This is the BBC: Entertaining the Nation, Speaking for Britain, 1922-2022 2021952087, 9780192898524, 0192898523

Citation preview

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

THIS IS TH E BBC

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

THIS IS TH E BBC e n t e rta i n i ng t h e nat ion, s p e a k i ng f or br i ta i n ? 1922 –2 022

SI MON J. POT T E R

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/03/22, SPi

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Simon J. Potter 2022 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2022 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2021952087 ISBN 978-0-19-289852-4 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192898524.001.0001 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

Dedicated to the memory of my grandparents,Tom and Grace Wallis and Vi and Les Potter, children of the radio age.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

Preface

O

ver the last hundred years the BBC has reflected and shaped British life in innumerable ways. It has also had a much wider global impact.This book is not intended as a celebration of that work. Rather, it offers a critical, unofficial, and unauthorized analysis of the BBC’s history. The chapters that follow draw out the patterns, con­ tinu­ities, and transformations that have marked the BBC’s century. In doing so, they seek to shed light on the challenges the Corporation faces today from new digital media and from growing opposition to the basic idea of public service broadcasting. Programmes—what people listened to and watched when they tuned in to the BBC—need to be at the centre of any history of the Corporation. In this book, I have highlighted some of the key programmes that have acted as recognized milestones. Rather than list them in an exhaustive, encyclopaedic fashion, I have tried to show how they illuminate broader themes in the Corporation’s history and in British society, culture, and politics more generally. I have also attempted to give a flavour of the more unremarkable content served up by the BBC on a daily basis throughout its century. These programmes were sometimes pedestrian and banal, but nevertheless deserve consideration. They did, after all, become part of the lives of everyone, in Britain and around the world, who has helped constitute the BBC’s global audience. The chapters that follow also explain how the BBC has changed and developed as an institution, how it has been managed, and how it relates to the British government and the wider state. If we want to understand whose voice the BBC represents, who it puts on-­air, and

Dictionary: NOSD

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

viii pr e face

who it excludes, these themes are crucial. They have shaped the programmes made and commissioned by the BBC, the range of ­ ­services it has created over the years, and the news it has broadcast. Nevertheless, we also need to understand that, as in any institution, many of the people who have worked at the BBC have ignored what their would-­be political masters have told them and have instead gone their own way. At key moments, programme makers and journalists enjoyed unparalleled creative and investigative freedom. The policies and as­pir­ations of senior managers, government ministers, and civil servants have thus sometimes made less of a difference than we might assume. This makes it even more important to pay full attention to programmes and the people who made them if we want to get a proper handle on the BBC’s history. I owe a debt of gratitude to Cathryn Steele at OUP for approaching me with the idea for this book, and for seeing it through to completion, and to Joan and David Potter, Maria Scott, Robert Bickers, and David Prosser for all their advice and support during the writing process.Thanks are also definitely due to Tommy and Ciara Potter, not least for introducing me to the joys of Doctor Who. SJP Backwell, North Somerset, January 2022

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

Contents

Introduction: The BBC’s century 1. The Company, 1922–1926

1 9

2. The Corporation, 1927–1939 

35

3. Propaganda and war, 1939–1945

71

4. Losing control, 1945–1959

111

5. Transformation and stagnation, 1960–1979

147

6. On the market, 1980–1999

193

7. At risk, 2000–2022

235

Prospect: The BBC after broadcasting

277

Endnotes285 Further reading 291 Index293

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

Introduction The BBC’s century

I

wrote much of this book during the COVID-­19 pandemic when, like many other people, I spent a lot of time ‘locked down’ at home. The everyday routines and social encounters I had taken for granted all suddenly stopped. Radio, television, and the Internet became crucial links with the world outside my home. More than any other broadcaster, it was the BBC that I turned to during those strange days, weeks, and months of social isolation. As a result, I witnessed the BBC move into an operating mode that it is always ready, though seldom required, to adopt: acting as the voice of the nation, and also of the British state. I was not alone in this experience. On 23 March 2020, 28 million people turned to BBC One to watch the prime minister, Boris Johnson, announce the imposition of lockdown. Almost two months later, on 10 May, 18.8 million viewers watched BBC One when Johnson explained plans for the easing of the initial restrictions. Throughout the pandemic, the prime minister, alongside cabinet ministers and civil servants, used the BBC to provide guidance, answer questions, and address the nation. During the pandemic, many people also turned to the BBC as a source of trusted information, at a time when speculation and ‘fake news’ were fuelling anxieties. On a national basis, BBC news reports, on radio, television, and online, worked explicitly to illustrate the consequences to individuals, communities, and the National Health

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

2

This is the BBC

Service of non-­ compliance with lockdown restrictions. On programmes like BBC One’s News at Ten, correspondents showed viewers the crisis developing in hospitals and interviewed doctors and nurses, who warned what would happen if the healthcare system became overwhelmed. BBC foreign correspondents explained how other countries were dealing, or failing to deal, with the pandemic, and detailed the human consequences.Yet journalists and editors also tried to communicate a balanced view of the risks, avoiding scaremongering and quashing rumours. This approach may have helped generate support for the UK’s COVID-­19 vaccination programme, muting the hesitancy and anti-­vaxxer opposition that was expressed much more forcefully in some comparable countries. As lockdown eased at different rates and in varying ways across the UK, the BBC’s formidable regional news operation played an im­port­ ant role in explaining which restrictions were still in force locally. Few other media outlets were able to work at this level, as many commercial operators had already shut down unprofitable local news outlets. And throughout the crisis, BBC newsreaders and journalists exhorted the nation to come together and endure. Every week during lockdown they devoted attention to the ‘Clap for Our Carers’, encouraging viewers to participate by standing outside their homes to applaud all those working to care for others.This was a feel-­good story, but also a way to help ease the anxiety and isolation that many were experiencing during the pandemic. Crucially, it was also part of an overt drive to build national unity, a role that has always been at the heart of the BBC’s operations and remains central to its vision of public service broadcasting. The BBC’s digital offering also helped keep children occupied and engaged during lockdown as schools closed for in-­person teaching. As many schools and parents struggled to provide adequate home learning, the BBC presented educational resources for children in a national online initiative fronted by one of the stars of its family programming, Jodie Whitaker of Doctor Who. Within seven days of the closure of schools, the BBC’s Bitesize website was attracting around 4.8 million unique weekly visitors, double its usual traffic. By June 2020, it had

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



I n t roduct ion: T h e BBC ’s ce n tu ry

3

provided 150 new online lessons a week, for fourteen weeks. From January 2020, the BBC also offered an expanded daily broadcast educational offering on CBBC and BBC Two. The vast resources and reach of the BBC’s Internet presence and its on-­demand streaming services, BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer, were also brought to bear on the task of maintaining morale. Individuals used the Corporation’s services to help curate their own bespoke lockdown entertainment. Escapism gained new meaning and social purpose. More subtly, the continuing supply of BBC radio and tele­vi­ sion programmes provided a sense of comforting normality, a glimpse of a more familiar world. BBC newsreaders might be presenting tele­ vi­sion viewers with disturbing reports, but they were still there, occupying the glass-­walled newsroom in London’s Broadcasting House. Familiar faces provided a sense that somehow, at some point in the future, normal life would resume. Above all else, BBC television, and perhaps especially radio (where many presenters and guests were able to broadcast from their own homes), provided a sense of spontaneous, everyday contact with other people. It carried comforting faces and voices to those isolated by lockdown. To be sure, other broadcasters and streaming services also played an important role in getting people through lockdown. But no other media provider offered such a range of services, or the combination of national focus and international and local perspectives, supplied by the BBC throughout the pandemic. This reflected the BBC’s unique commitment, enshrined in its royal charter since before the Second World War—to inform, educate, and entertain. It was also a function of the BBC’s integral place within the British state and its complex relationship with government.This book seeks to explain how the BBC came into existence, and how it has transformed itself over the last century to play the role it does today. It also draws out the origins of the multiple challenges that the BBC faces as it enters its second century, which threaten to diminish its role in British politics, culture, and society, and even to eliminate it entirely from the UK and global media landscape. The BBC was Britain’s first public service broadcaster. Arguably, today it is Britain’s only genuine public service broadcaster. Despite

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

4

This is the BBC

the outsourcing and commercialization of many of its activities, ul­tim­ate­ly it does not exist to generate a profit, but to serve the public. It does this by providing content that other broadcasters cannot or will not produce, including huge amounts of journalism, local coverage, and educational programming. It also seeks to provide a universal service, offering something for everyone and serving a wide range of different communities, as well as working to bring together and address a common national audience. All these activities are funded in part through the television licence. If we want to watch broadcast television in the UK, on any channel, or even just stream content using iPlayer, we must pay for a television licence or face prosecution. Few other countries maintain such a system.The licence fee is viewed by some as the necessary foundation for everything the BBC does. Others argue that it is an unfair, regressive tax that has no legitimate place in a world of digital media, in which information is sim­ul­tan­ eous­ly ‘free’ and crucial to the profits generated by the global tech industry. One of the key arguments of this book is that there is nothing inevitable about the BBC. Much of its history has been shaped by haphazard experimentation and by decisions taken without any clear understanding of their eventual, enduring consequences. The very familiarity of the BBC, its pervasive presence in our lives, obscures just how strange it is to have a vast, publicly run and publicly owned media conglomerate at the heart of British political, social, and cultural life.When the BBC was set up a hundred years ago, there was no precedent for this. Most other countries did not establish a similar system: the exceptions were generally set up in emulation of the BBC model. If the creation of the BBC was neither natural nor inevitable, then much the same can be said of the prospects for its continued survival. In studying the history of the BBC, this book argues that we should not mistake endurance for continuity. To survive, and to expand and consolidate its media empire, the BBC has subjected itself to wrenching changes and profound transformations. Certainly, there are some

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



I n t roduct ion: T h e BBC ’s ce n tu ry

5

important enduring themes. For most of the last century the BBC has constituted the single most important patron for many different aspects of creative life in Britain. It has also provided crucial support for artists and performers from around the world. It has strengthened and broadened popular engagement with sport. It has also often displayed a bias towards the national and the international aspects of broadcasting, seeking to promote national unity and to project Britain overseas. Only at certain moments has it put significant emphasis on building local or regional communities. While it has been a promoter of Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish cultures and identities, it has almost never worked to support separatist political nationalisms. This is ultimately because the BBC is an integral part of the state, with an enormous stake in the continued existence of the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It has almost always enjoyed a measure of day-­to-­day autonomy from politicians and civil servants. Yet its independence has always been circumscribed, sometimes to the point of meaninglessness. For much of its history the BBC has also faced charges, from those on both the right and left of politics, of bias. This has taken the form of objections to specific programmes, stories, or staff appointments, and of claims about the general political predilections of the institution and its staff. Since the 1950s, when the BBC became more committed to critical political coverage and the airing of controversial issues, accusations of political bias have intensified. Sometimes they have erupted into damaging scandals and clashes with the political parties at Westminster, sweeping away staff and even the occasional BBC director general. Most recently, critics have charged the BBC with repeatedly failing to adhere to its own editorial policies, and of pursuing politicized and controversial ‘woke’ agendas.Thinking about the BBC’s history can put its current political difficulties into perspective, but the overall effect is certainly not to diminish them. Over the last two decades, the BBC has been in a state of perpetual crisis, and many believe it has been fatally wounded by the attacks of its enemies and the failings of its senior executives.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

6

This is the BBC

Over the last century, debates about how the BBC might be reformed have generally come down to the question of how broadcasting should be controlled and regulated by the state. If we skim off the froth and drain the vitriol that often accompany these controversies, we can see that two opposing currents of thought have continued to flow largely unabated. On one hand, some believe it legitimate, and indeed vital, that a large public body be empowered to shape British culture, politics, and society, and to project Britain overseas. Conversely, others argue that all this work can and should be the domain of private enterprise, with the state playing only a very limited role. The relative power of these two streams has ebbed and flowed over the last century. Neither has entirely dominated nor disappeared at any point. Today the ideal of a great public service broadcaster, promoting a national culture and strengthening democracy, seems closer than ever before to defeat.Yet it has still not been vanquished by the pervasive, libertarian ideologies of free market competition. These enduring theme and debates are important. Yet there have also been very significant changes over the course of the BBC’s century. The Corporation’s approach to making programmes, to its audiences, and to organizing its many networks, channels, and platforms, has been transformed beyond all recognition. Its policies about what should be put on air, and what should be kept off, have also changed dramatically. Less obviously for most viewers, listeners, and users, its shape as an institution and its relationships with other elements of the British state have also shifted radically. A creeping commercialization has fundamentally altered how the BBC operates. It has increasingly become a commissioner rather than a maker of content, with many of its historic programme-­making and other activities hived off into commercial subsidiaries. The BBC has also shrunk over the last two decades, both absolutely and in relation to powerful new global competitors. Most people in the UK probably assume that they are members of the principal target audience for the BBC, and think of that audience as a domestic, national one. They do not often consume or even

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



I n t roduct ion: T h e BBC ’s ce n tu ry

7

consider what the BBC produces for listeners, viewers, and users in other countries. If they do, they probably assume that this overseas work is largely a by-­product of the BBC’s main, domestic role.Yet this assumption is neither necessarily accurate nor very helpful. For much of its century the BBC has been the key voice of Britain overseas and the main way that the British state has sought to influence foreign audiences. Its history is deeply rooted in themes of imperialism, war, Cold War, and decolonization. Its protected position at home has allowed it, and Britain, to exercise disproportionate cultural influence on a global stage. Over the last century the BBC has probably been the single most important institution generating British soft power and overseas propaganda. The fact that the BBC also broadcasts to domestic audiences has made that work easier, providing access to a vast pool of professional broadcasting talent and programmes. BBC staff and performers have worked as agents of British public diplomacy and persuasion, often without themselves knowing or thinking much about it.The BBC’s domestic role and status also helps make its presence more palatable to foreign audiences. It helps the BBC appear to project Britain’s authentic voice, or more accurately Britain’s many different voices, not just that of the British government. Official histories of the BBC, and histories written by former BBC employees, have played a crucial role in shaping our understanding of the Corporation’s past. Unsurprisingly, such accounts tend to be cele­bra­tory in tone, and sometimes insufficiently critical. Similarly unremarkable is the fact that many independent academic historians have tended to see the BBC as a good thing, a non-­commercial and sometimes radical presence in the British media landscape that has promoted social democracy and empowered programme makers, individually and collectively, to produce astonishingly creative work. There is certainly much to be said for this perspective. However, another less obvious thread running through historical writing about the BBC emphasizes its role as a bastion of the British Establishment, promoting and sustaining the traditional social, cultural, and political order, and thus contributing to the unequal, hierarchical nature of

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

8

This is the BBC

modern Britain.This view also needs to be taken seriously. In presenting a centenary history, the chapters that follow argue that we should adopt a critical rather than a celebratory approach. It is only by approaching the Corporation’s past in this way that historians can help inform debates about its uncertain future.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

1 The Company, 1922–1926

O

n 14 November 1922, the British Broadcasting Company transmitted its first radio programme. At 6 p.m. and again at 9 p.m. that evening, Arthur Burrows read out ‘news messages of about 1,000 words’, along with a weather report.This was neither a national nor a sophisticated service. Burrows, who had been involved in some of the earliest experimental broadcasts in the UK, spoke into an ordinary telephone receiver. His words were broadcast from the Marconi Company’s 2LO station, using a low-­power transmitter, and would have reached only a small number of people living in and around London who had purchased or (more likely) built their own receiving sets. Broadcasting was still in its infancy. Burrows noted that ‘a new sense will have to be acquired by those listening to news by ear’, but nevertheless asked listeners to send him their feedback so that the fledgling service could be improved.1 The following night he broadcast the first results of the 1922 general election. During the interwar years, the BBC became a pervasive presence in the everyday lives of millions of people, in Britain and overseas. Locally, nationally, and internationally, it subtly influenced and reshaped culture, politics, and society.Those who created it were aware of the revolutionary potential of broadcasting. However, they could not foresee exactly how new technologies and applications would develop in detail, and they therefore had to speculate about how the  medium would evolve over the coming years. Early decisions

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

10

T h is is t h e BBC

had  hugely important but unanticipated long-­ term consequences that  would shape British broadcasting for at least a century. Some contemporaries hoped that broadcasting would educate a new democracy and encourage social change and international understanding. Others sought to use it to promote national unity, respect for established authority and social hierarchy, and pride in empire. However, in 1922, this was all in the future. Those who created the BBC had more limited ambitions, at least in the short term.They saw the Company as a means to control and discipline the new medium, to ensure that everyone could access radio, but also to prevent competition with existing forms of mass communication and with a range of private commercial interests.The Company would be highly regulated by the state and would not be run to generate direct profits. In the early years, its managers were overwhelmingly occupied with the task of making broadcasting work and thus ensuring that the BBC survived. In many ways, they interpreted this as a technical challenge, making radio available to as many people as possible using the scare resources and limited equipment available to them. Engineers thus played a crucial role in the Company’s early history. As the Company became established, managers in its London headquarters sought to exert increasing control over national operations. Nevertheless, much continued to be done by individual station staff in cities around the country, operating largely autonomously. Listeners heard different programmes depending on where they lived. Programme makers meanwhile had to improvise and be inventive as they worked out what radio could do. With the BBC holding a monopoly over all broadcasting in Britain, they had to provide something for everybody, and avoid causing offence. Otherwise, criticism of the Company’s position might prove fatal. Programme makers repurposed old genres in their attempts to inform and entertain listeners. They also popularized broadcasting with startlingly ambitious ‘stunts’ and started to find entirely new ways to exploit the unique qualities of radio as a medium of mass communication. By the end of 1926, when the Company was re-­established as the British Broadcasting

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

11

Corporation, it had already shaped broadcasting in ways that would endure for decades to come.

Origins During the late nineteenth century, scientists discovered that radio waves could be used to transmit messages. The British-­based Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi was perhaps the most famous pioneer of this new form of communication. Radio was revolutionary because it offered near-­instantaneous, ‘wireless’ transmission. It dispensed with the cumbersome infrastructure of telegraph wires and cables that had been built by the Victorians. Initially, radio was used for ‘point-­to-­ point’ communication, especially with and among ships at sea. Further military applications were developed during the First World War, and some demobilized British servicemen returned home with a basic understanding of how wireless communication worked. Amateur radio hobbyists built ‘stations’ in their sheds, attics, or basements and began to ‘broadcast’ from them. Manufacturers of radio equipment, notably the Marconi Company, also set up their own experimental stations. The word ‘broadcasting’ came from agriculture, referring to the sowing of seed, thrown across a wide area, to germinate wherever it fell. Wireless broadcasters did not seek to transmit a message to a single recipient, but rather to reach as many people as were able and willing to listen. Civil servants at the General Post Office (GPO) were given responsibility for regulating broadcasting. Worried about conflicts between the various civil and military uses of wireless, initially they imposed tight restrictions on broadcasting and shut down experimental stations. Broadcasting grew more rapidly in other countries where regulation was lighter, most notably in the US, but the GPO thought that developments overseas confirmed the need for caution. The American broadcasting free-­for-­all seemed to have produced huge numbers of short-­lived, amateurish stations, all attempting to broadcast on the same frequencies

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

12

T h is is t h e BBC

at the same time, and effectively jamming each other’s signals. As well as this problem of ‘interference’, many were concerned that some US stations were trying to fund their operations by accepting on-­air commercial advertising. This seemed a poor use of scarce airtime, and not necessarily a reliable way to finance stations. The GPO believed, incorrectly, that sponsored broadcasting would soon be banned in America. British civil servants concluded that broadcasting needed to be firmly controlled if it were to deliver a reliable and satisfactory service to listeners. The GPO thus proposed to license only eight stations in the UK, each in a major population centre. Only the companies that manufactured radio equipment would be allowed to apply for licences: the GPO hoped they would be willing to finance broadcasting as a means to stimulate sales of their products. However, at a crucial meeting with the GPO on 18 May 1922, the manufacturers rejected this plan. No company wanted to run just one local station: they all hoped to sell their wares nationally.The Marconi Company instead proposed that all eight stations should be run by a single broadcasting company, in which all the manufacturers would be shareholders. One of the industry representatives present at the meeting noted that this new company would be able to run broadcasting as a ‘co-­ordinated public service’: a key term thus entered the lexicon of British broadcasting. It was also suggested that the eight stations could be linked together using telephone landlines, allowing them to share programmes and provide all listeners with ‘the very best the country could produce’. This was a significant early statement about the importance of ‘standards’ in programming and of creating a national network to secure those standards.2 The new broadcaster, formed on 18 October 1922, was called the British Broadcasting Company. It was licensed by the GPO to operate for two years in the first instance and was to be funded by royalties paid on sales of radio receiving sets, and by a 10-­shilling annual listener licence fee to be paid by all households possessing a receiver.The GPO would collect the licence fees and retain a significant portion of the revenue for the Exchequer. On-­air advertising was banned. To help

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

13

make the system work, and to protect the infant British wireless manufacturing industry, the GPO also initially banned imports of foreign receiving sets. The BBC was thus established on an essentially non-­commercial basis and rested on a series of monopolistic and highly restrictive practices. Relatively few civil servants or politicians were involved in these decisions, knew much about the new technology, or were especially interested in it.Those who were, however, hoped that these measures would control and channel the economic, cultural, and political impact of a highly unpredictable new medium.The press and the music and entertainment industries also supported this tightly regulated approach. They feared a new source of ‘unfair’ competition, and successfully lobbied for further, strict limitations to be placed on the amount of news and recorded music that could be broadcast. Crucially, broadcasting was not treated as a medium of political mass communication, through which diverse views would be allowed to compete for attention and support in an open market. Ideas about press freedom, which underpinned the newspaper industry, were not deemed applicable to broadcasting. If there was to be only one broadcaster, then it seemed best to prevent it from engaging with the world of politics.The GPO thus banned broadcasting of ‘controversial’ material.

