What do the Queen, Terry Wogan, Dawn French, the Daleks and the Two Ronnies have in common? They've all been on the cover of Radio Times

 
Deborah Maby12 August 2013

The first edition of Radio Times went on sale on September 28 1923 - for the lordly sum of 2d (and there was no telly then, either). In 1936 it became the world's first television listings magazine and in 1955 it reached its peak, selling 8.8 million copies a week. In 1991, the BBC and ITV lost their monopoly on television programme listings and things took a rapid turn for the worse - but despite dire predictions it survived and is, astonishingly, still the country's third-highest selling weekly.

The idea for producing a radio listings magazine came when John Reith, the BBC's first director-general, was told by the Newspaper Publishers' Association that if the BBC didn't pay, none of its publications would run radio listings. The press barons didn't carry out their threat, but it gave Reith the idea of publishing a dedicated listings magazine - and so a remarkably lucrative cash cow was born.

Looking at the RT covers is like watching a popular history of Britain unfold: royal weddings, coronations, the outbreak of war - and peace - moon landings and the 1966 World Cup.

The magazine has also always been renowned for showcasing the work of up-and-coming as well as established illustrators, designers and photographers, creating historic and unforgettable magazine covers that are pieces of design history. Early contributors included the best graphic artists of the day - E McKnight Kauffer, AM Cassandre, Paul Nash, Rex Whistler and Edward Ardizzone.

Along with coronations, war, royal weddings and the advent of famous series such as Doctor Who, EastEnders, Eurovision, The Goons, The Two Ronnies and The vicar of Dibley, other significant events in the history of broadcasting are marked by Radio Times covers.

The advent of television, of course (two pages a week sufficed at first - growing eventually to 10 pages per day), along with the first airing of the The Light Programme and the Third Programme.

In July 1967, BBC Two became Britain’s first colour television channel, and "colour" annotations started to appear alongside programme listings, as well as colour covers, first just for the Christmas bumper edition and then more regularly.

The advent of ITV meant Radio Times had a competitor for the first time in the form, first, of regional ITV listings mags called TV Times, The Viewer and Look Westward; and then the single title TV Times from 1968.

The biggest change of all came with deregulation of listings copyright in 1990, meaning that from 1991 RT had to compete with newspapers - and carry details of all television programmes, not just BBC ones.

Another significant landmark was September 4 1969, when Radio Times suddenly appeared in fancy new garb with a punchy cover line, jazzed-up contents and above all its now distinctive italic masthead. They're not exactly household names, but this heralded the arrival of a dynamic new duo, celebrated in design circles - editor Geoffrey Cannon and art editor David Driver. Variations on that first cover theme were to remain a staple for the next 30 years.

And who has appeared on the cover more often than anyone else? Yes, you've guessed it, the Queen - who has graced the magazine no fewer than 35 times.

Next up is David Attenborough with 20 covers to his name, followed by David Tennant on 19. Equal fifth come Dawn French and Terry Wogan with 15 apiece.

To commemorate its 90th anniversary the Museum of London has an exhibition of BBC memorabilia including a selection of RT covers entitled Cover Story: Radio Times at 90. A hardback postcard box set of covers has also been produced called 101 Classic Covers: Postcards from Radio Times, which you can buy from radiotimes.com/shop.

Cover Story: Radio Times at 90 is at the Museum of London until November 3.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in