Radio Times

Radio Times is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manager of the British Broadcasting Company, it was the world's first broadcast listings magazine. In September 2023 it became the first broadcast listings magazine to reach and then pass its centenary.
It was published entirely in-house by BBC Magazines from 8 January 1937 until 16 August 2011, when the division was merged into Immediate Media Company. On 12 January 2017, Immediate Media was bought by the German media group Hubert Burda.
The magazine is published on Tuesdays and carries listings for the week from Saturday to Friday. Originally, listings ran from Sunday to Saturday: the changeover meant 8 October 1960 was listed twice, in successive issues. Since Christmas 1969, a 14-day double-duration issue has been published each December containing schedules for two weeks of programmes. Originally this covered Christmas Day and New Year's Day, but on some occasions those have each appeared in separate editions due to the two-week period ending just before the New Year.

History and profile

The Radio Times was first issued on 28 September 1923 for the price of 2d, carrying details of programmes for six BBC wireless stations ; newspapers at the time boycotted radio listings fearing that increased listenership might decrease their sales. It included a message to "listeners" by the BBC's chairman, Lord Pease. Initially, The Radio Times was a combined enterprise between the British Broadcasting Company and publishers George Newnes Ltd within the latter typeset, printed and distributed the magazine. In 1925, the BBC assumed full editorial control, but printing and distribution could not begin in-house until 1937. The Radio Times established a reputation for using leading writers and illustrators, and the covers from the special editions are now collectable design classics. By 26 September 1926, the narrow columns of BBC's wireless programme schedules were broken up by the insertion of a photograph or two – relevant to or depicting subjects of the broadcasts. On 1 May 1927, The Radio Times produced an experimental Braille edition under the auspices of the National Institute for the Blind with its success led to a regular weekly version publication costing one penny. From 15 January 1933, the introduction of a weekly crossword puzzle heralded as popular as ever within the publication making its first-ever appearance.
From 5 January 1934, the three-column programme pages were expanded to include a fourth column with the BBC's television programmes given a new section layout, and The Radio Times announced a regular series of "experimental television transmissions by the Baird process" for half an hour every night at 11.00pm. The launch of the first regular 405-line television service by the BBC was reflected with television listings in The Radio Times London edition of 23 October 1936. Thus, Radio Times became the first-ever television listings magazine in the world. Initially, only two pages in each edition were devoted to television, which ran from Monday to Saturday and remained off-air on Sundays.
After 14 years, from issue 693, that definitive article word "The" was no longer used on the masthead within the magazine, and the publication became simply known as Radio Times; they also published a lavish photogravure supplement in the same issue. Prior to the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the BBC radio listings provided a National Programme for the whole of the United Kingdom, and the Regional Programme appeared in seven different versions each with a combination of various transmitters respectively before the two stations merged into a single service, and included three pages of television listings. When Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 and television broadcasting ceased, radio listings continued with a reduced service. From 23 June 1944, the Allied Expeditionary Forces edition carried details of all the programmes for the Home Service and General Forces Programme. The same year, paper rationing meant editions were only 20 pages of tiny print on thin paper. Radio Times expanded with regional editions introduced from 29 July 1945, and television resumed once again on 7 June 1946. On 4 March 1948, the weekend listing schedules for three BBC radio networks were doubled together with daytime and evening sections in additional four pages a week, as well as weekday billings also used by the same layout which adds 12 extra pages of more articles and detailed programmes bringing up to 40 on 1 July 1949.
From 18 January 1953, the television listing schedules, which had been in the back of the magazine, were placed alongside daily radio schedules. On 17 February 1957, television listings were moved to a separate section at the front with radio listings relegated to the back; a day's listings were sometimes spread over up to three double-page spreads mixed with advertisements, but this format was phased out when independent publishers were allowed to publish television schedules. The new layout was structured thusly:

