THURSDAY 16 MARCH 1978
BBC1

6.40am-7.55 Open University

9.41-12.20 For Schools, Colleges 9.41 Merry-Go-Round 10.03 Scan 10.25 Mathshow 10.45 Other People's Children 11.00-11.20 Scene 11.30 Hyn o Fyd 11.55 Tecair Ltd

12.35pm On the Move A lively look at words and letters with Donald Gee, Bob Hoskins and Patricia Hayes

12.45 Midday News

1.00 Pebble Mill at One with Donny MacLeod, David Seymour, Marian Foster and Jan Leeming

1.45 Trumpton

2.00-2.15 You and Me

2.45 For Schools, Colleges Quatre Coins de la France

3.00 Children's Wardrobe

3.25 Racing from Cheltenham

3.53 Regional News (exc London)

3.55 Play School

4.20 Winsome Witch

4.25 Jackanory

4.40 Scooby Doo

5.00 John Craven's Newround

5.05 Blue Peter with John Noakes, Peter Purves, Lesley Judd

5.35 Ludwig

5.40 Evening News with Angela Rippon

5.55 Nationwide Look East, Look North, Midlands Today, Points West, South Today, Spotlight South West, Reporting Scotland, Wales Today, Scene Around Six followed at 6.20 by the scene Nationwide presented by Frank Bough, Sue Lawley, Valerie Singleton, John Stapleton and Bob Wellings

6.45 Tomorrow's World

7.10 Top of the Pops introduced by Peter Powell, featuring Legs and Co and the Top of the Pops Orchestra

7.40 The Good Life

8.10 Wings

9.00 Nine O'Clock News with Angela Rippon

9.25 Cannon

10.05 Breakaway Girls

11.00 Tonight featuring the Robin Day interview

11.40-11.45 Weatherman/Regional news

BBC SCOTLAND as above except: 11.30am-11.50 Living in Scotland 7.40-8.10 Current Account 11.43-12.08am Bonn Comraidh

BBC WALES as above except: 1.45pm-2.00 Barnaby 4.40 Crystal Tipps and Alistair 4.45-5.05 Tren Sgrech 6.20-6.45 Heddiw




BBC2

6.40am-7.55 Open University

11.00-11.25 Play School

2.15pm-4.35 Racing from Cheltenham

4.55 Open University

7.00 News on 2 Headlines

7.05 Your Move Brush up your reading and writing with Brian Redhead, Millicent Martin, Andrew Sachs

7.30 Newsday with Michael Charlton and Richard Kershaw

8.05 Gardeners' World

8.30 Living in the Past A reconstruction of life in an Ancient British farm

9.00 Top Table Table tennis coverage.

9.30 FILM: The Angel Levine

11.15 Late News on 2

11.25-12.15am Men of Ideas Creators of modern Western philosophy


RADIO 1

6.00am as Radio 2

7.00 Noel Edmonds

9.00 Simon Bates: featuring the Golden Hour

11.31 Paul Burnett incl 12.30pm Newsbeat

2.00pm Tony Blackburn

4.31 Dave Lee Travis: incl 5.30 Newsbeat

7.02 as Radio 2

10.02 John Peel

12.00-12.05am as Radio 2

RADIO 2

6.00am Ray Moore

7.30 Terry Wogan

10.00 Jimmy Young

12.15pm Waggoner's Walk

12.30 Pete Murray's Open House

2.00 David Hamilton

4.30 Waggoners' Walk

4.45 Sports Desk

4.47 Nick Page

6.45 Sports Desk

7.00 Country Club: presented by David Allan and Wally Whyton

9.00 Folkweave

9.55 Sports Desk

10.00 Two by Two

10.30 Star Sound Extra

11.00 Brian Matthew

12.00-12.05am Midnight Newsroom


March 1978 highlights

Tomorrow's World marked its 500th edition with a special in which William Woollard, Michael Rodd and Judith Hann speculated on everyday aspects of the far future. Top of the Pops featured its own orchestra, while on Blue Peter it was late period Noakes and Purves. Earlier in the day Bob Hoskins was teaching literacy in On the Move. BBC2 viewers could watch Living in the Past, which followed a year-long experiment in which a group of young people lived and worked on a replica of an Iron Age settlement.

It seems there was more news and current affairs on BBCtv in 1978 than there is today. In addition to the three, albeit shorter, main bulletins, there was also Nationwide and Tonight on BBC1, and Newsday and Late News on 2 on BBC2. The last three, however, had disappeared by the time Newsnight started, in 1980.

Radio 1 had managed to regain the five hours it lost in 1975; it still had to join up with Radio 2 for the evening programmes meaning shows like Country Club and Folkweave sitting incongorously alongside the likes of John Peel. The good news was that by November Radio 1 would be broadcasting its own output from early morning to midnight every day of the week; Mike Read and Andy Peebles would be the new recruits.

Noel Edmonds would shortly hand his breakfast show over to Dave Lee Travis, while Simon Bates had taken over the morning slot from Tony Blackburn in late 1977, complete with the Golden Hour. He would hold onto it until 1993.


And in Radio Times 11-17 March 1978 Price 13p

Tomorrow's World's 500th edition was the subject of the RT cover, and the back feature which sci-fi novelist Christopher Priest 'reflected' on the future of television - "the potential for television remains exciting" was the conclusion. Apparently we would all soon be wearing televisions on our fingers (left).

Also featured inside was BBC2's Play of the Week - Stargazy on Zummerdown (below), set in 23rd century England which had reverted to peaceable rural communities.

RT extolled the virtues of CEEFAX, already on air for a couple of years, and went into some depth about the workings behind it. There was already a warning about an impending change that November - Radios 1,2,3 and 4 would all change their AM frequencies, with R1 taking over R3's wavelength, while R4 took R2's 200khz LW frequency, and the shipping forecasts with it.

A Nationwide item extolling the virtues of imperial measurements prompted a teacher from Cardiff to write in and urge the programme to "wake up and "join the rest of us in the 20th century!" But Nationwide's own postbag received 16,000 letters in support of the mile and only 500 for the kilometre.

1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979

Radio Times Covers

Back to 1960s Forward to 1980s
 



TV & Radio Bits
acknowledges that the copyright on the images on this page belongs to the British Broadcasting Corporation. This site has no connection with any broadcaster