Friday Night is Music Night – John Humphrys presents a special concert to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the first regular television service.

“Your Name: John Humphrys
Occupation: Journalist and broadcaster
And your specialist subject: 80 years of British television…1936 to the present day”

It all started on Monday, 2nd November 1936 from a make-shift studio in the south east wing of Alexandra Palace in North London. Ally Pally as it was and still is known today. It wasn’t a new invention by any means – experiments had been on going around the world since the 1850s to perfect and broadcast television pictures. In this country the work of John Logie Baird pushed the way forward and this November day was momentous as it marked the start of the world’s first regular television service and it was called BBC Television. This title was to last until the arrival of the BBC’s second television channel in 1964 and this first channel was re-named – BBC One.

That first schedule featured a variety show featuring singer – Adele Dixon; comedians – Buck and Bubbles; Chinese jugglers – the Lai Founs and the BBC Television Orchestra. There was also a new magazine programme “Picture Page” featuring switchboard girl Joan Miller. The broadcasts ran for just 4 hours a day. Small fare for the 15 thousand television sets receiving the pictures at the time. But there was much to look forward to – Tuesday’s schedule offered a display of Champion Alsatians from the Metropolitan and Essex Canine Society Show and Hollywood stars Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyons.

Since then, of course, there’s been a media revolution – you can catch up; download and watch online – how old fashioned it seems to think that viewers made an appointment to watch our schedules. But the last 80 years produced a wealth of comedy, drama, music, documentary, sport, natural history and news programmes.

Tonight BBC Television’s older sister service – BBC Radio- celebrates 80 years of great television and musical moments with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Gavin Sutherland. The show includes musical themes from Quatermass; Monitor; Poldark; Mastermind; Vision On; Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Blue Planet.

And casting an inquisitive eye and ear over the proceedings and no doubt adding the occasional pithy comment – John Humphrys.

During the interval we revisit Alexandra Palace to discover some more television history.

Concert recorded tonight (25th October 2016) at the Mermaid Theatre in London.

This programme will be available shortly after broadcast (in the UK only) via the BBC iPlayer