Station name	Successor

From 8 October 1960, BBC television and radio schedules were re-integrated; the programmes included a new "pick of the week" with a single third page for previews, before each day's listings; these came before the two pages of television and the four pages of radio. A new bolder masthead was designed by Abram Games and containing the words "BBC TV and Sound" on the left side, was introduced with this revamp; it became one of the shortest-used designs in the magazine's history. On 4 August 1962, when Radio Times was again revamped, the masthead was replaced with one incorporating the words in the Clarendon typeface; while the main change was the reduction of BBC radio schedules for three stations to a double-page spread brought down into size, the magazine now generally had between 60 and 68 pages, as compared to the relaunched format from two years earlier, which contained only 52 pages. From 30 September 1967, Radio Times introduced the all-new colour pages of the magazine's feature sections, including "star stories", Percy Thrower's gardening, Zena Skinner's cookery, Bill Hartley's motoring and Jeffery Boswall's birdwatching, as well as "Round and About" with up-to-the-minute stories in both television and radio from around the world. At the same time, the four new BBC radio stations were launched within the schedule listing pages. The layouts of programme page headings have now restyled as well as the three radio pages had been rearranged with schedule billings for Radio 1 and Radio 2 on the first, Radio 3 on the second and Radio 4 on the third. In future weeks, it would boast another revised masthead although the same typeface simply a bold symbol "BBC TV" to the right of the title – within the price, date and regional edition being overprinted in letterpress at the top of the front page, but the letters section and the crossword were placed inside the back page.
On 6 September 1969, Radio Times was given another radical makeover, as they switched the date format from "month-day-year" to "day-month-year" and ceased carrying cigarette advertisements after 46 years. The new format inside with the first three pages were devoted to an abbreviated listing of all the week's BBC television and radio programmes in a simple condensed form, within major changes were noticeable on the feature pages as well as the colour ones were spread out to accompany rather than the centre page. The look of the magazine initially became far more restrained, with less white space between columns and headings. More significantly, the lifestyle section and the crossword were completely dropped, and the highlights section was scrapped. The front cover was surrounded by a black border and italicised its masthead, in an attempt to emphasize the "R" for radio and "T" for television. From 5 July 1975, the magazine was given a refreshed layout which consisted of horizontal black bars from top to bottom with the familiar darker-shaded look; by this time, the BBC's television schedules included a "colour" annotation that was dropped eight years later, as well as programmes in black and white were never indicated with the exception of feature films originally made for the cinema. Another major change occurred on 18 November 1978, in response to wavelength changes that enabled Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to receive their own separate domestic services in addition to Radio 4, the arrival of these services on the pages forced all BBC radio stations into a six-column grid. On 30 August 1980, Radio Times developed a new double-page spread of Robert Ottaway's highlights from the week ahead, often used for both BBC radio and television programmes. The regular inside back page section for younger listeners and viewers featured content from Newsround presenter John Craven and a selection of new puzzles created by the television producer Clive Doig, such as the trackword, as well as backstage stories and a comic strip of Peter Lord's Morph at the bottom of the page.
Between March and December 1983, Radio Times had severe industrial disputes when the British Printing & Communications Corporation and the union SOGAT 82 joined forces, and production was affected due to printing problems:

23 March: The BBC regrets that the printers for next week's edition are in short supply, but copies will be available in the South West, the West of England, North East, and many parts of South and the North of England.
7 April: The BBC expects copies of the magazine will be available in Scotland, Northern Ireland and North of England from 16 April, following the print workers in East Kilbride and near Bristol returning to work.
4 June: The general election special issue with the combined England edition, as well as the three constituent nations across throughout the country was used for one week only.
16 July: The magazine was finally returned to the fully-regionalised form with complete details of all BBC television channels and radio stations for national, regional and local.
10 December: The magazine was printed and published as the single national edition once again, due to a print workers' strike from the previous week.

