FEATURE:
Station to Station
IN THIS PHOTO: Annie Nightingale/PHOTO CREDIT: Milton Boyne
Song Six: Annie Nightingale (BBC Radio 1)
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THERE are few broadcasters as busy as Annie Nightingale…
IN THIS PHOTO: Annie Nightingale at the launch of URB (University Radio Bath) in 1973
at this moment. Her Annie Nightingale presents… show is in full steam, and she is counting down some of the biggest tracks of the decade very soon. She had Sofi Tukker to talk with her just recently, and it looks like 2020 will be a very packed and enjoyable one for her! I am surprised I didn’t include Nightingale earlier in a feature that celebrates radio icons and innovators. When one thinks about those who have changed the game and pushed radio forward, Annie Nightingale must be near the top of everyone’s list. I have discussed gender equality a lot this year, and I think the radio industry is an area that is slowly improving. To be fair, most of the big stations have a way to go until there is true equality, but it is thanks to broadcasters like Annie Nightingale that we have come so far. I am not sure whether she would approve of me using her name as a champion of gender equality, but there are so many women in the industry – and not just in radio – that revere her and hold her in very high esteem. There is no denying the fact Annie Nightingale is hugely important. Not to go all Wikipedia here, but it is worth highlighting the incredible biography of a radio titan. Nightingale’s first broadcast for the BBC was in September 1963 as a panellist on Juke Box Jury. Her debut Radio 1 show was in February 1970. Annie Nightingale was the first woman to broadcast on BBC Radio 1.
IMAGE CREDIT: Kathy Wyatt Illustration
That sounds absurd when we think of all the brilliant women in radio now; Nightingale’s stint as a Sunday evening host was short-lived, but her impact and important was clear. At a male-dominated station, I can imagine the earliest days might have been a little strange for her. Perhaps they weren’t. I am not sure why there were no women on BBC Radio 1 before Nightingale, but she had an enormous impact and, for the sole fact that she was the first woman to present on the station, she warrants serious respect and acclaim. Nightingale is the longest-serving presenter on the station, and I love the fact that she remains loyal to her roots. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Nightingale presented a few different shows on BBC Radio 1, including a Sunday afternoon request show in the mid to late-1970s. I do wonder, with the sheer raft of great artists around, why music T.V. is not a thing anymore. We have Jools Holland and his BBC show, but I think there is room and demand for another format in the market. Annie Nightingale was the main presenter on The Old Grey Whistle Test from 1978, where she replaced Bob Harris. I have seen clips from the show and just love Nightingale’s presenting still and passion. Because of Nightingale, the popular show moved away from Country and Blues Rock – favourites of Bob Harris – and included genres like Punk Rock and New Wave.
Although Nightingale can be heard in the early hours of Wednesday morning, I think she will have other shows on BBC Radio 1, maybe occupying a daytime slot. Nightingale has helped popularise Trap music and had her own 1Xtra show. It is dizzying taking in everything she has achieved and what she has given to radio! It is clear that a lot of people – not only women – owe a debt to a pioneer like Annie Nightingale. I know she will have many more years on radio, but Nightingale also D.J.s and can be found bringing bliss and energy to club-goers around the world. I think Nightingale is one of the most important champions of music we have. Like her friend, the late John Peel, Nightingale has been responsible for bringing so many great acts to the forefront. She was an early supporter of Basement Jaxx and Daft Punk. Rightly, Nightingale received an MBE in 2002 for her services to broadcasting and I wonder, in years to come, whether she will be made a Dame. In 2007, she was nominated for the Broadcasters’ Broadcaster Award and in 2008, Annie won the John Peel Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music Radio, awarded by the PRS Radio Academy. In 2011, for the sixth year running, she also won Best Radio Award at the International Breakbeat Awards before receiving the first-ever Pioneer in Media Award in 2014 from Music Week magazine.
