Radio 4’s shipping forecast is a national institution, with millions of listeners reassured by the thought that, somewhere out at sea, British fishers are patiently waiting by their radios to find out whether there is a gale warning in Rockall or Cromarty.
Yet the announcement that Radio 4’s long wave signal will be shut down as part of the BBC’s latest cuts has left many wondering how the country’s fishing fleet will cope without access to the four-times-a-day updates.
The slightly less romantic reality, according to Mike Cohen of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, is that his members have not needed Radio 4 for decades. Modern fishers have far more accurate devices to warn them about the wind and rain: “Even the small 15-metre boats in Bridlington have satellite internet these days. I’ve had video calls from people in the middle of the sea.”
Yet that does not mean they are immune to the charms of Sailing By, the music that heralds the forecasts and was designed to help captains adjust their radios: “That theme tune is a link to other times, other people, other places. There’s as much a fondness among fishermen for that as there is for the rest of us.”
When the fishers’ trade body asked its members how they felt about the shipping forecast one said it “acted as a link across communities, a link across time”. Another added: “For us it is a bygone age but for many older folk it is a reassuring connection to the past.”
The BBC plans to end dedicated programming on its Radio 4 long wave frequency next year, which could mean the loss of two of the current four shipping broadcast updates. The early morning and late night forecasts will remain on FM, DAB and online broadcasts. But the loss of the long wave signal – accessible far from the British mainland – confirms they will essentially be nostalgia pieces, more about waking the nation up or lulling listeners to sleep.
Cohen said modern fishing boats were stuffed full of GPS equipment, chart plotters, and highly precise weather information: “You can get all of this built into the technology in the wheelhouse. Fishermen want detail for exactly the spot they’re in – not just a summary of the nation.”
While fishers still take substantial risks every time they head out to sea, he said the reality was that the modern fishing industry is a technology-heavy job that is “worlds away from the stereotype of Captain Birdseye with a sou’wester knitting his own kippers”.
The shipping forecast has been broadcast for more than a century but took on its current form in 1949 – including most of the 31 distinctive names for nautical areas around the coast of Great Britain and Ireland. Over the decades it has been parodied, interrupted crucial moments of Test Match Special cricket coverage, and provided musical inspiration – inspiring Sea Power to write the song Gale Warnings in Viking North, and giving Blur the lyric “On the Tyne, Forth and Cromarty / There’s a low in the high forties” on This Is a Low.
A spokesperson for the BBC said the forecast would not disappear altogether and would remain as a “much-loved part of the regular Radio 4 schedule, giving listeners moments of calm in their day”. The long wave signal – which has been threatened before and currently relies on a small supply of metre-high historic glass valves to keep broadcasting – will survive for a few more years.
Cohen suggested the general public enjoyed hearing unfamiliar placenames such as North Utsire and South Utsire – coastal regions near Norway – which he likened to encountering “here be dragons” on an ancient map: “You don’t see those names on a road sign. It’s a bit like beating the bounds – going to the edge of the nation and looking off.”