On 23 June 1984, the radio listings were redesigned again to improve their legibility and paving the way for a new printing technology. That same year, web-offset printing was used for the first time, meaning the magazine became brighter and more colourful. Newsprint and sheets of gravure gave way to black ink and white paper, Helvetica replaced Franklin Gothic for a larger character style, and the television listings were also redesigned including the new film icon and the "today at a glance" sidebar on the far right of pages were added. Starting from 11 October 1986, the new family viewing policy warns BBC Television is not allowed to broadcast programmes before 9.00pm which it believed to be unsuitable for children. On 5 September 1987, Radio Times introduces an innovative title called "Upfront This Week" devoting the first three pages of illustrated snippets to provide the latest programme highlights from all BBC television and radio networks. On 19 November 1988, Radio Times launched a new weekly back page section called "My Kind of Day", which was devoted to the latest star interviews with various special guests. On 25 March 1989, a general overhaul of page layout and design took place, with a major makeover for the programme schedules and the channel headings being visible in greater clarity; BBC One and BBC Two were once again separated, with the return of the late 1950s/early 1960s layout – television at the front and radio at the back. The week's Radio 1 schedules occupied a single page, followed by Radio 2, then several pages of Radio 3 and Radio 4, and finally the BBC Local Radio listings; regional features, which had absent from the English editions since the late 1960s, resumed with a localised page. Later on 25 November of that year, the radio schedules were restored to two pages for each day; some of the English editions now had daily editorial features on radio as well.
From 2 June 1990, the entire magazine was published in colour for the first time, and another layout began usage; the day's listings began with a single page of highlights that included "at a glance", followed by the double-page spreads of BBC television channels and BBC radio stations, now enlivened with colour logos at the top of the pages. This layout only lasted for six months, when a new refreshed format debuted in the Christmas edition ; while the programme listing pages were largely the same, the colour-coded days of the week were now at the top of the page headings. On 16 February 1991, the deregulation of television listings began, and Radio Times started to cover all services that include ITV, Channel 4 and satellite networks, an alphabetical list of the commercial radio stations available with the frequency and a two or three-word summary of that station's output which was added to the local radio page. Full complete listings of the four main channels and satellite began on Friday 1 March.
Prior to deregulation, the five weekly listings magazines were as follows:

Radio Times carried the programme schedule listings for BBC radio and television channels, including the new Radio 5 launched on 27 August 1990.
The ITV-published magazine TV Times, launched on 22 September 1955, carried programme listings for ITV, and Channel 4 from 2 November 1982. The regional ITV companies produced their own listings magazines – Look Westward, The Viewer, TV Guide, TV Post, Television Weekly, Wales TV/''Teledu Cymru and TV World – were published before TV Times went national on 21 September 1968.
Sbec, a pull-out weekly listings supplement which is distributed free with the Wales edition of TV Times, containing the full details of S4C's schedules in both Welsh and English, as well as Channel 4's programmes were also included.
Rupert Murdoch's new publication TV Guide launches on 19 March 1989, carried the 28 pages of Astra satellite television listings for various Sky channels, MTV, RTL Véronique, Screensport, Children's Channel, Lifestyle with a highlights of BBC, ITV and Channel 4 listings.
In the Republic of Ireland, Raidió Teilifís Éireann published the RTÉ Guide launched on 1 December 1961, it offered detailed programme listings for RTÉ's television and radio channels. From 8 January 1977, they switched from tabloid format to a compact A4-sized magazine and also changes from monochrome into colour, while listings were carried for Radio Luxembourg, AFN and BBC Northern Ireland were later dropped on 8 July 1966, but only the RTÉ programme schedules up until 13 April 1991.

Today, both publications carry listings for all major terrestrial, cable and satellite television channels in the United Kingdom and following deregulation, new listings magazines such as Mirror Group's TV First, IPC Media's What's on TV, Bauer Media Group's TV Quick and Hamfield Publications' TV Plus began to be published; several newspapers were also allowed to print television schedules for the entire forthcoming week on a Saturday, where previously they had only been able to list each day's programmes in that edition.
With another major refresh on 31 August 1991, the four extra pages of satellite television listings and one page of the highlights section were scrapped and replaced by a number of ten satellite networks from top to bottom; the daytime schedules for BBC One and BBC Two flanked the satellite listings on the left, with ITV, Channel 4 and "at a glance" on the right; the main evening schedules for terrestrial television channels retained the same layout. On 5 September 1992, the daytime listings were slightly tweaked, ITV's programme schedules were now sandwiched between BBC Two and Channel 4 within the centre pages, and there were now two pages of satellite and cable channels for each category making up six pages of television listings every day:
Category section Channels
Movies
Sport
News
Entertainment
Cable

