[4] When Coalition forces began military operations against Iraq following the invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, the BBC discontinued to broadcast usual mixed schedule on Radio 4's FM frequencies and replaced it with a rolling news service known by the emergency staff as Scud FM,[5] named after "Saddam Hussein's most notorious weapon" was the Russian-made missile in which Iraq was firing at the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

[6] BBC staff had managed to launch a 17 hours a day rolling news channel (without time to concoct an official name) with less than 24 hours' notice and provided the listener with "access to the raw material, the events as they unfolded, from the daily military press conferences, the Presidential briefings to what it was like living in Baghdad, in Tel Aviv, with the troops in Saudi Arabia".

[7] Journalist Georgina Henry wrote at the time:[8] The continuation of Radio 4's rolling news service on the FM frequency has created friction at the BBC.

Those who have become addicted hope that it will: audience research shows that it has attracted new listeners to Radio 4, although the BBC has a problem over what frequency it could allocated in the long term.

In The Daily Telegraph, Gillian Reynolds suggested:[7] Now that the BBC has created, instantly and effectively, an all-news network, would it not be a tremendous waste to un-invent it?