Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg).
The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earliest commercial radio stations broadcasting to both the United Kingdom and Ireland. The station provided a way to circumvent British legislation which until 1973 gave the BBC a monopoly of radio broadcasting on UK territory and prohibited all forms of advertising over the domestic radio spectrum. It boasted the most powerful privately owned transmitter in Europe (200 kW, broadcasting on long wave). In the late 1930s, and again in the 1950s and 1960s, it had large audiences across Britain and Ireland with its programmes of popular entertainment, and was an important forerunner of pirate radio and modern commercial radio in Britain.
Radio Luxembourg's parent company, RTL Group, continued its involvement in broadcasts to a UK audience with the British TV channel then known as Five until it was sold in July 2010.
Background and origins
In 1922, the British government awarded a monopoly broadcasting licence to the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), whose shares were owned by British and American electrical companies. Although in theory the BBC could have sold sponsored airtime, its income instead came from selling its own brand of licensed radio receivers manufactured by its owners. This arrangement lasted until 1927, when the broadcasting licence of the original BBC was allowed to expire. The assets of the former commercial company were then sold to a new non-commercial British Broadcasting Corporation, which operated under a UK charter from the Crown.
With no possibility of commercial broadcasting available from inside the UK, Leonard Plugge – a former British Royal Air Force captain and entrepreneur (and from 1935 Conservative Party member of parliament) – set up his own International Broadcasting Company, which leased time on transmitters in continental Europe and resold it as sponsored English-language programming aimed at audiences in Britain and Ireland. Because Plugge successfully demonstrated that state monopolies such as that of the BBC could be broken, other parties became attracted to the idea of creating a new commercial radio station specifically for this purpose.
Formation of Radio Luxembourg In 1924, radio technician François Anen built a 100-watt transmitter in his home in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Within two years, the government of Luxembourg had reached an agreement to subsidize the station to broadcast military music concerts and plays performed in the Luxembourgish language. With its central location in western Europe, the Grand Duchy was an ideal site for broadcasts to many nations, including the United Kingdom.
Anen became inspired by the activities of Captain Plugge, who was using transmitters licensed in other countries to broadcast English-language radio programmes to Britain and Ireland, whose governments had not licensed commercial broadcasting. On 11 May 1929, he brought together a group of mainly French entrepreneurs to form the Luxembourg Society for Radio Studies (La Société Luxembourgeoise d'Études Radiophoniques) as a pressure group to force the Luxembourg government to issue them a commercial broadcasting licence.Walter B. Emery, National and International Systems of Broadcasting, Michigan State University Press, 1969, pp.158–159.Mike Leonard, From International Waters Forest Press, Heswall, 1996, p.5.
On 19 December 1930, the government of Luxembourg passed a law awarding a monopoly licence to operate a commercial radio broadcasting franchise from the Grand Duchy. On 29 December, this licence was awarded to the Society, which in turn created the Luxembourg Broadcasting Company (Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion) to be identified on the air as Radio Luxembourg.
From 1932, German journalist Eva Siewert worked as editor-in-chief and trilingual head spokeswoman for the station in German, English and French. In May 1932, Radio Luxembourg began high-powered test transmissions aimed directly at Britain and Ireland (which proved, inadvertently, to be the first radio modification of the ionosphere). The reaction of the British government was hostile, as the long-wave band used for these tests carried a signal far superior to anything previously received from outside the country. The British government accused Radio Luxembourg of "pirating" the various wavelengths it was testing.
The station had planned to start regular broadcasts on 4 June 1933, but the complaints caused Radio Luxembourg to keep shifting its wavelength. The English service was leased to Radio Publicity (London) Ltd in the United Kingdom. In December 1933, Radio Publicity (London) transferred 23-year-old Stephen Williams from directing its English-language programmes transmitted over Radio Paris to become the first manager of the English-language service of Radio Luxembourg. Programmes in English debuted on 3 December 1933 under the editorial guidance of Stephen Williams.
On 1 January 1934, a new international agreement, the Lucerne Convention or European Wavelength Plan (which the Luxembourg government refused to sign) came into effect, and shortly afterwards Radio Luxembourg started a regular schedule of English-language transmissions from 8:15 am to midnight on Sundays, and at various times during the rest of the week. In February, Radio Luxembourg began broadcasting in both French and English on a new 200 kW transmitter on 230 kHz (1304 metres) in the long-wave band.
First commercial era
1933–1939 In the years from 1933 to 1939, the English-language service of Radio Luxembourg gained a large audience in the UK and other European countries, with sponsored programming aired from noon until midnight on Sundays and at various times during the rest of the week. Around 11% of Britons listened to it during the week, preferring Luxembourg's light music and variety programmes to the BBC. Up to half of Britons did so before 10:15 am on weekdays when the BBC did not broadcast, and at weekends when it followed the Reith Sunday schedule of only serious and religious programmes.