During 1993, Radio Times used several layouts were altered throughout the year:
1 January: The VideoPlus+ number codes to cover all the terrestrial and satellite television channels were added for the first time, which allowed viewers with suitably equipped video recorders to entering the programme's number would ensure to set its timer from taping it.
2 January: The new "film premiere" icon appears for terrestrial television listings, replacing the phrase "first showing on network television".
30 April: The second national commercial station Virgin 1215 is launched and appears in the local radio listings page.
5 June: The radio schedules are given a radical makeover, with highlights on the right includes day-by-day Virgin 1215, Classic FM and BBC World Service added to each page; the local radio listings now incorporated the weekly frequency guide, and the television schedule pages saw the introduction of the year of production shown in brackets for film titles.
19 June: The categories for satellite television listings were completely rearranged, with the news section includes Sky One moving to the left and the sport section moving to the right, also adding BSkyB's film classifications at the bottom corner on the left page.
24 July: Two former cable-only services appeared in the entertainment section following their launch on satellite, and the cable television listings were relegated to the bottom, meaning the sport section was no longer used.
1 September: With the introduction of Sky Multichannels package on the new Astra 1C system, three new services launched as well as CMT Europe; all were added to the previously unused entertainment category within the sport section is returned and Sky One's schedules has moved back to the right page.
11 September: The satellite television listings is given a redesigned layout, starting with the new movie planner section ; other changes included the new factual section that replaced the news category, and the sport section moves back to the right page once again.
18 September: The British versions of TNT and Cartoon Network were added to the movie planner and entertainment sections respectively.
25 September: The daytime listings were changed again, with "at a glance" now on the right page and advertisements occupying the left page. The channel heading logos were reduced into smaller horizontal bars on columns adjacent to those used for terrestrial television listings, a new children's television section was added, and the cable listings including Super Channel were moved to the left side next to the movie planner section.
1 October: The British version of QVC launches, appearing at the bottom corner in the entertainment section.
Radio Times design was refreshed on 3 September 1994, the television listings now had the day's name written vertically, beginning with the daytime section including "today's choices", followed by the main evening's schedules in an original four-column grid, as well as the highlights section, and the movie planner is now on the right page. On 22 March 1997, the programme pages in the television section were restyled often include smaller headings and more billing type with several changes in this layout between the narrower columns for Channel 5 schedules on the right and regional variations on the left page. Yet another major revamp took place on 25 September 1999, where all the pages now proceeded in a particular order, starting with the letters section, followed by film reviews, then the seven-day programme guide with six pages for television and two pages for radio, as well as the single-page crossword and local radio listings with frequencies, and finally the "My Kind of Day" for the back page which was preceded by classified advertisements. The programme page headings were returned to being inside a coloured block, and the primetime television listings went from two narrow columns to one wide column. The warning phrase "contains strong language", used for BBC television programmes from 9.00pm during the hours of watershed broadcasting restrictions was also implemented at this time, lasting until 2009. This layout lasted until shortly before Easter on 13 April 2001, which saw the new masthead title with the BBC's corporate typeface Gill Sans, while the programme pages with eight pages of television listings reverted to having the day running across the top of the page horizontally, and the satellite listings expanded into four pages, while the double-page movie planner section for 18 different film channels was retained.
On 26 November 2002, NTL and BBC Worldwide announced a major new agreement that would offer an exclusive, tailored edition of Radio Times to every NTL customer across the United Kingdom every week, to be delivered directly to subscribers' homes. The special NTL edition of Radio Times replaced the monthly Cable Guide magazine, which had been published from September 1986 to December 2002. It contained programme information for channels carried by NTL, including all terrestrial services. Front Row's pay-per-view movies and events were also included. Subscribers were offered the first four weekly issues of the new title for the same price as the existing monthly magazine, delivered free to homes in time for the first programme week of 4 January 2003; both companies actively and jointly marketed the new edition.