Getting started The BBC’s London headquarters were initially located in the General Electric Company’s brand-­ new Magnet House building, on the Kingsway. They soon moved to nearby Savoy Hill House, in premises rented from the Institution of Electrical Engineers.This central location was close to the head offices of the BBC’s shareholders and to the entertainment venues of London’s West End. The Company meanwhile took over existing experimental broadcasting stations from the radio manufacturers and established entirely new ones in key urban centres: BBC stations were soon operating in London, Birmingham,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

14

T h is is t h e BBC

Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, and Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1923, the Company opened additional stations at Aberdeen and Bournemouth, and another at Belfast the following year. Each station operated a single low-­power transmitter, capable of serving only a relatively small surrounding area of about thirty miles in radius. Early broadcasting was thus essentially local, and coverage of the country was far from complete: even important cities like Edinburgh lacked stations. Savoy Hill exerted limited influence over the stations outside London. Each produced its own programme, starting broadcasting around 5 p.m. and finishing around 10 p.m. each evening.‘Programme’ was a term taken from the world of theatre and music, and initially referred to a series of different items presented over an evening, rather than a single production. Musical ‘concerts’ were a staple of early broadcasts, and an agreement with the major news agencies meant that each station was supplied daily with the text of a single identical news bulletin, to be read out on-­air each evening. The agencies permitted no deviation from the supplied text, and stations were only allowed to broadcast the bulletin after 7 p.m., to minimize any impact on sales of evening newspapers. Live coverage of public events was also tightly restricted, again to protect the press from competition. Early, rudimentary programmes were soon replaced by more ambitious offerings. By early December 1922, the Manchester station was broadcasting dance and classical music (including piano performances and violin sonatas with historical background notes), banjo solos and duets, stories for children (in a session later called Kiddies Corner), plays, a performance by an ‘entertainer’, and short lectures. By January 1923, the London station was broadcasting opera from Covent Garden: a performance of The Magic Flute provided the occasion for the BBC’s first ‘outside broadcast’, with microphones deployed outside the studio and linked to the transmitter by landlines. The stations generally focused on entertainment and local talent, with plenty of music of all types: each station formed its own orchestras and bands to play live in its studios. Stations also began to produce an increasing amount of drama, as well as ‘vaudeville’ or ‘variety’ performances based on the Music Hall routines of the popular stage. Stations sought to build up

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

15

a direct relationship with local listeners, and encouraged audience participation through competitions, charity appeals, phone-­ins, and request programmes. Almost all broadcasts were live. Recording technologies were rudimentary and gramophone record companies restricted the use of their products on-­air. It was anyway believed that much of the appeal of broadcasting lay in the immediacy and authenticity of live performances. By later standards, the work of the early stations seemed experimental and amateurish, but novelty proved a powerful attraction, as did the appeal of broadcasts to local pride and identity. An increasing number of families decided it was worth investing in a ‘wireless’ set: 6,000 households applied for listener licences in December 1922, and more than double that the following month. Early listeners hunched over rudimentary home-­made receivers, with headphones clamped over their ears, and tried to pick up faint signals. Better and more easily operated receivers soon became available, which could be used with loudspeakers. This allowed families to gather at the fireside and listen together. The BBC became a part of the everyday lives of more and more people. Broadcasting hours increased, and by spring 1923 some stations were offering music at lunchtime in addition to evening programmes. That September the BBC launched a weekly publication, the Radio Times, to provide a printed guide to programmes.This allowed listeners to plan and deepen their engagement with broadcasts and to strengthen their sense of connection with the Company. The early Radio Times created a forum for BBC staff members to address the growing community of wireless subscribers, with articles purposely adopting a friendly and informal tone. Senior officers wrote regularly, explaining the work of the Company and encouraging listeners to identify with it. The Radio Times also provided a means for listeners to speak back: readers’ letters were published each week and voiced criticisms as well as praise. Counter-­intuitively, a new medium relied for its success upon an old one.The Radio Times was an immediate triumph: this was not surprising, given that it had a monopoly over the publication of weekly radio schedules. Some 250,000 copies of the first issue were

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

16

T h is is t h e BBC

sold, and in 1924 weekly circulation exceeded 600,000.The magazine also printed advertisements and provided the BBC with an important source of additional revenue. Periodical publishers were angered by this incursion into their territory and accused the Company of using its monopoly for commercial advantage, and thus of engaging in unfair competition. By September 1924, 900,000 UK homes were equipped with radio receivers, representing an estimated audience of three million listeners every evening. Listeners were concentrated in the areas immediately surrounding the nine BBC stations. Few elsewhere could pick up a signal. Each station continued to produce its own full and ambitious daily broadcast schedules, but also took some programming from London via landlines.The BBC’s visionary chief engineer, Peter Eckersley, was convinced that this form of ‘simultaneous broadcasting’—national networking—was crucial to the success of the service. The smaller stations obtained most of their peak evening programming in this way, starting each evening at 7 p.m. with a live feed of the chimes of Big Ben from the Clock Tower of London’s Palace of Westminster. Big Ben quickly became part of the signature sound of the BBC, an echo of its increasingly national reach and ambition. The Company meanwhile grew along with its audience: by 1924 it employed a staff of around 150 at Savoy Hill, with up to twenty more at each station. With its national network broadcasts the BBC pushed against the limits of technical possibilities, with ‘stunts’ designed to popularize wireless listening. On the evening of 2 September 1924, for instance, all stations broadcast a live feed from an aeroplane flying over London. On board, one of the BBC’s newly discovered radio personalities, the comedian John Henry (Norman Clapham, who assumed the on-­air persona of a gloomy Yorkshireman), provided a running commentary on what he could see. A month later, all stations similarly broadcast a feed of a ‘wireless concert’ from London Zoo, involving ‘humorous items’ contributed by three laughing jackasses and a hyena, a ‘sea-­song’ sung by a ‘senior sea-­lion’, and the bellow of a fifteen-­month-­old walrus called Old Bill which sounded like ‘an agitated cow having a

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

17

tooth out under gas’. To capture these performances a ‘wireless pram’, housing a microphone and portable transmitter, was wheeled around the zoo. The tone was light-­hearted, but the broadcast also aimed to bring those listeners who had never been able to visit a zoo the sounds of animals they had not heard before.3 Wireless was new, modern, exciting, fun, and educational, and more and more people decided to tune in.

A public utility Despite these early successes, the restrictive practices upon which the Company was founded remained open to criticism. If the monopoly was to endure, the BBC had to justify its work and promote its achievements. The man with ultimate responsibility for ensuring this was John Reith, who in December 1922, at the age of thirty-­three, was appointed the first general manager (later managing director) of the BBC. Reith was neither a businessman nor an impresario from the world of theatre or music. He was an engineer, and a dour and imposing presence at six feet six inches tall, with a piercing gaze and a prominent scar across his left cheek (he had been shot in the head while serving on the Western Front). When he applied for the job he did not know what broadcasting was. This was unsurprising. Wireless was still a novelty for most people, and staff had to experiment and improvise in almost all aspects of their work. Reith quickly decided that the problem confronting the BBC was an essentially technical and organizational one: how to provide wireless as a service to all, in the most efficient way. The priority would be to reach as much of the country as possible, including rural areas. Reith saw the provision of a universal service as crucial to defending the BBC’s monopoly. This approach was endorsed in 1923 by a parliamentary committee, chaired by the MP Major-­General Sir Frederick Sykes, which met to review BBC operations.The Sykes report argued that broadcasting should be operated as a ‘public utility’. Wireless was,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

18

T h is is t h e BBC

it implied, comparable to electricity, gas, or water: a ‘mode of distribution of music and entertainment’ that needed to be organized on an efficient and affordable basis to make these essentials available to every­one, no matter where they lived or how much they earned.4 The GPO subsequently extended the BBC’s operating licence to the end of 1926 and confirmed that a more strictly enforced listener licence fee would provide its main source of funding. This paved the way for the further expansion of the Company’s transmitter infrastructure, overseen by Eckersley as chief engineer. Eleven medium-­ wave ‘relay’ stations were built to supplement the existing ‘main’ stations. The relay stations operated at low power so they did not interfere with other transmitters. They were cheap to run as they did not make their own programmes: instead, they broadcast landline feeds of programmes taken largely from the London station, which used the official call-­sign 2LO to identify itself to listeners. To economize further, and to raise the standard of what was broadcast, the BBC also strengthened national networking by feeding more material from 2LO to the other main stations. From July 1925, 2LO was also relayed by 5XX, a new high-­power station at Daventry, Northamptonshire, which could reach remote listeners who could not pick up any other BBC service. Once 5XX opened, around 80 per cent of UK listeners could pick up at least one BBC station, as could many ‘eavesdroppers’ across and beyond Europe. The BBC thus began to develop an international as well as a national audience and reputation. There were many arguments in favour of putting 2LO at the centre of the UK’s emerging national broadcasting network. The station had access to the cream of London’s cultural resources, including many of the nation’s most famous speakers and performers. It could also provide coverage of great national events and ceremonies, as part of a more uniform and avowedly national service. A proud Aberdonian who combined a mild Scottish cultural nationalism with a strong commitment to the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Reith believed that broadcasting should help bind the component parts of the UK together. The Company could help create a more

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

19

genuinely shared British culture and a sense of participation in national life. Strengthening London’s dominance over the rest of the organization also appealed to Reith’s centralizing approach to ­management and his desire more closely to control what was broadcast by the BBC’s stations. One disgruntled former employee described the first decade of BBC administration as ‘a gigantic experiment in paternalism . . . everything was centralised upon a single person’.5 The days of largely autonomous local broadcasting were numbered.

Reithian broadcasting Although wireless might have been regarded as a public utility in the 1920s, it was clearly not quite the same thing as water, gas, or elec­tri­ city. Built into the content that transmitters and receivers delivered to listeners were complex political, social, and cultural meanings. A strong signal reaching across the UK could not in itself justify the BBC’s monopoly: it mattered what that signal carried into the homes of listeners. In the wake of the Sykes report, the BBC set out to provide a more professional and, to some extent, a more serious-­minded service, and to impose from Savoy Hill more uniform programme policies on the local stations. It was clear from an early stage that broadcasting could become a battleground for conflicts over issues of public taste and decency. Senior managers sought to avoid controversy by imposing a degree of self-­censorship. Reith emphasized that the BBC should never set out to offend listeners: restrictions on what could be broadcast were put in place, and even mildly objectionable jokes (about drink, politics, clergymen, Scotsmen, or the Welsh, but, intriguingly, not the Irish) were henceforth to be avoided. Avoiding offence was deemed particularly important because, in theory, anyone could listen to the wireless and, because of the BBC monopoly, they had little choice about what to listen to. In practice, due to the expense of buying and operating a wireless set, most early listeners were middle- or

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

20

T h is is t h e BBC

lower-­middle class, and the perceived tastes of this group set the tone for programming. Reith also argued that the avoidance of harm was not a sufficient justification of the BBC’s monopoly. The Company also needed to have a constructive social and cultural impact on British life. As well as entertaining listeners, it should improve and educate them and ‘carry into the greatest possible number of homes everything that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement’.6 It could do this by mixing different types of material into its programmes each evening, giving listeners not only what they thought they wanted but also what programme makers knew (or thought they knew) was needed. Serendipitously, listeners would encounter a range of new and unexpected things. Over time, it was envisaged, they would grow to like and appreciate even the most difficult ‘modern’ classical music and learn about a whole range of different topics. Radio would not just be fun. It would provide rational recreation that would benefit both the individual and society more generally. The ‘Reithian’ philosophy of broadcasting was not in fact the invention of one man. Reith drew together existing ideas about what broadcasting should be, from a range of sources. He also made a virtue of necessity. With most listeners only able to pick up a single BBC station, and with the BBC retaining a monopoly of all British broadcasting, the Company had little choice but to provide mixed schedules that would hopefully contain something for everyone. It also had to convince listeners, critics, and regulators that it was fulfilling its duty to deliver a public service of the highest quality. The Reithian approach was a product of the broadcasting system that had already been established in Britain, not a cause of it.The fact that broadcasting was run very differently in other countries indicated that there was nothing inevitable about the approach adopted by the BBC, but Reith set out to convince people that it was the best one. Indeed, increasingly he argued that it was a model for broadcasters in other countries to follow.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

21

Some thought that the Reithian approach was patronizing and illiberal. What gave the BBC the right to determine what listeners should hear and what should be kept off-­air? Why should its programme makers be allowed to decide cultural standards, which were surely subjective and thus debatable? Why not simply give listeners what they seemed to want—plenty of music and light entertainment—as American commercial broadcasters seemed willing and able to do? Yet there was a democratic aspect to Reithian broadcasting. In the US, broadcasters were primarily motivated by the desire to make money and seemed to have little interest in anything else. The BBC had a much more socially responsible, and potentially progressive, vision of what broadcasting could be. It promised to treat all its listeners as equals. It refused to underestimate what they were capable of learning and enjoying. In 1918, the UK franchise had been extended to all men over the age of twenty-­ one, and to most women over thirty. Broadcasting could, Reith argued, help turn this expanded electorate into a politically and culturally engaged and empowered public. BBC managers pressed the GPO to allow more broadcast coverage of pol­ it­ics and current affairs. However, there was always a tension between this democratic, liberal, and potentially radical mission, to which many BBC employees were deeply committed, and the Company’s role in strengthening the established political and cultural order and its attendant hierarchies, which other BBC officers held just as dear. The Company was rarely an obviously radical voice. Announcers, and most speakers appearing in ‘serious’ programmes, were expected to talk in cultured accents and to adopt a formal manner. ‘BBC English’ pronunciation evoked the upper-­middle classes and Oxbridge: often it did not seem to cor­res­ pond with how anyone anywhere else in the country spoke. From autumn 1925, announcers were required to wear dinner jackets while they were on duty, to ensure that no speakers or performers arriving in similar attire might feel overdressed. Indeed, BBC programmes often worked to reflect and strengthen the dominant ideologies of the time, including loyalty to the mon­archy,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

22

T h is is t h e BBC

respect for organized Christian worship, support for the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and pride in British imperial supremacy. George V broadcast for the first time at the opening of the Wembley Empire Exhibition on 23 April 1924. Communal listening and relaying to broadcasters overseas meant that an estimated ten million people heard his speech. Royal ‘media events’ subsequently provided key moments for fulfilling the BBC’s nation- and empire-­ building functions. Support for the Christian churches was similarly overt. Christian religious services were broadcast on Sundays from the end of 1923 and daily from the beginning of 1928. Although these broadcasts were supposedly non-­ denominational, Anglican ceremonies dominated. Programme content did not have to be explicitly or aggressively nationalistic for the BBC to play a nation-­building role. The use of sound symbolically to link the remotest parts of the country with London, the capital of the nation and of the British empire, worked more subtly to promote national unity and imperial pride. This was made possible by national networking, seen by the Company’s en­g in­ eers as a key goal from a very early stage.The desire to bind the nation together reflected implicit and explicit fears about the weakness of the Union and of Britain’s wider position in the world. The BBC was established in the immediate aftermath of the most significant blow to the Union for more than a century, the Anglo-­Irish War and the subsequent foundation of the Irish Free State. However, ironically these events allowed it to focus on promoting a Britishness uncomplicated by the Irish separatist nationalism that had divided the UK politically for decades. In Northern Ireland, which remained an integral part of the Union, the BBC quickly became part of the Protestant-­dominated establishment, at the expense of Catholic speakers, performers, and audiences. More generally, during the 1920s and 1930s programmes often celebrated the diversity of the UK’s regional and national cultures, presenting them as an authentic set of traditions that fed into and strengthened the country’s overarching sense of identity. Separatist, political forms of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh nationalism

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

23

were consistently downplayed, even as distinctive folk cultures were promoted. This approach generally worked in the interwar years, though it attracted criticism from a vocal minority and would later seem intensely problematic. Promoting British and Irish folk cultures was also part of the BBC’s self-­conscious attempts to resist ‘Americanization’ and the incursion of US-­dominated commercial popular culture. During the 1920s, Hollywood was already beginning to dominate Britain’s cinema screens, at the expense of the UK’s own film industry. A strong monopoly broadcaster could help ensure that the same did not happen to radio. Indeed, the BBC might help Britain punch above its weight, culturally, in the emerging global broadcasting arena. Senior officers actively sought to develop the Company’s international role as a further means to justify and secure its domestic monopoly. From as early as December 1923, BBC stations relayed material broadcast from the US and Europe, and enthusiastically took part in select programme exchanges with foreign broadcasters. Foreign content was to be welcomed, but also carefully curated and controlled. Inward flows were to be counterbalanced by sending British programmes overseas. The Company would act as a cultural gatekeeper, ensuring that only what it regarded as the best programming was exchanged. Such arrangements could elevate the reputation of Britain and of the BBC abroad. More idealistically, some hoped that programme exchange would contribute to mutual understanding and peace, repairing some of the damage done to the international order by the First World War.

Making programmes One question lurked in the background as the BBC devised its early programme policies: how could the ‘best’ programming be identified and delivered? Programme makers certainly sought external guidance, studying letters from listeners and scrutinizing reviews and critiques of broadcasts published in the press. Ultimately, however, they generally

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

24

T h is is t h e BBC

trusted their own judgement and vigorously defended their own decisions and views about cultural standards. This confidence in their own convictions was less a function of any familiarity with the work of making programmes: all staff were of necessity newcomers, more or less, to the infant world of wireless. Rather, their self-­assurance was in part a reflection of the privileged and highly educated background of most programme makers, and of their shared social and cultural world. One pioneer, Lionel Fielden, later fondly recalled the atmosphere at Savoy Hill as ‘one-­third boarding school, one-­third Chelsea party, one-­third crusade’.7 This description captured not only the experimental and idealistic nature of the early BBC but also the elite origins of many of its early programme makers. The organization was dom­in­ated by men from upper-­middle-­class, Oxbridge-­educated backgrounds who would have been equally at home in the upper echelons of the home civil service or the Foreign Office. Many had served in the armed forces as officers during the First World War, and personnel were generally referred to as ‘officers’ throughout this period. Some continued to use their wartime military rank. From the outset, the BBC was committed to broadcasting plenty of classical music, paying full attention to the acknowledged great composers of the past, while also promoting wider appreciation of challenging ‘modern’ compositions.When listeners complained about the excessive amount or difficult nature of the classical music that was broadcast, this was often taken by programme schedulers and makers as a sign that audiences were being appropriately challenged and uplifted. During the 1920s, the BBC became one of the most im­port­ ant patrons of opera, symphony, and chamber music in Britain, paying fees for the right to broadcast performances from public venues, and establishing orchestras of its own to perform live in BBC studios.This sustained performers by providing regular income and widened cultural access across the country: the only permanent full-­time orchestra based in Northern Ireland at this time was the BBC Wireless Orchestra. Yet the Company clearly also reinforced the cultural dominance of London over the rest of the country. At peak listening hours local

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

25

stations increasingly took feeds from London of concerts from the capital’s most prestigious venues. Programming also reflected the Company’s commitment to educating its listeners more generally and, in 1924, J.  C.  Stobart, a Cambridge lecturer, was appointed as its first director of education. Wireless became a more explicit tool of adult education. That November, 2LO broadcast numerous ‘talks’, including the well-­ known popularizer of natural history, E. Kay Robinson, on ‘Winter and the Butterflies’, Stewart Dick talking about art history in ‘The Nation’s Pictures—The Beginning of the Fifteenth Century’, and Sir Martin Conway on ‘The Imperial War Museum’. Those tuning into Glasgow might have caught a talk by Dr Pio del Frate on ‘Italian Literature’; Aberdeen offered a lecture by Professor Alexander Souter on ‘Ancient Roman People’. In the early afternoon, London, and some other stations (including Cardiff ), also broadcast educational programmes for children, designed to be used in classrooms. By 1927, three thousand schools were using wireless as a teaching tool. At 6 p.m. on weekday evenings, some stations also broadcast their own ‘Teens’ Corner’ or ‘Scholars’ Half Hour’, with local experts giving educational talks on a wide range of topics aimed at older schoolchildren, supplementing and supporting their formal education. Yet broadcasting probably accomplished its most important educational work in a more subtle fashion, through a range of pathways. Material aimed at children, for example, had to be fun but could simultaneously be educational: talks, storytelling, music, and programmes about real or imaginary animals were quickly adopted as key means to do both. Children listening to 2LO’s ‘Children’s Corner’ session on 12 November 1924, for instance, would have heard a talk by ‘Uncle Jeff ’ about ‘How Music is Built’ and another about Galileo in a series called Lives of Famous Men, and would have also been treated to one of ‘Auntie Marie’s Stories of France’ and a story about ‘A Fairy Umbrella’ by the children’s author Joan Kennedy. The next day, they would have heard one of the series of ‘Zoo Stories’ told by ‘L. G. M. of the Daily Mail’ (Leslie G. Mainland), and ‘Sunshine Music’ played on

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

26

T h is is t h e BBC

the piano by ‘the Cloud Lady’, Jessie Cormack, a regular performer in BBC children’s and music programming. Storytelling was not just for children. One of the most popular broadcasters on the early BBC was the serving military intelligence officer and former magician Leslie Harrison Lambert, who broadcast pseudonymously as ‘A. J. Alan’. To keep his act fresh, Lambert only broadcast around five times a year. He recognized that voice was important on radio, so he abstained from alcohol and tobacco for a week before each of his performances, and adopted an intimate, confiding tone, addressing the listener as an individual and a friend. Each talk started off in a low-­key fashion, building on a strange event or coincidence that Lambert had supposedly experienced: he then built up the tension before finishing with an unexpected twist. The mystery surrounding the true identity of ‘A. J. Alan’ added to the intrigue and appeal. Other popular early radio performers meanwhile used talks to combine entertainment with information. The composer and conductor Sir Walford Davies, director of music at the University of Wales, developed this technique in his talks for schools and in programmes for adults such as ‘Melodies and How to Make Them’ and ‘Music and Human Nature’, broadcast from Cardiff and illustrated with live music. Another key pioneer was the gardening writer Marion Cran, whose friendly, conversational, and sometimes ungrammatical ‘gardening chats’ were, from 1923, a regular feature in 2LO’s ‘Women’s Hour’ slot. Cran was the first BBC gardening broadcaster, establishing what would become a perennial genre for radio and, later, television. Other stations similarly produced their own programmes spe­cif­ic­ al­ly for women, in regular slots with titles like ‘Women’s Hour’, ‘Women’s Half Hour’, ‘Feminine Topics’, or ‘Afternoon Topics’. The focus was generally domestic, covering subjects like shopping, cooking, gardening, and health. However, although limited in scope, such programmes did create space for programmes made by, presented by, and aimed at women. Indeed, some moved well beyond the domestic sphere, offering information and advice on careers and a range of

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

27

general interest topics. Programmes for women were typically broadcast in the late afternoon, before sessions for children: during the 1920s, the daytime broadcasting hours that would later provide key slots for women’s programming were strictly limited. BBC stations did most of their broadcasting in the evening, when they aimed to provide programmes that would appeal to the entire family. The prevailing tone of programming was undoubtedly masculine, and as an institution the BBC was clearly male dominated. Although it was seen as a progressive employer in terms of its attitude to women, this was only relative to contemporary norms. Female employees continued to experience significant levels of official and unofficial discrimination. They were employed in numerous administrative and behind-­the-­scenes roles, but from the outset were significantly under-­ represented in senior positions. Similarly, although women regularly appeared as performers in music and drama programmes and in sessions for children, they were less frequently asked to give talks. Male musical and comedy stars were often promoted more prominently than their female counterparts. All announcers were men. Some women would rise to occupy significant management positions during the later 1920s and the 1930s, but they remained a tiny minority. The Company also made drama a key element in its broadcast schedules. Adaptations of the classics were regularly broadcast including, unsurprisingly, readings and productions of scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. In October 1923, the Cardiff station broadcast the first of a series of locally produced ‘Shakespeare Nights’ that included drama, talks, and music, while at the same time 2LO organized its own ‘Shakespeare Evening’. Drama also drew on national and local iden­ tities and cultural resources. That October the Glasgow station produced a lavish musical adaptation of the period drama Rob Roy (set during the Jacobite rising), involving the choir of the city’s Lyric Club, the Military Band of the 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers (including pipers), and the station’s own orchestra.The performance was not just for local enjoyment: it was relayed to all stations across the country.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

28

T h is is t h e BBC

The BBC also broadcast new dramatic material written specially for radio. On 15 January 1924, an ‘evening of plays’ on 2LO broadcast included four short performances lasting an hour and three-­quarters in total. The pieces included an adaptation of a classic, the proposal scene from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but also a specially commissioned play by the young and relatively unknown writer Richard Hughes, A Comedy of Danger, generally regarded as the first drama written specially for radio. This was a pioneering attempt to exploit the dramatic possibilities of radio as a medium. The story revolved around the plight of a group of visitors trapped in a flooding Welsh coal mine, which was plunged into total darkness: listeners were invited to turn off all the lights in their room, while sound effects simulated the noise of rushing water, pickaxes, and explosions. Plays like A Comedy of Danger were proof that not everything the Company did was ‘highbrow’. Indeed, a great deal of broadcast time on all stations was taken up with programming primarily designed to entertain listeners. ‘Light’ music—melodic compositions performed by orchestras and military bands—offered easy listening and was hugely popular with audiences. It also provided stations with a cheap and readily available means to fill up much of their airtime. Dance music also had many devotees, and most evenings studio performances by BBC bands and outside broadcasts of other acts encouraged listeners across the country to ‘roll back the carpet’ and dance to the syncopated rhythms of jazz and swing. This did not delight everyone: some complained that these musical styles were an unwanted American import. Critics also denounced, sometimes in openly racist terms, the prominent role played by Black performers in shaping modern dance music. Some listeners, critics, and BBC officers wanted popular music broadcasts to be British and white. Nevertheless, white British bands and performers regularly played jazz music on BBC stations, and by the end of 1923 the Aberdeen, Newcastle, and Bournemouth stations all had their own Jazz Orchestras. ‘Negro Spirituals’ performed by white singers were also a recurring feature of broadcast schedules, as were blackface ‘minstrel’

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

29

routines with their atavistic and offensive radial stereotypes. Stations also broadcast a significant number of performances by Black artists, although generally people of colour were only able to find work on radio as entertainers, in music and comedy acts, and seldom in any other genre of programming. In the spring and summer of 1925, 2LO brought the African American singer C. C. Rosemond to the microphone: he also appeared in its schedules as part of The Southern Trio, performing ‘Negro Melodies’ alongside the African American singer John C. Payne and the Black British singer Evelyn Dove. All three had been members of the influential Southern Syncopated Orchestra, which had toured Britain between 1919 and 1921 and introduced jazz music to many listeners for the first time. In October 1925, the African American singer Paul Robeson (then at the very beginning of his career but soon to become a star of radio and cinema in the US and Britain) gave recitals of ‘Negro Songs’ on 2LO and also offered listeners explanatory talks about his performances. Two months later the station broadcast a selection of ‘Negro Spirituals and Lighter Numbers’ performed live by the African-­ American group The Four Harmony Kings. BBC stations provided new employment opportunities for popular musicians across the country. Network broadcasts allowed some performers, particularly those based in London, to establish national and international audiences and reputations: as one BBC listener in Scandinavia reported, ‘We all know the Savoy Orpheans, the Savoy Tango Band, Jay Whidden, and their fascinating music.’8 The music industry also sought to take advantage of the opportunities radio offered to promote its products, and used broadcast performances indirectly to advertise and promote sales of new sheet music and gramophone records. The BBC tried to prevent ‘plugging’ but this could endanger its relationship with music publishers and star performers, and it had to tread carefully. Commercial interests could never be excluded entirely from the public service. The BBC also mixed music with comedy in ‘variety’ or ‘vaudeville’ programmes. Early wireless comedy performers did not typically have