The BBC and successive British governments continued to oppose the competition, citing Radio Luxembourg's use of an unauthorised frequency. As the station could not use General Post Office telephone lines to broadcast from London, many English-language programmes were recorded there and flown to Luxembourg. Despite the opposition, by 1938 many British companies advertised on Radio Luxembourg and fellow European broadcaster Radio Normandy. The stations thus exposed millions of Britons and British companies to commercial broadcasting, which contributed to the creation of the commercial ITV during the 1950s.
Programmes These were some of the shows heard in 1935 as listed in the 3 May edition of Radio Pictorial: Sundays: 12:00 noon – Musical Voyage – with Bobbie Comber and Reginald Purdell and sponsored by Halls Wine. 12:15 pm – Do-Do Broadcasts – sponsored medication programme "for asthma suffers". 12:30 pm – Golden Hour of Music – the Irish Concert recorded programme 1:00 pm – Zam-Buk Broadcast – the latest dance music sponsored by a medication "for cuts, burns and bruises." 1:30 pm – Littlewoods Broadcast – sponsored by a football pools coupon company in Liverpool. 2:00 pm – English service ends until 2:30 pm. 2:30 pm – Vernon's All-Star Variety Concert – gramophone records presented by a football pools company. 5:30 pm – League of Ovaltineys – presented by the makers of Ovaltine. (The anthem of this children's show was still being celebrated by fan sites in 2007. Another version of the Ovaltineys programming began again after World War II on Radio Luxembourg over its 208 wavelength.)
Presenters Stephen Williams – the first station manager, who resumed his duties with the English service when the station resumed commercial English-language transmissions after World War II Gerald Carnes Charles Maxwell (1936) John BewleyRadio Pictorial, July 1938. S.P. Ogden-Smith (Chief Announcer in 1938)
World War II
1940–1945 On 21 September 1939, the Luxembourg government closed the radio station to protect the neutrality of the country during World War II. The station and its transmitters were taken over by the invading German forces in 1940, and were used for English-language propaganda broadcasts by William Joyce (known as Lord Haw-Haw) and others. When Allied forces took over Luxembourg in September 1944, the station was transferred to US Army control on 9 September 1944 and used for black propaganda purposes for the remainder of the war (see Radio 1212).
Second commercial era
1946–1956 When the Allied armed forces vacated the Radio Luxembourg premises at the close of World War II, the English-language service attempted to restart transmissions to the United Kingdom as a full-time commercial radio station using the European long-wave band, once more under the management of Stephen Williams.
During the war, Geoffrey Everitt served his last few months in Luxembourg, and this led to his employment by Stephen Williams on 21 June 1946. Williams soon left the station and Everitt found himself in charge of a small on-air staff of three women and one man. Because of the dearth of advertising available in English, the early morning shows on long wave quickly disappeared and made way for French-language programmes. More contractions followed and this led to cuts in more of the morning, afternoon and evening programming in English.
By the start of the 1950s, sponsorship of the English service had begun to grow once more, and while initially some of the English-language programmes continued via Radio Luxembourg I on long wave, a second but less powerful wavelength was opened up as Radio Luxembourg II on medium wave. The English programmes of Radio Luxembourg moved on 2 July 1951, from long wave to the medium wave frequency of 208 metres (1439 kHz). The controversy over the station's broadcasting frequencies had been resolved with the 1948 Copenhagen plan (which this time the Luxembourg government did sign), which allocated the country two high-power frequencies, one on long wave and the other on medium wave. Eventually all English programming moved to medium wave, with long wave being dedicated to French programmes, while German, Dutch and other languages used medium wave during the daytime.
In 1955, Hal Lewis who was better known at Hawaiian radio station KPOA as J. Akuhead Pupule (and later became the morning DJ at KGMB in Honolulu, Hawaii, during 1965), offered to buy the morning time from 6 am to 9 am for his own show on 208, but his offer was rejected. The 208 signal could be received satisfactorily in the United Kingdom only after dark, when it was able to strike the ionosphere and bounce back to the British Isles.
It was this second wavelength that eventually became dedicated to English-language programming after 6 pm under the slogan of "208 – Your station of the stars", referring to the entertainers heard on the station.
Programmes
These were some of the shows heard in March 1952 as reported in the 208 programme schedule: Sundays: 6:15 pm – Ovaltiney's Concert Party – a version of the popular show that was originally broadcast before World War II over the original Radio Luxembourg long-wave station. 9:15 pm – Leslie Welch – "the famous Memory Man". 10:45 pm – The Answer Man – "anything you want to know" (Sundays, Wednesdays, Fridays). 11.00 PM – Top Twenty – introduced by Pete Murray. Mondays: 7:15 pm – The Adventures of Dan Dare, "Pilot of the future" – fifteen-minute serial heard Monday-to-Friday and featuring the voice of Noel Johnson who also played the part of Dick Barton on BBC radio. This serial began on 2 July 1951 and ran for five years. 9:30 pm – Perry Mason, serial heard from Monday to Friday.