Robert Cecil Hudson was a British broadcaster and administrator for the BBC, primarily on radio but also on television, between 1947 and 1981. He commentated on cricket and rugby union, as well as on many state occasions. He also covered a number of royal tours abroad. He was particularly noted for the thoroughness of the research that he conducted in preparation for his broadcasts. He was responsible for the launch of Test match Special in 1957, having written to his boss Charles Max-Muller the previous year, proposing the broadcasting of full ball-by-ball coverage of Tests instead of the existing coverage of limited fixed periods. His obituary in The Times described him as "a man of transparent integrity whose reserved manner and innate modesty meant that he became less of a celebrity than his great ability would otherwise have guaranteed".
Following a successful BBC audition in 1946, he worked as a freelance for TV and radio from 1947 to 1954, when he joined the BBC North Region staff in Manchester. He covered as many as 55 rugby Internationals between 1947 and 1977, 46 on radio and 9 on TV. He commentated on cricket Tests for TV in 1949–1950 and 1962–1964. For radio, he became a regular TMS commentator in 1962, having made his debut on the programme in 1958, and continued till 1968. He also covered the Boat Race on three occasions. He broadcast from 32 countries, covering six Royal Tours by Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh between 1961 and 1967, four State Visits and four independence ceremonies. State, Royal and public events that he covered for radio included:
For TV he covered the annual Lord Mayor's Banquet, the First and Last Nights of the Proms, the funeral of Dag Hammarskjöld and US President John F. Kennedy's visit to the Pope in 1963, as well as presenting Songs of Praise. He presented the radio Today Programme on over 200 occasions between 1964 and 1968. He also presented Pick of the Week and Down Your Way, as well as Christmas Bells on Christmas morning every year from 1965 to 1981. His feature programmes included The Royal Family, 40 Years of Television and The Life of Learie Constantine. He became a senior radio Outside Broadcast producer, the Head of Administration for the BBC North Region, and then Assistant Head of OBs in 1960. He was Head of Radio Outside Broadcasts from 1969 to 1975. He unified the OB department with its rival, Sports News. Appointments which he made included Peter Baxter as producer of TMS and Christopher Martin-Jenkins as the BBC's cricket correspondent. He also persuaded Brian Johnston to join the TMS team on a regular basis in 1970 after he had been dropped from TV's Test match coverage. He wrote a booklet in the 1960s for BBC radio commentators entitled Notes for Would-be Commentators, which became an important guide. Amongst the events for which he was responsible for organising the coverage were:
He wrote the following book: Inside Outside Broadcasts, R & W Publications, 1993, His wife Barbara, whom he had met when she was his secretary at the BBC and married in 1957, died of cancer in 1987. He subsequently raised about £30,000 for the charity Macmillan Cancer Support.