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

30

T h is is t h e BBC

their own shows. Instead, they starred in mixed programmes, reflecting the world of Music Hall and Victorian popular theatre from which most of them had come. One early success on-­air was the comedian Willie Rouse, who reinvented himself as ‘Wireless Willie’. Others who made the leap from Music Hall to broadcasting included ‘Wee Georgie’ Wood, whose sentimental comedy act involved him impersonating a small boy;Will Hay, who transferred his schoolmaster comedy routine to radio and then to film; Robb Wilton, who adapted his dry, gentle, monologues from the Northern Music Hall circuit to radio; Ronald Frankau, telling risqué jokes in a pronounced upper-­ class accent; and Tommy Handley, who, in the 1940s, went on to become the BBC’s biggest star. Other comedy performers, many of them women, sought to escape Music Hall traditions even though they still had to broadcast in the setting of mixed variety programmes. They used the more intimate appeal of wireless to pioneer new forms of character-­driven comedy. Helena Millais was the first performer to develop a character specially for British radio, offering jokes, observational humour, and catchphrases in the Cockney persona of ‘Our Lizzie’. Another amateur performer spotted and promoted by the BBC was John Henry, whose routine with his on-­air wife ‘Blossom’ (played by Gladys Horridge) anticipated later radio and television situation comedy, complete with its stereotypes about henpecked husbands and loud, domineering wives. Mabel Constanduros was meanwhile among the first to understand the full comic potential of radio as a non-­visual medium. From 1925, she brought the ‘Buggins’ family to the BBC, playing up to seven different characters in each broadcast sketch, usually including the matriarch ‘Mrs Buggins’. One of the other attractions to the BBC of bringing these new acts to the microphone was the fact that they were not entangled with Music Hall promoters who, fearing a new source of competition, often sought to impose tough restrictions on the use of ‘their’ talent on-­air. Private commercial interests coexisted uneasily with Britain’s

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

31

public service broadcasting monopoly and remained quick to complain about anything that seemed like unfair competition. By 1926, programme makers and performers were beginning to see ways to use radio to make new forms of programming and to reach new listeners, appealing to local interests and tastes but also addressing the public as a single, great, national audience. Nevertheless, many programmes continued to rely on long-­established traditions adopted from other genres. ‘Serious’ music was generally presented in the trad­ ition­al setting of the concert.Talks were essentially lectures, as de­livered at universities or on public occasions. Broadcasts for schools were on-­ air lessons, relying on the novelty of wireless and the change from classroom routine to engage students. Religious broadcasts adopted the familiar forms of the church service and sermon. Light entertainment relied heavily on Music Hall traditions and routines, existing genres of popular music, and revue-­style concert parties. ‘Outside broadcasts’, when microphones were taken out of the studio to provide live on-­location coverage, meanwhile offered a means to present established public events to wider audiences. Outside broadcasts were not just used for musical performances: the BBC also made a point of broadcasting official speeches given at opening cere­ monies of public buildings, formal dinners to celebrate events like Burns Night, and commemorations such as Armistice Day. Such events offered another means to use radio to build a sense of local or national community. Broadcasting similarly had the potential to cap­ it­al­ize on long-­established popular interest in local and national sporting events. From an early stage, sport was a popular topic for talks. In October 1923, for example, the director of Arsenal football club spoke on 2LO about ‘The Humours of Football’, in a broadcast that was relayed across the BBC’s national network. Talks about lawn tennis, including tips on how to improve your game, were also put on by many individual stations. On Saturday evenings, the BBC broadcast summaries of the day’s key sporting events, including the results of soccer and rugby matches. BBC officers were well aware of the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

32

T h is is t h e BBC

enormous possibilities offered by sports for outside broadcast work, with radio potentially allowing major events to be brought live to listeners around the country in their own homes. However, the newspaper industry continued to resist the Company’s appeals for a relaxation of restrictions on wireless coverage of live events. Live sports broadcasting was something for the future.

Conclusions Similarly, politics and current affairs were largely absent from the Company’s broadcast schedules. Throughout its existence, it was obliged by the GPO to restrict the amount of news it broadcast and to avoid talks on controversial subjects. This reflected pressure from the newspaper industry to head off potential competition, but also fears about the consequences of allowing a monopoly broadcaster to offer political coverage and comment. How could all sides be satisfied that their views were being equitably and satisfactorily treated, in the absence of the sort of (notionally) free market for opinion offered by the press? How could the BBC determine who should be allowed to speak on-­air, and who should not, and what gave it the right to do so? The simplest solution was to prevent the BBC becoming a medium for political expression and debate: as the Postmaster General put it, ‘If once you let broadcasting into politics, you will never be able to keep politics out of broadcasting.’9 Many BBC officers thought this a hopelessly short-­sighted approach, and were eager for wireless to realize its potential to bring national politics to a wider public. Change finally came during the General Strike of May 1926, a nationwide labour dispute that badly disrupted newspaper production. The BBC was not significantly unionized and became a crucial alternative means to disseminate political information and comment. Some argued that, in the context of this national emergency, the BBC should be taken under direct government control to ensure it helped maintain public order and supported the authority of the British state.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Com pa n y, 1922–1926

33

Although this did not happen, the Company’s compliance was encouraged by the threat that it might. Reith argued that the General Strike was illegal, that the government was acting on behalf of the people, and that by implication the strikers were not.The BBC should thus, he maintained, provide ministers with full access to its services as a means of public communication. It duly carried copious details of their speeches and statements, while trade unionists and Labour politicians were kept off-­air. Reith even delayed broadcasting an appeal for peace from the Archbishop of Canterbury, fearing it would precipitate a government takeover of the Company. During the Strike, the BBC did cover current events, in a way it had never previously attempted. Yet no effort was made to venture into the field of independent journalism. Five news bulletins were broadcast daily, based on material provided by news agencies and civil servants. A daily news ‘editorial’ was produced within the BBC and vetted by a senior government official before it was broadcast. The Company posed as an impartial, moderating influence during a time of national turmoil, yet it clearly backed the state against the strikers. The BBC survived the crisis, and Reith received a knighthood. As the Company’s licence from the GPO neared its expiration at the end of 1926, it was clear that the BBC had made great progress in achieving the task that had been set for it. Broadcasting had been both popularized and controlled. Over two million UK households had purchased listener licences, representing a receiving set in between a third and a quarter of homes. Geographically, transmitters covered almost four-­ fifths of the population of Great Britain (coverage remained less satisfactory in Northern Ireland) with signals strong enough to be picked up using a simple crystal set. Transmitters were linked together into a national network, although they still provided plenty of locally produced material. Programme makers had adapted a range of genres to provide material to fill schedules and had started to experiment with new and original types of programming, increasing the appeal of radio to its audiences.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

34

T h is is t h e BBC

Broadcasting had already begun to reshape how people spent their leisure time. Under its influence ‘the average young man resumed the good habit of coming home promptly of an evening’, and households drew together to listen, and chat, around the radio set in a way that helped break down older, hierarchical views of what family life should be. As one observer put it, ‘in the sharing of a mutual joy . . . brothers have become more brotherly. Sisters more sisterly. Mothers and fathers less parental.’10 The BBC had also started to give new form to the family Christmas: on Christmas Eve, 1926, 2LO offered listeners one of A. J. Alan’s stories, festive programmes for children, and a Christmas special featuring Mabel Constanduros in Mrs Buggins Gives a Christmas Party. The other stations took feeds of some of these programmes from 2LO but also broadcast their own Christmas concerts and carol services: Birmingham put on an adaptation of a scene from Dickens’ Scrooge, while Liverpool offered listeners ‘A Christmas Fairy Play’. Across the stations, Christmas Day had meanwhile largely become a time for religious services, children’s programmes, and light music to aid digestion of the Christmas dinner. In these and other subtle ways, the BBC and broadcasting contributed to the reordering of social and cultural life in Britain after the First World War.The General Strike of 1926 had shown how broadcasting could also function as a medium of political mass communication. However, the Strike had simultaneously demonstrated that the BBC ultimately remained at the service of the state and on the side of the established order. As they contemplated what form broadcasting should take after the Company’s operating licence expired at the end of that year, politicians, civil servants, and BBC officers were well aware of this fact.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

2 The Corporation, 1927–1939

B

y January 1927, the early days of amateurish and improvised BBC programming had been largely consigned to the past. What had taken their place was altogether more sophisticated and serious. On weekdays, the London station 2LO began broadcasting at 1 p.m. each afternoon, generally with classical music, perhaps played on the organ or performed by a small ensemble. Then followed live music from a London dance band, glad of some employment before starting the evening’s work in a club or hotel. Later in the afternoon, special pro­ grammes for women (which that month included a series of talks on the work of the Women’s Institutes) were followed by the music and stories of Children’s Hour.Then the microphone was turned over to an orchestra for an early evening programme of light classical music, punctuated at 6.30 p.m.by the day’s first news bulletin and weather report. Heavier fare invariably followed each evening, involving a talk on travel, languages, the theatre, international affairs, or some other topic that promised to blend education with a (limited) measure of enter­ tainment. At around 7.15 p.m. listeners were offered The Foundations of Music, which sought to promote knowledge and appreciation of the great works of classical music: that January it broadcast ‘Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues played through consecutively in this hour throughout the month’.1 Over the course of a week 2LO’s listeners might also hear a short scene from a play, a military band, a special

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

36

T h is is t h e BBC

programme selected by the National Institute for the Blind (the visually impaired were recognized from an early stage as a key radio audience), a variety performance including some comedy and musical acts and, inevitably, more classical music: a series focusing on the works of Brahms was a regular feature of that month’s schedules. Most even­ ings, broadcasting ended with an hour or more of live late-­night dance music from the West End, performed by a hotel orchestra such as the Savoy Orpheans. The broadcast schedules for 2LO had certainly become more ser­ ious and ambitious in tone since the BBC had taken it over some four years earlier. The new approach reflected a Reithian desire to serve listeners with the best classical music, the most eminent speakers, and the finest dramatic performances the nation’s capital could supply. This, it was hoped, would continue to justify the BBC’s monopoly of all broadcasting in Britain. However, apart from Children’s Hour and late-­night dance music, the new approach meant that there was not much fun to be had from 2LO. The London station was not only for metropolitan listeners. It was also available to many outside London, as the BBC relayed 2LO’s pro­ grammes to the powerful long-­wave transmitter at Daventry, 5XX, which covered most of the country. Many of the local stations in the provincial cities also carried relays of 2LO’s programmes for part of each evening. For the rest of the time they broadcast their own locally produced programmes. These also included plenty of classical music, performed by local orchestras and ensembles, but the local schedules were generally somewhat lighter, with more drama and variety pro­ gramming. On the evening of Monday 10 January 1927, for example, while 2LO was broadcasting a programme of sea shanties, Tudor and Stuart songs, and modern choral music performed by Southall’s Featherstone Road Boys’ School Choir, the Cardiff station was offer­ ing ‘some Nonsense’ from the comedian Tommy Handley. Saturdays promised more fun and nonsense. On 15 January, when 2LO began its usual afternoon service, it surprised listeners with something new. T   he scheduled concert (Tchaikovsky, Handel, and Elgar) was delayed, as the station broadcast a live running commentary

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

37

on the England v. Wales rugby football match at Twickenham. Afterwards, Marion Cran gave one of her regular ‘garden chats’, and children were treated to some music and a couple of stories. Over the rest of the evening, as well as the usual offering of classical music (more Brahms), listeners could enjoy an hour of variety, including music performed by ‘Mrs Jack Hylton and her Players in Syncopation’ (the bandleader was Ennis Parkes, trading on the name of her husband, the ‘British King of Jazz’), and sketches by the Jewish comedians Joe Hayman (famous for his caricatured ‘Cohen’ routine) and Mildred Franklin. Before it closed down, 2LO provided more late-­night dance music from the Savoy Hotel. However, as far as the BBC was concerned, when the Savoy Orpheans packed up at midnight, the Roaring Twenties were over for the week. On Sundays, listeners were subjected to the full force of the Reithian Sabbath. Broadcasting from 2LO did not begin until mid-­ afternoon, when listeners might tune in for some sombre classical music and perhaps a religious-­themed play. After a live relay of the church bells of St Martin-­in-­the-­Fields, a religious service would be given by a guest cleric, followed by a brief charitable appeal (the collection plate in broadcast form), the news and weather, and then maybe a service of hymns, before an ‘Epilogue’ and the end of broad­ casting for the evening at 10.40 p.m. Other stations also relayed 2LO’s Sunday programming, sometimes inserting their own substitute local religious services and hymn-­singing. Faced with this holy offering, many listeners decided either to keep their wireless set switched off or, if they had a powerful enough receiver, to try and pick up a foreign station that might provide some light or dance music. Readers of the Radio Times would have been aware that, at the beginning of January 1927, the British Broadcasting Company had become the British Broadcasting Corporation, established with the government’s blessing and a royal charter.This transformation seemed to confirm the wisdom of the Reithian approach to radio and prom­ ised more of the same for the future. However, within little more than a decade, the BBC, its services, and its programmes, would all change dramatically. The local stations disappeared, to be replaced by two

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

38

T h is is t h e BBC

new, national radio networks. Meanwhile, the threat of commercial competition from Continental European stations forced the Corporation to moderate its uplifting approach, and to give listeners more light music, popular drama, and comedy. Today, the programmes of 1927 seem impossibly alien, but those of 1939 were made using formats and approaches that are still with us eighty years later. The transformation did not stop there. In London at least, by the late 1930s, those wealthy enough to be able to afford a television set could become viewers as well as listeners. Perhaps most significantly, by summer 1939 the BBC was using radio to serve more people than ever before, not just in Britain, and not just in English. Broadcasting to audiences around the British empire, across the Middle East, in Latin America, and in Europe, it had begun to offer a world service.

A royal charter The General Strike of 1926 had raised a basic question: who ul­tim­ ate­ly owned and controlled the BBC? At that point it was still a com­ pany, but not an ordinary commercial concern. Its shareholders were the major British radio manufacturing firms which had established it in the first place. It was run not for direct profit but to provide a pro­ gramme service that would, in turn, benefit the manufacturers by generating sales of radio sets and equipment. It was heavily regulated by the state and operated under a special licence from the General Post Office (GPO), set to expire at the end of that year. Since it had been established, the conviction had developed within the Company, and more widely, that it had a duty to run broadcasting as a public service, providing the best programmes to as many people as possible, regardless of where they lived or how much they earned. In 1920s Britain, many people believed that public authorities were best placed to provide basic utilities, and the Sykes Report of 1923 had extended this principle to broadcasting. To ensure that wireless actively benefited British society and culture, ownership and control had to

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

39

‘remain with the State’ and not be ceded to private commercial enterprises. However, the Sykes Report had also warned against direct state control: civil servants would make ‘intolerably dull’ programmes. Remote control by the state, of a service operated by a professional and efficient public authority, was thus presented as the means to deliver the best programmes. Senior BBC officers agreed, and indeed helped the Sykes committee reach this conclusion: this was the basis upon which the Company was already being run. Crucially, nowhere did the Sykes Report mention that the BBC should be ‘independent’ from the state. The watchword was ‘control’.2 The expiration of the Company’s operating licence provided an opportunity to rethink the British approach to broadcasting. Wireless was no longer an infant medium, and BBC officers and policymakers had developed a better sense of its possibilities. By 1926, they also had access to a wider, and clearer, set of potential models than had been available at the outset. Since 1922, broadcasting had been established and organized in other countries in a range of different ways. However, none of the more obvious foreign models were hugely appealing. In the US, broadcasting was dominated by entrepreneurs seeking profit in a competitive, lightly regulated market. A multitude of privately owned and operated stations, largely funded by on-­air commercial sponsorship of programmes, were spread across the country. Some were very successful. However, this uncontrolled and uncontrollable proliferation of operators was exactly what the GPO still wished to avoid. The great national commercial networks that would soon become a dominant feature of American broadcasting, and a crucial counterweight to the tendency towards fragmentation, were only just beginning to form. The US thus did not provide an obvious example for Britain to emulate. Direct state control, as adopted in the USSR and thus increasingly associated with communism, inevitably offered an even less attractive alternative. It had anyway been proved unneces­ sary by the General Strike. Following the recommendations of another parliamentary com­ mittee, chaired by Lord Crawford, the British government thus

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

40

T h is is t h e BBC

decided to stick with the BBC, albeit in a revised and updated form. On 1 January 1927, the British Broadcasting Company became the British Broadcasting Corporation, operating under a royal charter as well as a GPO licence.The vestigial link with the Company’s original backers, the radio manufacturers, was eliminated: the shareholders were bought out. The Corporation would be owned by the nation. Each royal charter would last for a fixed period: the first would be valid for ten years. Before it was renewed, the charter (and the BBC’s performance) would be reviewed by a parliamentary committee. MPs would hold the Corporation to account on behalf of the nation and decide whether to issue a new charter and, if so, upon what terms. This basic approach has endured for almost a century. Was the new Corporation an integral part of the British state, or only accountable to it? BBC employees were not civil servants. The Corporation did not have to answer to the Treasury for its ex­pend­ iture: the listener licence fee offered financial independence as, in the short term at least, funding could not be arbitrarily reduced or with­ drawn.Yet the BBC was still licensed and regulated by the GPO. The Postmaster General, a member of the cabinet, had the power to com­ pel the Corporation to broadcast, or to refrain from broadcasting, any material he wanted. It was not clear how this would work in practice, or under what circumstances the government might exercise its pre­ rogative, although civil servants in many branches of government had often used the Company to disseminate official announcements and notices. If the BBC did not perform to the Postmaster General’s sat­ isfaction, civil servants could revoke its operating licence. The GPO also retained the power to take over the BBC’s stations in the event of an emergency of an unspecified nature. The Crawford Report had recommended that the Corporation be ‘invested with the maximum of freedom which Parliament is prepared to concede’, but its inde­ pendence was clearly constrained in extent and provisional in nature.3 The Company’s managing director, Sir John Reith, and many of its other senior officers, were enthusiastic about the change in status, and indeed had argued for it. Removing the vestigial sense that the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

41

broadcaster was a company with a commercial agenda helped the BBC overturn the restrictions on its activities that a range of outside interests had previously insisted on. Representatives of the newspaper industry and the entertainment business had been particularly forceful in arguing that the Company, with its state-­sponsored monopoly of all broadcasting, represented an unfair source of competition. They had successfully restricted the amount of news it carried, its coverage of live public events, and its use on-­air of Music Hall acts and some other forms of entertainment. The new Corporation was clearly not a commercial concern, and it’s new royal charter gave it the confidence to expand the scope of its legitimate activities. On 21 January 1927, the Radio Times announced, somewhat cryptically, that some sort of running sports commentary would probably be broadcast the following Saturday afternoon. The previous week the BBC had, for the first time, provided live coverage of a rugby match. In its next issue, the Radio Times supplied a plan of the football ground at Crystal Palace, divided up into numbered sec­ tions. This allowed listeners to follow the action when the national radio network broadcast its first soccer match, Corinthians v. Newcastle United, on 29 January: the commentator used the numbered plan to help listeners understand what was happening on the pitch. More ‘outside broadcasts’ of other soccer matches and rugby fixtures fol­ lowed over the next few weeks. In the spring, the BBC arranged a live commentary on the Oxford-­Cambridge University Boat Race, and that summer it broadcast live horse racing (covering the Derby at Epsom) and the Wimbledon lawn tennis championship. For the next sixty years, the Corporation would dominate sports broadcasting in Britain. With the Corporation established, restrictions on news broadcast­ ing were also progressively relaxed, although not lifted entirely. The BBC began to edit its own news bulletins using material supplied by the news agencies. It was also allowed to broadcast eyewitness accounts of major events, although it was slow to exploit this opportunity. A  notable breakthrough came in November 1936, when the BBC

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

42

T h is is t h e BBC

correspondent Richard Dimbleby, speaking from a public telephone box on the spot, broadcast a first-­hand report on the fire that destroyed London’s Crystal Palace exhibition halls. The ban on controversial broadcasting was also relaxed and the BBC began, haltingly, to provide coverage of national politics. In 1929, The Week in Westminster was launched, initially aimed at informing a recently enfranchised female audience about political events. It is still broadcast on Radio 4 today. Subsequently, during the political crisis that led to and accompanied the formation of the National Government in 1931, the BBC was used by the prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, as a means of national political communication and to build a measure of consensus. During the 1930s, the BBC brought more and more politicians to the micro­ phone. However, attempts to share available airtime among the pol­it­ ical parties provoked accusations of bias and unfair treatment from commentators on both sides. Those excluded from the mainstream of their parties, including Winston Churchill, meanwhile felt neglected and attacked the Corporation accordingly. Although controversial broadcasting was now permitted, complete freedom of expression was not extended to broadcasting. At key points during the 1930s the government actively intervened to influence the BBC’s plans for political programming, notably to uphold a continu­ ing ban on the broadcasting of ‘editorial comment’ on current affairs. While named individuals could broadcast their own political opin­ ions, anything that appeared to be the view of the Corporation itself was not allowed. In practice, this distinction was difficult to draw and inevitably became a source of controversy. Official protests were lodged with the BBC in October 1933 following a broadcast by its foreign correspondent Vernon Bartlett that seemed to endorse Nazi Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations Disarmament Conference. The British government worried that this would be interpreted abroad as signalling its own support for the Nazi regime’s actions, because foreign governments tended to see the BBC as an official state broadcaster. The BBC duly asked Bartlett to resign and agreed to consult more closely with the Foreign Office in future.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

43

In 1935, government pressure similarly led the BBC to cancel a planned series of talks involving Sir Oswald Mosley (leader of the British Union of Fascists) and Harry Pollitt (general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain). When a parliamentary commit­ tee, chaired by Lord Ullswater, reviewed the royal charter in 1936 it agreed that BBC officers should consult civil servants, informally, whenever ‘the interests of the State appear to be at all closely involved’.4 Reith remained at the helm as director general of the Corporation until 1938. His response to institutional growth was to increase the centralization of authority in his own hands and to delegate power to a small number of powerful senior managers or ‘controllers’. This did not produce a happy organization: the 1930s were described by Maurice Gorham (who started his BBC career at the Radio Times, and ended it as head of the television service) as ‘the great Stuffed Shirt era, marked internally by paternalism run riot, bureaucracy of the most hierarchical type, an administration system that made productive work harder instead of easier, and a tendency to promote the most negative characters to be found amongst the staff ’.5 One potential challenge to Reith’s authority came from the board of governors, established in 1927 ostensibly to determine high level policy for the BBC.There were five part-­time governors, including a chairman, and they were appointed by the government, supposedly on a non-­ political basis. As chief executive, the director general was meant to be responsible for implementing their decisions. However, Reith worked with ruthless determination to limit the governors’ responsibilities to an essentially advisory role, thus ensuring his own continued dom­in­ ance at the top of a strict bureaucratic hierarchy. Some governors, and some chairmen, sought more authority but, until the late 1960s at least, they were seldom able to diminish that of the director general. In 1932, the BBC moved into its new purpose-­built London head­ quarters at Broadcasting House, Portland Place. Contemporaries ­likened the vast steel-­and-­concrete edifice to a medieval castle, a battle­ship, or an ocean liner grounded in the West End. Its entrance was adorned with Latin inscriptions and striking modernist sculpture,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

44

T h is is t h e BBC

including figures of Ariel and Prospero by Eric Gill (the governors received complaints from the public about the size and prominence of Ariel’s genitals, and Gill was supposedly asked to chisel them down to size: the statue later became controversial in the light of revelations of sexual abuses committed by Gill, and in January 2022 a member of the public sought to deface it as a protest). Broadcasting House was designed to impress visitors and passers-­by with the status and mod­ ern­ity of the Corporation while providing employees with a place to work, perform, meet, and eat. It was a world unto itself. Yet when it opened it was already too small for the BBC’s rapidly growing London operations. Further sites in the centre and on the outskirts of the cap­ ital had to be acquired, including additional studios at Maida Vale. By 1938, the BBC employed nearly 5,000 people, an increasing propor­ tion of them based in London, reflecting the growing centralization and increasingly metropolitan focus of the Corporation.

