Prepare to bow before the mighty news altar, and worship the great newsreader Christopher Morris (and his sports correspondent Alan Partridge)...

On the Hour - A Full Report

Man is 90% water, but On the Hour is 100% news!

In 1991 a new news programme was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. However, this was a news bulletin with a difference. All of the stories were clearly made up, but delivered as if they were the real news. This programme was On the Hour.

On the Hour was a direct spoof of actual BBC radio news programmes. The show was anchored by Christopher Morris, a news anchor who was devoted to the news and getting it via any means possible.

Alongside Morris were a range of reporters, performed by Morris himself and his fellow cast members, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Front, Doon Mackichan, Patrick Marber and David Schneider. The show features segements such as "It's Your Mouth" in which Morris carried out vox pops with members of the public which made the people answering them come across as stupid.

Characters ranged from annoying Radio 1 DJ Wayne Carr (played by Morris); environmental correspondent Rosy May (Front) on her Green Desk; host of religious segment "Thought for the Day" Monsignor Treeb-Lopez (Marber); the stereotpyical BBC Radio 4 continuity announcer (Coogan); reporter for American news channel CBN Barbara Wintergreen (Front); incompetent economics correspondent Peter O'Hanraha-Hanrahan (Marber); and the world's worst sports correspondent - Alan Partridge (Coogan).

In the Beginning was the News, and the News was Good!

On the Hour began when comedy producer Armando Iannucci, the man who produced the radio version of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, heard Morris on GLR Radio presenting pretend news stories. All of Morris's stories were clearly rubbish, but at the same time they sounded faintly plausible. Iannucci contacted Morris and suggested they should make a series. After an unbroadcast pilot was made, a full series of On the Hour was broadcast in 1991.

Morris and Iannucci wrote most of the material, although other contributions came from the cast as well as other writers, including Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, David Quantick, Steven Wells and Andrew Glover.

Surrealism was at the centre of the show, with the stories reported all being complete rubbish. However, at the same time, these stories sounded ever so slightly plausible and were presented in a professional and deadpan manner so as to attempt to fool listeners - and many were fooled. The show also featured mixed up sound clips from politicians to get laughs.

The aim was to satirise news programmes, in particular their self-importance, jargon, patronising tone, manipulation of tragic events, and the fact that many of them spent a lot of time mentioning that they were reporting the news. The reporters were also attacked, whether they were the serious type devoted to the news (like Morris's anchorman character), or the type who knew nothing about the stories they were covering (like Alan Partridge).

The show had many other targets. Victims of On the Hour's mocking included Radio 1 DJs, Radio 4 plays, local radio, party political broadcasts, royal events, religious broadcasting and even other satirical comedy shows. For example, there are references to The News Quiz being poor quality in the first episode, and another episode looks behind the scenes of a fictional satirical comedy show, featuring a man who has been suggesting the same sketch idea for 22 years.

The series was a brilliant success. After two series and a Christmas special, On the Hour won the British Comedy Award for Best Radio Comedy in 1991. The show also won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Comedy/Light Entertainment in 1992.

Round-up

After On the Hour had finished, the team went on to mixed fortune... most of which was good. The show was adapted for television as The Day Today, with the original cast returning to mock the world of television news.

This gave the cast their big television break. In particularly Morris, who moved onto Channel 4 and continued to attack the news via Brass Eye, which also starred Mackichan. Coogan continued to develop Alan Partridge into what is now his most famous character, and with Iannucci's help, he created Knowing Me, Knowing You... With Alan Partridge. Most of the other members of the On the Hour team featured in this spoof chat show.

However, the original On the Hour show itself did not fair so well. There was a copyright dispute between the show and the writers Lee and Herring. As a result, when the show was first released as an audio cassette, all of their material had been removed and so the tape only lasted two hours.

Edits were also made when the second series was first repeated and some material was removed from the master tapes. Now when the series is repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra (and BBC Radio 7 before that), it is often these edited versions that are heard. Luckily, the full series has been restored, and all of the episodes have now been released via Warp Records.

So that is it. It only leaves me to say, "Remember the phrase 'No news is good news.' It's balls!"