Opportunity Knocks - Radio Luxembourg

Opportunity Knocks was one of the early TV talent shows, a distant relative of X-Factor. Acts were judged by the ‘clapometer’, a process which would likely not pass muster with the regulators nowadays, but it all seemed harmless enough. Despiter its name. Not least because the studio audience vote was not counted. Hey, that’s like the judges on X Factor too.

The show had begun, though, on radio. The BBC launched it on the Light Programme on 18 Feb 1949, where it lasted seven months. It then found a home in the 50s on Radio Luxembourg, where it was sponsored. On this show, as in so many Luxy shows, commercial brands were integrated fully, in a way British radio seems unable to bring itself to do even now, despite its recent legality. We seem forever scarred by the ancien regulatory regime and, in some ways, so are the listeners, having been ‘protected’ for so many years.

Its host for many years was Hughie Green, a chap with more than a passing interest in commercial radio. Here he is in full flow on Luxembourg’s ‘Opportunity Knocks’.