Nations and regions By the time the Company was replaced by the Corporation, over two million UK households had purchased listener licences. This figure rose to five million by the end of 1932, and to over nine million by 1939: by that point almost everyone in Britain had become part of the BBC’s radio audience.Yet despite, or perhaps because of, the growing popularity of wireless, the BBC found itself subject to increasing pub­ lic criticism on several different fronts. A specialist wireless press pros­ pered during the 1920s and 1930s, as did a new breed of newspaper columnist specializing in writing about radio (the most famous was Collie Knox of the Daily Mail). Such critics voiced and encouraged dissatisfaction with the way that the BBC was using its monopoly of British radio, and in particularly complained about the limited choice of programming that was being offered to listeners and the heavy diet of classical music and serious talks.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

45

To placate its critics and protect its monopoly, towards the end of the 1920s the Corporation devised an ambitious plan to decommis­ sion its existing national network and instead offer all listeners access to two alternative services. In implementing this plan, the BBC pri­ oritized technical efficiency and the minimization of costs, reflecting the power wielded by engineers within the Corporation. Most of the existing local and relay stations were shut down, their transmitters now deemed obsolete. In their place, the BBC established two new radio networks by building a smaller number of high-­power stations. This approach allowed the Corporation to meet the terms of a new, restrictive wavelength allocation framework that had been agreed by the various European broadcasting authorities, designed to minimize inter­ ference among stations. Compliance was not achieved by coincidence. The BBC’s chief engineer, Peter Eckersley, devised the plan for the new networks at the same time as he helped draw up the European agree­ ment. Both schemes reflected his belief that powerful transmitters, linked up to form national networks, were the key to the future of wireless. The BBC forged ahead with building its new stations despite the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the subsequent onset of the great eco­ nomic slump of the early 1930s. Each of the new stations was equipped with two powerful transmitters, allowing them to broadcast two networked services simultaneously, a ‘National Programme’ and an alternative ‘Regional Programme’. It took several years to complete the project. Listeners in London were the first to gain access to the dual service, in March 1930. Choice did not come to Belfast, the last place to link up with the new networks, until 1934. With the new stations came extended operating hours: broadcasting now began as early as 10.15 a.m. each morning, with a daily religious service (there was no breakfast broadcasting). However, the BBC did not yet offer a continuous service throughout the day. Transmitters were shut down during off-­peak listening periods. Moreover, at times the National and Regional networks carried identical programming. A full alterna­ tive service was not made available until the later 1930s.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

46

T h is is t h e BBC

The BBC hoped that the new approach would realize efficiencies by cutting local programme production. Focusing expenditure would, it was argued, allow the Corporation to make the best possible pro­ grammes (mainly in London) and broadcast them across the entire country. As the old stations were shut down, their staff and orchestras were disbanded. Some were redeployed to populate a new organiza­ tional structure of BBC ‘Regions’, but opportunities were harder to find. Visiting Edinburgh, Collie Knox reported that many musicians and audiences resented the new state of affairs: ‘Listeners can get dance music of the sophisticated kind in buckets from London, but they cannot get their own home brand.’6 More generally, critics wor­ ried that broadcasting would now work to eradicate the country’s diverse cultures, identities, and accents. It threatened to impose in their place a stultifying uniformity based on the world of the cultured upper-­middle classes of London and the South-­East of England. The new system did provide some space for the production and consumption of local content. In the Regional Programme, transmit­ ters could be taken out of the network for certain periods each day. This allowed them to broadcast material made in, and specifically for, their own Region. However, only around a third of broadcast hours were allocated to these opt-­outs from the network. Moreover, the BBC Regions were huge, demarcated by engineers to allow the most efficient use of a small number of powerful transmitters. This meant that each one inevitably comprised diverse and dissimilar local com­ munities and identities.The North Region, for example, included cit­ ies and counties whose inhabitants experienced very different ways of life, spoke in their own accents, and cherished civic identities that were sometimes expressed in direct antagonism to those of neigh­ bouring cities and counties. While Scotland and Northern Ireland had their own Regions, Wales was initially split between the West Region, broadcasting to South Wales from Somerset, and the North Region, which included North Wales. Protests from both Welsh and English listeners eventually led to the creation of a separate Region for Wales in 1936.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

47

Uplift and downturn The 1927 royal charter described broadcasting as ‘a means of educa­ tion and entertainment’.Ten years later, when the charter was renewed, a more enduring formulation was introduced:‘information, education and entertainment’. The BBC’s three fundamental charter commit­ ments were listed in an implied, descending order of priority. It sought to fulfil them, on both the National Programme and the Regional Programme, by offering schedules that mixed a wide range of types of programmes, one after another in an unpredictable fashion. This reflected the established Reithian principle that listeners should not be presented with a constant stream of things they already liked, but should instead be exposed to new and challenging things, which they might learn to love. Whether this was successful was, however, a matter for debate. Programmes like The Foundations of Music, scheduled five times a week and combining performances of recognized great works with brief explanatory talks, fuelled complaints about the inaccessible, ‘highbrow’ tone of broadcasts. One critic claimed to have invented a ‘Wireless Declining Set’ that trapped ‘educational noises’ and ‘Welsh interludes’ (programmes in Welsh were broadcast on both the National and Regional Programmes under this name) and ‘wafted [them] straight back to the people who made them’.The device was also sup­ posedly capable of transforming poetry readings into dance music. However, the would-­be inventor confessed that he was stumped when it came to dealing with The Foundations of Music: he could only hope for the onset of warmer weather that would allow people to turn off their radios and spend their evenings outdoors instead.7 Foundations of Music was eventually dropped after a ten-­year run. As part of its broader commitment to broadcasting the best classical music, in 1930 the BBC established its own symphony orchestra. This was conducted by the BBC director of music, Adrian Boult, who sought to establish its reputation as one of the finest orchestras in

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

48

T h is is t h e BBC

Europe.The Corporation supported a whole range of other ensembles and orchestras, in the Regions as well as in London, and by 1939 was spending around £200,000 a year (a huge sum at the time) on run­ ning its main orchestras. Its continued support for opera meanwhile involved an annual subsidy to Covent Garden of some £25,000. This seemed to some an indefensible use of the listener licence fee to support elite cultural institutions which had little appeal for most listeners. During the 1930s, the BBC also developed a significant role in promoting British music, conductors, and soloists, but some critics, including Boult himself, argued that this cultural nationalism came at the expense of putting on the best performances. The BBC probably made its single most important contribution to the development of popular appreciation of classical music (and concert-­going) when it took over sponsorship of Sir Henry Wood’s annual Promenade Concerts in 1927, and made them a fixture in its annual broadcast calendar. Two pioneering women played key roles at the Corporation in tak­ ing other forms of programming in new directions. Mary Somerville had been appointed BBC schools assistant in 1925, and four years later became head of schools broadcasting (in 1950 she would become the first woman to reach the exalted position of a BBC controller). Somerville took a keen interest in how children in classrooms responded to what they were hearing, and explored how radio could do more than simply repeat traditional forms of teaching, energizing this key aspect of educational broadcasting. Hilda Matheson was meanwhile appointed director of talks in 1928. Liberated by the relax­ ation of the ban on controversial broadcasting, she used her personal connections to bring London’s literary and political elite to the microphone and to stimulate debate on topical issues. Speakers like H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Harold Nicolson, Lady Astor, Ray Strachey, and Sydney and Beatrice Webb all now came to the BBC to broadcast.Women spoke more frequently than before, but voices from the provinces became harder to pick up. Bloomsbury was temptingly close to Broadcasting House.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

49

From 1929, the BBC published a new weekly magazine, the Listener, to reprint the best talks. The aim was partly to appeal to the ‘serious listener’ and to support BBC initiatives in adult education, but the Listener was also dedicated to ‘extending and deepening the enjoy­ ment of broadcast programmes’.8 The first issue contained scripts of radio talks on unemployment, music, religion, history, literature, art, health, cookery, and the card game bridge, showcasing the wide range of topics, controversial and otherwise, now being tackled on-­ air. Compared to the popular, money-­making Radio Times, the Listener was only for the happy few. Circulation peaked at around 50,000. In 1932, Matheson fell out with Reith and left the BBC. This was partly due to her left-­wing leanings, but gender discrimination also played a role. Her successors were male and less radical, though they continued to commission talks on challenging topics. Matheson was not the only woman to face prejudice and discrimination at the Corporation. Sheila Borrett was appointed as the first female radio announcer in July 1933 but was axed after only three months, follow­ ing the receipt of 10,000 letters of complaint from listeners (9,000 of which supposedly came from women). No other female announcers were employed until after the outbreak of war. According to the established wisdom, soon to be proved wrong, women’s voices could only be used on radio in certain ways: in programmes aimed at women and children, in musical programmes (although sopranos had many enemies), and in supporting roles in comedy and drama. The Great Depression inevitably formed the backdrop to much of the BBC’s work during the 1930s. Ironically, the economic downturn provided near-­perfect conditions for broadcasting to flourish. With less money to spend, many people turned to the wireless to provide home entertainment at minimal cost. More households took out lis­ tener licences, issued by the GPO and still costing only 10 shillings a year. As a result, despite the slump, the BBC’s income increased. For many listeners, the BBC’s most important function during the 1930s was undoubtedly to provide the sort of music and light enter­ tainment that offered a temporary escape from daily hardships.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

50

T h is is t h e BBC

However, the Corporation also sought to play a more active role, moderating social and political divisions and conflicts. Its critics accused its middle-­class, privileged officers, announcers, and com­ mentators of being out of touch with the realities of life for many of its listeners, and of paying insufficient attention to the plight of the unemployed.Yet such charges were not entirely justified. During the 1930s, the BBC commissioned talks to encourage voluntary assistance to the unemployed and to offer those ‘on the dole’ ideas about how to make constructive use of their time.While such programmes could come across as hopelessly patronizing, other producers made inventive and potentially radical programmes that conveyed to listeners the experience of unemployment and the perspectives of those living in grinding poverty. Some programmes were based on detailed, first-­ hand investigations undertaken by producers. In 1934, a series called Time to Speak allowed eleven unemployed people to relate their ex­peri­ences to listeners in their own words. The next year Frank Nicolls assumed the eponymous role of an unemployed labourer in the Harry Hopeful series, produced by D. G. Bridson, and toured the North of England talking to real people about their problems. ‘Features’ provided another means for programme makers to grap­ ple with some of the pressing national and international social and political issues of the day. Pioneered by producers like Lance Sieveking in the late 1920s, these programmes developed during the 1930s into a recognized radio genre. They combined elements of documentary and drama to illustrate key topics and themes. Although linked to the British cinema documentary movement that developed at the same time, features were distinctive in that they sought to exploit the unique characteristics of radio as a medium.They drew together sound mon­ tages, ‘actualities’ (sounds captured from real life, outside the studio), scripted dialogue and narration, music, poetry, and sound effects. Some producers used features consciously to promote radical per­ spectives, illustrating the turmoil and injustices of the era with clarity and emotion. The producer E. A.  Harding, who made features like Republic of Austria (1929), Crisis in Spain (1931), and New Year Over

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

51

Europe (1932), was a particularly important exponent of this approach. However, senior managers worried about the political nature of his work, and Harding was eventually ‘exiled’ to the North Region where, Reith supposedly told him, he could do less damage. During the 1930s, from its Manchester headquarters, the North Region in fact made a significant contribution to programmes about unemployment and working-­class life. As well as Harry Hopeful, these included a succes­ sion of pioneering actuality and features programmes, made using the BBC’s only mobile recording van by a young producer called Olive Shapley. After the war she would play another key role, as the pre­ senter of Woman’s Hour. Sometimes producers envisaged features less as a medium for social commentary and more as an art form. D.  G.  Bridson’s dramatized verse production The March of the ’45 (1936), retelling the story of the Jacobite rising, was seen as a pathbreaking example of how wireless could be exploited in new, highly creative ways. Features could also be used to reinforce, rather than to challenge, existing social and cultural norms and hierarchies. Every year Laurence Gilliam and other features producers were tasked with creating transnational sound ­ montages that could be broadcast on Empire Day and Christmas Day. These typically took listeners on sonic tours of the British empire and included messages of goodwill and loyalty to the Crown from ‘or­din­ ary people’ in Britain and around the empire. They were an explicit means of promoting imperial and monarchist sentiment. On such occasions, the broadcast voice of the King was also increas­ ingly used to promote national and imperial unity.The BBC had real­ ized, from as early as 1924, that radio could create a new sense of direct connection between the monarch and his subjects.When com­ bined with ‘round the empire’ feature programmes, royal messages could also produce the appearance of a dialogue, of homage given and received. On Christmas Day 1932, listeners at home and around the empire were treated to a remarkable, globe-­spanning radio journey. This feature, All the World Over, incorporated messages of loyalty relayed live in sequence from Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

52

T h is is t h e BBC

South Africa, and Gibraltar (which had all by this point been linked into the international radio telephone system), as well as from British ships at sea. This astonishing technical feat was followed by the first Royal Christmas Message, which invented a lasting tradition. The BBC understood that this was not the occasion for a formal, public speech. Instead, speaking slowly and clearly from a script written by the poet Rudyard Kipling, George V broadcast live from Sandringham, ‘from my home and from my heart to you all’. He addressed his listeners as individuals and families, wishing them a happy Christmas, and offering solace in hard economic times. In par­ ticular, he reached out to the isolated and the lonely: those living in remote outposts of empire ‘so cut off by the snows, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them’, and those ‘cut off from fuller life by blindness, sickness, or infirmity’.9 His voice perhaps surprised many listeners: George V did not use the Received Pronunciation adopted by BBC announcers, and he spoke to his lis­ teners almost as an equal. It was an affecting, and highly effective, performance. The Royal Christmas Message was central to the increasingly sym­ biotic relationship that was forged between the BBC and the mon­ archy during the 1930s. Broadcasting could now provide both routine and spectacular coverage of royal speeches, weddings, and jubilees. Among the most significant ‘media events’ of the decade were the death and funeral of George V in January 1936 and the proclamation and subsequent abdication of his son Edward VIII. The BBC allowed Edward to speak live and direct to the British people to explain his decision to relinquish the crown, an unprecedented broadcast that was overseen personally by Reith, who sympathized with the king but detested his mistress, the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. In 1937, extensive broadcast coverage of the Coronation of Edward’s brother, George VI, provided an opportunity for the BBC to repeat more familiar messages about the stability and unity-­in-­diversity of both the Union and the empire. For the first time, millions of listeners around the world heard a king speak on the day of his Coronation. Despite

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

53

his severe speech impediment, George VI would determinedly continue the tradition of the Royal Christmas Message and help harness broadcasting to the ongoing popularization of the monarchy.

Everyday entertainment Christmas broadcasts were the climax of what, during the 1930s, became a recognizable and predictable annual broadcasting calendar, punctuated by holy days, public holidays, and national and royal cere­monial occasions.These media events began to mark out the passage of time for many listeners. Schedules also reflected the annual cycle of the seasons. Listening was assumed to peak in the autumn and winter, as people opted to spend their leisure time at home during the colder and darker months, sitting by the fireplace and the wireless set. This was the time of year to put on the programmes that the BBC hoped would reach the largest audiences, and when schedules would be sub­ jected to the closest scrutiny and most searching criticism by listeners and journalists. As the BBC continued to arrange running commen­ taries on an increasingly wide range of sports events, broadcast sched­ ules across the year also came to reflect the changing sporting seasons. However, media events did not always go as planned. Famously, in May 1937, a thoroughly inebriated Lieutenant Commander Tommy Woodrooffe attempted to describe the spectacle of the night-­time Spithead naval review in a live outside broadcast: the phrase ‘The fleet’s lit up!’ went down in broadcasting history. ‘Highbrow’ programming remained central to the BBC’s sense of its role and function in British cultural life. Drama was a case in point. ‘Serious’ classic and modern plays (including plenty of Shakespeare) continued to play a key role in network schedules. However, the BBC also broadcast more popular types of drama, recognizing that without entertainment, its broadcasting monopoly could not easily be justi­ fied.Val Gielgud (brother of the actor Sir John Gielgud) was appointed head of productions at the beginning of 1929, with responsibility for

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

54

T h is is t h e BBC

all drama output.That year the BBC broadcast a number of innovative and popular ‘microphone plays’ specially designed for radio. These included Tyrone Guthrie’s drama Squirrel’s Cage which comprised six scenes and five interludes: instead of a break or a narrated segment, each scene ended with a single chime of a bell and the scream of a siren, ‘suggesting a rush through time and space’.10 Other new pro­ ductions broadcast that year included Ultimatum,‘a radio play of sensa­ tions’ adapted by Cecil Lewis from Victor MacClure’s science fiction thriller, and Ingredient X, written specially for wireless by L. Du Garde Peach. The latter production was a colonial-­era adventure, telling the story of a bloody international struggle to control and exploit a mys­ terious raw material.The production faded sound in and out to bring the listener, without narration or breaks, from location to exotic loca­ tion: a City boardroom, a tropical forest, a Mayfair tea table, the engine room of a tramp steamer off the Cape Verde islands, a London labora­ tory, and a den of financial speculators.11 Such productions powerfully demonstrated that ‘the conventions of the visible stage’ were not ‘really essential to art’.12 ‘Highbrow’ productions certainly continued, and in 1937 Gielgud introduced a late-­night ‘Experimental Hour’ for the most challenging dramas.The first programme to be broadcast in this slot was Archibald Macleish’s verse play The Fall of the City, followed by W.  B.  Yeats’s Words upon the Window-­Pane, a scene from Twelfth Night in modern as well as Elizabethan English, and a production (by D. G. Bridson) of T.  S.  Elliot’s poem The Waste Land. During the interwar years, the BBC gave many listeners their first taste of modernist art and litera­ ture, whether they liked it or not. Yet by the end of the 1930s it had also started making popular drama series, which won a wide and appreciative audience and provided a sense of how the genre would develop in the future. Serial drama production was already a well-­ established feature of US radio, a key means to build up audience loyalty while also extracting the maximum possible use out of writers’ material. In 1938, the BBC offered listeners a 12-­part adaptation of The Three Musketeers and a new detective serial, Send for Paul Temple.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

55

The latter was written specially for radio by Francis Durbridge and offered a gentlemanly, dryly humorous take on the conventions of US detective drama, complete with cliff-­hanger endings to each episode. Temple was to remain a fixture of BBC radio drama for the next thirty years. In terms of entertaining listeners while simultaneously and subtly educating them, children’s programmes remained a crucial element of BBC schedules, with Children’s Hour music, talks, and stories broadcast every weekday afternoon as well as at weekends. The BBC’s iconic interwar programme for children, Toytown (first broadcast in 1929), was based on stories by S. G. Hulme Beaman and starred a cast of toy animals brought to life to delight young listeners. The main character, Larry the Lamb, was voiced by Derek McCulloch (‘Uncle Mac’), who later became head of children’s broadcasting. Popular music meanwhile offered children and adults simple pleasure. In 1928, the Corporation created its own national Dance Orchestra, with Jack Payne as its first director, two years before it established its Symphony Orchestra. In response to criticism from listeners and newspaper writers, the BBC significantly increased the amount of time devoted to live light and dance music: by 1934 this accounted for about 40 per cent of all broadcast hours. The equiva­ lent figure for live performances of ‘serious’ music was only 15 per cent. Recorded music remained relatively rare, taking up only some 8 per cent of airtime. This made the Corporation the single largest employer of musicians in Britain, and the Performing Rights Society derived more than a third of its total annual revenue from the BBC. Star performers like Gracie Fields appeared periodically at the microphone in programmes designed to maximize audience appeal. This deeper engagement with popular music reflected the fact that, as the number of licensed households increased, the BBC was beginning to reach well beyond the middle- and lower-­middle-­class audience which had initially been its main constituency. Slowly, it adjusted the nature of its programming to better suit the tastes of a wider public.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

56

T h is is t h e BBC

Variety shows, mixing musical and comedy acts, remained a staple of BBC schedules in the 1930s. They were expensive to produce but extremely popular with listeners. In 1933, the BBC established a sep­ar­ate variety department, headed by the successful songwriter Eric Maschwitz, to allow it to make productions of its own and thus reduce its reliance on Music Hall venues and promoters. In finding new ways to make entertaining programmes, Maschwitz drew inspiration from musical comedy and Continental revues. He cut back on outside broadcasts from Music Halls and relied less on performers bringing their own material from the stage to the studio. Instead, he oversaw the production of original series, written for radio, overseen by spe­ cialist producers, and employing some of the best dance bands and comedy performers of the time, often on long-­term contracts. In November 1933, he also introduced a new magazine-­style entertain­ ment programme: In Town Tonight offered varied topical segments that drew listeners into contemporary London cultural life, linked together by the versatile announcer and commentator Freddie Grisewood. The BBC’s new approach to variety allowed some comedy per­ formers to develop striking new ways to entertain radio audiences. The Music Hall comedian Gillie Potter (Hugh William Peel) started appearing in BBC variety shows in 1930, usually adopting the persona of a garrulous, disreputable, degenerate ‘toff ’. He developed his own distinctive brand of comedy, with monologues set in and around the fictional village of Hogsnorton, regaling listeners with tales about its upper-­class and frequently intoxicated inhabitants. Potter deployed an unending stream of deadpan jokes, historical and literary allusions, wordplay, and nonsense. In 1934, he was given his own 15-­minute evening show, which made him a household name (my own grand­ father was duly christened ‘Gillie’ by his colleagues). In 1934, Maschwitz similarly gave the established radio comedians Ronald Frankau and Tommy Handley their own show as a double act, called Murgatroyd and Winterbottom. As with Potter, Maschwitz took the two comedians out of the traditional mixed Music Hall setting and instead gave them a stand-­alone fifteen-­minute slot. There was no studio

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

57

audience, so they did not have to play for conventional laughs. Instead, they were allowed to riff on a range of topics and develop their own brand of surreal wordplay. Women also pioneered new forms of comedy at the BBC during the late 1920s and 1930s. Elsie and Doris Waters had already developed their famous ‘Gert and Daisy’ double act, on-­air, in Music Halls, and on gramophone recordings. Their Cockney personas were believable, not caricatures, and were hugely popular with listeners. In March 1933, they appeared in an hour-­long musical ‘ra-­diorama’ scripted by Ashley Sterne (a pseudonym used by the composer Ernest Halsey), called How does your Garden Grow? Listeners could eavesdrop on the sharp but understated repartee between the two sisters as they chatted over their imaginary, shared garden wall. Later that year Sterne and the Waters sisters followed up with a sequel, London Bells: listeners joined Gert and Daisy on a bus trip around the capital, as they made seemingly off-­the-­cuff remarks about the sights that passed by, and sang songs prompted by what they saw. Another show, this time scripted by Sterne and the Waters sisters, Gert and Daisy take a Zoo ’Oliday, followed in 1935. Radio proved ideally suited to this under­ stated, character-­driven approach to comedy. Not all BBC entertainment was so innovative. Some shows remained avowedly backward-­looking, repurposing familiar forms to appeal to older audiences or evoke a sense of nostalgia. The White Coons’ Concert Party, produced by Harry S. Pepper, sought to revive the Edwardian concert party tradition on-­air. Pepper subsequently resurrected the blackface minstrel show, in which white performers assumed the stereotyped personas and sang the supposed songs of African American plantation workers, interspersed with jokes told in exaggerated accents. The Kentucky Minstrels ran from 1933 until 1950. At the time, this highly racialized, parodic genre was deemed uncon­ troversial by most BBC officers and white listeners, but it reflected and reinforced deep-­seated racial prejudices and ideologies of dominance. The BBC’s move to invest more resources in popular entertain­ ment programming from 1933 onwards was part of a drive to satisfy

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

58

T h is is t h e BBC

all sections of British society, reflecting the expansion of its audiences. But it was also, in part, a response to the spectre of commercial com­ petition. The Corporation never offered enough light entertainment or popular music to satisfy the tastes of most listeners. This created an opportunity for entrepreneurs to make money. Radio signals crossed international borders with relative ease, and powerful stations in Continental Europe could broadcast direct to British listeners, sup­ ported by advertising and circumventing the BBC’s monopoly. Emulating the American approach to commercial broadcasting, British agencies sprang up to handle the radio advertising business of UK clients and to make and record programmes in Britain, shipping them to the Continental stations for transmission. British performers, including former BBC stars, were paid generous fees by the agencies for their work. From 1933 onwards, the BBC’s most formidable unauthorized competitor was Radio Luxembourg. It attracted its biggest audiences on Sundays, when British listeners turned to it to escape the sombre BBC Sabbath. The threat of competition prompted a significant change in the Corporation’s approach to Sunday broadcasting, and also encouraged it to schedule even more ‘light entertainment’ throughout the week, particularly in peak listening hours. The BBC also began to examine audience responses to programmes more sys­ tematically in a bid to keep up with Radio Luxembourg. Previously the reactions of listeners had been gauged in an impressionistic fash­ ion, from letters, press reviews, and comments from staff members. There was no attempt to measure audience numbers. However, in 1936 a BBC Listener Research Unit was set up, tasked with develop­ ing a better understanding of listener tastes and preferences. Although it was made clear that ratings would not be allowed to dictate pro­ gramme policy, the Reithian strategy of ‘uplift’ was beginning to crumble. The clearest example of how the BBC changed in order to win back listeners was Band Waggon. This anarchic and surreal experiment was fronted by Arthur ‘Big-­ Hearted’ Askey and Richard ‘Stinker’

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

59

Murdoch and represented a milestone in the transition from variety and vaudeville to the age of the comedy series. Band Waggon was ‘radiogenic’, using the non-­visual nature of the medium to escape the constraints of reality and exploiting sound to bring listeners ever more improbable and funny scenes. Askey and Murdoch took up residence in a fictional flat at the top of Broadcasting House, where they sup­ posedly lived with a goat and four pigeons and looked after the pips of the Greenwich Time Signal. During each broadcast, a sound effects man stood on stage with a pile of metal objects, pushing them over at a key moment to represent some new, surreal event (such as the sound of the hapless Murdoch ‘dropping’ the programme as he made a mess of things in Askey’s absence). Bizarre recurring characters were intro­ duced, including the charwoman Mrs Bagwash and her daughter, Nausea, neither of whom ever spoke. The voracious demand of radio for new material had exhausted many Music Hall acts. Band Waggon avoided this problem by exploiting the habitual nature of regular radio listening. It made a virtue of repetition. It included numerous running jokes as well as Askey’s familiar catchphrases, ‘Hello play­ mates!’ and ‘Aythangyow!’ Serial production maximized the value obtained from contracts with performers, and regular scheduling in the same weekly slot built up listener loyalty. People tuned in as part of their routine, and over time absorbed jokes and catchphrases, which they then dropped into everyday conversation to raise a laugh. All this exploited and further stimulated the existence of a mass audience. If you wanted to be in on the joke, you had to listen to the BBC.

