The Wartime Broadcasting Service is an emergency service of the BBC that is intended to broadcast in the United Kingdom either after a nuclear attack or if conventional bombing destroyed regular BBC facilities in a conventional war. It is unclear if the Wartime Broadcasting Service is still operational as plans are kept mainly secret with the BBC and government officials. According to an article by the BBC, recordings of a nuclear attack warning are still re-recorded and kept up to date periodically.
Origins and history The origins of the service lie in pre-World War II plans to disperse BBC staff to facilities such as Wood Norton to guarantee due functioning of the corporation if cities such as London, Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow and Edinburgh were attacked by the Luftwaffe. In the post-war era, plans were revised so that the Wartime Broadcasting Service would have coped with a nuclear strike by installing 54 low-powered transmitters and keeping (what remained of) the main transmitter network in reserve, in case Soviet bombers used them to home in on targets. Although vague, plans from the mid-1950s were to provide both a national and regional radio service 24 hours a day (mirroring peacetime BBC operations at the time) with the objective of providing "instruction, information and encouragement as far as practical by means of guidance, news and diversion to relieve stress and strain". "Diversion" was to be in the form of music and selected pre-recorded programmes. BBC executives drafted a schedule made up of music, drama, comedy, and religious programmes to be broadcast over a period of 100 days after a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom.
The BBC had studios and production equipment at many government nuclear bunkers such as the Central Government War Headquarters at Corsham and the regional seats of government. By the end of the decade, existing transmitters had been fitted with emergency diesel generators and fallout protection. From the 1980s, the BBC planned to broadcast for only a few hours a day and for a few minutes each hour, the intention being to conserve the batteries in domestic radios. There was to be no entertainment content for this reason and so that official messages could get through. With the end of the Cold War, the BBC deactivated the studios and emergency transmitter networks in 1993 as surplus to requirements. Many of these studios have become exhibits in bunkers, like the Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker, which have now been converted into museums.
Post-Cold War With the Cold War having ended, the BBC and British Telecom developed the National Attack Warning System in 2003. This system was able to warn by television, radio and telephone (the latter only in some areas) of an impending attack using existing infrastructure. The BBC was capable of doing so within ten minutes using their existing broadcasting procedures. By the time of the 2011 digital switchover, this was becoming obsolete because television and radio have limited warning capability. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, there were suggestions that the warning message would be recorded by Jill Dando, actress Joanna Lumley or Carol Vorderman. Under the Communications Act 2003, the government still has the legal right (acting via Ofcom) to take over editorial control of non-BBC radio and television services in the event of a national emergency. Equivalent provision is made for BBC services in the BBC Agreement:
"If it appears to any UK Government Minister that an emergency has arisen, that Minister may request that the BBC broadcast or otherwise distribute any announcement or other programme."
Operation The decision to activate the WTBS would have been taken at Cabinet level late in the crisis phase. On being given the order, the BBC, ITV, S4C and Channel 4 were to suspend normal programming, broadcast the frequencies for the WTBS (these frequencies would also be provided in newspapers) along with a list of probable targets, and go off-air an hour later. At this point, known as "National Hour" or "N-Hour" for short, one single national programme would have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from Wood Norton. This would have consisted of official government announcements and information interspersed with filler material, such as music, news, and warnings. The BBC would need forty-eight hours' notice to prepare for the WTBS plus a further two to four hours' notice when WTBS commencement was authorised, and in any case BBC planning called for N-Hour to not be implemented until the last possible moment in order to maintain national morale (and to permit the television broadcast of Protect and Survive instructional films). The four-minute warning itself was to have been injected from a special studio at Broadcasting House and broadcast nationally on all television and radio stations when a coded signal from RAF High Wycombe was given. This studio would also have been used by government ministers to broadcast messages and announcements until the government left London late in the crisis phase (or during the precautionary period). After an attack, there would also have been a regional service tailored to local needs located in regional seats of government. Regional controllers were to use these smaller BBC studios to give out local messages to communities and would have been staffed by BBC personnel. If conventional air attacks destroyed peacetime broadcasting facilities, the Wartime Broadcasting Service would also have been activated. Regular drills and training exercises were held to give an air of realism, but many BBC staff saw them as pointless or declined to serve during a national emergency because they would not be allowed to take their families with them. One anonymous insider said, "I can't blame them for deciding there were better ways to go than to sit in a bunker with a group of local radio engineers."
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