No News Tonight
The BBC sparks a colleague's original music; I'm humbled to have permission to share
Here’s the history behind the song I’ll share at the end of this short article. It was created by my friend and colleague Michael Williams, and this is how he introduced it to me…
On Friday, April 18, 1930, the BBCs scheduled evening radio news bulletin went out with an extraordinarily brief script: Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news. The bulletin is most solidly described in later BBC-linked and historian accounts as the 8:45 p.m. news slot, after which the BBC filled roughly 15 minutes with piano music before returning listeners to a relay of Wagners Parsifal from Queens Hall in London.
What makes it memorable is that it was not really nothing happened anywhere. It was more that, by the BBCs standards and under its limitations in 1930, there was nothing it judged ready or suitable to air. At the time, the BBC did not yet have a full news-gathering operation; historian Thomas Hajkowski notes that its news side was extremely small, with two editors and two sub-editors, compiling bulletins from agency feeds rather than from BBC reporters in the field.
Good Friday mattered too. In 1930, it was a much more strictly observed holiday in Britain, and the press environment was different. The BBC was still working in a system where newspapers and news agencies heavily constrained radio news, and the corporation was careful about what counted as truly bulletin-worthy. It aimed for direct, sober, non-sensational reports rather than padding airtime with small local mishaps.
So the deadpan humor comes from a very specific institutional culture: instead of saying, in modern fashion, here are some lighter items, or repeating rumor, filler, and chatter, the BBC more or less said: we have nothing worthy to tell you, so here is a piano. That was consistent with the early Reithian BBCs public-service mindset, which prized seriousness, restraint, and quality over quantity.
--
Mike Williams
Now, here’s the music: “No News Tonight.” Enjoy a news-free three minutes and nineteen seconds.
Thank you, Michael.
PS: I’m infinitely grateful for Mike's friendship. After all, it influenced me to dip a toe into the music AI pool, and there’s so much more there than I could have imagined a year ago. Here’s how it all began.
Love this