Nightingale speaks at festivals about her career and is an invaluable source of guidance for anyone wanting to follow her footsteps. In addition to all of this, Nightingale is a journalist and has contributed to news programmes such as The Today Programme. Maybe we do not realise how hard it was for women like Nightingale at a time when there was sexism in radio – there is now, but it was far more pronounced in the 1960s and 1970s. I want to source from a couple of interviews and let Nightingale speak for herself but, reading this BBC article, it is clear how pioneering Nightingale was (and is still) and what she had to face early in her career:
“We tend to take particular notice of the women who come first. When Radio 1 decided that they needed a 'token woman', Nightingale was there, ready and eminently qualified. Her standing as the only female DJ continued for 12 years until Janice Long joined Radio 1 in 1982.It was not until the 1990s and the 'girlification' of Radio 1 with the likes of Sara Cox, Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball, that Nightingale's exceptionality became her longevity and impact rather than her gender alone.The radio itself is a reference point in her interviews and memories, beginning with the small white Bakelite wireless bought by her father, through which she listened to BBC children's serials, and later, Radio Luxembourg. Her intimate relationship with radio and with the audience was formed at this time:
The breakaway moment came when my Dad who was always obsessed with tuning the radio in properly and you'd have it on a dial and it would say all these places like Prague and Hilversum which were kind of magic. They might have been on another planet. I didn't know where Hilversum was, or Prague, but these are places you could tune your radio in and it was like a mystery. I still feel that romance. I still feel when you're broadcasting, you don’t know where it’s going, and it could be reaching outer space somewhere and I am still in love with that, completely.
The experiences that Nightingale reiterates in her interviews and writing are the stories that matter. She has often talked about how she shifted from managing a band to presenting a pop music programme on television, about how she was initially locked out of the BBC, confronted by sexism in ways that she had not experienced as a print journalist. She describes the independence of being an evening DJ compared with a daytime presenter tied to the playlist, and how difficult it was to master the technical aspects of broadcasting. Each of these stories maps change, reminds us of who helped (and who didn’t) and demands that we remember the work of all the women who came first.
On 1st April of next year, Annie Nightingale turns eighty. She will still be at BBC Radio 1 and, when we mark the start of her ninth decade of life, I think we owe more than a few kind messages and generic birthday messages! There are very few who have remained as relevant as Nightingale. A lot of her contemporaries in the 1960s and 1970s are no longer in radio, with very few of those remaining in a position as esteemed and important as Nightingale. I keep returning to gender and why Nightingale is so influential, but it is a big part of her story.
In this interview from 2015, the radio icon discussed the barriers that were in place when she was starting out:
“Oh, there was all sorts of nonsense. They said I wouldn’t have authority because I was a woman, or that my voice wouldn’t carry properly. One executive told me that DJs were supposed to be ‘husband substitutes’. Well, I’d survived Fleet Street as a journalist, so I knew how to stand up for myself, and I wrote in magazines, so I had a voice.”
Facing a growing wave of criticism for their lack of female talent, the BBC turned to the woman who’d been lambasting them in article after article – a decision that’s paid off rather spectacularly.
“The situation’s improved immensely for women in radio”, agrees the trailblazer herself. “There’s more women on Radio 1 than there’s ever been. I’m a patron of Sound Women, a group that works with women in radio.
“I met a girl a few weeks ago who does a breakfast show, co-hosted with a guy, and I asked her if she drove the desk? She said no, he does. I told her she had to change that. It’s more work, but otherwise you’re just a passenger”.
In the same year, Nightingale discussed the subject of sexism when she was interviewed by The Guardian:
“There’s been lots of healthy dialogue about sexism in the arts in recent years. What were your experiences like?
There was a ban on women on Radio 1. They said that disc jockeys were husband substitutes, so they didn’t need any women. They also believed women’s voices didn’t have enough authority to be on the radio. I was writing for various magazines, so I was in a position where I could attack their stance. At some point, the culture changed, they realised they needed to do something about it and my name came up.
PHOTO CREDIT: Handout
Were you surprised that more women DJs didn’t come along after you started?
I thought loads of women would rush through the door and then there wasn’t anyone for 12 years until Janice Long came along. I ended up thinking that perhaps it was just something that no one wanted to do. Of course, now it’s all changed.
We look back at the music business in the 70s with some horror now. Did you have any sense of that at the time?
It’s become a national joke, the idea of a 70s DJ. I lived in Brighton and had small kids, so I’d come into London, do my show and go home. You were always fighting over studio time. There wasn’t a situation where you’d all hang out together. There was no sense of knowing what [the DJs] were doing when they were off air”.
Regardless of attitudes decades ago, Nightingale is very much about the present. She encourages music lovers to go and support artists and catch D.J.s at clubs; she is all about embracing what is to come. It is wonderful to see someone like Annie Nightingale give so much of her time and energy to new music. She has helped make radio a more equal space – despite the fact there is a way to go – and inspired countless people to go into radio as a career. My words hardly do her full justice, but please do make sure you catch her on BBC Radio 1 – go to the BBC Sounds page/app and you can listen back – and (if you haven’t done so already) acquaint yourself with a radio icon. The sensational and hugely influential Annie Nightingale is true…
RADIO royalty.