The Battle of the Airwaves in Latin America

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2018

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In March 1938 the BBC began its first broadcasts to Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese. The new foreign language service was launched amid rising concerns over the influence of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in Central and South America.

Mike Lanchin has been listening back to archive recordings from the time, including the very first broadcast on March 14th 1938 and the memories of some of the BBC's first Latin American Service presenters and producers.

(Photo: Rehearsals for a feature in the BBC's Brazilian programme, London 1943)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds. Choosing what to
0:32.1	watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:36.5	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:41.5	telly we share what we've been watching.
0:43.7	Cladie Aide!
0:45.7	Loads of games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:48.2	Lovely.
0:49.0	Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:51.2	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:54.7	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds hello and welcome to
1:00.4	the witness podcast history told by the People Who Were There.
1:04.1	I'm Mike Lanchin.
1:05.7	And today we're going back to March of 1938 when the BBC began its broadcasts in Spanish
1:12.0	and Portuguese.
1:13.7	With the help of the rich archive we have from that time,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.