From 30 October 2004, the programme schedule pages were revamped again, with the regional variations now at the bottom of the daytime section, as well as the same spread on the five main channels; BBC Three, BBC Four, ITV2, ITV3 and More4 now appeared in digital/cable section on the right page, with a children's section in a single page on the left. The category sections for digital, satellite and cable listings also returned after a four-year absence:
On 22 May 2007, two extra pages of television listings per day were added as part of a slight tweak in the publication's format, bringing it up to ten pages of listings per day in total, or five double-page spreads: one page of highlights with daytime listings and regional variations, followed by two pages of evening's terrestrial television listings, then six pages of listings for digital, satellite and cable channels. Digital radio listings were integrated into the main radio pages, and three new pages of sport, lifestyle and music were added. By 11 April 2009, the digital, satellite and cable schedules were reshuffled preceded by "today's choices" on the left side, and the sport section moves to the right side as well as the films section having also started on the left within the centre pages horizontally. 10 April 2010 saw major changes as Radio Times went through an overhaul, with two pages of the latest reviews and highlights somewhat akin to the TV Times, while the daytime listings moved onto the evening section having the full day's output for the five main channels on one double-page spread, other changes saw listings start at 5.00pm rather than 6.30pm, the addition of electronic program guide numbers into the channel headers, and the inclusion of director and year of production details for films throughout the day. For the London 2012 Olympics, the listings for three terrestrial channels temporarily moved onto the right page and Channel 5 was moved to the next page on the left, as to provide enough space for BBC One and BBC Three/BBC Four as the Olympic broadcasters, which also reminded viewers of using both the red button and online for BBC channels with additional broadcasts.
Following the closure of the BBC Three channel on 20 February 2016, Radio Times started to include BBC Four in the main channels section, with Channel 5 being relegated to the Freeview section. On 24 March 2020, to coincide with the launch of Disney+, Radio Times introduced two new sections for podcasts and six pages devoted to streaming and various catch-up services. That same year, the rearrangement of Freeview channel listings with Sky Arts moves to the second page, also the three columns in the satellite and cable pages now have on the left side with children's television section, as well as the six film services were also included. During the Tokyo Olympics on 20 July 2021, Radio Times declared its special bumper issue with 212 pages that include 16-day listings of the BBC's coverage and a comprehensive easy-to-use guide preceded by two pages with "pick of the action" chosen by various pundits, although this layout becoming slightly different whether listings started on the left page with two columns for BBC One as a dedicated Olympic broadcaster and BBC Two in the single column, as well as ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Four schedules placed on the right page. From 25 January 2022, the Freeview schedules have altered once again starting with the return of BBC Three, whether ITV2's listings now occupies at the bottom, as well as the seven remaining services were also placed in the second and third pages respectively.
From 4 October 2022, Radio Times'' refreshed its format:

The "this week" section which was devoted to the best entertainment reviews with all latest news over the next seven days, as well as other features including the grapevine, ten questions, viewpoint and "on the box" as fronted by broadcaster Jane Garvey.
The expanded pages of the streaming section provides the best of catch-up services for television and films so you want to watch every day.
The double-page "highlights" section has given a newly refreshed layout dedicated to the most comprehensive guide of programmes throughout the week ahead with "also on today", "live sport" and "film of the day" also included.
The third page of the Freeview section includes some of its children's television schedules sandwiched between the top two channels. Food Network and Blaze were added as requested by readers and the number of movie channels was reduced from 18 to eight within the centre pages, with the latest film reviews which also embedded into each day's listings occupied by the right hand side.
The last two pages of satellite/cable schedules followed by the sport section was incorporated into a "quick and easy" planner with various times by using individual live coverage of other events, as well as channel numbers were listed in the bottom right corner. Three weeks later, the mainstream sport listings were reverted to any channel rather than popular events.

On 4 April 2023, the radio pages had a major refresh to provide listings by adding three services, as well as a restyled podcasts section to improve pick of the best audio on demand.