Television By creating the BBC, the British state had brought into existence a powerful institution with a strong sense of its own mission and value to society, culture, and politics. From 1927, it was equipped with incontrovertible proof of public and official recognition of its status, in the shape of the royal charter. Over the years that followed it proceeded

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

60

T h is is t h e BBC

to extend its monopoly of British radio broadcasting into new areas, seeking to deliver new forms of public service. In their cor­res­pond­ ence with one another, senior officers made it clear that the goal was also to secure the BBC’s position as a dominating presence at home and overseas, by fending off any prospective source of public or pri­ vate sector competition. The BBC began to build up its empire. This approach was evident in the Corporation’s ambition to become Britain’s monopoly television broadcaster, and in its engage­ ment with this emerging medium. On 30 September 1929, the BBC began experimental television broadcasting. At the time there were believed to be only twenty-­nine receiving sets in operation capable of picking up the transmissions. The BBC was anxious not to attempt anything too ambitious until better technical transmission and picture quality could be guaranteed. However, it was also determined that no other authority or company should be given responsibility for televi­ sion broadcasting. The GPO duly accepted the BBC’s claim that its monopoly should encompass the new medium. During the 1930s, television receiving sets were expensive and few people bought them. The BBC thus continued to focus its resources on radio. On 2 November 1936, it finally began a regular television service, but only to serve viewers in London. BBC television studios and transmitters were established at Alexandra Palace, North London (known locally as ‘Ally Pally’).Two hours of programmes were broad­ cast, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, initially on six days a week. Sunday television broadcasts were introduced in 1938. The BBC experimented with televising a wide range of program­ ming, including music, variety, ballet, opera, interviews, cartoons, comedy, talks, and film clips. The first live television sports coverage took the form of a commentary on two boxing matches, staged in the Concert Hall at Alexandra Palace, and was broadcast in February 1937. That same year cameras were set up to provide outside broadcasts of sports fixtures and public events, including the Wimbledon tennis championships and the Coronation Procession of George VI (cameras were not allowed into Westminster Abbey to cover the ceremony itself ). On 11 February 1938, science fiction was televised for the first

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

61

time, in the form of an adapted section of the play R.U.R. by the Czech author Karel Č apek. Although the BBC did not employ women as radio announcers, they were, from the outset, given roles on-­screen as television ‘host­ esses’. This reflected gendered assumptions about voices, appearance, and visual appeal that would have an enduring impact on ideas about what constituted women’s work at the BBC. Black people also appeared on-­screen from the outset, with the inaugural television broadcast including a performance by the African American song and dance performers Ford ‘Buck’Washington and John ‘Bubbles’ Stublett. Other people of colour to appear on early BBC television included the racing tipster ‘Prince Monolulu’ (Peter Mackay), the actor Robert Adams, and musicians such as Nina Mae McKinney, Adelaide Hall, Elisabeth Welch, Fats Waller, and Paul Robeson. Race was not always obvious to early television viewers, perhaps making is easier for Black people to make it onto the screen. Due to the limitations of early television technology, everybody who appeared on camera had to wear thick white face make-­up, with black lipstick and eye make-­up, to ensure they were visible to viewers. Was television the future? Some worried that it would eventually render radio obsolete, introducing a damaging focus on the superfici­ alities and sensationalism of the visual, and flooding British homes with the products of the Hollywood film industry. However, in the 1930s the impact of television was negligible, not least because only those living within about twenty-­five miles of Alexandra Palace could pick up the service, and because very few households could afford television sets. At most, only 25,000 receivers were in operation by August 1939.The real impact of television would not be felt in Britain until the 1950s.

Peace, empire, and propaganda Of more immediate significance were the Corporation’s moves dur­ ing the 1930s into the field of international broadcasting. These were

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

62

T h is is t h e BBC

a further illustration of the BBC’s impulse towards expansion and empire-­ building. BBC domestic radio transmissions had always reached ‘eavesdroppers’ outside the UK. However, during the 1930s, the BBC began consciously to target key foreign audiences. It pre­ sented its new international services as a means to promote truth, peace, and mutual understanding. However, BBC international broad­ casting clearly also offered the British government a key tool of propa­ganda, which became increasingly valuable in the years preced­ ing and following the outbreak of war.This work drew the Corporation into a closer relationship with other elements of the British state. The BBC’s official motto, adopted in 1927, was ‘Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation’. Proudly emblazoned across the masthead of the Radio Times, this mission statement explicitly referenced the inter­ nation­al role of broadcasting.A desire to support international co­oper­ ation and assert international leadership had led the BBC to support the foundation of the Geneva-­ based International Broadcasting Union (IBU) in 1925. The BBC provided the IBU with its first secretary-­general (Arthur Burrows) and its first president (Sir Charles Carpendale). The BBC subsequently took a lead in IBU initiatives aimed at promoting exchanges of programmes among Europe’s broadcasters, agreeing wavelength allocations to prevent cross-­border interference, and outlawing overt and aggressive propaganda broad­ casts. Reith himself often expressed the hope that wireless would help restore lasting peace in Europe, repairing the damage done by the First World War. The BBC also forged strong links with broadcasters in the US, building on opportunities for programme exchange offered by a shared language and by the highly developed nature of American broadcasting. Implicitly and sometimes explicitly, by working with US broadcasters the BBC also sought to promote ideas about a shared Anglo-­American cultural heritage and ‘English-­speaking union’. It did all this voluntarily, interpreting its international role as part of its public service remit. Senior officers needed little encouragement from politicians or civil servants.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

63

The BBC also focused its international activities on reaching new audiences and building links with broadcasters around the British empire. Reith and other senior officers saw the promotion of imperial unity and mutual understanding as another crucial aspect of the BBC’s public service mandate. They were also determined to ensure that the BBC’s domestic monopoly was extended to encompass British broadcasting to the empire. On 19 December 1932, following protracted trials and lengthy discussions with British and colonial officials, and in time to carry the first Royal Christmas Message, the Corporation inaugurated its first regular radio service for overseas listeners. This was the Empire Service, broadcast from Daventry using long-­range, short-­wave transmitters. Ideas about the target audience for BBC international broadcasts reflected the imperial and racial hierarchies and assumptions of the interwar years. The Empire Service would be aimed at the ‘white population [of territories] under the British flag’.13 The BBC was keen to avoid any hint that it was broadcasting propaganda aimed at listeners in the US or Europe. This would have risked political com­ plications and potentially violated IBU agreements. The BBC also wanted to avoid the difficulty, expense, and possible controversy that broadcasting to non-­white colonial subjects would have involved in an age of increasing anticolonial nationalism and resistance. Given pervasive colonial economic inequalities, non-­whites did not anyway constitute a large potential audience: few could afford to own and operate a receiving set. The BBC thus decided to ignore Black and Asian listeners in the colonies. The Empire Service instead focused on serving two specific audi­ ences. First, it catered to the needs of the ‘lonely listener in the bush’: isolated white ex-­pat administrators, traders, farmers, and plantation managers scattered across British colonies in Africa and Asia. It quickly became clear that these listeners wanted news and simply produced programmes that could be heard clearly despite the vagaries of long-­ distance radio transmission and reception.The Empire Service sought

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

64

T h is is t h e BBC

to provide this audience with programmes that maintained a nostalgic connection with ‘home’. It encouraged listeners to tune in by offering light music and light entertainment which they could enjoy while relaxing with a gin and tonic after a day working in a hot climate. To save money, as much content as possible was relayed direct from the BBC’s National and Regional Programmes. Second, the Empire Service sought to cement links with a wider British diaspora, reaching those white listeners in the so-­ called ‘dominions’ of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa who thought of themselves as, in some ways, still British. Between 1914 and 1918 these places had played a crucial role in the imperial war effort. Broadcasting might help consolidate and maintain the imperial cultural connection with these places, at a time when consti­ tutional bonds with Britain were progressively weakening. It quickly became obvious that the Empire Service also had another significant, and indeed probably larger audience: many of the letters it received from overseas listeners came from the US. This was entirely predictable. Americans spoke English and many of them could afford to buy and maintain short-­wave receiving sets, which were more readily available in the US than in most other places. The Foreign Office urged the BBC to avoid broadcasting anything that looked like propaganda aimed at the US. American isolationists blamed British propaganda for dragging the country into the First World War, and British diplomats wanted to avoid provoking them further. Only towards the end of the 1930s did the Foreign Office begin to see the Empire Service as a potential tool of transatlantic soft power and per­ suasion, and start to encourage the BBC to address US listeners more explicitly. The Empire Service presented itself as the voice of Britain overseas. As in the BBC’s domestic services, the chimes of Big Ben were broad­ cast to provide a sonic representation of Britishness. The station also identified itself to listeners with an evocative phrase, ‘This is London calling’. However, the Empire Service was hobbled by chronic under­ funding. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash, the UK government

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

65

refused to finance the BBC’s proposed service, and it was instead funded using existing revenues derived from British listener licence fees. Overseas, many listeners criticized the quality of the low-­budget programmes the Empire Service provided. So did the radio stations around the empire which the BBC expected to relay its broadcasts. In Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, broadcasting authorities had already been set up that, to varying degrees, modelled themselves on the BBC. They were often open to working closely with the BBC but had a vested interest in strengthening the reputa­ tion of public broadcasting and thus protested when Empire Service programmes fell below the expected standard. From the mid-­1930s, the nostalgic and parochial amateurism of the Empire Service was made to seem increasingly inadequate by the accomplished international broadcast propaganda of fascist Italy and Germany. The Nazi long-­range station at Zeesen broadcast highly professional programmes in multiple languages, aiming at a truly global audience. Italian stations broadcasting from Rome and Bari meanwhile sought to promote Mussolini’s influence around the Mediterranean and to undermine the lingering British and French imperial and semi-­imperial presence in North Africa and the Middle East. Italian broadcasts in Arabic were a source of particular concern for British diplomats and civil servants. They threatened to fuel resist­ ance to British rule in Palestine, which was governed as a League of Nations ‘Mandate’ and largely treated as a British colony. In response to Italian broadcasts, on 3 January 1938 the BBC began broadcasting in Arabic from Daventry. A BBC service in Spanish and Portuguese for Latin America, another key target for fascist propaganda, followed on 14 March. These foreign-­language services initially offered only short daily news bulletins, but over the months that followed other supporting programmes, including talks and music, were introduced to the Arabic Service to attract more listeners. Establishing the Empire Service had certainly involved discussions with government officials, but it had largely been a BBC initiative. The new foreign-­language services were different: they were introduced

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

66

T h is is t h e BBC

at the request of, and paid for by, the British government. Some BBC officers were reluctant to undertake this work, believing that the Corporation should not broadcast propaganda. However, Reith was insistent that the BBC’s monopoly had to be maintained and that the Corporation was therefore obliged to do what the government asked of it. He promised the Foreign Office that, in running the foreign-­ language services, the BBC would fall in with official requirements. This included agreeing that news editors would accept specific guid­ ance from civil servants as to which items needed to be included in, or omitted from, different foreign-­language services. All this was sub­ sequently enshrined in a secret ‘gentleman’s agreement’ between the BBC and the government, unwritten and thus eminently deniable by both parties. Funding for foreign-­language broadcasting came not from the Foreign Office but from the GPO, which agreed to pass on an increased portion of the UK listener licence fee. This acted further to conceal the official nature of the service. The BBC continued to pose as remote from the British state and to claim that all its news reports were truthful and objective.Yet, in real­ ity, it had entered into a much closer relationship than ever before with a range of government departments. It accepted daily instruc­ tions from civil servants concerning what should be broadcast to overseas listeners. This had a particular impact on how the Arabic Service covered the ‘Arab Revolt’, a violent Palestinian uprising against the British-­controlled Mandate authorities which, in turn, suppressed resistance with increasingly lethal military force. In the Arabic Service, ‘bad’ news about the execution of Palestinians by the Mandate authorities was carefully edited in a (largely ineffective) attempt to reduce its impact on listeners and to moderate growing anti-­British feeling across the Middle East. The Arabic Service also broadcast ‘good’ news stories supplied by British civil servants and diplomats stationed across the region. Sardonic Italian broadcasters dubbed the BBC Arabic Service ‘Radio Eden’ in honour of the British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

67

During the Munich Crisis of September 1938, at the request of the cabinet, the BBC also began broadcasting in German, Italian, and French for listeners in Europe. These services were hastily improvised and initially took the form of translations of speeches given by the prime minister, Neville Chamberlain. To accommodate them, the transmitters used for domestic and international broadcasting were handed over to the new European services for short periods each day, to the puzzlement and annoyance of some listeners in the UK (at least one who wrote to complain about hearing programmes being broad­ cast in German from BBC stations thought the Corporation had given the Nazis access to its transmitters, and could not understand why). The BBC staff who edited news bulletins for the new foreign-­ language services maintained daily telephone contact with the Foreign Office. The BBC continued to broadcast in European languages after the crisis was over. Initially the aim was to support the government’s ongoing policy of appeasement. The Treasury picked up the bill and the Foreign Office helped the BBC conduct covert listener research in Germany to gauge the impact of its broadcasts. Government influ­ ence over the BBC intensified. Eden’s successor as foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, insisted that the Corporation limit on-­air discussion of the persecution of Jews in Germany, to avoid antagonizing Hitler and the wider German public (which, the Foreign Office believed, gener­ ally supported Nazi antisemitic policies). Some believed that BBC news services thus knowingly misled the public, misrepresenting the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the gathering European crisis. John Coatman, director of the BBC’s North Region and a former head of the news department, accused the Corporation of participat­ ing in a ‘conspiracy of silence’.14 Behind the scenes, the BBC had been engaged in planning for wartime broadcasting since 1935. Feeling the need for new challenges, Reith left the BBC at the end of June 1938 to run Imperial Airways. He would never again achieve the public prominence he had enjoyed at the BBC, partly because he

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

68

T h is is t h e BBC

had made so many political enemies during his time there. His successor as director general was F. W. Ogilvie, a political economist and vice-­ chancellor of Queen’s University, Belfast. Notoriously, Ogilvie thought that the BBC could convince German listeners of Britain’s peaceful intentions, and reduce the risk of war, by broadcasting the song of the nightingale in its German Service. Ogilvie also sought to persuade the government that allowing Nazis to speak on-­air via the BBC would promote mutual understanding and help avoid war. Ministers did not agree. As appeasement was finally abandoned, the BBC prepared to implement its plans for wartime domestic broad­ casting and for the inauguration of services in a wide range of lan­ guages for listeners across Europe.

Conclusions During the late 1920s and the 1930s, the BBC entrenched and extended its monopoly of British broadcasting. It built a new network of powerful transmitters that reached all corners of the country and provided listeners with a choice of two alternative programme ser­ vices. The old local stations were decommissioned for the sake of efficiency, but this move also served the BBC’s implicit and explicit drive to reinforce national unity and provide programmes of the highest cultural level and artistic merit. Some performers and listeners in provincial cities resented the change, but others agreed that London lay at the heart of the nation’s cultural life and should thus provide the bulk of programming during peak evening listening hours. The Corporation’s new royal charter and official status allowed it to push for the lifting of old restrictions that had hampered the work of the Company. Live sports coverage became a staple of broadcast sched­ ules, news services were extended, and politics and other controversial subjects were discussed more freely on-­air. Key genres of program­ ming began to take on the forms familiar to BBC audiences today.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T h e Cor por at ion, 1927–1939

69

Extending its empire even further, during the 1930s the BBC also established a television service for viewers in London and started international short-­ wave radio broadcasting for white listeners in Britain’s colonies and dominions. Compared to its domestic radio audience, the audiences for television and for the Empire Service were tiny. Yet the BBC had to devote precious resources to serving them if it wanted to prevent any new public or commercial body stepping in to do this work. The threat of competition, from Radio Luxembourg and other Continental radio stations, also drove the BBC to take light entertainment programming more seriously. Again, as mixed variety performances began to give way to regular comedy shows, and as serial dramas were deployed to provide a further incen­ tive for habitual listening, BBC programmes began to take on their more enduring form. The royal charter made it clear that the BBC was owned by the nation and was ultimately answerable to parliament and thus to the state. Although the day-­to-­day affairs of the Corporation were not under direct government control, it would be anachronistic to think in terms of BBC ‘independence’ during this period. The government could and did ask the BBC to broadcast particular things, and to keep certain people, programmes, and news items off-­air. While this was particularly marked in the case of the foreign-­language services that were established in 1938 and 1939, the same was also true of the Corporation’s other domestic and international services. During and after the Munich Crisis, the amount of news and foreign affairs cover­ age broadcast by the BBC increased, but some insiders remained con­ vinced that the Corporation had failed to communicate the inevitability of conflict to its audiences. According to Richard ‘Rex’ Lambert, editor of the Listener at the time, the BBC had instead rehearsed cherished and comforting, but ultimately hollow and mis­ leading, certainties. There were sham fight symposia on the merits of Autocracy and Democracy, with the scales carefully weighted beforehand to ensure

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

70

T h is is t h e BBC

which side should have the better of the argument; publicity, featuring as ‘education’ in dull boasts of the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, Whitehall, the Empire, and other subjects likely to impress the Enemy; soft-­pedalling on social problems, self-­critical analysis, uncovering of abuses.15

Whether or not such accusations were justified, the BBC was clearly not yet in the business of providing independent, critical journalism or political commentary. By 1939, the BBC had become part of everyday life for nearly every­one in the UK. It provided a daily service of information, educa­ tion, and entertainment at a near-­ universally affordable price. It changed the way that people spent their leisure hours and influenced how they related to the world around them.That year, one pioneering survey of listening habits reported that the BBC had helped turn ‘the ordinary working man and woman’ into ‘conscious citizen[s] of the nation and of the world’. The wireless might present a limited and distorted picture of international affairs, but it nevertheless broadened minds by offering valuable new information and experiences. And compared to the fantasies of the cinema screen, it certainly seemed more accurately to echo reality. Some of the changes it brought to people’s lives were prosaic, but still significant. The same survey reported that whenever the BBC relayed a big boxing match from the US, families would sit up together late into the night to listen. ‘Sometimes an enthusiastic small boy is relied upon to rouse the fam­ ily.’16 In ways that were both astonishing and unremarkable, the BBC had changed the way that people lived their lives.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

3 Propaganda and war, 1939–1945

I

n 1942, the BBC asked King Faisal II of Iraq what he wanted for his birthday: he wrote back requesting Alice in Wonderland, riddles, ‘fierce music’, and a surprise. He was, after all, only seven years old. The BBC’s Arabic Service duly broadcast a special birthday radio programme, including a dramatized extract from Alice in Wonderland performed by an Arabic-­speaking cast. A surprise treasure hunt led the king to a model of a British Hurricane fighter plane, hidden on the roof of his palace.This episode may now seem like a somewhat surreal early venture in narrowcasting. But why were Faisal and the BBC drawn into this radio relationship in the first place? The answer is simple: during the war the BBC was a key tool of British cultural diplomacy and propaganda. Its services for overseas listeners helped further Britain’s global and imperial interests. Iraq was part of a crit­ ic­al, contested zone of British influence in the Middle East. On the back of the letter conveying his requests to the BBC, Faisal had drawn a picture of a battle between British and German tanks and planes. His government had just faced a pro-­German military coup, which had been put down by British forces. On Faisal’s birthday, the BBC not only broadcast children’s programmes: it used the occasion as an opportunity to transmit recorded greetings from Faisal to ‘all the Arab peoples’. This was a chance for the BBC to build up its own credentials with listeners in the Middle East and to strengthen Britain’s alliances with friendly local leaders.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

72

T h is is t h e BBC

After some false starts, the BBC also played a crucial role on the home front. It provided listeners with vital news and information and helped them endure life during wartime, keeping up morale by providing entertainment and distraction. It produced memorable and innovative music and comedy programming, while bringing the reality of war home through feature programmes and first-­hand reporting of armed conflict. For the first time, it entered the world of journalism. This domestic role was of great importance. Yet, arguably, inter­ nation­al work was a higher priority for the BBC. By 1945, it was broadcasting more daily hours of programming to overseas audiences than to domestic listeners and had become a great global broadcaster, a position it has determinedly sought to maintain ever since. During the war, the relationship between the Corporation and other elements of the British state became increasingly intimate. This was inevitable, and predictable. Many listeners at home and abroad undoubtedly understood that the Corporation was subject to numerous forms of government influence and control. Its ‘independence’ had always been limited, and now it was even more carefully circumscribed. Nevertheless, initial plans for a civil service takeover of the BBC were never implemented, and the Corporation continued to operate under its royal charter throughout the war.The appearance of autonomy was valuable and recognized as such. It allowed the BBC to continue to speak with many voices and offer a range of viewpoints. This marked it out from some of its rival broadcasters in allied, neutral, and enemy countries, which were very clearly the mouthpiece of their respective governments. The wartime news carried by BBC services for domestic and overseas listeners could not be regarded as objective. It carried implicit and explicit persuasive messages and was ultimately understood, certainly by British civil servants and BBC officers, as a form of propaganda. Nevertheless, it generally remained accurate and avoided outright lies. Much could be achieved through the careful inclusion, omission, and presentation of news stories and the provision of commentaries designed to interpret events in such a way as to serve British wartime

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

73

interests. Listeners knew they were hearing an officially-­approved version of events, but the BBC’s policy of avoiding falsehoods contrasted with that of most of its international competitors and attracted audiences even in enemy countries. By 1945, the BBC had become a trusted presence in the lives of listeners in Britain and around the world. This was a valuable asset that was carefully exploited by the British government during the Second World War and then repurposed to fight a new conflict in the Cold War that followed.

