Talk:BBC Third Programme

24 hour service
"it broadcasts 24 hours a day, following the useful technique commenced in Milan of repeating the day's output late at night."

1. BBC R3 does not "repeat the day's output late at night" (although five times a week it does repeat at midnight just one hour of programming first broadcast at noon a week earlier).

2. What has Milan got to do with it? -- Picapica 15:38, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

BBC4 documentary
Added information and corrections drawn from a recent BBC 4 documentary, Primary Sources in Delaware (which includes a brief history of the Third Programme in its notes) and BBC fact sheets. --Davidbrake 11:35, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Factual Accuracy
The fact that the article said that the BBC Third Programme broadcast on 909 MW is technically incorrect because the BBC used 90 8 MW before the November 23, 1978 frequency changes. 908 MW was used for the BBC Home Service in London, which became BBC Radio 4. This section on the frequency changes shows that BBC Radio 3 (formed from the Third Programme) actually used 647KHz before the changes. I suspect some other information in the section is incorrect too. --tgheretford (talk) 22:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Have removed the reference to simulcasting altogether as not particularly relevant to the Third programme as such – simultaneous AM and FM broadcasting of all three BBC services (Home, Light, and Third) began on the same date (2 May 1955) with the opening of the Wrotham VHF transmitter.
 * If you "suspect some other information in the section is incorrect too", if would be helpful if you indicated which, so that they can be investigated. In the meantime, I have also removed the "disputed" tag. -- Picapica 07:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

BBC4 comparable to Third programme?
This is tendentious in the extreme: Some of its high-minded mission has arguably been taken up on television by BBC Four, which fittingly commissioned and broadcast a documentary about the programme's rise and fall. BBC4 has much of the same populist outloook of the terrestrial channels. What have repeats of The Old Grey Whistle Test and Mark Lawson's sycophantic interviews with 'celebrities' on BBC4 got in common with the third network which was dedicated to talks from academics, classical theatre and concert music. Very little I would say, so I have chosen to cut it. Philip Cross 21:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear. A good choice, Philip. -- Picapica (talk) 08:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Intended Audience
One of the early advocates of the Third Programme decribed its intended audience as typically ' a maths master in Derby'. At school in Derby the late 50s my maths master, (Dick Marriott), was indeed a keen listener to the Third Programme, and I wonder it this was purely chance... Linuxlad (talk) 17:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)