1944 in British radio

This is a list of events from British radio in 1944.

Events

27 February – BBC General Forces Programme replaces the Forces Programme to provide entertainment suitable for American forces in Britain as well as British military and civilian audiences, including a large number of American network and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation programmes. It is also broadcast on shortwave frequencies of the BBC Overseas Service.

6 March – The BBC transmits a ballad opera, The Man Who Went to War, concerning an African American soldier, written by Langston Hughes and D. G. Bridson and featuring Paul Robeson.
10 March? – Lifting of marriage bar on women working at the BBC.

April – The American Broadcasting Station in Europe is established, transmitting from Britain in English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, and Norwegian to resistance movements in mainland Europe.

June – Utility radio, produced by the radio industry under government direction, is available for sale.
5 June – One day before D-Day, the BBC transmits coded messages from Britain to underground resistance fighters in France warning that the invasion of mainland Europe is about to begin.
6 June – D-Day: The 08:00 BBC news bulletin announces that paratroops have landed in France. 17 BBC reporters are embedded with the invasion forces. At 09:32 John Snagge begins reading announcements of the landings "on the northern coast of France", broadcasting over BBC transmitters to home and overseas audiences and introducing a message from General Eisenhower. At 13:00, the first eyewitness report, recorded on a bomber, is broadcast. The King speaks to the nation at 21:00. Reports of the landings are carried by around 725 of the 914 broadcasting stations in the United States.

28 July – Sir Henry Wood, aged 75, conducts his last Promenade Concert, evacuated to the Corn Exchange, Bedford, three weeks before his death.

28 August – The BBC begins broadcasting in Dutch to Indonesia and in French to southeast Asia.

17–26 September – Battle of Arnhem: BBC correspondents Guy Byam and Stanley Maxted report from the scene.
20 September – Yehudi Menuhin gives the first British performance of Béla Bartók's Violin Concerto from Bedford, in the opening concert of a tour with the B.B.C. Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.

31 December – A live BBC broadcast of a service from St Paul's Cathedral, London, includes the background sound of a V-2 rocket.

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