46.498 --> 00:33:49.057
Yeah, so that was a bit of a misfire.
00:33:49.077 --> 00:33:54.057
On that occasion, 1983, that was Peter Snow's first appearance for the BBC.
00:33:54.057 --> 00:34:04.258
He had transferred from ITN in 1980, and I thought you'd quite appreciate this little anecdote from again, an election night, which did not throw up.
00:34:04.262 --> 00:34:09.882
Too many surprises apart from the defeat of Tony Ben, but I wanna put 20 to one, the SDP.
00:34:10.422 --> 00:34:17.632
The quartet of their prominent candidates, the original gang of four, they heard their declarations within 23 minutes of each other.
00:34:17.793 --> 00:34:28.932
So David Owen was returned, the defeat of Shirley Williams at Crosby, Roy Jenkins was elected at Hillhead and then Bill Rogers was unsuccessful at his new constituency in Stockton North.
00:34:29.333 --> 00:34:40.197
But Brian Redhead, who was presenting for Radio 4, wrote in the Radio Times, David Owen came on the line and then Anne Sloman, the programme editor, got Shirley Williams on.
00:34:40.938 --> 00:34:46.108
The two of them started talking and then on came Bill Rogers and finally Roy Jenkins.
00:34:46.418 --> 00:34:52.057
And suddenly we have the whole gang of four having a private conversation whilst the rest of us listened in.
00:34:52.478 --> 00:34:53.858
That is the wonder of radio.
00:34:55.268 --> 00:35:00.507
And it's nice to hear even at that late stage of radio having its own little triumph.
00:35:01.068 --> 00:35:04.797
Well good old radio for hanging in there because it gets pretty visual after that.
00:35:04.797 --> 00:35:06.557
You've got computer graphics and the like coming in.
00:35:07.382 --> 00:35:17.182
Yeah, we certainly had computers going all the way back to the 1950s, mainly to to drive the operations aspect of the program to compute the results and so on.
00:35:17.552 --> 00:35:20.242
We had to a degree electronic.
00:35:20.282 --> 00:35:25.498
We produced captions on the screen as early as 66, 74 we had.
00:35:25.657 --> 00:35:30.418
electronically produced maps and bar graphs and so on on the screen.
00:35:31.088 --> 00:35:36.788
But certainly by 87 everything is is going to be sort of style conscious, very slick.
00:35:36.847 --> 00:35:38.938
By this point people got home computers and so on.
00:35:38.938 --> 00:35:45.068
So in 87 the the big talking point was quite a difference of opinion between the two broadcasters.
00:35:45.458 --> 00:35:54.958
ITN BBC's central prediction, which was not an exit poll, was a Tory majority of 26.
00:35:55.597 --> 00:35:59.807
The actual result was the Tories coming back in with a majority of 102.
00:36:00.458 --> 00:36:13.583
So there's quite an odd sort of ambience about the early stages of both of those programmes, where they realise that one of them is going to have an ick on their face, come You know, sort of the early hours of the next morning.
00:36:13.702 --> 00:36:19.202
For the 1992 election that brought in John Major, the BBC moved to a bigger studio, TC1.
00:36:19.273 --> 00:36:20.452
Go big or go home.
00:36:20.793 --> 00:36:24.052
And there was some early online interaction as well.
00:36:24.132 --> 00:36:32.492
It was also Sky News first general election, although of course the young Rishi Sunak would not have been able to see that growing up, sadly, without Sky Television.
00:36:32.733 --> 00:36:33.302
Paul lad.
00:36:33.362 --> 00:36:33.693
Okay.
00:36:33.697 --> 00:36:42.362
If you're gonna play election night bingo at home, you will definitely hear politicians as soon as that exit poll's been released, say 1992.
00:36:42.652 --> 00:36:54.547
That was the occasion in which the exit polls predicted on Parliament and David Dimbleby spoke about this in A BBC interview in 1997, he said.
