American Half Hour

The Hon. Robert W. Bingham (American Ambassador) with Alistair Cooke, April 1935.

On 6 April 1935, Alistair Cooke began a lifetime of broadcasts about the United States, with the first transmission of American Half Hour. The Radio Times said "Mr Cooke will introduce us to the everyday America, about which we seldom hear. With him always in these half-hours will be a small changing army of resident and visiting Americans". The first programme featured the American Ambassador, the Hon. Robert W. Bingham.

Cooke's BBC career began as a film reviewer, but having spent time in the US he knew that American culture offered more than the cliched images offered by Hollywood, and determined to be the journalist to bring the variety of the nation to the British public. The Salford born broadcaster moved to the United States and finally became an American citizen in 1941.

With American Half Hour Cooke developed his talent for writing and presenting scripted talks in a natural way. With Letter from America, launched in 1946, he came into his own, and continued to present it until shortly before his death in 2004. Cooke was also responsible for the monumental television series America, which was a success on both sides of the Atlantic.