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BROADCASTS IN ENGLISH
At a café in Fécamp,
Fernand Le Grand and the Captain Leonardo F. Plugge have an important
meeting that leads to the creation of English broadcasts from Radio
Normandy
Portland Place in London,
home of the IBC (International Broadcasting Company), which is responsible for
English broadcasts from Radio Normandy.
In the south of England
one could see broadcasting vans, designed to test the signal strength of
Radio Normandy.
 Stephen
Williams,
English announcer
on Radio Normandy
from the beginnings. Then he gone to Radio Paris and started Radio
Luxembourg english service in 1933
(photo
1994)
Interview
of Stephen Williams
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Seen
on the British side,
the
advent of offshore radio (called "pirate radio" by the media)
that broadcast from ships or abandoned military forts since the 1960's,
don't represent the birth of commercial radio across the English Channel.
Since the 1930's, radio waves beamed from the continent, by private
transmitters, such as Poste Parisien, Radio Luxemburg or Radio Normandy on
behalf of the IBC (the International Broadcasting Company) an organisation
already considered illegal by the young British Broadcasting Corporation. |
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Captain
L. F. PLUGGE
Not
much is known about Captain Leonardo F. Plugge, except that he had been a
consulting engineer for London's underground railway, and that he
perfected the first radio - telephone for cars. He also "invented"
special glasses to watch television and took part in scientific research
with the Royal Air Force. Plugge was a Conservative MP for Rochester, to
the south of London. This seemingly eccentric man understood the
importance of commercial
radio (forbidden in his country) and conscious of the importance of a
potential market he created the International Broadcasting Company. On a
trip to France he met Fernand Le Grand and started negotiations to be able
to air broadcasts to his compatriots using the transmitter of Radio
Normandy, which became the first rival station to compete with the BBC:
"Several hundred thousand English listeners to the station, and more
than a quarter happily pay a shilling a year " A recent survey
organized in the streets of Fécamp, by an English regional radio station,
gave testimony to the Captain's passage in the city. Young Fécampois know
that their city sheltered, in the pre-war days, a powerful English
language radio station, comparable to our own Europe 1 or RTL.
As
for Captain Plugge, he retired to California and died discreetly, aged 92
years, in 1981.
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The first commercial broadcast to England
was in 1925
with the initiative of
Captain Plugge. He succeeded
to persuade Selfridge's - a British
department store -
to sponsor a "talk" on fashion, over the
airwaves of
Radio Paris, that broadcast from the Eiffel Tower. Only
three
people wrote to say that they had heard the broadcast,
that had not been
publicised.
The
first broadcasts of the IBC with the antenna of Radio Normandy, begin at
the end of 1931, during breaks in French broadcasts on 269.5 meters. In
March 1938, the wavelength changed to 212.6 m and later to 274 m (the
start of Louvetot). Most shows are recorded in London, no less than twenty
one British businesses patronize these programs of varied music.
Advertisements are forbidden beyond the English Channel. Money flows in.
Businesses spend £400,000 in 1935 and £1.7 million by 1938. Broadcasts
take place between midnight and one and at the weekend up to three in the
morning. The transmitter has a power of 500 W but stage amplifiers give it,
in reality, a power of 8 kW. Programmes - 15 minute long shows were
recorded, mainly on discs in London. There were also some live broadcasts.
HOURS OF TRANSMISSIONS
ENGLISH PROGRAMMES
Sundays
7.00 am to 11.45 am
1.30 pm to 7.30 pm
10.00 pm to 1.00 am
Weekdays
7.00 am to 11.30 am
2.00 pm to 6.00 pm
12.00 pm to 1.00 am
SOUND AIRCHECK
9 mn :
of an English broadcast
of Radio Normandy :
radio_normandy.rm |
can be seen here :