00:36:55.088 --> 00:37:01.057
As I said good evening at 5 to 10, above me was this huge picture of Neil Kinnock.
00:37:01.597 --> 00:37:05.237
And then the gallery said to me, forget that, wait till we give you more information.
00:37:05.998 --> 00:37:13.197
As 10pm approached, the exit poll data was revised and the graphic was replaced with images of both Kinnock and John Major.
00:37:13.907 --> 00:37:17.588
And of course, ultimately, John Major was returned with a working majority.
00:37:17.737 --> 00:37:20.498
So yeah, I'm not going to say take a shot every time you hear 1992.
00:37:20.557 --> 00:37:22.867
Could be a long night or a brief night if you pass out very quickly.
00:37:23.018 --> 00:37:24.128
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:37:24.197 --> 00:37:25.057
Irresponsible behaviour.
00:37:25.157 --> 00:37:28.257
92, then as well, I love the fact that the graphics get a bit crazier.
00:37:28.307 --> 00:37:32.038
You've got Peter Snow's swingometer with neon lights changing colour.
00:37:32.088 --> 00:37:35.577
And then 97, I mean, I start remembering Electric Nights around here.
00:37:35.577 --> 00:37:42.387
Jeremy Vine goes peak graphic with, I believe, a CGI John Major buried in an actual landslide caused by Blair.
00:37:42.387 --> 00:37:42.438
Yeah.
00:37:42.972 --> 00:37:45.492
They go a little bit far, I have a little bit of fun with it I suppose.
00:37:45.572 --> 00:38:00.463
That election really built in that idea of who's the big name that's gonna fall and with that election it was Michael Portillo who was a very well known conservative figure and who will be that person I wonder at the next election, who will be the big name.
00:38:00.623 --> 00:38:07.588
Of course the terrifying thing with the way television goes as well is Michael Portillo Big name that fell and now he's on television every night with a railway journey.
00:38:07.978 --> 00:38:09.398
So I decided to conserve.
00:38:09.398 --> 00:38:13.057
We're going to get Gov and Rob, you know, and it comes from Europe or something.
00:38:13.188 --> 00:38:18.507
2001's election brought in Blair for the second time and contained a bit more viewer involvement.
00:38:18.518 --> 00:38:26.277
Thanks to internet and emails, 2005 included a bit more elect attainment with guest spots throughout from the impressionist John Coleshaw.
00:38:26.378 --> 00:38:30.347
We seem to have more and more sort of outlandish visual presentations.
00:38:30.552 --> 00:38:40.452
Probably the most absurd instance of all, it wasn't general election, I believe it was local elections, was of course Jeremy Vine in his cowboy outfit, these tin cans.
00:38:40.452 --> 00:38:43.532
I think it was to illustrate how Mingus Campbell was doing.
00:38:43.722 --> 00:38:45.083
Some of them work, some of them don't.
00:38:45.202 --> 00:38:46.422
We even had Elvis once.
00:38:46.648 --> 00:38:49.347
2005 ITV, came up with Elvis.
00:38:49.677 --> 00:38:51.507
It was not actually, the king, of course.
00:38:51.617 --> 00:38:56.047
In 2010 came Television Centre's last election, and a confusing result.
00:38:56.097 --> 00:38:59.277
A hung parliament had to be explained, the coalition government coming in.
00:38:59.358 --> 00:39:01.648
This was a time of a boom in social media.
00:39:01.717 --> 00:39:05.077
So we were all getting involved, asking, what's going on?
00:39:05.268 --> 00:39:13.157
And of course, now that that's going to be a central part, there will be people looking at X, and looking at Facebook, even TikTok, to see how people are responding on the night.
00:39:13.478 --> 00:39:14.128
2015.
00:39:14.177 --> 00:39:16.297
The BBC's election night moved to Elstree.
00:39:16.398 --> 00:39:17.608
Yeah, near EastEnders.
