Blog: Revolutionary programme
The BBC sent three specially-designed transmission trucks to France, capable of transmitting back to receiving stations on the south coast of England and, in some circumstances, directly to London.
But for a couple of months after D-Day the BBC worked from what was surely one of the most extraordinary radio studios ever.
The BBC requisitioned parts of the ancient Creully Chateau near Bayeux, convenient for the neighbouring chateau where General Bernard Montgomery was based.
Creully’s 14th century stone tower became home to Frank Gillard and others as they filed for ‘War Report’, the new nightly programme of radio reportage and analysis. Today Creully houses a little museum recalling the BBC presence there.
Though it lasted less than a year, ‘War Report’ was a revolutionary programme. Today we take for granted that radio and TV should provide programmes of reportage from the field.
To the timid BBC of the early war years it would have seemed unthinkable. World War Two had changed the BBC.
And even if some of that energy was dissipated after the war, those changes did much to define what we now think of as good reporting for radio and television
