Whirligig Snippets
Dick Barton faces a fight for survival
Dick Barton is facing the greatest struggle of his career - for survival. Talks now going on at Broadcasting House may mean the end of radio's blood-and-thunder hero when the present winter series closes in March (1952). Some BBC chiefs feel that Dick Barton has had his day.
In September, when the four-year-old serial returned to the air, the broadcasting time was moved to 6.15 instead of 6.45 after complaints that it kept children up too late. But since the change the number of listeners has dropped from 5,000,000 to about 2,000,000.
The new time, so close to Children's Hour, has also brought fresh criticism from some officials of this programme who have always been against Dick's adventures - so utterly opposed to the policy of all other children's programmes.
Authors Edward J. Mason and Geoffrey Webb - who provide 80 per cent of his adventures - are now busy scripting the new daily serial "The Archers".
From a news article in the Daily Mirror 1951
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