Sir Terry Wogan thought the BBC was like “the British empire under Queen Victoria” when he joined the corporation in the 1960s, according to newly released archive material.
Wogan, who died last year aged 77, was this week named the BBC’s greatest radio presenter.
But his first impression of the corporation was that it was “complacent”, according to archive interviews.
The material has been released to mark the 50th anniversary of BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4.
The BBC is celebrating the anniversary with a series of initiatives, including the launch of a pop-up digital station, Radio 1 Vintage. This station will start at 6am on Saturday with a show presented by Tony Blackburn, who spoke the first words on Radio 1 in 1967, and Nick Grimshaw, the current Radio 1 breakfast show host.
Their programme will be followed by 50 one-hour shows, including archive material from the likes of John Peel and Zoë Ball.
Blackburn reveals in the archive material that his opening words on Radio 1 were actually fully scripted and rehearsed rather than spontaneous as previously thought.
Wogan’s comments were made in interviews before he died last year. As well as comparing the BBC to the British empire, he said it often felt the corporation was able to dispatch “soldiers in pith helmets and red jackets over the Khyber Pass” – a reference to the strategic mountain pass near the Afghanistan and Pakistan border that saw a British military disaster under Queen Victoria.
Wogan also says that BBC’s radio services “never felt comfortable” and “never really felt at home” initially.
The stations were launched in response to the success of pirate radio stations, but Wogan said in a 2002 interview: “Radio 1 never quite captured the spirit of the pirates, the joie de vivre, the madness of it, the carelessness of it. The BBC was too professional an organisation to really do that.”
The archive material has been made available on a new website called Radio Reinvented, which has been put together by the BBC and the University of Sussex.
Robert Seatter, head of BBC History, said: “We are delighted to mark this pivotal anniversary moment by sharing so much never-before-seen material from the BBC archives.
“It’s also great to be doing this in partnership with leading experts of media history, who set our BBC story in the wider context of what was happening in communications and society.”
Wogan was named the greatest BBC radio presenter in a poll organised by the Radio Times of 39 men and 39 women working in broadcasting. Wogan topped the poll ahead of John Peel, Sue MacGregor, Annie Nightingale and Alistair Cooke.
The Irish-born presenter joined the BBC in 1966 and went on to present the Radio 2 breakfast show for 28 years across two stints.
Wake Up to Wogan attracted more than 8 million listeners and at its peak was the most popular radio programme in Europe. Wogan was knighted in 2005.
• This article was amended on 2 October 2017. A picture caption on an earlier version said “Staff of pirate radio station Radio Caroline”. This has been corrected to Radio London.
