This is a list of events from British radio in 1944.

Events

January

• No events.

February

• 27 February – BBC General Forces Programme replaces the Forces Programme to provide entertainment suitable for American forces in Britain as well as British military and civilian audiences, including a large number of American network and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation programmes. It is also broadcast on shortwave frequencies of the BBC Overseas Service.

March

• 6 March – The BBC transmits a ballad opera, The Man Who Went to War, concerning an African American soldier, written by Langston Hughes and D. G. Bridson and featuring Paul Robeson.^[1]

April

• April – The American Broadcasting Station in Europe (ABSIE) is established, transmitting from Britain in English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, and Norwegian to resistance movements in mainland Europe.

May

• No events.

June

• 5 June – One day before D-Day, the BBC transmits coded messages (including the second line of a poem by Paul Verlaine and Hubert Gregg's "I'm Going to Get Lit Up When the Lights Go Up in London")^[2] from Britain to underground resistance fighters in France warning that the invasion of mainland Europe is about to begin.^[3][4]
• 6 June – D-Day: The 08:00 BBC news bulletin announces that paratroops have landed in France (reporter Guy Byam is among them).^[5] 17 BBC reporters are embedded with the invasion forces.^[5] At 09:32 John Snagge begins reading announcements of the landings "on the northern coast of France", broadcasting over BBC transmitters to home and overseas audiences^[6] and introducing a message from General Eisenhower.^[5] At 13:00, the first eyewitness report, recorded on a bomber, is broadcast.^[6] The King speaks to the nation at 21:00.^[6] Reports of the landings are carried by around 725 of the 914 broadcasting stations in the United States.^[4]

July

• 28 July – Sir Henry Wood, aged 75, conducts his last Promenade Concert, evacuated to the Corn Exchange, Bedford,^[7] three weeks before his death.

August

• 28 August – The BBC begins broadcasting in Dutch to Indonesia and in French to southeast Asia.^[8]

September

• 17–26 September – Battle of Arnhem: BBC correspondents Guy Byam and Stanley Maxted report from the scene.^[9][10]

October

• • No events.

November

• • No events.

December

• 31 December – A live BBC broadcast of a service from St Paul's Cathedral, London, includes the background sound of a V-2 rocket.^[11]

Debuts

• 4 January – Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh (BBC General Forces Programme) (1944–1954)
• 27 February – Variety Bandbox (BBC General Forces Programme) (1944–1952)
• 6 June – War Report (BBC Home Service)

Continuing radio programmes

1930s

• In Town Tonight (1933–1960)

1940s

• Music While You Work (1940–1967)
• Sunday Half Hour (1940–2018)
• Desert Island Discs (1942–Present)

Births

• 9 May – Tony Prince, "The Royal Ruler", born Thomas Whitehead, DJ
• 12 May – Brian Kay, bass singer and radio music presenter
• 5 June – Nigel Rees, radio broadcaster
• 28 October – Gerry Anderson, Northern Irish radio broadcaster (died 2014)
• November – Jim Eldridge, scriptwriter
• 25 December – Kenny Everett, born Maurice Cole, DJ (died 1995)

Deaths

• 22 June – Kent Stevenson, war reporter (shot down while flying on an air raid)
• 19 August – Sir Henry Wood, orchestral conductor (born 1869)