Origins

     One of the key distinctions between the British and U.S. systems is the dominance-made real by an official monopoly for more than 50 years-of the noncommercial British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The distinction was made even greater by the strict limits on the amount of play of "commercial gramophone records" imposed by the copyright authorities and the Musicians' Union-the so-called needletime agreements. For decades, this limited the scope for presentation of true "disc" programs: popular music shows either were all live or contained a mixture of "live" or specially recorded tracks interspersed with occasional gramophone discs. It was the active determination of the BBC's senior managers not to follow the U.S. style of commercial programming, which, until the mid-1960s, pushed the informal and youth-oriented style of music presentation to the margins. In the pre-World War II era, the main outlet for disc jockey-type programs on the BBC were those that specialized in playing American jazz and blues records (music genres that, like rock and roll some 20 years later, were viewed by the corporation's hierarchy with deep suspicion and even hostility; some subgenres of music were regarded as entirely beyond the pale-scat singing was officially banned in 1936). When such records were played, they were introduced with typical BBC solemnity by BBC announcers, the best known from this period being Christopher Stone.

     On continental Europe, though, unhindered by the BBC's cultural and stylistic attitudes, a number of entrepreneurs set up commercial radio services in the 1930s targeted at the British audience. Record request programs became established in this period, and some of the programs and stations were very popular indeed, especially on Sundays, when the BBC, reacting to religious sensibilities (not least those of its first director-general, John Reith), broadcast "serious" music and talk programs. Such was the dominance of the BBC's approach that even the continental commercial stations often pretended that music on discs was being played by live singers and dance band orchestras.

     As with so much else of British life, World War II had a major effect on the public's attitude and forced the Corporation to encompass more record programs-notably Family Favourites (which developed from the wartime Forces' Favourites) and the weekday Housewives' Choice. Many of the presenters on the latter were taken from the world of variety or were even record­ ing stars themselves: programs were scrupulously scripted and rehearsed, and the records were played by a team of technical operators and engineers-the concept of the record presenter operating his own "board" was fiercely resisted on the BBC, as it was for the first 30 years or so of the postwar Radio Luxembourg. Therefore, the concept of the "art" and technique of the disc jockey-which is generally thought to include technical competence as well as broadcasting ability and appeal­ remained a "foreign" concept in both senses of the word. Nevertheless, it was Radio Luxembourg that again introduced the U.K. audience to rock and roll-the exciting new youth-appealing music from the United States-and presented it in a way that can certainly be identified with the term disc jockey.

     The most influential and most idiosyncratic disc jockey from the late 1950s to early 1960s era on Luxembourg was Jimmy Sa vile. Like his rather more conservative colleagues Pete Murray, David Jacobs, and Jimmy Young, he was to find a home on the BBC networks. The latter is thought to have presented the BBC's first unscripted record show-in 1963.

     Another figure who had an enormous influence on the "education" and emerging music tastes of British youth was Brian Matthew, who, from 1958, presented Saturday Club, a program that emerged from Skiffle Club and featured a mixture of recorded and live music-notable and regular guests were the Beatles. The show became required listening for a whole generation of young Brits, the first to come of age after post war austerity. Matthew-who, over 45 years later, continues to present a Saturday show on the Light Programme's successor, Radio 2-had an avuncular style, which provided a comforting context for BBC bosses who, like their predecessors in the 1920s and 1930s, were extremely perturbed by the new musical "fad" from the United States. Another important broadcaster from this period was Jack Jackson, who established a style that has been much imitated-a carefully constructed program linking "pop" records with comedy clips. Jackson provided much of the inspiration for the country's most innovative and admired disc jockey, Kenny Everett.