Going to war On Friday, 1 September 1939, German troops invaded Poland. The pretext was a supposed Polish attack on a German radio transmitter. Britain had guaranteed Polish security. War was now imminent. The expectation was that Germany would strike at Britain with massive aerial bombing raids and that, as the former prime minister Stanley Baldwin had memorably put it, ‘the bomber will always get through’. British towns and cities would be devastated and much of the BBC’s infrastructure put out of action. The Corporation would need to find a way to continue broadcasting, to supply the public with emergency information and to keep spirits up in the face of widespread death and destruction.That evening, the BBC implemented plans for a dramatic streamlining of its offering to British audiences. The fledgling television service (available only to a small number of viewers in London) was closed for the duration of the war, to conserve resources. More significantly, the BBC’s two radio networks, the National Programme and the Regional Programme, were replaced with a single national network, the Home Service. This allowed engineers to run transmitters in such a way that they could not be used by enemy bombers as a navigational aid. A simplified service would also, it was hoped, prove more resilient in the face of aerial attack. Weather forecasts, a potentially valuable source of intelligence for the enemy, were suspended until the end of the war.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

74

T h is is t h e BBC

By 1939, virtually every UK household that wanted radio had access to a receiving set.With its domestic monopoly of British broadcasting, the BBC was, for many, synonymous with ‘the wireless’. Anxious for news about the international crisis, listeners across the UK constantly monitored their radio sets. So did listeners in Europe and around the world, some of whom turned to the BBC Empire Service and to BBC foreign-­language broadcasts for the latest bulletins. On Saturday 2 September, the new BBC Home Service began broadcasting a sparse emergency schedule, mainly made up of news, official announcements, live performances by the BBC theatre organist Sandy MacPherson, and recorded music.The most important broadcast did not come until 11.15 a.m. the next morning: many would remember it for the rest of their lives.The prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, told listeners live on-­air that Britain was at war with Germany. For the first time in history, radio brought news that the country was at war, the announcement issued direct and instantaneously by the government to the entire nation. At 6 p.m. George VI broadcast a message of reassurance to the Empire, ‘spoken with the same depth of feeling for each one of you as if I were able to cross your threshold and speak to you myself ’. During the first two weeks of the war, the Home Service con­ tinued to offer a stripped-­back emergency schedule, with only a few live concerts to alleviate the monotony. Children’s Hour was restored to its normal operations as quickly as possible, to give young listeners (many of whom had been evacuated from major cities to the countryside) a sense of normality and reassurance. Other types of programming took longer to get back up and running. The hiatus was partly due to the sudden evacuation of entire BBC departments from London to country houses, towns, and cities across the UK. A main emergency broadcasting centre was set up at Wood Norton Hall, in Worcestershire (quickly nicknamed ‘Hogsnorton’, referencing Gillie Potter’s comic creation). Dispersal would, it was hoped, protect programme makers from enemy bombing. Over the course of the war staff occupied some 250 different facilities. Until they could get established in these new locations, talks (apart from those given by civil

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

75

servants and cabinet ministers), features, and drama were all drastically cut. So were programmes for specific regional audiences, despite the relocation of many staff to centres outside London.The BBC’s national bias was reinforced to support the sense of a united war effort. The BBC, meanwhile, dramatically increased the resources it devoted to targeting listeners in Europe and further afield. When war came the BBC was already broadcasting in several foreign languages: Arabic (since January 1938); Spanish and Portuguese for Latin America (introduced in March 1938 and expanded in July 1939); German, French, and Italian (all introduced in September 1938); Afrikaans for South Africa (from May 1939); and Spanish and Portuguese for the Iberian Peninsula (from June 1939). From August 1939, it had also begun broadcasting a special service in English for listeners across Europe. The declaration of war was the signal for an expansion of the German, Italian, and French services and the establishment of a number of new foreign-­ language services. The first BBC Hungarian broadcast took place on 5 September 1939; Polish was introduced two days later; and Czech a day after that. BBC broadcasts in Romanian and Serbo-­Croat began on 30 September, in Turkish on 30 November, and in Bulgarian in February 1940. From the outset, the BBC included much more news in all its services, domestic and overseas, than it ever had before. The pre-­war National Programme had not started broadcasting until 10.15 a.m. on weekdays and had only provided news bulletins at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. The Regional Programme had carried no news in English, only foreign-­ language bulletins for European listeners. In contrast, the wartime Home Service began broadcasting at 7 a.m. each morning with a news report and provided six further bulletins over the course of each day. Similarly, news broadcasting was a priority for all BBC foreign-­ language services, and for the English-­ language Empire Service, which was expanded to include fourteen news bulletins every twenty-­four hours, along with a greater number of topical talks. News for domestic and foreign audiences was prepared within, and  carefully censored by, the new Ministry of Information (MoI),

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

76

T h is is t h e BBC

established at the outbreak of war as the state’s main arm of wartime propa­ganda planning. BBC employees were seconded to the MoI to help edit bulletins. BBC staff also scripted topical talks and news commentaries in consultation with officials at the MoI and other government departments. Civil servants set key priorities and themes. Apparently truthful and objective BBC news broadcasts would, the Foreign Office argued, be ‘the best conceivable propaganda’ for Britain overseas.1 Broadcast news crossed borders with relative ease, was up-­ to-­the-­minute, and could be subtly edited and presented to carry a propaganda message. Sir John Reith, former director general of the BBC, later described news as ‘the shock troops of propaganda’.2 Within a few short weeks, the BBC had rapidly transformed itself to operate on a wartime footing, resilient to enemy attack and working in close liaison with the newly established MoI and other government departments. Nevertheless, critics were quick to point out limitations and problems.The official news provided by the BBC was often delayed and mangled by clumsy and time-­consuming censorship arrangements. German broadcasters often reached British and international audiences first, giving the Nazi regime’s interpretation of events and setting the agenda. The BBC also seemed to get the tone of early wartime broadcasts wrong. Topical talks frequently patronized listeners, exhorting them to act rather than empathizing with the challenges they faced.The official on-­air spokesmen selected by government departments and the military to appear on-­air were generally dull and uninspiring. These shortcomings reflected the failure of British planners to anticipate the ‘Sitzkreig’ or ‘Phoney War’ that followed the German Blitzkreig invasion of Poland. Initially at least, the bombers did not come, and listeners soon became tired of the BBC’s stripped-­back domestic broadcasts. The fear of air raids had led the government to close cinemas, theatres, and concert halls at the outbreak of war (worry­ing what would happen if a bomb fell on a packed venue), leaving people more reliant than ever on the BBC for diversion.They complained loudly about the shortage of broadcast entertainment. Once programme makers had been safely moved out of London, the BBC quickly re-­introduced as much ‘normal’ programming as

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

77

possible, including plenty of live light and dance music. A new ‘Band of the Week’ scheme was introduced, showcasing bandleaders like Jack Hylton, Billy Cotton, and Henry Hall (from 1941, bandleaders Jack Payne and Geraldo provided much of the BBC’s wartime dance music). On 11 October 1939, the BBC arranged an outside broadcast from ‘somewhere in England’ of a concert given by the hugely popu­ lar singer Gracie Fields, complete with a chorus and thirty-­piece orchestra. The BBC also resumed its policy of broadcasting plenty of ‘serious’ music: this was a source of irritation to many listeners, who simply wanted to be distracted and entertained. Some of the BBC’s critics feared that listeners would turn to Nazi broadcasts for information and amusement. The most notorious German broadcasts in English for UK listeners were presented by Hamburg’s ‘Lord Haw Haw’. A number of different people may have broadcast under this name, but William Joyce, an Irish fascist who put on an exaggerated and less-­than-­perfect aristocratic English accent (‘This is Jairmany calling!’) to lampoon the British war effort and spread disruptive rumours, made Haw Haw a household name. Joyce’s mischievous, irreverent broadcasts freely mixed truth and lies and initially attracted a substantial, regular UK audience. In response, the BBC rescheduled its most popular programmes so that they were broadcast at the same time as Haw Haw, and introduced a news commentary designed implicitly to correct Hamburg’s lies. More significantly, it expanded its listener research operations to get a better sense of what listeners at home and overseas made of British and foreign programmes, and of what listeners wanted from the BBC. To some extent, it already knew the answers.

For the Forces The BBC had already drawn up plans for a broadcast service ‘for the Forces’, aiming to supply service personnel, and particularly the British Expeditionary Force in France, with information and entertainment. Nothing like this had ever been attempted before. The

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

78

T h is is t h e BBC

s­ervice would need to reflect the tastes and interests of ordinary soldiers if it was to hold their attention and, crucially, discourage them from tuning in enemy broadcasts. It would need to include plenty of music, light entertainment, and news. It would also need to accommodate new wartime contexts for listening. Radio sets were now being used not just in the home but also in canteens, camps, barracks, and fac­tor­ies. People listened with comrades, workmates, and ­strangers as a communal experience, sharing and discussing the same news and programmes. Wireless sets would remain switched on and tuned to the same station throughout the day and into the evening, forming the common backdrop for everyday life. The BBC now had to provide material suitable for indiscriminate listening. BBC officers had, in the past, generally looked down on ‘tap’ listening as something that worked against the Reithian mission of cultural uplift, and some con­ tinued to do so: Norman Collins, who worked as a talks assistant during the war (and later became head of television), wrote of a wireless set left on all day that ‘talked away and read news and hummed and crooned and saxophoned all by itself in a corner, like a lunatic relation’.3 However, the wartime BBC had to cater to tap listeners: if it failed, they might tune in enemy stations instead. The new Forces Programme began broadcasting in January 1940. Crucially, it was transmitted not just to soldiers in France, but also across the BBC’s entire national network of stations, to reach service personnel stationed around the country. This meant it could also be heard by any civilians who wanted to listen. The Home Service con­ tinued to provide a Reithian ‘mixed’ programme, scheduling different genres alongside one another and encouraging listeners to encounter and experience new and supposedly better things. The Forces Programme, meanwhile, offered most listeners a near-­constant supply of exactly what they wanted. Popular music, variety performances, sports coverage, and advice programmes were accompanied by news bulletins and brief news commentaries, along with French lessons for  service personnel, seven days a week. Special musical request

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

79

p­rogrammes were introduced, female announcers were hired, and women and children were brought to the microphone to broadcast messages to husbands and fathers away on active service, bringing humanity and emotion to the service. Everything was presented in a slicker, less formal manner, and in a way designed to facilitate indiscriminate background listening. The Forces Programme offered a vital means to relieve the monotony of military service and work in war industries. It quickly became apparent that most of its listeners were civilians, including many women, tuning in at home or in factories. Indeed, by 1942 the total audience for the Forces Programme was 50 per cent larger than that of the Home Service. The Forces Programme continued the trans­ form­ation of radio that had begun in the mid-­1930s, when the widen­ ing social base of the audience, and the threat of commercial competition from Continental stations, had obliged the Corporation to produce more popular forms of programming. However, the change marked by the creation of the Forces Programme was more dramatic than anything that had gone before. It suggested that there had always been people working within the BBC who had been eager and willing to produce the sorts of programmes that most listeners wanted. In the 1930s, senior managers had insisted on a Reithian approach to broadcasting and had kept them on a tight leash.With the coming of war, they were now free to experiment, innovate, and entertain. As Maurice Gorham put it, ‘the war saved the BBC from itself ’.4 A good example of this was Hi, Gang!, which started in May 1940. The show revolved around the Hollywood film stars and real-­life married couple Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon and was planned as a light-­hearted crowd-­pleaser that would boost morale through a mixture of music and comedy. The show was fast-­paced and transatlantic in style, with special guests and plenty of wisecracks and one-­liners. Daniels wrote most of the dialogue and performed a new song each week. Vic Oliver, the violin-­ playing comedian, was also given a

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

80

T h is is t h e BBC

s­ tarring role, and additional music was provided by Jay Wilbur and his Orchestra. Hi, Gang! was the only major comedy show broadcast from London during the Blitz. Later in the war, Variety Bandbox offered similarly high-­profile entertainment. Broadcast from 1944 and showcasing the best British light entertainment acts, it offered top-­ billing music and fast-­paced comedy acts, performed live in venues like the Queensbury All-­ Services Club in Soho (the repurposed Prince Edward Theatre, which could accommodate an audience of almost 5,000). It included Forces special requests, and also provided a platform for visiting American performers, including stars like Bing Crosby and Glenn Miller. The Forces Programme also carried some educational material for soldiers, and in June 1941 producers sought to blend information and entertainment in The Brains Trust, assembling a panel of five experts to answer questions sent in by listeners. As with wartime request and message programmes, it was a further demonstration of the im­port­ ance of audience participation in creating a sense of identification with the wireless service and the war effort. Regular Brains Trust panellists included the zoologist Professor Julian Huxley, the philosopher C. E. M. Joad, and the naval officer Commander A. B. Campbell (a popular storyteller). A question master (initially the writer Donald McCullough) presided over the discussion, which tackled serious issues but was kept light in tone, with some simulated argument and wry humour. Surprisingly, perhaps, the programme was hugely popu­ lar, attracting almost a third of the adult listening public. Another attempt to mix information and entertainment, in a different format, was provided from 1942 by Desert Island Discs, devised and presented by Roy Plomley. Famous performers, military officers, and other public figures were invited to play the role of ‘castaways’, chatting with Plomley about their lives and selecting the music they would like to take with them if they were marooned on a desert island. The appeal of this gentle yet intimate approach to the life stories of famous ­people was immediate and enduring, and the programme survives to this day on BBC Radio 4.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

81

Although the Forces Programme quickly attracted the biggest audience for day-­to-­day background listening and light entertainment, some Home Service programmes also drew unprecedentedly large numbers of listeners and acquired a new symbolic status. This was the beginning of an era in which the most popular programmes became talking points for people in their daily lives and provided shared cultural reference points across the nation. During May 1940, as the German Blitzkrieg was finally unleashed on western Europe, around half the UK population tuned in to listen to the Home Service 9 p.m. bulletin to hear the latest war news. The Home Service also carried the most popular entertainment programme of the war, It’s That Man Again, written by Ted Kavanagh and starring the radio comic Tommy Handley (the title was taken from a famous headline used in the Daily Express, referring to Hitler). Universally known as ITMA, it built on the radiogenic, surreal, anarchic humour of Kavanagh’s pre-­war hit series, Band Waggon. ITMA was set in a new, fictional location every year. When, for example, production moved to Bangor, North Wales, in the summer of 1941, the show temporarily became It’s That Sand Again, with Handley as the mayor of the seaside town of Foaming-­at-­the-­Mouth. Over the ten years of ITMA’s run, Handley was joined at the microphone by an evolving procession of bizarre characters, including Mrs Mopp the cleaning woman, Colonel Chinstrap, and Funf the German spy. Each character was accompanied by a distinctive aural signature (when they came through a door, it opened with a strange and unique combination of noises) and developed their own memorable, odd, and sometimes slightly risqué catchphrase (Mrs Mopp’s was ‘Can I do you now, Sir?’). The show was based on a rapid-­fire succession of comic dialogues, puns, wordplay, sound effects, and topical jokes about the petty annoyances and bureaucracy of wartime life. Scripts were finalized just before broadcast, to allow the cast to poke fun at the latest frustrations. Each week, ITMA attracted up to 15 million listeners, around 40 per cent of the UK population. Fans included Princess Elizabeth, and in 1942 a Command Performance was staged for her

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

82

T h is is t h e BBC

birthday. BBC entertainment programmes were now deeply embedded in the national culture, something that had never been the case before the war. Music also played a central role in the BBC’s war effort. The sentimental songs of Vera Lynn became emblematic of the war for many and were put on-­air despite objections from some BBC officers that their ‘slushy’ lyrics would ‘demoralize’ British troops. In 1941, Lynn was given her own show, Sincerely Yours. The ‘traditional’ blackface variety of the Kentucky Minstrels continued to be broadcast during the war, but the BBC also began to showcase Black performers in a new jazz and swing programme. Broadcast on the Forces Programme, Radio Rhythm Club offered listeners the latest jazz records from the US, along with live performances by leading acts. During the summer of 1940, the BBC also broadcast the series Rhapsody in Black, on both the Home Service and the Forces Programme, offering ‘music in ebony from Harlem to Savannah’ and starring Black artists such as Elisabeth Welch and Evelyn Dove.5 Black musicians were popular, and such programmes were also a means to showcase the imperial and, later, transatlantic nature of the war effort. This imperative also led the BBC to broadcast American big bands and crooners, again in the face of objections from some, who feared an enervating Americanization of British culture and the feminization of British men by the ‘anaemic’ and ‘debilitated’ vocal styles of the crooners. The BBC had to balance such complaints against the need to provide an echo of ideas about the Anglo-­American ‘special relationship’. Following the entry of the US into the war, the floodgates were opened.The BBC worked closely with the American radio networks, including the Mutual Broadcasting System, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and the Columbia Broadcasting Service (CBS), and with the newly established US propaganda authority, the Office of War Information. British listeners were introduced to American broadcasting through imported series like The Jack Benny Program, broadcast fortnightly by the BBC from June 1941 and, later, The Bob Hope Show. The BBC made many other American acts

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

83

famous in Britain, including Glenn Miller, the Andrews Sisters, and Frank Sinatra. The BBC also exchanged producers with the US networks, with Norman Corwin, for example, making the series An American in England for CBS in 1942, while the BBC features prod­ ucer Laurence Gilliam made Britain to America for NBC. As the ‘friendly invasion’ of American service personnel arrived in Britain, in preparation for the liberation of Europe, radio was deployed to keep the new arrivals entertained. In July 1943, the American Forces Network was set up to serve US troops stationed in Britain. Although it used low-­power transmitters, it reached around 10 per cent of British listeners, supplying them with a daily service of pure American entertainment (without the commercial sponsorship that characterized broadcasting in the US). The BBC also broadcast programmes on its own national networks aimed at US soldiers, which were simultaneously intended as a means to convince British listeners of the importance of the Anglo-­American alliance. This was particularly important given signs of public resentment of the new arrivals. The BBC also sought to moderate racial tensions between white and Black US service personnel, and between white British civilians and Black soldiers. On 29 May 1944, it broadcast a production of the musical play The Man Who Went to War by the African American poet Langston Hughes, designed to showcase African American support for a war against fascism and for freedom.The BBC’s Geoffrey Bridson produced the play, which was performed by an entirely African American cast and introduced by the movie star Paul Robeson. BBC listeners were used to hearing Black entertainers on-­air, but now ­people of colour were also beginning to find work in drama and other types of programming. Prejudice was set aside, albeit temporarily, in attempts to win as much support for the war effort as possible. With the US finally in the war, live transatlantic broadcasting also became commonplace and carried a wide variety of programmes, including news and entertainment, in both directions. Technically complex, two-­way relay broadcasts were also arranged: a trans-­Atlantic edition of The Brains Trust, for example, involved simultaneous

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

84

T h is is t h e BBC

p­ articipation by panel members in Britain and the US. On 1 January 1944, a new series called Atlantic Spotlight began, a collaboration between the BBC and NBC that would run for two years. The show was simultaneously broadcast, live, on the Forces Programme in Britain and across NBC’s national network in the US. The first show starred Glenn Miller and the Army Air Force Band playing in New York while, in London, Anna Neagle introduced Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen (a popular singing and comedy double act) and the National Fire Service Dance Orchestra.6 Some worried that the friendly US invasion of the airwaves presaged a post-­war Americanization of British broadcasting and British culture. BBC officers remained anxious to curate and restrict the impact of American broadcasting.

Broadcasting propaganda On 5 June 1940, in the immediate wake of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, one of the most successful BBC propaganda programmes of the war was first broadcast. After that evening’s 9 p.m. news bulletin had finished on the Home Service, the author J. B. Priestley delivered the first in a series of Postscripts. Short talks, a little like a sermon, the Postscripts sought to illustrate scenes from ordinary wartime life as a way to make wider, thought-­ provoking, and reassuring observations, often contrasting British identity and values with the horrors of Nazism. Priestley emphasized the need to ‘keep burnished the bright little thread of our common humanity’.7 Earlier, Priestley had made a success of broadcast talks to BBC audiences in America and Australia. The Received Pronunciation of many BBC announcers and speakers went down badly with listeners in such places, evoking hierarchy and the British class system. Priestley had a Yorkshire accent, presented his material in a matter-­of-­fact way, and avoided anything that smacked of privilege or pretentiousness. With many critics accusing the BBC of striking the wrong note in its

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

85

propaganda broadcasts for British listeners, Priestley seemed an obvious choice to deliver a morale-­boosting message to the British public in the dark days that followed the fall of France. He avoided the patronizing exhortation that had characterized some early BBC propa­ganda broadcasts, and even (gently) criticized those in authority. More controversially, some of his talks emphasized egalitarian values and the need to build a better, fairer social order after the war. This proved too much for the BBC’s senior managers, and he was taken off-­air. For a while, however, Priestley lifted listeners’ spirits and suggested how good, subtle, effective propaganda might be conducted. After Dunkirk the BBC also started to engage more seriously in the work of journalism.The Battle of Britain provided new opportunities for eyewitness war reporting, and in July 1940, Charles Gardner broadcast an exciting (and excited) running commentary on a dogfight over the Straits of Dover. There, somebody’s hit a German . . . he’s coming down completely out of control . . . ah, the man’s bailed out by parachute . . . he’s a Junkers 87 and he’s going to slap into the sea and there he goes—SMASH . . . Oh boy, I’ve never seen anything so good as this—the RAF fighters have really got those boys taped.8

Some in the audience were shocked to hear warfare treated as if it was a football match—‘a sadistic excitement dispelled the usual boredom’—but the BBC defended Gardner’s vivid, direct style.9 Many listeners appreciated the way that the BBC had started to communicate something of the reality of war: previously, it had seemed distant and remote. After Dunkirk, the BBC also began to reveal the iden­tities of its newsreaders, to help listeners confirm that they were listening to genuine BBC news bulletins rather than enemy broadcasts. The sorts of voices heard on-­ air also started, slowly, to change. Wilfred Pickles, a Yorkshireman who had begun his BBC career as an announcer in the North Region, now became a newsreader for the Home Service, the first to speak with a noticeable regional accent. For the first time, BBC newsreaders became

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

86

T h is is t h e BBC

well-­known per­son­al­ities, with voices that listeners came to recognize, trust, and identify with. BBC war news was undoubtedly a form of propaganda, but the Corporation generally sought to get its message across through the careful presentation of accurate information, rather than resorting to lies. Tallies of British losses in the Battle of Britain were generally accurate and, if anything, bulletins consistently underestimated the extent of German losses. The BBC also used ‘news commentaries’ to interpret bulletins for listeners and shape how information would be received and understood. During the early stages of the war, a retired army officer, Major-­General Sir Ernest Swinton, delivered a weekly War Commentary on the Home Service every Thursday after the news. Other military commentators were introduced after Dunkirk. By October 1940, up to seven million people listened to War Commentary each week. Similarly, up to six million listened to American Commentary, relayed from the US and deploying well-­known commentators on American affairs including Raymond Gram Swing and Alistair Cooke. The Forces Programme also broadcast news commentaries, including Forces News Letter and Radio Reconnaissance, as did the various BBC services for listeners overseas. Keeping news and comment separate allowed the BBC to maintain the appearance of objectivity, while still using news to support British official goals and agendas. Producers meanwhile collaborated closely with the military in making several notable war ‘features’ in the wake of Dunkirk, including Spitfires over Britain, Bombers over Germany, and The Battle of Britain (all of which were produced by Cecil McGivern), broadcast to listeners at home and overseas. Mixing ‘actuality’ (including the authentic sounds of aerial combat) and dramatized speech, and appealing to the emotions as well as the intellect, radio features were understood at the time as a particular and unique genre of programming, offered a power­ful way to convey persuasive messages while evoking the real­ ities of war. From September 1940, as the ‘Blitz’ bombing raids on British towns and cities began, the BBC worked with civil servants to produce other features like London after Dark, London Carries On, and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

87

The People of Coventry (in the wake of devastating bombing raids on that city).The focus was on ordinary people ‘carrying on’ (a recurring theme of wartime propaganda) through extraordinary circumstance. These programmes aimed to give listeners across the country and overseas, especially in the neutral US, a sense of the ordeal facing those living in Britain’s cities. Such features stressed endurance in the face of hardship and downplayed the cracks that were beginning to appear in home-­front morale. BBC commentators also broadcast live accounts of the bombing and its consequences, from London and across the country.The pi­on­ eer­ing female radio reporter Audrey Russell, for example, made a series of broadcasts about the work of the Auxiliary Fire Service, including an account of the most intense bombing raids of the Blitz on the night of 10 May 1941. Broadcast speeches by public figures also found national and international audiences. The new prime minister, Winston Churchill, provided perhaps the most powerful broadcast voice of the war. Though some at the time questioned both his ver­ acity and his sobriety, for many Churchill’s speeches provided another emotional focus around which national and imperial unity could be built, sustaining the war effort. Despite the evacuation of many staff from London, Broadcasting House remained a key production centre and symbol of endurance for the BBC. Designed to resemble an ocean liner, the author Penelope Fitzgerald, who worked there during the war, described its wartime appearance: With the best engineers in the world, and a crew varying between the intensely respectable and the barely sane, it looked ready to scorn any disaster of less than Titanic scale. Since the outbreak of war damp sandbags had lapped it round, but once inside the bronze doors, the airs of cooking from the deep hold suggested more strongly than ever a cruise on the Queen Mary. At night, with all its blazing portholes blacked out, it towered over a flotilla of taxis, each dropping off a speaker or two.10