00:39:17.757 --> 00:39:21.277
But they did use the broadcasting house Piazza for that big map of Britain.
00:39:21.418 --> 00:39:30.847
Sophie Raworth standing outside BBC with a giant map on the ground and like a whole army of people all ready to colour in the different bits and pieces.
00:39:30.927 --> 00:39:37.827
David Dimbleby, Emily Maitlis, Fiona Bruce, Andrew Neil, Sophie Raworth, Laura Koonsberg and Nick Robinson brought us the BBC's version.
00:39:37.902 --> 00:39:41.693
2017, David Dimbleby's 10th and final as host.
00:39:41.713 --> 00:39:50.043
When you have a career like David Dimbleby's, the change from the very start of his election broadcasts to the very end of it, how far it's all come.
00:39:50.152 --> 00:39:54.262
Virtual reality was even trialled, I think, in that one as well.
00:39:54.342 --> 00:40:03.237
It was quite a seismic moment when it would have been 2019, I guess, would have been the very first election night in Britain without a Dimbleby somewhere.
00:40:03.277 --> 00:40:07.838
Because of course, Jonathan Dimbleby hosted three election nights for ITV as well.
00:40:08.108 --> 00:40:15.257
I think Jeremy Paxman even said at one point that it was part of the British Constitution, the whole election nights have to be hosted by a Dimbleby.
00:40:15.358 --> 00:40:17.447
Maybe the Dimblebot could last forever.
00:40:17.737 --> 00:40:18.668
as an AI.
00:40:18.878 --> 00:40:23.318
2019, and the result that brought us Boris Johnson was of course a Brexit one.
00:40:23.447 --> 00:40:29.898
Perhaps because of this, some thought the election coverage on television characterised the front runners more in presidential terms.
00:40:29.938 --> 00:40:35.208
Johnson vs Corbyn, two extremes, perhaps then marginalising the smaller parties.
00:40:35.378 --> 00:40:41.677
Smaller parties don't make it to number 10, except during lockdown, if they smuggle in a karaoke machine.
00:40:41.748 --> 00:40:47.088
Which brings us to 2024, the 4th of July, election night still special.
00:40:47.342 --> 00:40:54.302
It will be interesting to see the presentation of Ive Myrie and Laura Kunzberg on BBC for the first time.
00:40:54.382 --> 00:40:59.893
ITV has Tom Bradby who's been in the chair since I believe 2015.
00:41:00.182 --> 00:41:02.103
Sky and there'll be others.
00:41:02.112 --> 00:41:04.623
There are election night programs all over the dial.
00:41:04.693 --> 00:41:12.143
GB News is a newcomer and even outlets such as say CNN International and Bloomberg for example.
00:41:12.193 --> 00:41:15.092
Al Jazeera has had UK election night coverage and so on.
00:41:15.422 --> 00:41:23.202
If you just go around the satellite receiver on the night, you probably spot faces on there, like not just politicians, but you probably spot presenters.
00:41:23.422 --> 00:41:24.932
Oh, I haven't seen them for years.
00:41:24.983 --> 00:41:27.012
Oh, wait, is that the channel they're on now?
00:41:27.632 --> 00:41:29.163
Everybody will be trying to outdo each other.
00:41:29.483 --> 00:41:32.222
Everybody will say they're gonna be first, they're gonna be fastest and so on.
00:41:32.222 --> 00:41:32.552
So on.
00:41:33.273 --> 00:41:40.322
BBC has traditionally said they wait for the returning officer to announce the result before it will appear on their seat counter.
00:41:40.847 --> 00:41:52.717
Other broadcasters tend to assess the situation on site, and if they can see that a particular result is very likely to go a certain way, they may add it to their counter first.
00:41:52.717 --> 00:41:59.668
So if you are switching between channels on the night and you see different sets of numbers on each channel, then that's that's why.
00:41:59.938 --> 00:42:03.333
Also, 4 into the mix as well, because they're quite important.