     However, the offshore "pirate" stations-which established Everett and numerous other disc jockeys-were what really exposed British audiences to the true concept of the disc jockey and established the disc jockey as a distinct part of the entertainment business: as a role model, an arbiter of taste, a spokesperson for young people, and a mediator between the music industry and the listener. The good disc jockey, it was recognized, though neither comedian, commentator, nor journalist as such, often utilized the attributes of these to create something unique. The test of this uniqueness was that when a disc jockey was on vacation, the substitute, although playing the same records and broadcasting the same features, nevertheless would sound very different from the usual host. Not only did these presenters operate their own equipment, but they also consciously adopted many of the mannerisms and styles­ and even, like Johnnie Walker, Dave Cash, and many others­ the names of their counterparts in the United States. Although most of the stations adopted-and to some extent adapted­ theTop 40 radio model from America, there were also "beautiful music" stations and, by 1967, the adoption of "underground" rock radio. The best-known and enduring figures of the Top 40 and "progressive rock" styles, both of whom continue to broadcast into the 21st century, are, respectively, Tony Blackburn and John Peel. For a while both broadcast on the same "pirate" station-the enormously successful Radio London, which was backed and programmed by Texans. Black­ burn is a particularly interesting example of the disc jockey's art, because, although he has presented programs with very different musical styles-Top 40, soul, "oldies," jazz, and blues (he has been a consistent champion of soul music and continues to present a weekly soul show for "Jazz FM")-his style-bright, upbeat, and interlaced with the corny jokes for which he is notorious-has remained virtually unchanged in nearly 40 years of broadcasting. Peel also, after a brief imposed flirtation with an upbeat Top 40 style when he worked in Texas in the early 1960s, has also maintained the same slow, ironic, and somewhat lugubrious style. Peel is perhaps the great British disc jockey survivor-he is the only disc jockey from the original lineup when the BBC launched its pop and rock network Radio 1 in 1967 who was still broadcasting on the station in 2003.

Opposition to Radio 1's Dominance

     If the cult of the disc jockey needed any further entrenchment in the United Kingdom, Radio 1 established the profession in the consciousness of the British public. For over six years after the "pirate" stations were effectively made illegal, in 1967 Radio 1 had a national monopoly, and its disc jockeys became every bit as famous-indeed in many cases more so-than the recording artists they were playing. For the first time in Britain, it became legitimate to aspire to the role of radio disc jockey in its own right, rather than being a disc jockey as an adjunct to a career based in show business or journalism.

     A variety of broadcasting styles were heard, from the frantic, fast-talking, wise-cracking Top 40 style to more contemplative and "credible" but still mainstream approaches to the music, with the latter approach perhaps personified by Johnnie Walker, who stayed on the pirate Radio Caroline after the government's new Antipirate legislation came into effect but who, after a brief hiatus, established himself on daytime Radio I. In 1976, however, frustrated by being forced to play Top 40 "teenybop" music such as the Bay City Rollers, he quit the United Kingdom for the United States and secured a place on San Francisco's KSAN. He returned to the United Kingdom and in the late 1990s began presenting the Drivetime show on BBC Radio 2. Walker was also notable for criticizing the attitude of many disc jockeys before and since of regarding the music they play as being an almost irritating irrelevance to their shows-most were more than happy to let their producers decide on their playlists and indeed had no engagement with the music industry and certainly rarely went to live "gigs." Walker also rejected the desired common career path of many Radio 1 and commercial disc jockeys, who saw their radio work as merely a stepping-stone to the more glamorous and better-paid world of television presenting. Walker, like John Peel, had no such ambitions and indeed found his obligatory appearances on the BBC's hugely popular television chart show T-op of the Pops to be an embarrassing ordeal.

Commercial Radio DJs

     In the mid-1970s local commercial radio, legally established in 1972, sprouted up in conversations across the United Kingdom, and the disc jockey became a familiar sound and sight to the public-disc jockeys were now accessible as well as famous. The regulatory requirements of the new commercial system required these disc jockeys to do more than spin discs and spout trivial chat: they had to be able to be part-journalists and community activists as well. The dominance of the standard BBC speech patterns and accent was also undermined by the local stations. Regional accents-and to some extent attitudes-were often not only tolerated but positively encouraged as station managements sought to capitalize on their "localness" in contrast to the seeming remoteness of their national BBC rivals.