Facing a severe shortage of accommodation, even the most pres­ti­ gious meeting spaces at Broadcasting House were turned into offices.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

88

T h is is t h e BBC

The Concert Hall was converted into a dormitory for those working late shifts. BBC staff, including senior managers and well-­known announcers, formed fire-­fighting teams and their own Home Guard unit. Employees were supposed to shelter in the basements during air raids, but many carried on working regardless. Broadcasting House suffered a direct hit on 15 October 1940 and seven people were killed, but newsreaders on both the domestic and overseas services still finished the all-­important 9 p.m. bulletin. Broadcasting House was hit again on 8 December but never closed. Other BBC facilities in cities around the country were also bombed during the war, but the crucial work of BBC engineers in creating a dispersed system of auxiliary transmitters meant that bombing raids never shut down BBC services for long. BBC engineers also worked closely with the military throughout the war, conducting experiments, for example, into how  transmitters might be used to jam and disrupt enemy communications. As the threat of invasion loomed, the BBC acted as a means by which the government could prepare the British population for what might come. Broadcasts disseminated information, advice, and instructions about how to behave in the event of air raids, enemy parachute landings, or a full-­scale invasion. Morale-­boosting programmes proliferated, war-­related messages were inserted into other programmes (although many programme makers disliked and doubted the ef­fect­ ive­ness of this approach, and thought they could ruin broadcasts), and patriotic and rousing military music and popular songs were broadcast. ‘Home front’ programmes advised listeners on how to save fuel, deal with rationing, learn to cook what food was available, stay healthy, and contribute to wartime National Savings schemes. Men continued to dominate the upper echelons of the BBC, and the voices of the announcers on the Home Service were still exclusively male. However, of necessity, the BBC employed more women during the war, including around eight hundred as specially trained engineers. George Orwell patronizingly described the BBC’s wartime atmosphere as ‘something half way between a girls’ school and a

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

89

lunatic asylum’.11 The BBC also acknowledged that women were an increasingly important target audience for its broadcasts, and women played a significant role in making programmes for female listeners. In April 1940, for example, the comedians Elsie and Doris Waters performed a series of daily five-­minute Feed the Brute sketches on the Home Service. Deploying the naturalistic, conversational, Cockney humour of their established ‘Gert and Daisy’ characters, they mixed comedy with useful cookery tips, helping to make food rationing and wartime housekeeping more palatable. The BBC producer Janet Quigley followed this up with a highly successful series, The Kitchen Front (1940–45), produced in collaboration with the Ministry of Food. These daily five-­minute programmes aimed to help housewives cope with rationing and shortages. Rather than using professional cooks, and risk alienating the target audience, Quigley brought a succession of popular male and female radio presenters to the microphone to discuss cookery in wartime conditions. ‘Gert and Daisy’ also made appearances to liven things up, as did Mabel Constanduros in the guise of ‘Grandma Buggins’. This all marked a radical departure from earlier, dry and didactic BBC propaganda. By October 1940, The Kitchen Front had an audience of around 5 million listeners. Home front programmes gave the government the opportunity to demonstrate to the public that it was working efficiently and effectively to overcome wartime challenges. The BBC helped foster an image of a ‘people’s war’ in which everyone was contributing as part of their everyday lives. A further innovation in wartime programming was Music While You Work, launched in June 1940 and designed to promote morale and productivity in key war industries. The show was designed to be relayed on factory loudspeakers, as background listening, and was broadcast daily on the Home Service in the morning and the Forces Programme in the afternoon. An additional late-­night session for shift workers was added later in the war. Music While You Work provided a half-­hour of carefully planned, continuous, loud, upbeat music, typ­ic­ al­ly performed by a big band, a military or colliery band, or a full

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

90

T h is is t h e BBC

orchestra. Producers avoided material with quiet sections and anything that relied on vocals. Sustained volume and an upbeat tempo would, it was believed, promote effective working at repetitive industrial tasks on a loud factory floor. Some thought the programme art­is­tic­ al­ly moribund, while others argued it played a key role in boosting productivity. By 1944, the programme reached more than four-­and-­ a-­half million workplace listeners daily: it also became popular with many housewives. Workers’ Playtime, launched in 1941, marked another innovative use of music as a form of propaganda. The idea behind the show was suggested by the minister of labour, Ernest Bevin: it provided live entertainment, performed by variety acts (including appearances by a very young Peter Sellers) and musicians at shift breaks in factory canteens around the country. The aim was to create a sense of the nation’s workforce taking a break together, and to reinforce this the programmes also included audience sing­ alongs. By September 1942, Workers’ Playtime had a regular audience of seven million.

The European Service As the war progressed, the BBC thus offered listeners in Britain an increasingly sophisticated and effective service, deploying news, information, and entertainment to support morale and strengthen the war effort. At the same time, it developed formidable services targeting European listeners in enemy, neutral, and occupied countries. By the end of 1940, it was broadcasting in thirty-­four languages, mainly European. Expansion was hampered by multiple shortages: of avail­ able transmitters; of money to make programmes; of staff with the linguistic and other skills required for the job; and of office space to put staff in.Various solutions were found.Transmitters were converted from other uses. Funds were released by the Treasury, though never enough to allow the BBC to do all the government asked of it. Émigrés were found and employed to script programmes, although

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

91

(except in the French Service) the BBC generally only used British nationals as announcers, due to concerns about security and messaging. European Service staff were initially crammed into an increasingly crowded Broadcasting House. From March 1941, many were moved to nearby Bush House, which became the iconic home for BBC overseas broadcasting for the next seventy years. However, even Bush House was not big enough for the BBC’s ever-­expanding inter­ nation­al operations. The Latin American Service was relocated to Aldenham House, Hertfordshire. Another stately home, Caversham Park (near Reading), housed the expanded BBC Monitoring Service, which tracked what other countries were broadcasting.The news and information gathered by BBC Monitoring was not just used to assist the Corporation in making programmes for home and overseas listeners: it was also supplied to the British government, military, and intelligence services. As in domestic services, BBC news reports were carefully edited for overseas listeners and talks and commentaries were provided to interpret the news and support British official agendas. Senior civil ser­ vants and ministers notified the BBC in advance of key topics and events to cover, and specified what should be avoided. As the BBC’s European news editor emphasized, bulletins had to serve the ‘one real and fundamental propagandist aim of helping us to win this war as rapidly as possible’.12 News was thus used to support a wider attempt to persuade listeners that a British victory was, ultimately, inevitable. Yet manipulation could not be too obvious. News could be selected and presented to support British interests, but editors insisted that it had to be accurate. Outright lies were unacceptable because they would eventually prove counterproductive. Push the limits of cred­ ibil­ity too far, and listeners would cease to believe the BBC and instead turn to the rival news services broadcast from other countries. News editors also emphasized the prevalence of ‘cross listening’: many listeners could understand more than one language and were able to compare what they heard in different BBC services.To maintain trust, consistency across the various language services was thus necessary.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

92

T h is is t h e BBC

‘Black’ propaganda, using exaggeration and falsehoods to sow disinformation and spread fear and distrust, was certainly a feature of British broadcasting aimed at enemy countries. These activities were run separately and secretly, in a conscious attempt to ensure that they did not undermine the BBC’s usefulness as a tool of ‘white’ propa­ ganda. However, the divide between the two was not entirely watertight. Black propaganda targeting German listeners was organized by Sefton Delmer, a British journalist who had reported from Berlin before the war, and who subsequently joined the BBC German Service. In September 1940, Delmer was recruited by the British secret service, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), to run its black propaganda initiative. He invented the character ‘Der Chef ’, supposedly a right-­wing German opponent of Hitler, who broadcast on the clandestine British station Gustav Siegfried Eins. This claimed (falsely) to be operating at a secret location within Germany, and to represent an element of the anti-­Nazi resistance. In 1942, Delmer established the ‘grey’ station Soldatensender Calais (‘grey’ because many listeners knew or suspected that it was British), which offered plenty of music and entertainment to tempt German troops in Europe to tune in, and used a powerful new transmitter at Crowborough, codenamed ‘Aspidistra’. This was run by the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), which was established by the government in autumn 1941, staffed largely by people from SOE, and tasked with coordinating and strengthening British overseas propaganda. Behind the scenes, the BBC worked closely with both PWE and SOE, and in its European Service carried coded messages for British agents and resistance fighters in Nazi-­occupied countries. The BBC German Service meanwhile stuck to white propaganda. Those running it generally assumed that listeners supported the German war effort and Nazi war aims, and that encouraging overt resistance would be counterproductive. They instead aimed to win an audience by providing alternative news reports that would draw in listeners frustrated by Nazi censorship. Offering attractive entertainment was also important: the programme Aus der freien Welt, ­introduced

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

93

in 1942 to broadcast the hot jazz and swing music that was banned in Nazi Germany, was a good example. Recorded messages from German prisoners of war in Britain, for their families back home, also represented a means to encourage listeners in Germany to tune in, in the hope of hearing a friend or relative speak on-­air (similar programmes involving Italian prisoners of war were produced by the BBC Italian Service). The goal of the German Service was not to provoke an immediate uprising against the Nazi regime. At best, in the short term, programmes might subtly sap German confidence and morale, sow dis­ unity, and encourage opposition. However, the main aim was to build up an audience that could be targeted with aggressively anti-­Nazi propaganda at a later stage of the war when a British victory seemed more likely. It was an investment for the future. German jamming of British broadcasts and attempts to deter foreign listening by imposing increasingly draconian punishments on individuals caught tuning into the BBC did not prevent it developing a substantial audience. The Gestapo estimated in 1941 that around a million Germans listened to the BBC. As the war progressed, the German Service was increasingly able to capitalize on the lies, contradictions, and errors in Nazi propa­ ganda to undermine trust in the regime. As the deteriorating German position made the bankruptcy of Hitler’s earlier promises obvious, and as Nazi propaganda diverged more and more from observable reality, the BBC played back to German listeners recordings of earlier speeches given by Nazi leaders. Its audience grew. Until the end of 1942, the BBC German Service limited its coverage of Nazi persecution of the Jews and the Holocaust, even though it employed many Jewish staff. This reflected a belief among civil ser­ vants and programme makers that Nazi antisemitic policies were popu­lar with many Germans, and that attacking them would make listeners switch off. During the early years of the war, the German Service devoted much more attention to Nazi mistreatment of the civilian population in general in occupied Europe than it did to the plight of the Jews. This also reflected a degree of implicit, and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

94

T h is is t h e BBC

s­ometimes explicit, antisemitism within the BBC and the British government and public. It was only later that the German Service began to highlight mass killings of Jews, relaying from the US a powerful condemnation of Nazi war crimes delivered by the famous, exiled German author Thomas Mann. From December 1942, a large-­scale British propaganda campaign focused on Nazi antisemitism and expressed the determination of the Allies to punish those responsible. German listeners were now urged to resist Nazism or face the consequences. As with the German Service, BBC broadcasts to occupied Europe in the early years of the war generally aimed to build up audiences rather than provoke outright resistance.Winning listener trust by supplying an accurate news service, and maintaining a mentality of hostility to the Germans, seemed the most that could be achieved. Encouraging acts of resistance that would bring reprisals without any hope of British intervention or support would be counterproductive. As was the case with the German Service, Nazi attempts to jam BBC broadcasts and punish listeners did not prevent people across occupied Europe tuning in. BBC foreign-­language services were developed in close cooperation with European governments in exile. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement, providing political leaders with a means to address their co-­nationals, while allowing the BBC to pose as the proxy national broadcaster for occupied countries. Listeners were thereby encouraged to identify with BBC services. But it was the Corporation, not the foreign governments in exile, that retained overall control. One attempt to provoke more overt resistance in occupied Europe was the ‘V’ campaign, launched in early 1941. The idea came out of the BBC Belgian Service: listeners were encouraged to daub a ‘V’ in public spaces, representing Victoire in French, Vrijheid in Flemish, and ‘Victory’ in English. The idea was quickly taken up by listeners, not just in Belgium, but also in Holland and France. From May 1941, the ‘V’ motif was adopted more generally across the European Service, championed by Douglas Ritchie (who broadcast as ‘Colonel Britton’).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

95

The Morse code signal for the letter ‘V’ was adopted as the aural signature of the campaign and equated with the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (five, of course, also corresponded with the Roman numeral V). Churchill’s famous ‘V’ sign was inspired by the campaign. However, the same symbolism was also quickly co-­opted and subverted by German propagandists, who claimed that ‘V’ graffiti was actually pro-­Nazi, standing for Viktoria. Senior BBC officers also worried that the campaign was raising unrealistic expectations of imminent allied military assistance to occupied Europe, putting listeners in danger. It was wound up in May 1942.

The Overseas Service In November 1939, the BBC Empire Service became the Overseas Service: this change reflected the wartime need to target a wider audience around the world. The focus on the ‘lonely listener in the bush’, the hallmark of BBC English-­language international broadcasting over the previous seven years, was dropped.The BBC now pri­ori­ tized direct listeners in the ‘British dominions’ (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa) and the US, and radio stations in those countries that would rebroadcast its news and other programmes. The aim was to maximize audiences in places deemed crucial to the war effort. In particular, the BBC sought to persuade Americans to abandon their neutrality. During the war, the Overseas Service also began broadcasting in a range of Asian languages, targeting non-­white listeners within and beyond the boundaries of the British empire for the first time. This reflected the importance of India, in particular, to the imperial war effort and the challenges posed by Axis broadcasting to the sub-­continent and growing nationalist resistance to British rule. The BBC would remain a tool of empire well into the post-­war period, but from 1939 onwards this function was gradually subsumed within a broader global vision for British broadcasting.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

96

T h is is t h e BBC

To reach and retain listeners, the Overseas Service adopted new approaches to programming, paralleling the changes taking place in BBC domestic services. An Empire Entertainments Unit (renamed the Overseas Entertainments Unit in 1943) coordinated a range of light-­ hearted English-­ language programmes designed to create stronger links between Britain, the empire, and the US. The old, formal, masculine tone of the Empire Service was abandoned. Seven female announcers (‘radio girl friends’) were hired to read out messages from family members at home for servicemen stationed overseas. In 1940, Overseas Service schedules were split into four distinct strands: North American; African (primarily for South Africa, with more modest offerings for listeners in East and West Africa); Eastern (including India, and broadcasting in a range of Asian languages as well as English); and Pacific (mainly targeting Australia and New Zealand). The aim was to link programmes more closely to the requirements of the British and imperial war effort in particular places, and to maximize the appeal to listeners and rebroadcasters by offering them something more tailored to their needs. Experienced broadcasting personnel were recruited from around the empire to run the new services, to make programmes, and to appear at the microphone. Ernie Bushnell came from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to direct the new North American Service (NAS), Z. A. Bokhari from All India Radio (AIR) worked to overhaul the Eastern Service, and Robert McCall and G. Ivan Smith were se­cond­ed from the Australian Broadcasting Commission to make programmes for the Pacific Service. McCall described what it was like to arrive at Broadcasting House in the middle of the Blitz: I found everybody . . . tucked away in the quaintest nooks . . . intense looking people were striding around in an atmosphere of polite pandemonium. [I was led to] a ‘refuge’ where I could sleep that night. I was pulling my pyjama trousers on when another man came in and began to change. To break the ice I ventured ‘How do you do, I’m McCall!’; ‘Well, well, glad to see you,’ he replied, ‘I’m Ogilvie’—And so I met the Director-­General . . .13

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

97

The North American Service was at the spearhead of change in the Overseas Service. To increase its appeal to American and Canadian audiences, the NAS adopted the fixed and regular approach to scheduling used by the big US networks, along with friendlier presenting styles. The aim was to generate North American support for the British war effort and, eventually, for US military intervention against fascism. The BBC commentator Vernon Bartlett made this explicit in the inaugural NAS broadcast: I am going to talk to you three times a week from a country that is fighting for its life. Inevitably I’m going to get called by that terrifying word ‘propagandist’. But of course I’m a propagandist. Passionately I want my ideas—our ideas—of freedom and justice to survive.14

Announcers and commentators were appointed whose voices were deemed likely to appeal to American listeners: those, like Priestley, with regional UK (rather than Received Pronunciation) accents were joined by Canadians like J. B. ‘Hamish’ McGeachy, London cor­res­ pond­ent of the Winnipeg Free Press. The US radio networks already had their own correspondents in London, including Ed Murrow (CBS) and Fred Bate (NBC), and their reports were also carried in the NAS and rebroadcast across the US.When the Blitz began Murrow was given permission to broadcast a live account of a raid, as observed from the roof of Broadcasting House, regardless of the personal risk involved. The programme Children Calling Home (carried by the BBC, CBS, and NBC) meanwhile linked up British children evacuated to the US with their fam­ ilies in the UK. Harnessing the emotional appeal of radio, it used the voices of children and adults pushed to the point of tears to bring home the experience of war and to reinforce the idea of a special bond between Britain and the US. ‘Soap opera’ was a genre of programming pioneered in the US: it involved serial drama, with a focus on romance, primarily aimed at women, and sponsored by manufacturers of household goods (hence ‘soap’). Before the war, the BBC had looked down on soap opera as

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

98

T h is is t h e BBC

sentimental, formulaic, and feminine. However, Bushnell insisted that the NAS needed a soap, especially if it was to appeal to female listeners in the US. Thus, Front Line Family was born. The show built on an earlier series of sketches by Mabel and Denis Constanduros, The English Family Robinson, broadcast on the National Programme in 1938 and revived on the Home Service in the summer of 1940. In its new incarnation, Front Line Family was designed to convey to US listeners the reality of war in Britain and to encourage support for an American declaration of war. Incongruously, British characters used American language—‘sidewalk’, not ‘pavement’—to ensure that the target audience understood the action. The show was deemed so effective that, from autumn 1941, it was also used by other sections of the Overseas Service, broadcast to an estimated global audience of over 4 million listeners. From 1944, it was also broadcast for listeners in the UK: soap opera finally came to Britain. The NAS also included regular programmes for the Caribbean, in a segment named Calling the West Indies. This featured light entertainment, ‘serious’ music, and messages from, interviews with, and newsletters written and read by, West Indians based in Britain, many of them service personnel. This was an attempt to generate support for the imperial war effort and to strengthen a sense of a shared ‘British West Indian’ identity, but also to offer genuinely popular programmes. The racial prejudices which had previously contributed to the BBC’s failure to serve Black listeners overseas were now trumped by wartime necessity. As in its other international services, the BBC took care to include a range of different voices, accents, and music, strengthening the appeal of programmes to listeners in the Caribbean. Much of the session was developed and produced by the Black Jamaican writer Una Marson, who also introduced a pioneering programme, Caribbean Voices, focusing on West Indian literature and poetry. This brought many Black writers to the microphone for the first time, and the programme remained on-­air until 1958. English-­speaking listeners in Asia were meanwhile offered the BBC Eastern Service: between 1941 and 1943 George Orwell played a key

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

99

role as a writer, producer, and broadcaster for the service. On 11 May 1940 the BBC also began broadcasting its Hindustani Service, using a language that was meant to be comprehensible to speakers of both Hindi and Urdu. This was seen by the BBC and by civil servants in Britain and India as a crucial response to Axis broadcast propaganda and a means to combat growing Indian nationalist resistance to the imperial war effort. Initially broadcasting just a brief news review, by the end of the war the Hindustani Service operated for up to two-­ and-­ a-­ quarter hours daily, and included talks and commentaries, Indian music, special programmes for women, and children’s programmes featuring the adventures of two mice, Salamu and Chandu. Maharajkumari Indira Devi of Kapurthala (‘the Radio Princess’) broadcast talks, hosted message programmes with Indian soldiers stationed in the UK, and gave a weekly summary of proceedings in the British House of Commons: she also appeared in programmes on the Home Service for listeners in the UK. Close collaboration with AIR allowed the BBC to bring a wide range of Indian announcers, commentators, performers, and experts to the microphone. Similarly, a number of AIR producers were se­cond­ed to the BBC for the duration of the war to make programmes.With the resources provided by this collaboration, from October 1941 the BBC was able to introduce programmes in a range of other languages for India and Ceylon. War commentaries and other programmes in Marathi were, for example, written and presented by Venu Chitale and S. Sathaye (Chitale also broadcast for UK listeners in programmes like The Kitchen Front), while Rekha Ali and Kamal Bose were seconded from AIR in 1944 to establish the BBC Bengali Service. The BBC Near Eastern Service was meanwhile established to house not just the Arabic Service but also new services in Turkish and Persian. The BBC publicly acknowledged that these were ‘a weapon of war’ as well as ‘a road of reciprocal communication’.15 Although Japan was another priority target for British broadcasting, delays meant that a BBC Japanese-­language service was only established at the very end of 1944.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

100

T h is is t h e BBC

From July 1940, the Overseas Service made a significant contribution to the development of BBC current affairs coverage with Radio Newsreel. This pioneering programme capitalized on the unique qualities of wireless as a medium to put over key stories in an immediate, striking way. News items, eyewitness reports, interviews, commentaries, and recorded ‘actualities’ were combined and tailored to the requirements of different global audiences in four daily editions. In Radio Newsreel, the voices of British correspondents like Audrey Russell were joined by those of reporters from target countries, such as Australia’s Chester Wilmot. The BBC also included some of Radio Newsreel’s despatches from ‘dominions’ reporters in its domestic news programmes and in transmissions aimed at other parts of the empire. The programme succeeded in creating an echo of a genuinely im­per­ial and cooperative war effort. In November 1942, an additional international English-­language service, the General Overseas Service (GOS) was introduced, aimed at listeners around the world. This drew on the precedent of the pre-­ war Empire Service, broadcasting to widely separated groups of ex­patri­ates and other colonial and overseas listeners, as well as soldiers fighting overseas. The GOS also anticipated the later World Service, designed for anyone who could speak English, anywhere in the world. By the end of 1943, the GOS was broadcasting for twenty hours every day. From 27 February 1944, it was combined with the BBC’s domestic Forces Programme to form the General Forces Programme (GFP), broadcast simultaneously to listeners in the UK and overseas. This brought British listeners some of the great successes of BBC inter­ nation­al broadcasting, including Radio Newsreel and Front Line Family. Some home listeners complained about the large number of female announcers and performers (including ‘croonerettes’) broadcast on the GFP, but the BBC argued that it had to give soldiers what they wanted, and what they wanted was friendly, female voices. During the war, the BBC also received government funding to supply recorded programmes on disc, known as ‘transcriptions’, to broadcasters in other countries virtually free of charge. This service

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

101

was initially called the London Transcription Service to conceal its official origins: it was run under the direction of the MoI and in consultation with the Joint Broadcasting Committee. The latter was an obscure body created by MI6’s espionage and propaganda wing and involving civil servants from a number of government departments, some of whom (including the spy Guy Burgess, later revealed to be a Soviet double agent) were former BBC employees. Direct state control was relaxed in 1941, and the scheme was subsequently renamed the BBC Transcription Service.The British government continued to cover most of its costs. An initial focus on relatively obvious forms of propaganda (including lots of talks) gave way to a broader offering that included some of the most successful BBC entertainment, documentary, and feature programmes that had been produced for home audiences.The aim of the Transcription Service was to boost morale around the empire, but also to promote British culture and viewpoints overseas, with one eye on Britain’s place in the post-­war global order. Contemporaries generally called this sort of work ‘cultural propaganda’: today we would label it ‘cultural diplomacy’ or ‘soft power’.

