Week in Media - The Wonder of Wireless and more..

The 40th anniversary of UK commercial radio would have pretty much passed me by without noticing  had it not been for local-ish resident Torin Douglas's presentation last night at the University of West London.
All the stations were local and the speech based LBC started first with Capital a music station a week later, I remember listening to little Nicky Horne as I did (or didn't) do my homework - it was tremendously thrilling to hear an entire LP side without a break (Tubular Bells for example).
Torin related how much of a radio guy he was and that he listened to the launch shortly after getting married- he went on to relate how the competition had helped the BBC improve performance and service.
There was some history too with what was news to me that Bush House had been used for making Commercial radio programmes before the war for J Walter Thompson (advertising group).

The presentation was slick as you'd expect from a seasoned professional with some nice examples of radio history (sadly not including Barrats, Barrats come to Barrats Barrats Liquor Mart )and it was pointed out that radio has continued in the last 40 years to evolve and meet the challenges of TV and new media very effectively.
In other media news- I gather that  newish BBC  DG Tony Hall is refocusing on high end stuff for the corporation and also adding a +1 to the BBC's main TV channel - additions to iPlayer too.