     A good example of this type of disc jockey-who in fact began his career on his local BBC station in 1970 but moved to the commercial service BRMB a few years later-is Les Ross, who maintains a pronounced Birmingham accent and continues to broadcast in the city in 2003, switching to Saga FM, which targets the over-50 demographic. Ross' style has remained unchanged in its fundamentals over this 33-year period, yet when exposed to U.S. radio in the mid-197os, he introduced more scripted gags and produced comedy along with his trademark sharp, ad-libbed wit. In recent years, along with most local commercial FM stations-and again something that has been copied directly from the United States-he has developed a "zoo" format on his show.

     he deregulation of British commercial radio led to more diverse music formats: disc jockeys who specialized in particular music genres often were able to break out from the "ghetto" evening slots to which they had been confined on mainstream stations, to niche format services. Nevertheless, one of the main criticisms of British commercial radio-and the disc jockeys who present on it-is the blandness and similarity of stations in both style and content. Many critics have pointed to a "mid-Atlantic" sound that owes nothing to the locality-or even the nation-in which the station is situated. Certainly the vast majority of commercial radio disc jockeys have little or no control over the music they present, which is usually selected using computer software, supervised by a head of music or programme controller, who is sometimes based many miles away.

Career Patterns

     The career origins of British disc jockeys have changed significantly. The early disc jockeys were mostly drawn from either an announcing or general entertainment background and, occasionally, from journalism; from the late 1970s an increasingly common background was the club scene, although the approach needed in a noisy discotheque where the audience can be seen and its reactions gauged is clearly very different from that required in the intimate, personal medium of radio, with its invisible audience. An increasingly common source of talent has been children's television, and many television "youth" programs have a style, structure, and attitude that owe a lot to personality disc jockey programs.

A new phenomenon emerged in the early 1990s that had its echo in the old variety background of disc jockeys: the burgeoning "alternative comedy" scene in Britain (it was sometimes said that comedy was "the new rock and roll") launched several disc jockeys, especially in the high-profile breakfast shows on big-city stations, as management sought to find something different and marketable for their services. Coupled with this trend has been the development of what might be called the "postmodern/ironic" style of disc jockey, especially on Radio I and the larger commercial FM stations: disc jockeys who, like John Peel and Johnnie Walker, eschew the traditional terminally cheerful, positive, showbiz-obsessed, glamorous lifestyle disc jockey and adopt, if not a sullen, then certainly a downbeat and often cynical "real" approach­ being a disc jockey now means you can audibly have a "bad day."

A Male-Dominated Profession

     One enduring characteristic of British disc jockeys is that the vast majority continue to be male. Although the situation is now slightly more balanced than it was in the pre-197os days, when less than a handful of women earned their livings as radio disc jockeys, a survey carried out by the University of Sunderland in 1999 suggested that only 11 percent of disc jockeys in England, Scotland, and Wales were women-and nearly two-fifths of commercial stations had no female disc jockeys. Antiquated attitudes of management formed in the days when women stayed at home and therefore constituted the main daytime audience-and, it was presumed, would on the whole rather listen to a male, with his vicarious seductive approach, than another woman-may also be partly responsible for this disparity.

     In her autobiography, Anne Nightingale (who after John Peel has probably presented for more years on Radio I than any other disc jockey) describes how the network's early controllers regarded disc jockeys as "substitute husbands." Most of the female presenters who have made it to the corpora­tion's pop and rock network share a common characteristic: they are "ladettes"-that is, they have the same attitudes, style, and approach as their male counterparts. As Anne Nightingale puts it, " I wanted to be a DJ, be one of them, be one of the boys" (emphasis in original). It is certainly the case that many more men than women-seek work as radio disc jockeys: audition tapes from men typically outnumber those from women by a factor of at least 25 to 1. The BBC can be fairly praised in this area for allowing two women in succession to host its key breakfast show slot on Radio 1. Zoe Ball (solo from 1998, after a year co-hosting with a male disc jockey) and Sara Cox (from 2000) followed a previously unbroken line of male disc jockeys from the start of the station in 1967.

     A role model for the aspiring British disc jockey in the new century might be Chris Evans. He began as "gofer" in Manchester's Piccadilly Radio, went on to BBC local radio and quickly moved over to Radio 1, where he eventually won the coveted breakfast show produced by his own company while simultaneously establishing himself as a major television presenter and producer. After quitting Radio r, he switched to national commercial rival Virgin Radio, which his company then bought-then sold, at an enormous profit-while Evans continued to present the breakfast show there.