The Goons gone, Dad’s Army retired – The ABC must be mad!
That was the response of many Radio National listeners when the station
decided to take the classic BBC Radio comedies off the schedule in
January this year.
There was an overwhelming listener campaign for their reinstatement, no
doubt led by legions of Goons fans.
The BBC Radio comedies had been broadcast each day on Radio National
since 1999 at 5.30am, and “The Goons” had been on the station at other
timeslots for far longer.
Radio National estimated that the series had
been repeated close to fifty times since its first broadcast in the 1950s,
and given that the most popular programs were available on CD and Tape
from ABC Enterprises, it was possible that the audience were in fact
tiring of the classic comedies.
However, the opposite was true.
New listeners were discovering this rich
archive of British comedy and the existing fans still wanted to wake up
to a laugh every morning. They would not be silenced until the programs
returned.
Radio National’s Program Manager Gordon
Taylor told radioinfo: “We had an incredible and heartfelt listener response… The fans of these programs
told us that we were missing out on an intergenerational ‘hand-over’.
They were sitting down with their kids – and sometimes grandkids – to listen
to these programs. Many told us how they had started listening to Radio
National because of ‘The Goons’.
Overall we felt that these and other
arguments put forward were valid and outweighed the reasons we had for
taking the comedies off the schedule.”
The change has been also motivated by the desire of Radio National to
promote the home-grown comedy “The Quiz” with Jane Clifton.
Radio National now presents
the best of both worlds. “The Goons” will resume at 5.30am on Fridays,
whilst “The Quiz” will remain on Sundays at 3.30am, and the other classic
BBC comedies return to the weekday 5.30am timeslots.
Beginning Monday, 31 May, the full schedule will be:
Monday “Dad’s Army”,
Tuesday “Hancock’s Half-Hour”,
Wednesday “My Music”,
Thursday “My Word”,
Friday “The Goons”.
On Sunday at 5.30am, Radio National will continue to broadcast a mixture
of more recent BBC Radio comedies including “The Mark Steel Revolution”
until September, followed by “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”.