page_title: National Service of Remembrance
section_title: Broadcasts
hierarchical_section_title: National Service of Remembrance / Broadcasts
caption_attribution_description: English: Group of wreaths laid during the Remembrance Sunday ceremony, 2016
context_page_description: The National Service of Remembrance is held annually on Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph on Whitehall, London. It commemorates "the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts". The service has its origins in the 1920s and has changed little in format since.
  To open the ceremony, a selection of national airs and solemn music representing each of the nations of the United Kingdom are played by massed bands and pipes. A short religious service is held with a two-minute silence commencing when Big Ben chimes at 11 O'Clock. Following this, wreaths are laid by the Queen and members of the royal family, senior politicians representing their respective political parties and High commissioners from the Commonwealth of Nations. After a short religious service, a march-past of hundreds of veterans processes past the Cenotaph.
  It is held on the second Sunday in November, the Sunday nearest to 11 November, Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the First World War at 11 a.m. in 1918.
context_section_description: BBC Radio has broadcast the service on the BBC National Programme and its successors, the BBC Home Service and BBC Radio 4, every year since November 1928, except during World War II.
  John Reith had wished to broadcast the service for many years, and upon the formation of the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927 was involved with negotiations with the Home Office, but these broke down and it was only permitted the following year in 1928. Adrian Gregory notes that the paradox of broadcasting two minute's silence was not lost on the BBC's sound engineers, who had to ensure that there was enough ambient sound (the "strange hush") to capture the solemnity of the moment.
  The ceremony was first broadcast by BBC Television in 1937 and again in 1938. Three EMI Super-Emitron cameras first used for the earliest outside broadcast of the Coronation Procession of King George VI in May 1937 were used, relayed via the BBC's Mobile Control Room scanner van, which two days earlier had also broadcast the Lord Mayor's Show for the first time.
  The BBC Television Service was suspended at the outbreak of World War II and the broadcast resumed in November 1946 when George VI unveiled the addition of the dates of that conflict (1939—MCMXXXIX; and 1945—MCMXLV) to the Cenotaph. It has been televised every year since, making the broadcast one of the longest-running live broadcasts in the world.
  In the post-war period, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas and latterly Richard Dimbleby were commentators. Tom Fleming commentated annually between 1966 and 1988. David Dimbleby, the eldest son of Richard Dimbleby, has commentated on the event since 1989.
caption: Group of wreaths laid during the Remembrance Sunday ceremony in London
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