00:42:03.492 --> 00:42:08.253
having their own election night program, a lot more sort of crossovers with political podcasts.
00:42:08.972 --> 00:42:21.132
So channel four's election night program is effectively a sort of mashup of two or more political podcasts and also the presenters of various podcasts turning up on these different election night programs.
00:42:21.632 --> 00:42:29.762
I believe Sky News this year are going to be broadcasting from Sky Sports Monday Night Football 360 degree studio.
00:42:29.862 --> 00:42:36.572
I'm not entirely sure how that's going to be able to display more information than you can actually take in on your screen in one go.
00:42:36.983 --> 00:42:39.952
But yeah, every year comes up with something new.
00:42:40.143 --> 00:42:54.318
It is interesting that after all this time, no matter how many different graphics the broadcasters come up with, the swingometer and the battleground are still the central methods by which the broadcasters communicate the information.
00:42:54.588 --> 00:42:55.088
Wow.
00:42:55.257 --> 00:42:57.097
Well, I think we've somehow done it.
00:42:57.137 --> 00:43:09.208
28 elections in 102 years, and we look forward to seeing what the next century holds in the fragmentation, the changes in media, and the way that politicians will try and harness that and get their message across.
00:43:09.538 --> 00:43:18.068
I'm enjoying the fact that Sir Ed David seems to be enjoying that every single News bulletin, he's got a rollercoaster, you know, he's using the visual media.
00:43:18.068 --> 00:43:19.023
He makes me smile.
00:43:19.023 --> 00:43:21.027
He makes me smile every time he does.
00:43:21.427 --> 00:43:23.387
He's, he's getting, he's getting people talking about it.
00:43:23.577 --> 00:43:25.557
People keep on saying, did you see what you did yesterday?
00:43:25.588 --> 00:43:28.027
And they're talking about it, which I guess is the point.
00:43:28.248 --> 00:43:28.867
It's a visual thing.
00:43:28.867 --> 00:43:35.027
I mean, again, it's moved on from Harold Wilson's walkabout and David's log flume.
00:43:35.418 --> 00:43:36.498
We should mention them.
00:43:36.728 --> 00:43:41.827
that the modern British history podcast from Harry White is out there to be listened to in all its glory.
00:43:41.938 --> 00:43:46.257
Thanks so much Paul for organizing this, this great chat between the three of us.
00:43:46.527 --> 00:43:47.277
Delighted to.
00:43:47.478 --> 00:43:55.507
And the book as well, Swing! A Brief History of British General Election Night Broadcasting is by Gary Roger and is available online.
00:43:55.507 --> 00:43:56.128
We'll have a link below.
00:43:56.277 --> 00:43:57.358
in the show notes.
00:43:57.547 --> 00:43:58.797
And you have a podcast as well, don't you?
00:43:58.797 --> 00:43:59.188
Is that Right?
00:43:59.387 --> 00:44:10.137
yeah, completely different, topic to this but, so a couple of podcasts, sitcom club and also Jaffa Cakes for Proust, both currently on hiatus, but they do have a huge backlog of episodes.
00:44:10.137 --> 00:44:22.768
So if you're a big fan of British sitcoms, or if you're one of those people who watches programs on say rewind TV or talking pictures and you spot lots of faces, you see, ah, yes, there's a face that Jaffa Cakes for Proust for you.
00:44:23.157 --> 00:44:23.688
Excellent.
00:44:23.797 --> 00:44:27.507
Well, we should speak again about sitcoms because we want that on British Broadcasting Century Podcast.
00:44:27.538 --> 00:44:28.697
Certainly as well.
00:44:28.748 --> 00:44:39.038
Thank you all wanted to take a brief moment to sign off here and say a final thank you to Paul Corenza and Gary Roger for joining me On this podcast.
00:44:39.038 --> 00:44:43.347
It was a really interesting chat, and I hope you enjoyed listening to it
