Needletime / Nightride

[ken garner]

oops, sorry for that typo, where I typed 1/3, should read 6/3, of 
course - kg

--- In peel@yahoogroups.com, "ken garner" <ken_garner@...> wrote:
>
> A few quick points.
> 
> 1. Peel had so many sessions before 1988, and repeated them at 
least 
> once, sometimes 2 or 3 times, because of needletime, the backdoor 
> deal by which the record companies in alliance with the musicians' 
> union restricted the amount of minutes per day each BBC Radio 
network 
> could play from commercial records. Peel's 3-hour original Top Gear 
> show would feature up to 6 sessions and had just 60 minutes of 
> needletime allocated ("regarded as very generous!" Bernie Andrews 
> told me). Imports, white labels, etc were cunning ways round this 
to 
> an extent.
> 
> 2. Nightride was made by a production department (called Recorded 
> Programmes Service or RPS I seem to recall) specifically set up to 
> exploit non-needletime recordings (eg world music, speech, 
imports), 
> so it had no needletime at all
> 
> 3. ...er, but actually, according to my analysis of the Nightride 
> PasBs, (I could be wrong) there was actually only ever one session 
> repeated in Peel's run / wednesday nights, and that was... well, 
> would you believe it, the one 1st TX in the very first show on 
> 6/3/68, by the Incredible String Band! (rpt on 26/6/68). Why did he 
> do that? Probably because - and this answers a query made to me off 
> list by another ISB fan - on finding and checking the 26/6 PasB 
> tonight (at the bottom of one of my boxes) I find that there were 
> indeed 2 tracks aired that night that there had not been time for 
on 
> 1/3, 'Goodnight', and 'Won't You Come See Me', so it was in effect 
a 
> double session recorded back on 4/3/68, well worth a repeat! Don't 
> know how I missed those 14 years ago
> 
> 4. If I keep answering these wee questions - more fool me - I am 
> never going to finish the book. Can I do a deal with listers? I'll 
> try and come on once a week and answer one or two titbits if I can, 
> while striving not to give away so much such that nobody wants to 
buy 
> the book; and in return, more of those of you who can, have a check 
> through your diaries and tapes to see if you can answer any of 
> those 'blanks' or 'imcomplete data' dates in the chronology? (my 
list 
> is posted here under files, on the left there) Many thanks to the 
> half dozen or so who have already sent me such answers by e-mailing 
> off list, and thereby already got themselves an acknowledgement in 
> the book,
> 
> cheers
> 
> ken
> 
> PS, before any Pink Floyd fans charge in, yes of course I know a 
> later Night Ride session by them was repeated on Top Gear, but that 
> was the exception (different departments, you see, jealously 
guarded 
> tapes)
>