As we say goodbye to 2017, we look back at what has happened this year at BBC Genome.
1920s and 1930s Radio Times magazines available online
In March we made Radio Times issues from the 1920s available to view online and in December we released the issues from the 1930s. These beautifully illustrated magazines not only contain the programme listings but also feature articles, photographs, listeners’ letters and cartoons.
As a taster, travel back 80 years in time and have a look at this special souvenir issue from 1937 in honour of the Coronation of Edward VII. It is a photographic review of the year in sports, arts, politics, the Coronation itself and the technical advances made by the BBC in filming techniques and transmission technology.
More programme listings
In March, we were able to add more than 650,000 new programme listings to BBC Genome that had previously been missing. These new offerings include thousands of CBeebies programmes, nearly 10,000 Asian Network items and many more, ranging from 1920s regional radio programmes to BBC Wales and BBC Scotland programmes in 1985. BBC Two test transmissions in January 1964 were also added. (The station didn’t officially launch until April that year.)
In total BBC Genome now has nearly 5.5 million programme records with more than 15,000 programmes available to watch or hear.
World Service
The listings for World Service have been expanded and now include programmes from July 1987 onwards. In March new listings for the 1993-2007 period were added. More than 170,000 listings from 1995-2007 were rounded up and returned to the fold in August. And in October 177,500 World Service programmes from 1987-1993 joined the family.
This has allowed us to link to even more playable World Service programmes, and there are now more than 5,000 of these to listen to via the Genome listings pages. Topics featured include everything from the Cold War to the history of spice, as we highlighted in November in the Genome blog.
From the Cold War to the history of spice, there are thousands of World Service programmes to listen to
Thank you to the BBC Genome audience
In between doing our own treasure hunts through the BBC Genome listings, we have been lucky to speak to members of the audience who have been inspired to share their memories with us. From quiz-setters to World War Two women engineers, you can read their reminiscences in the BBC Genome blog.
Puzzle-setter Barbara Midgley remembered her time working on quiz show All in the Mind
Finally, we would like to thank the many volunteer editors who continue their sterling, and patient, work correcting the textual mistakes in the Genome listings which are the results of machine-reading errors when the information was first ingested.
We have now accepted more than 280,000 corrections made by the public. We welcome anyone who spots any errors in the listings to have a go at correcting them.
From all of us at BBC Genome, Happy New Year.
Image from Radio Times, December 1939
