| Nationwide | |
|---|---|
 Nationwide's "mandala" logo, introduced in 1972. | |
| Genre | News Current affairs |
| Created by | Derrick Amoore[1] |
| Presented by | Michael Barratt(1969–1977)[1] |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Production locations | Lime Grove Studios,London |
| Editors | Michael Bunce(1970–1975) |
| Running time | 50 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC1 |
| Release | 9 September 1969 (1969-09-09) – 5 August 1983 (1983-08-05) |
| Related | |
| Watchdog | |
Nationwide is a BBC current affairs television programme that ran from 9 September 1969 until 5 August 1983. Originally broadcast onBBC1 from Tuesday to Thursday, and then each weekday from 1972, it followed the early evening news, and included the regional opt-out news programmes.
It followed a magazine format, combining regional news, political analysis and discussion with consumer affairs,light entertainment and sports reporting. It began on 9 September 1969, running between Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 pm, before being extended to five days a week in 1972. From 1976 until 1981, the start time was 5:55 pm. The final edition was broadcast on 5 August 1983[2] and, the following October, it was replaced bySixty Minutes. The long-runningWatchdog programme began as aNationwide feature.
The light entertainment was quite similar in tone toThat's Life!, with eccentric stories such as askateboarding duck and men who claimed that they could walk on egg shells.Richard Stilgoe performed topical songs. The show's tendency to sidestep serious matters in favour of light pieces was parodied in an episode ofMonty Python's Flying Circus, where the show, instead of reporting on the opening of the Third World War, chose to feature a story about a "theory" that sitting down in a comfortable chair rests one's legs.
After the introduction and round-up, the BBC regionsopted out for their main news magazine programmes (Midlands Today,Points West,Wales Today,South Today,Look East,Reporting Scotland,Spotlight,Look North,Scene Around Six). Once they had handed back toLime Grove Studios in London, the regions remained on standby to participate in feedback andtwo-way interviews to be transmitted across the whole BBC network.
The programme's second, and best remembered theme tune, was a library piece calledThe Good Word, composed byJohnny Scott.[3]
The show was used in an influentialcultural/media studies project at theUniversity of Birmingham, known asThe Nationwide Project.[4]
For all of its run,Nationwide presented and provided the regional news for the BBC London/South East region, as this was the only BBC region not to have its own dedicated news team.
A further peculiarity was that as this segment had no regional branding at all in London and the South East, it carried theNationwide title despite covering only local news. Indeed, the first opening credits in 1969, which displayed the all the regional news programme titles, had simply "London" added at the end. Later credits omitted reference to any London programme at all. This changed at the start of 1982, when the regional programmes andNationwide were separated. Now,Nationwide's title sequence was shown after the regional programmes and the London/South East news was now calledSouth East at Six.
However, it was still presented by the Nationwide team, used theNationwide theme and, for the first few months, the opening titles were the same as forNationwide, but with local images superimposed. Later that year, whenNationwide introduced a new title sequence,South East at Six started using different graphics that had no reference toNationwide, though still with theNationwide music. WhenNationwide was replaced bySixty Minutes, the situation returned to how it had been before 1982 and lasted until 1984.[5]
In May 1983, during ageneral election special of its "On the Spot" feature,Diana Gould, a teacher fromCirencester,[6] persistently challengedMargaret Thatcher about her ordering of the sinking of theGeneral Belgrano when it was sailing away from theFalklands.
Thatcher denied that theBelgrano had been sailing away, but Gould quoted map references and continued to push her point across, encouraged – so the Conservative Party claimed – by presenterSue Lawley. When Thatcher asked her whether she accepted that theBelgrano had been a danger to British shipping when it was sunk, Gould told her that she did not.
Thatcher was extremely angry about the BBC for allowing the question.[7] Thatcher's husbandDenis lashed out atRoger Bolton, the editor of the programme, in the entertainment suite, saying that his wife had been "stitched up by bloody BBCpoofs andTrots".[8] Lawley said she was never permitted to interview Thatcher again, and later Thatcher refused an invitation to appear onDesert Island Discs, which Lawley was then presenting.
As a contemporary programmeNationwide was recorded on broadcastvideotape only in case of possiblecomplaint orlitigation; after a period of time tapes would bewiped and re-used although filmed reports were archived. Consequently, only a few complete editions exist in their original form.
However, in his bookThe Television Heritage (1989), author Steve Bryant claimed that "a virtually complete collection of the BBC magazine programmeNationwide from 1971 to 1980" existed as domestic recordings.[a] He wrote:
"Already virtually doomed is material held on early domestic tape formats manufactured by Sony,Shibaden and Philips. The pictures from these tapes are very poor – indeed, the Sony and Shibadenreel-to-reel tapes are monochrome only – but some unique collections exist on these formats. Most significant is a virtually complete collection of the BBC magazine programmeNationwide from 1971 to 1980, mostly on Sony and Shibaden, but on Philips for the programmes after 1977. This collection is held by the NFA (National Film Archive) and represents the only copies of the complete programmes in existence.The BBC has all the film reports and a small selection of pre-recorded video inserts, but the programmes themselves were live and were not recorded off-air. Neither the machinery nor the funds are currently available to save the contents of these tapes, so a valuable daily record of British life in the 70s, including a large number of live interviews with leading politicians and celebrities of the time, looks like being lost."[9]
TheBritish Film Institute website stated in 2003 "so far we have successfully dubbed 500 [Philips] N-1500 [tapes] as part of anHLF-funded Nationwide preservation project".[10] In November 2016, the BFI's holdings of Nationwide, described as being on an "exceptionally rare" video format, were included in a list of 100,000 most at risk television episodes which were to be digitised following £13.5 million ofNational Lottery funding.[11]
