大象传媒

Bob Stanley chats to Brian about music radio in the early 1960s

We were only allowed to play 8 records each week

Brian Matthew

These days, it couldn't be easier to hear a new record - tap the name into a keyboard, and bingo. Back in the early sixties, it was a different matter. Over coffee and biscuits, Brian Matthew tells me about one of the major problems he had on his weekly 大象传媒 show, Saturday Club. "We were severely limited to the amount of records we could play on Saturday Club. Nobody believes this today, but there was a ration called 'needle time' which meant, although we were doing a two hour programme, we were only allowed to play eight records each week. All the rest had to be our own recordings, or done live in the studio. So that's why even , on their first appearance, were live on a Saturday morning in a little complex of studios. I sat on one floor doing links, and then you went down a flight of stairs to a bigger studio which is where the group or band were doing their numbers. I'd go down to interview them and then have to run back upstairs to my studio. Terrible rigmarole! But we could only play a very limited number of actual records."

This strange state of affairs was largely due to the musicians union, the MU, as Brian explains: "There was a joint agreement between the 大象传媒, the MU and the record companies - who weren't too pleased about it, but they had to go along with it. You'd do as much as possible promoting their records, but with, well, rather limited resources," he laughs.

Understandably, pop pickers looked elsewhere - and the only 'elsewhere' in the early sixties was Radio Luxembourg. Broadcasting from a huge transmitter in the Duchy, the signal would maddeningly fade in and out, which meant you might hear a terrific new single but have no idea what it was. It was a commercial station, and the programmes were sponsored by different record companies. "I'd been on staff at the 大象传媒 for six years" Brian remembers, "three years as an announcer and then I became a producer. By that time I'd started doing Saturday Club and the 大象传媒 said they were quite content for me to go on as a producer as long as I kept presenting Saturday Club. So I was doing both jobs for three years, at the end of which I was getting all sorts of offers, including from Radio Luxemburg, but wasn't allowed to do any of them as a 大象传媒 member of staff, understandably. I remember there was a lot of real heart-searching - should I go freelance? Trembling, I gave it a go. The 大象传媒 wanted me to continue presenting Saturday Club - and Easybeat on Sunday - and as a freelancer they immediately started paying me four times as much as I'd received for presenting them as part of my work as a 大象传媒 announcer!"

Brian did eight shows a week on Radio Luxemburg, playing records on the famous pink Pye label - home to ,, and later and . "I went with Pye because I knew Alan Freeman - not the disc jockey, but the assistant director of the company, a lovely guy. I was doing programmes that consisted entirely of Pye records. They had their own man in as producer who gave me a list and said 'this is what you're playing today'! I did two half hour programmes and the rest were 15 minute programmes - can you imagine? - which were in fact thirteen minute programmes to allow for the commercial space as well. Even so, they were quite successful. Gone with the wind now, of course, but people did listen to Luxemburg."

We suffered because at its peak Saturday Club show had got an audience of 28 million... I mean it's unthinkable.

Brian Matthew

The MU-restricted 大象传媒 and the sponsored shows on Luxemburg were all the British public had, until Radio Caroline started the pirate radio boom in 1964. Even now, the mention of the pirate stations causes Brian to frown. "The pirates came along and did it illegally. People never accept that. They always say 'what a wonderful job the pirates did'. We were green with envy! They just said 'to hell with the rules and regulations, we're going to play records all the time'. They were three miles off shore, so they were beyond the reach of the law. I never got approached by them, oddly enough. I don't think I'd have gone, anyway. I was a bit of a rebel. I appreciated the Beeb's problems. We suffered because at its peak Saturday Club show had got an audience of 28 million... I mean it's unthinkable. Nobody ever dreams of that sort of figure for radio these