Six minutes on… The Shipping Forecast: Born From a Shipwreck

"Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire…" For almost a hundred years the Shipping Forecast has been read the same way, in the same order, late at night on BBC Radio 4. It began with a shipwreck. In October 1859 the Royal Charter was wrecked off Anglesey in a hurricane-force storm and around 450 people died. Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, captain of Darwin's HMS Beagle, believed storms like that could be seen coming. He sent out Britain's first storm warnings in 1861 and invented the word "forecast". This film tells how his warnings became the BBC broadcast in 1925, why the map of 31 sea areas keeps changing (Heligoland, Finisterre, FitzRoy), what "soon" and "later" really mean, how a bulletin for trawler skippers became a lullaby for the nation, and what happened when Radio 4 long wave was switched off in 2026. CHAPTERS 0:00 And now the Shipping Forecast 0:44 The wreck of the Royal Charter 1:26 Robert FitzRoy invents the forecast 2:42 On air 3:20 The 31 sea areas 3:50 Why the names keep changing 4:15 Wind, sea state, weather, visibility 4:49 A lullaby for a nation 5:16 Long wave switched off 5:40 The names are still coming SOURCES Met Office, Met Office archive, BBC, Wikipedia. CREDITS A film by Jon Cowan Map data: Natural Earth Portrait credit: Robert FitzRoy, Wikimedia Commons Six Minutes on... short documentaries about the things you've heard of but never quite understood. Subscribe:    / @sixminuteson   Website: https://sixminuteson.com X: @sixminuteson Bluesky: @sixminuteson.bsky.social #ShippingForecast #bbcradio4 #history