On the air – Paul Clements on the BBC’s centenary year in Northern Ireland

In days of yore there was the wireless, then along came television, and now news and entertainment are instantly accessible from a device in the palm of your hand. The streaming services of today’s digital revolution are a long way from those early years, and a century on from the first broadcast made from 2BE, the call sign allotted to the new Belfast BBC station.
Based in a former linen warehouse, the cramped studio opened on September 15th, 1924, and was plagued with technical difficulties. The first voice heard on the airwaves – even though the signal was weak and speakers then were not so “smart” – was that of theatrical director, writer, and broadcasting pioneer Tyrone Guthrie. 2BE became part of the newly established British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation), growing quickly in influence and popularity.
By 1937 the organisation started to build Broadcasting House in Belfast which was completed four years later at an estimated cost of £250,000. The television service arrived in Northern Ireland in 1953, reaching a bigger audience with the opening of a new transmitter at Divis. However, the technology did not allow pictures to be beamed directly to the network in London and television film in the 1950s was flown over on an afternoon flight.
Local services expanded in the 1970s with the launch of Radio Ulster and Radio Foyle, which have survived to meet the demands of a fast-changing news agenda.
One hundred years on, the “digital-first” era is a strategy to appeal to a customer-centric culture, taking precedence over what some journalists used to refer to as the “senior service” of radio, never mind the television channels now producing a tyranny of endless choice. For those who like to explore the past, BBC Rewind is an online archive showcasing grainy black-and-white TV reports and snapshots of coverage from the 1960s and 1970s.
The corporation’s centenary year in the north has been tinged with reflective sadness at the deaths of a number of broadcasting stalwarts who were at the heart of the organisation’s output. The former reporter, news editor and head of programmes Cecil Taylor was born in 1927 when the station was in its infancy, and died in January, aged 96. Taylor, who had been a journalist with The Irish Times in the early 1950s, joined the corporation in 1955, quickly realising that it was failing in its purpose of serving the whole community. One of the elements of his work of which he was most proud, was bringing the first Gaelic football matches to the BBC in the early 1960s. Taylor met the general secretary of the GAA in Dublin who asked him how much they would have to pay, to which he responded: “We would be paying you.”
The longevity of the broadcasting careers of Walter Love, who died in January aged 88, and John Bennett, who passed away in July, aged 82, were remarkable. With their well-modulated tones, they were fixtures on the airwaves for decades, while the internet brought their programmes to an even wider audience. Both were inducted into the IMRO Music Radio Awards Hall of Fame for services to Irish radio broadcasting.
Bennett was given a standing ovation last year at the ceremony – known as the Irish Radio Oscars – in Kilkenny. In 1965 he joined the BBC to present music, sport, and current affairs programmes. Fifty years ago, in 1974, he co-launched Radio Ulster with Gloria Hunniford, later becoming known as “The President” of a weekend music programme, The Sunday Club, over which he presided with the broadcaster’s gift of intimacy for 44 years.
Walter Love had an even longer pedigree since his career spanned 70 years. He started as a staff announcer, later becoming a studio manager, then a television newsreader and presenter of general programmes. An acknowledged expert on jazz, he was noted for his humorous and easy-going approach to interviews.
The third long-serving broadcaster whose death at 91 was announced in March, was the peerless journalist David Capper, a trailblazer of television news reporting. Throughout the darkest days of the Troubles, Capper was Radio 4′s Ireland correspondent, covering news stories such as Bloody Sunday in 1972; later that same year, he reported on what became known as the Bloody Friday bomb explosions in Belfast.
Capper’s work also had an international dimension. In 1982 he was sent to Buenos Aires to cover the conflict between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Because he held an Irish passport, he was one of the few BBC journalists allowed into the country.
Back in Belfast, on one occasion, when his camera crew was faced with a loyalist mob, who were not always enthusiasts of the BBC, he responded by assuring them: “Vee come from Vest Germany und vee are on your side.” Members of the public frequently telephoned the corporation’s busy Belfast newsroom protesting about perceived unfairness or bias in coverage. Capper would listen politely and then say, “Before I can progress your complaint, I need to take a note of your television licence number?” This query would then be followed by an immediate click at the other end.