Radio Newsreel

{{Short description|Former news programme produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation}}

{{Use British English|date=April 2021}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}}

{{Infobox radio show

| other_names = The News and Radio Newsreel

| format = News magazine

| runtime = 15 mins

| country = United Kingdom

| language = English

| home_station = {{ubl|BBC General Forces Programme|BBC Light Programme|BBC Home Service|BBC Radio 4|BBC World Service|}}

| syndicates = {{ubl|Mutual Broadcasting System|Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|Public Radio International}}

| creator = Norman Collins

| first_aired = {{start date|1940|df=y}}

| last_aired = {{end date|1988|10|31|df=y}}

| opentheme = "Imperial Echoes" by Arnold Safroni{{Cite web|url=http://www.imagedissectors.com/article/91|title=Audio Identities: Radio news themes|date=2010-09-01|access-date=2010-09-04|website=Image Dissectors|last=Weedon|first=Robert|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100922192434/http://www.imagedissectors.com/article/91|archive-date=2010-09-22|url-status=dead}}

}}

Radio Newsreel is a news programme produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation between 1940 and 1988. The 15-minute programme, which was eventually broadcast four times a day on the BBC World Service with a daily broadcast on the BBC Light Programme (as part of The News and Radio Newsreel), was composed of recorded dispatches from correspondents in the field, live and recorded actuality and such other features, borrowed from the format of the cinema newsreel, as interviews with people currently in the news.{{Cite book|title=Journalism: A Critical History |last=Conboy |first=Martin |publisher=SAGE Publishing |location=London |year=2004 |isbn=0-7619-4100-2 |pages=195 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K62tSZJgZyIC}}

An example of the programme's early content is the coverage of Captain George Robinson's "Adventure in a lifeboat adrift in the Atlantic", broadcast on 19 August 1942.{{Cite book|title=The Merchant Seamen's War |last=Lane |first=Tony |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=1990 |isbn=0-7190-2397-1|pages=64 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8IDoAAAAIAAJ}}

The programme was broadcast in the United Kingdom at 19:00 each evening; transmission to North America was scheduled for 03:30 GMT, (22:30 EST, 19:30 PST).

Radio Newsreel was created by Norman Collins, who had worked as the head of the BBC General Forces Programme and the BBC Light Programme.{{Cite book|title=The Intimate Screen: Early British Television Drama |last=Jacobs |first=Jason |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-19-874233-9|pages=82 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x6a-SR5j0C8C}} It was originally broadcast on the Overseas Service of the BBC, and also broadcast by the BBC General Forces Programme from 27 February 1944 until 28 July 1945.{{Cite magazine|title=News Headlines: Radio Newsreel|date=1945-07-28|magazine=Radio Times|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/generalforces/1945-07-28#at-15.00|page=19|access-date=2021-04-27|publisher=BBC Magazines|issue=1138|edition=National|volume=88}} It returned to domestic airwaves on 3 November 1947, when it started to be broadcast by the BBC Light Programme,{{Cite magazine|title=News and Radio Newsreel|date=1947-10-31|magazine=Radio Times|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/light/1947-11-03#at-19.00|page=7|access-date=2021-04-27|publisher=BBC Magazines|issue=1255|edition=Television|volume=97}}{{Cite book|title=The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom| volume=V: 1955–1974 - Competition|last=Briggs|first=Asa|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1995|isbn=0-19-215964-X|page=62|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FmdixwEACAAJ}} later transferring to the BBC Home Service and eventually BBC Radio 4. In 1953, the programme had a domestic audience of over 4 million listeners.{{Cite book|title=The B.B.C. from Within |last=Simon |first=Earnest Dawn |publisher=V. Gollancz|year=1953 |location=London |page=81}} On 3 April 1970, it was broadcast in the UK for the last time,{{Cite magazine|title=The News and Radio Newsreel|date=1970-03-28|magazine=Radio Times|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/radio4/fm/1970-04-03#at-18.00|page=51|access-date=2021-04-27|publisher=BBC Magazines|issue=2420|edition=London & South East|volume=186}} but it continued to be broadcast on the BBC World Service for a further 18 years, with the final edition on 31 October 1988.{{Cite magazine|title=Radio Newsreel|date=1988-09-29|magazine=Radio Times|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcws/1988-10-31#at-15.00|page=91|access-date=2021-04-30|publisher=BBC Magazines|issue=3383|edition=London|volume=259}}

Outside the United Kingdom, the programme was also carried weekly on the Mutual Broadcasting System in the United States during World War II{{Cite book|title=Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American "Neutrality" in World War II |last=Cull |first=Nicholas John |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1995 |isbn=0-19-511150-8 |page=86 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=03QzDwAAQBAJ}} and as part of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio programming in the 1970s. Until 1987, American Public Radio also carried the programme in the United States.{{Cite book|title=The Known World of Broadcast News: International News and the Electronic Media |last1=Wallis|first1=Roger |last2=Baran |first2=Stanley J |publisher=Routledge |year=1990 |isbn=0-415-03604-6 |location=London |page=41 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=af-JAgAAQBAJ}}