Is it true that if one stood on Westminster Bridge with a radio, one would hear the chimes of Big Ben via the radio sooner than in the real world? I was reading this review of Damon Krukowski’s Ways of Hearing in The Spectator when I stumbled across this claim: 

“And before the renovation of Big Ben began, if you stood on Westminster Bridge just before 6 p.m. with an FM radio, you would hear the bongs on the radio before you heard them in real life — because radio is transmitted at the speed of light, while sound ambles along much more slowly.”

Was/is this at all true? I understand sound waves travel slower than light/radio waves but this seems quite “truthy.”
 A: Apparently, yes.
The BBC has a microphone right next to the tower, so they get the soundwaves before nearly anyone else on the street.
Westminster bridge is right next to Big Ben, so it would depend on where on the bridge you stood, as the bridge itself is 820 feet. Google maps puts the bridge and Big Ben at 249 feet away but that includes a 90 degree turn and seems to begin at the end of the bridge, closest to Big Ben. 
Big Ben is also 315 feet high, though the sound is probably a bit below that and the bridge has some, admittedly quite a bit less, elevation itself.   
If we come up with an estimate about 400 feet for the sound to travel to the Big Ben side of the bridge and perhaps 1000 feet on the far side (say 700 for the middle which appears to be the location for the YouTube video). Sound travels at about 1,100 feet per second, that gives you a rough idea how long it takes between when the clock strikes and when you hear it from Westminster bridge.
I'm less well versed on the radio speed. I have done an experiment talking to a friend on the cell phone from 2 feet away and their voice reached me first in person and a split second later by cellphone, but as noted in the comment below, that's not a good comparison.
The microphone gets the sound, converts it to radio waves, mixes it with the radio station modulation, where it's bounced of the radio tower, reaches the radio, where the modulation is stripped and the initial sound is repeated. I can't get a precise timing on that, but it all happens very fast, but just measuring the speed of light doesn't give the entire estimate.
And, I just want to give props to the BBC for putting a microphone near Big Ben and playing it twice a day. There's something very cool about that, and people have verified that it's a live recording, not a pre-recorded sound, because they occasionally hear sirens from police cars in the background.   
Long story short, yes, the radio wins the race indicated by YouTube test, though I had to listen twice before I heard the 2 sounds come in at slightly different times. If the person stood with the radio at the edge of the bridge on the Big Ben side, then it might be too close to discern. The person in the video appears to be standing somewhere quite close to the Big Ben side of the bridge, perhaps 400 or so feet from the ringing bell.
