1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979

9.38am-12.00 For Schools, Colleges

9.38 Science All Around (b/w) 10.00 Science Session (b/w) 10.23 Hwnt ac Yma (b/w) 10.45 You and Me 11.00-11.20 Maths Workshop: Stage 1 (b/w) 11.40-12.00 British Social History (b/w)

12.30pm Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan

12.55 News

1.00 Pebble Mill at One with Bob Langley, Marian Foster, David Seymour and Donny Macleod, including a chat with today's weatherman Michael Fish at 1.30

1.45 Fingerbobs

2.02 For Schools, Colleges 2.02 Watch 2.20 New Horizons: Modern Music (b/w)

2.45 The Afternoon Programme Take a new look at the afternoon with Alan Towers and Iris Chapple. Today's features: 2.55 Exercise the lazy way; 3.00 Dr David Devlin; 3.10 Fact or Fiction; 3.15 News headlines; 3.17 Dig This! 3.45 Shopping Baskey

3.58 What's On/Regional News

4.00 Play School

4.25 Mr Egbert Nosh A cartoon film

4.35 Jackanory The Adventures of Lester

4.50 Boss Cat

5.15 Roy Castle Beats Time

5.45 National News

6.00 Nationwide News and views in your region. Presented by Michael Barrett, Frank Bough, Bob Wellings and Sue Lawley

6.50 Doc Elliot US film series starring James Franciscus as a big city doctor seeking a new life in South Colorado

7.40 The Prince of Denmark starring Ronnie Corbett

8.10 The Lotus Eaters

9.00 Nine O'Clock News

9.30 The Family Week 5

10.00 Party Political Broadcast

10.15 Sportsnight with Frank Bough and Jimmy Hill

11.10 Midweek with Ludovic Kennedy

11.45 Late Night News

11.52-11.55 Weatherman

BBC WALES as above except: 4.50 Cadi Ha 5.10-5.15 Adventures of Parsley 6.50 Heddiw 7.10-7.40 Enoc Huws

BBC2 COLOUR

6.40am-7.30 Open University

11.00-11.25 Play School with Carol Chell, Stan Arnold

2.15pm-4.20 Racing from Ascot

5.25 Open University

7.05 Coral World

7.30 News Summary

7.35 Up Country Festival

8.10 Film Night Special Federico Fellini

8.45 Shoulder to Shoulder Six plays about the sufragette movement

10.00 Party Political Broadcast

10.15 Oh God! Oh Montreal!

11.05 News Extra

11.35-12.05am The Old Grey Whistle Test Bob Harris introduces Issac Guillery and Manfred Mann

5.00am as Radio 2

7.00 Noel Edmonds

9.00 Tony Blackburn

12.00 Johnnie Walker: incl 12.30pm Newsbeat

2.00pm David Hamilton

5.00 Stuart Henry College Date incl 5.30 Newsbeat

7.00 as Radio 2

10.00 Review The latest sounds with Anne Nightingale and Alan Black

12.00-2.02am as Radio 2

RADIO 2

5.00am Simon Bates

7.00 Terry Wogan

9.00 Pete Murray's Open House: incl 10.30 Waggoner's Walk NW

11.30 Jimmy Young

2.05pm Treble Chance - Twin Town Quiz

2.35 Tony Brandon: incl 4.15 Waggoner's Walk NW

5.00 Joe Henderson

6.45 Sports Desk

7.00 Bill Crozier: Music Al the Way

7.30 Ring-a-Song Requests with Ted Taylor

8.00 Country Club

10.00 Late Night Extra: John Dunn

12.00 Midnight Newsroom

12.05am Night Ride: Don Durbridge

2.00am-2.02 News summary

May 1974 highlights

Years before he played Timothy Lumsden in Sorry!, on this day Ronnie Corbett was starring in a less well-remembered sitcom. The Prince of Denmark was the sequel to Now Look Here, and saw Ronnie, playing himself, running a pub. His wife, Laura, was played by Rosemary Leach.

Afternoons saw an early incarnation of the daytime magazine format, The Afternoon Programme. Another innovation was what is generally acknowledged as the first 'docusoap' - The Family. Over 12 weeks the ups and downs of life of the Wilkins Family of Reading was captured on camera for BBC1. This was followed on this day by a Party Political Broadcast by the Labour Party - which lasted a whopping fifteen minutes, broadcast simultaneously on all three channels. 1974 may have been the year of two general elections, but this is inexcusable...

Doctor Who was the mainstay of Saturday evenings - Jon Pertwee was approaching the end of his reign by this point - while the Black and White Minstrel Show was still hanging on in there (amazingly it still had another four years to run). Meanwhile all Saturday morning viewers had to look forward to in these pre-Swap Shop days were the delights of Developments in Social Work and Chingachook and the Lone Hunter.

Other classics airing this week included the first in a new series of It's a Knockout on Fridays, and the inevitable Dad's Army repeat on Thursday. And over on Radio 1 you could hear Radio 5 on Saturday lunchtimes - Eric Idle's comedy series named after a station that would be lauched for real 16 years later.

And in Radio Times 27 April-3 May 1974 Price 5p

Margrethe, Queen of Denmark, was making a State Visit to Britain, and was featured on the cover of RT and in a The World About Us special (I always thought that was a world nature programme!). Radio 4's A Fair Day's Wage focused on lower paid workers, and RT visited two families whose weekly income was less than £40.

The winners of the Drama Awards launched in our previous Telly Year were announced in Nationwide. And one of RT's Letters correspondents praised all concerned for the best ever Eurovision Song Contest - that'll be the one where Abba won, then (right).

1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979

Radio Times Covers