Sixty Minutes (UK TV programme) Sixty Minutes (UK TV programme) Sixty Minutes is a news and current affairs programme which ran each weekday at 5:40pm between 24 October 1983 to 27 July 1984 on BBC1. It replaced the "Nationwide" programme, and like "Nationwide", it also integrated the BBC regional news programmes into a single magazine programme. However, the BBC's News department stoutly maintained its independence from colleagues in Current Affairs, and the first 15 minutes of news was almost a separate programme, followed by 20 minutes from BBC regional news before the final 25 minutes of national current affairs. Accordingly, the format was unwieldy, with
BBC National Programme the name "BBC Home Service". On the same date, the BBC Light Programme was launched, taking over the style and much of the function, as an entertainment channel, of the BBC Forces Programme (which had begun broadcasting in 1940), as well as the Droitwich 200 kHz longwave frequency which had been used by the pre-war National Programme. Both the National Programme and the Regional Programme provided a mixed mainstream radio service. Whilst the two services provided different programming, allowing listeners a choice, they were not streamed to appeal to different audiences, rather, they were intended to offer a choice of