Controlling the BBC Historians sometimes claim that the wartime BBC was locked in a struggle with politicians and civil servants who wished to control it and use it to distribute state propaganda. This heroic narrative, often promoted by official histories and accounts written by former BBC employees, is misleading. Generally, BBC staff worked closely with civil servants and were willing to follow the official line, even if they disagreed about the most effective ways to accomplish their work. This essentially cooperative, and sometimes submissive, approach predated the war and survived to shape the BBC’s role during the Cold War. The BBC’s royal charter and licence, which had been renewed in 1937, gave the government significant powers over the BBC and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

102

T h is is t h e BBC

p­ rovided for the expansion of state control in times of emergency. Informal links between the Corporation and the government had become stronger in the years immediately before the war, particularly in the running of foreign-­language services. BBC officers had also been deeply involved in planning the establishment of the Ministry of Information. Sir Stephen Tallents, the BBC’s controller of public relations, simultaneously worked as director general designate of the MoI between 1936 and 1939. Sir John Reith, who stepped down as director general of the BBC in 1938, was minister of information from 1940 to 1942. The government could have taken the BBC under direct state control at the outbreak of the war. It chose not to, partly because it already had all the power and influence over the broadcaster it required. British wartime propaganda was conducted in a highly decentralized fashion, combining official voices with unofficial ones, and utilizing a wide range of media and channels.This approach was effective because it made it difficult for target audiences to differentiate between official propaganda and the work of individuals and organizations operating independently of the state. It also allowed room for creativity and meant that multiple propaganda campaigns could be conducted simultaneously, using different channels to accomplish different tasks. The BBC was useful precisely because it did not appear to be directly controlled by government. It is unlikely that many listeners, at home or overseas, believed that it was fully autonomous. Nevertheless, the fact that the BBC continued to speak with multiple voices and offer a range of perspectives added to its audience appeal. During the war, ministerial responsibility for the BBC was transferred from the General Post Office to the Ministry of Information, which also supplied and censored news for BBC bulletins.The extent of BBC ‘editorial control’ over the content of other forms of programming was never entirely clear. The MoI retained the right to vet the contents of all scripts before broadcasts. Unscripted programmes were not permitted, and ‘switch censors’ sat in studios ready to cut off any speaker who started to ad lib. However, of necessity, surveillance

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

103

of the contents of broadcasts was generally devolved to low- or mid-­ ranking BBC managers rather than civil servants. Outside of the news operation, self-­censorship became the norm, and mainly involved ensuring that militarily sensitive information, for example about weather conditions or the exact location and extent of damage from German bombing raids, was not inadvertently broadcast. The MoI and other government departments could push hard for particular items to be broadcast or kept off-­air. News supplied to the BBC (and to the press) could sometimes be misleading as civil ser­ vants sought to bend reports to serve British wartime agendas. Broadcast reports during the Norwegian campaign were particularly disingenuous and proved counterproductive when the reality of the British evacuation became apparent. Given that the BBC was ul­tim­ ate­ly answerable to parliament, pressure from the government could be difficult to resist unless BBC officers could present a clear and persuasive justification for their position, based on agreed wartime national interests. Outright conflict was generally avoided, and relations were made easier by the wartime transfer of personnel back and forth between the BBC and various government departments. This blurred the boundaries between the BBC and other elements of the British state and created close and generally satisfactory liaison. Nevertheless, as Sir Allan Powell, the BBC’s wartime chairman, noted, the ‘silken cords’ linking the BBC with the government sometimes became ‘chains of iron’.16 Understandably, the government exerted especially tight control over the BBC European Service. Initially, German Service broadcasts were covertly guided by the secretive Department for Enemy Propaganda, known as ‘Electra House’ or ‘the Country’. The Ministry of Economic Warfare, meanwhile, oversaw BBC broadcasts to Nazi-­ occupied territory. In February 1941, the MoI sought to strengthen its own influence over the European Service by inserting a former Foreign Office diplomat, Ivone Kirkpatrick, into the BBC as ‘foreign adviser’. The following October, Kirkpatrick was appointed controller of BBC European Services. The lines of authority over the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

104

T h is is t h e BBC

European Service were simplified and rendered more effective with the creation of the Political Warfare Executive that autumn. Kirkpatrick was made a member of PWE and acted as a key liaison between it, the MoI, and the BBC. From March 1942, PWE’s London headquarters were located alongside the BBC European Service in Bush House. During the early stages of the war, the BBC lacked strong, independent-­ minded senior leadership. This exacerbated internal divisions and fuelled government dissatisfaction with its work, limiting the BBC’s ability to resist state intervention in its day-­to-­day affairs.The influence of the BBC’s board of governors was diminished when it was downsized, at the outbreak of the war, to include only a chairman and a vice-­chairman.The board was only gradually brought back up to full strength after April 1941. Meanwhile, doubts grew about the ability of the director general, the academic F. W. Ogilvie, to ensure the efficient wartime operation of the rapidly expanding Corporation. Ogilvie was replaced in 1942 by a technocratic double act, comprising Sir Cecil Graves, a veteran BBC insider, and R. W. Foot, previously manager of the Gas, Light, and Coke Company. Together they strengthened the BBC’s organizational foundations. In 1944, a new director general, William Haley, took over. Formerly managing editor and director of the Manchester Evening News, a joint managing director at the Manchester Guardian, and a director of the Press Association and Reuters, Haley was able to offer more inspiring leadership as the BBC prepared for peace. A new wartime funding regime also reflected tighter government control. Before the war, the BBC had received a fixed portion of revenue from the listener licence fee, allowing it significant financial autonomy. From 1 April 1940 until the end of the conflict, the BBC was instead funded by a direct government grant-­in-­aid. By the later stages of the war, this amounted annually to almost £8.5 million. Under this arrangement, the Treasury sought to rein in what it saw as the Corporation’s lack of fiscal discipline. However, at the same time the government constantly asked the BBC to do more and more, particularly in the realm of international broadcasting, without necessarily

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

105

providing additional funding. Not for the last time in its history, the BBC simultaneously seemed both profligate and underfunded. During the war, BBC employees were propagandists.They knew this implicitly even if they did not always acknowledge it to themselves or to others. Understanding that British democracy, national life, and global and imperial power all faced an existential threat, they swallowed their reservations when the demands of their two roles conflicted. Explaining his work for the BBC Eastern Service to a friend, George Orwell admitted that he was being ‘used by the British governing class’. The priority, however, was to defeat fascism, and anyway ‘one can’t effectively remain outside the war & by working inside an institution like the B.B.C. one can perhaps deodorize it to some small extent’.17 Many held their noses and worked determinedly to help win the war.

Mobilizing for victory By March 1943, the BBC employed 11,663 people, more than double the number on the payroll at the outbreak of war. Programme output trebled over the same period, and the combined operating power of the BBC’s transmitters quintupled. By the end of 1943, the BBC was broadcasting in forty-­five different foreign languages.This expansion was not primarily a function of the extension of domestic broadcasting, but rather reflected the massive growth of the BBC European and Overseas Services. It was also necessitated by the involvement of staff in a range of wartime international broadcasting initiatives. The BBC worked with the US propaganda station,Voice of America, and relayed its programmes to Europe. BBC officers also assisted with the running of the American Forces Network and helped establish the Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme. The American Broadcasting Station in Europe started broadcasting in April 1944, targeting listeners across German-­ occupied and recently liberated territory, using Radio Luxembourg’s captured transmitters. The BBC provided it with up to ninety minutes of programming daily, as well as staff to help run the service.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

106

T h is is t h e BBC

The BBC’s wartime expansion also reflected its new engagement with the business of journalism. By 1942, its newsrooms were run by professional journalists with Fleet Street experience. Richard Dimbleby was selected as the BBC’s first war correspondent in 1939, and filed reports from France, North Africa, Albania, Greece, and the Middle East. Godfrey Talbot, who had helped cover the Blitz, replaced Dimbleby in the Middle East in 1942 and reported on the advance of the Eighth Army from El Alamein to Tripoli and, subsequently, the invasion of Italy. Frank Gillard covered the Dieppe Raid of August 1942, although he did not reveal to listeners the full extent of what was clearly a disastrous military failure. He subsequently joined Talbot with the Eighth Army in North Africa and Italy. Dimbleby, Talbot, and Gillard provided ‘news talks’, broadcast after the event.They did not have access to the portable equipment needed to record frontline ‘actualities’, complete with the noise of battle. This had to change: German and American broadcasters were already providing compelling, eyewitness reports. BBC journalists thus began to experiment with new techniques: in 1943 Wynford Vaughan Thomas recorded an actuality commentary from an RAF bomber during a raid on Berlin. In preparation for the liberation of Europe, BBC en­gin­eers built primitive ‘midget recorders’, difficult to use effectively but capable of being carried into war zones by radio correspondents. Engineers also assembled the other equipment required by the new ‘radio commando unit’ established by the BBC in 1943. This became the BBC War Reporting Unit (WRU), a team of correspondents and engineers (which included only one woman, Audrey Russell), headed by Dimbleby and embedded in the British invasion force. Back in London, the reports filed by WRU correspondents were strung together in a new programme that built on the techniques pioneered in the Overseas Service’s Radio Newsreel. On 6 June 1944, ‘D-­Day’, the 9 p.m. Home Service news bulletin was followed by an address by the King to the nation, and then by the first issue of War Report. This brought listeners first-­hand reports on the amphibious, paratrooper, and glider landings in Normandy, complete with the sounds of the invasion. Over the months that followed, War Report

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

107

regularly attracted audiences of up to 15 million listeners and cemented the BBC’s wartime reputation as a news broadcaster. Actualities were gripping, exciting, and sometimes harrowing. War Report covered all the key war stories right up to Germany’s unconditional surrender, and revealed to listeners the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. Members of the WRU also provided news talks: famously, on 19 April 1945, Dimbleby shared with listeners, in unsparing detail, an account of the suffering and evil he had witnessed at the Bergen-­Belsen concentration camp the day after its liberation. He told of people being burned alive in furnaces in mass killings, of thousands of deaths from disease and malnutrition, of the plight of the survivors, and of the evil acts committed by German soldiers. In the talk, his rage was suppressed but palpable. He wanted everyone who was fighting, and especially everyone who was directing the war, to understand and believe the scale and the nature of what he had witnessed.The BBC provided him with a vital channel through which this could be accomplished.18 As the Allies took the offensive, the BBC European and Overseas Services carried a huge volume of war news, talks, and commentaries. Broadcasts to occupied Europe and Germany promoted both passive and violent resistance to the crumbling Nazi empire and emphasized the horror and cruelty of the German occupation and the Holocaust. As the war turned against the Nazis, listeners across Germany tuned into the BBC in rapidly increasing numbers. By 1944, the Gestapo estimated that up to fifteen million Germans listened to the BBC’s German Service. In providing extensive coverage of the liberation of the concentration camps, BBC European Service news editors were instructed to keep one clear aim in mind: ‘Establish the war guilt.’19 BBC international broadcasting had become a crucial weapon of psychological warfare.

Conclusions Broadcasting made a significant difference to the way that people experienced the Second World War. During the war of 1914–18, there

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

108

T h is is t h e BBC

had been no wireless: newspapers had been the main source of wartime information, and many believed that the press had failed to convey to readers the realities and horrors of war. The full extent of the slaughter on the Somme, for example, had been thoroughly suppressed. In contrast, by the end of the Second World War radio had brought home to listeners much of the horror of the conflict and its aftermath. Yet this frank treatment of the realities of war had not undermined morale, or reduced the power of radio as a means of propaganda. Indeed, by making the terrible consequences of a potential defeat so obvious, the BBC had furthered its goal of uniting ­people in Britain, and their Allies around the world, behind a common national and global war effort. Radio was also used, for the first time in history, as the key means to communicate the news of victory and peace. At 3 p.m. on 8 May 1945,VE Day, almost three-­quarters of the population of the UK tuned into hear Churchill’s speech announcing the end of the war in Europe.The BBC broadcast the sound of church bells from across the country to create an echo of a nation united in celebration, linking together outside broadcasts from various towns and cities. These segments included the voices of ordinary people, as well as those of the King, the prime minister, and other leaders, and plenty of dance music to reflect and enhance the atmosphere of jubilation. During the war, broadcasting had also linked up the globe with an immediacy that newsprint could never manage. The BBC sat at the centre of Britain’s world-­spanning broadcasting apparatus, and devoted huge resources to reaching listeners overseas and bringing material from abroad back to Britain.The effects of this were obvious, particularly given the imperial nature of the war effort. As one New Zealand writer and broadcaster remarked, ‘In the [First World War] there was no weekly [BBC] talk by Wickham Steed to enlighten and comfort. There were no Churchill accents to stiffen up the sinews of faith and hope and fortitude. There was no voice of the King.’20 The BBC brought listeners at home and overseas all these things, and more. For listeners in occupied Europe, the Corporation played a crucial role in

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Propaga n da a n d wa r, 1939 –1945

109

keeping hope and resistance alive: in a post-­war tribute, the French national broadcaster described it as ‘a torch in the darkness and the embodiment of the promise of liberation’.21 The fact that Britain went to war equipped with a public service, monopoly broadcaster probably made a difference to the role played by wireless during the war, although it is hard to pin down the specific consequences. It was almost certainly easier to mobilize the Corporation for war, and to bind it into British official information and propaganda operations, than it would have been to harness a proliferation of private commercial broadcasters. The BBC’s eagerness to expand its empire by establishing international broadcasting in the 1930s, and its willingness to defer to civil servants in running foreign-­ language services, also offered the British state an incredibly powerful tool of propaganda that could quickly be turned to serve wartime requirements. The decision not to impose direct state control on broadcasting meanwhile allowed the BBC to build up trust at home and overseas, increasing the persuasiveness of its news and other programming. By the end of the war, most BBC officers and British pol­ icy­makers believed that they had scored a decisive victory in the fight against the formidable Nazi propaganda machine. Yet it is possible to exaggerate the importance of public broadcasting in winning the war. In the early stages of the conflict, many thought the BBC too deferential to the government, too willing to accept heavy-­handed censorship and uninspiring official announcements, and too slow to adapt to the crucial wartime task of keeping people entertained. The American radio networks provided an instructive comparison: once the US entered the war, they seemed to have fallen in with the requirements of the government and to have delivered a constant stream of powerful wartime propaganda and first-­ class entertainment programming. Perhaps, if they had been allowed to operate, commercial broadcasters would have done the same in Britain. The war certainly changed the BBC. It reinforced its international role, with consequences that would last for at least half a century, and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

110

T h is is t h e BBC

also temporarily strengthened its national bias at the expense of regional or local perspectives. English, Northern Irish, Scottish, and Welsh voices were brought together and combined with those of broadcasters from around the British empire, from the US, and from other wartime allied countries to present an echo of a united war effort. Differences were inevitably submerged and muted in the process. During the war, the BBC also entered more fully into the business of independent journalism and ceased to rely on news agencies and official announcements. This had profound and lasting consequences, transforming the BBC’s relationship with governments and politicians and creating significant new sources of tension with Westminster and Whitehall. Finally, the war killed off the purely Reithian incarnation of the BBC, if it had ever existed in the first place. The Corporation had to fight for listeners in the face of competition from foreign stations, to sugar-­coat the pill of propaganda, and to boost morale. After the war, with the prospect of new sources of domestic and foreign competition, it had to continue to give listeners more and more of what they wanted, not what it thought they should have. The long-­term consequences of this fundamental trans­ form­ation would become increasingly apparent over the decades that followed.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

4 Losing control, 1945–1959

O

n Thursday, 26 July 1945, the BBC provided its audiences with a familiar wartime schedule of programmes, even though ‘Victory in Europe’ had been declared almost three months earlier. The General Forces Programme continued to provide popular programmes for listeners at home and overseas, including servicemen and their families via stations run by the British Forces Broadcasting Service. It provided plenty of light music, including the request show Forces Favourites; a recording of the US hit The Jack Benny Program (by arrangement with the American Forces Network); news actualities in Radio Newsreel; and various other special programmes intended for listeners in the armed forces and around the British empire. The Home Service meanwhile offered UK audiences familiar wartime staples including Music While You Work, Workers’ Playtime, and The Kitchen Front, along with an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s story ‘The Black Arrow’ for Children’s Hour, music performed by the Central Band of the Royal Air Force, a Promenade Concert from the Royal Albert Hall, ‘Northern Music Hall’ from Morecambe’s Winter Gardens, and a repeat of a drama about a US serviceman, This Was an American, written by D. G. Bridson and featuring the American film star Douglass Montgomery in the lead role. Throughout the afternoon and evening, the Home Service also provided regular reports on the incoming results of that year’s general election, the outcome of which was a landslide victory for Clement Attlee’s Labour Party.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

112

T h is is t h e BBC

The formation of a Labour government in 1945 seemed to bode well for the BBC. Labour was committed to the nationalization of key industries and public services and presided over the creation of the National Health Service. As a nationally owned, public service broadcaster, the Corporation could hope to prosper in a more socially demo­crat­ic Britain. However, in 1947 Attlee deferred a decision on the future of broadcasting and simply extended the BBC’s royal charter and licence for five more years, without convening a parliamentary committee of enquiry. Funding for domestic services returned to the pre-­war system, based on listener licence fees. For the first time since the BBC had been founded, the cost of a listener licence was increased, from 10 shillings to £1. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the BBC sought to demonstrate the continuing viability of its broadcasting monopoly by ­producing a unprecedently rich offering of radio programmes. This included educational material, innovative drama, and crowd-­pleasing entertainment. However, the Corporation was much slower to develop television. By the time the charter came up for its next review, Winston Churchill was prime minister, leading a Conservative government eager to end lingering wartime restrictions on people’s lives, and willing to listen to those who favoured the introduction of commercial broadcasting. By the end of the 1950s,‘independent’ commercial television had transformed British broadcasting and left the BBC desperately seeking an audience. During the early post-­war years, as during the 1920s, the BBC seemed to offer a stabilizing influence after a period of upheaval at home and abroad, a return to old, comforting certainties. However, this approach ultimately did not serve it well at a time of accelerating social and cultural change at home, and in a period when Britain faced the global challenges of decolonization, the Cold War, and a fundamental transformation and diminution of its international role and influence. The Corporation’s national and international biases, which had been strengthened by the war, meanwhile continued to restrict on-­air manifestations of other senses of community and identity. To its critics the post-­war BBC seemed to reflect all that was

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

113

bad and obsolete about middle-­class, Home Counties, monarchist, im­peri­al­ist Britain. Cultural conservatism and an ingrained deference to established authority lingered within the Corporation. As the 1960s dawned, the author J. B. Priestley, who had been taken off-­air during the Second World War after expressing mildly left-­wing views, thought that the BBC was ‘the best network in the world’, but lamented that it was ‘so over-­planned, so heavily responsible, so portentous, behaving as if it thought the Coronation was still on’. He claimed that whenever he entered one of its television studios, he could not help imagining that Richard Dimbleby was waiting next door to interview the Archbishop of Canterbury or a member of the royal family.1 It was clear that profound changes were required if the BBC was to remain relevant to audiences at home and around the world.

Haley’s pyramid After the war the BBC had to find new ways to justify its continued public service non-­ commercial monopoly of all broadcasting in Britain. In the 1930s, it had been attacked for being too ‘highbrow’ and for offering listeners too little choice. Many listeners had turned to Radio Luxembourg and other Continental stations for more of the popular music and light entertainment that they craved. Subsequently, during the war, many had been able to listen to popular American radio programmes, as well as the extremely successful entertainment programming offered by the BBC’s own Forces Programme.With the return of peace, there were some calls for the introduction of commercial broadcasting in Britain to provide listeners with more of what they wanted. Continued post-­war austerity gave the Corporation a breathing space: it was unlikely that such a massive change could be introduced immediately, given the challenges facing the British economy. Nevertheless, senior managers were acutely aware that listeners would have to be kept happy if the BBC was to retain its privileged position. Yet the BBC also had to fulfil its charter commitment to inform and educate, as well as to entertain. Central to the defence of the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

114

T h is is t h e BBC

post-­war monopoly were claims that the BBC provided programmes that no commercial broadcaster would, and that only the BBC could ensure broadcasting played a constructive role in British life. The director general, William Haley, emphasized that the Corporation would prevent broadcasting becoming ‘a glorified juke-­box’: it would instead help Britain become ‘the best informed democracy in the world’.2 He also stressed the importance of the BBC’s mission to promote national identity, and of reducing the influence of the US on British life and culture in the aftermath of the wartime ‘friendly invasion’: [This] implies a steady, friendly resistance to foreign influences and particularly to the Americanisation of our programmes . . . the by-­ products of this war-­time vogue [for US programming] have not been welcome—sham American entertainment produced in Britain, the unnecessary use of American slang, crooning in spurious American accents, and the pursuit of American idioms, sentiments and rhythms.3

Programme makers were instead instructed to focus on Britain, Europe, and the British empire. Some of the other changes that had occurred in British wartime broadcasting were also rolled back. Fewer women announcers were allowed to speak on-­air, and female ‘croonerettes’ were cut. Post-­war wireless would sound more masculine and more British. Listeners were to be given a choice of three distinct BBC national radio networks. The Home Service (established in September 1939) continued to provide a daily mixture of material aimed at the ‘or­din­ ary listener’. The Light Programme, inaugurated on 29 July 1945 and evolving out of and replacing wartime broadcasting ‘for the Forces’, was intended for ‘those who look to broadcasting purely for re­lax­ ation and amusement’. It quickly attracted the lion’s share of the British radio audience. Light music and entertainment dominated its schedules, although programme makers were required to maintain high ‘standards of integrity and taste’, and the network also carried some ‘light’ classical music, news, documentary, and current affairs material. The Third Programme, dedicated to the arts, high culture,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

115

and academic discussion, was inaugurated on 29 September 1946. It sought to serve the ‘serious listener’ and broadcast ‘without regard to length or difficulty, the masterpieces of music, art, and letters which lend themselves to transmission in sound’.4 It never attracted more than a tiny minority of listeners. Haley argued that the British listening public formed a pyramid of taste, with a broad-­based popular audience served by the Light, a narrower but still substantial middle group served by the Home, and a cultivated elite by the Third. The BBC would, he claimed, improve the tastes of all listeners by providing programmes of the highest cultural standards. It would also encourage individual listeners to climb the pyramid over time, thus gradually raising the cultural level of the entire structure. Periodically, Home and Light listeners would be confronted with something unexpected and challenging, encouraging them to try out the Third. However, in reality there turned out to be less coordination among the networks than Haley had envisaged, and individual listening habits became relatively fixed. The Light Programme focused on maximizing its audience, and schedulers had little incentive to give listeners a taste of what could be found on the Home Service or the Third. The latter network struggled to attract a large enough audience to justify its existence, although those who did listen were often fiercely loyal to what they saw as the purposes of the network. In 1957, a Third Programme Defence Society was formed to resist drastic cuts. In the early post-­war years, BBC radio retained its national bias. From July 1945, some ‘Regional’ broadcasting resumed: transmitters could be taken out of the Home network for certain periods to provide ‘Regional Home Services’, giving listeners programmes produced in, and intended for, their own BBC Region. Significant attempts were made to restart regional production, and eventually the Regions developed specialisms in particular types of programming, which they supplied to the national networks (natural history in Bristol was one example). However, some critics argued that this gave insufficient scope for expressing local identities or the perspectives of

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

116

T h is is t h e BBC

the four nations that made up the UK. The creation of ‘national’ members of the BBC board of governors, charged with representing the interests of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the English Regions, did little to remedy this deficiency. Radio meanwhile continued to reach almost every household in post-­war Britain. In an era of prolonged austerity and rationing, it provided the most economical form of entertainment available. For many people, wireless had long been woven into the daily pattern of life. Early-­morning weekday listening had become a habit during the war and continued thereafter. The Home Service began broadcasting as early as 6.30 a.m., providing news, weather reports, music, and a daily broadcast religious service (BBC religious broadcasting remained Christian, but increasingly reflected a range of different church traditions). Continuous daytime broadcasting had also become the norm during the war. As demobilized soldiers returned to their former occupations, many women left wartime paid employment and returned to labour in the home. They constituted an important audience for weekday daytime broadcasting. After the 9 a.m. news, when husbands and children had left home for the day, Housewives’ Choice on the Light Programme provided fifty minutes of record requests. The shifting roster of presenters included David Jacobs, who went on to become one of the BBC’s best-­known radio and television presenters. Music While You Work, which had been introduced during the war to boost industrial productivity, also continued to offer loud and rousing tunes with a rhythm designed to sustain labour while working in factories or doing domestic chores. It was broadcast in the morning on the Home Service and again in the afternoon on the Light Programme. Twice a week the Home Service also carried another popular wartime survival, Workers’ Playtime, with live music and entertainment sessions performed in factory canteens around the UK. People listened while taking a break at work, or with their families if they had time to return home for lunch. In the afternoon, Woman’s Hour,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

117

introduced to the Light Programme in 1946 and presented by Olive Shapley from 1949, offered ‘a daily programme of entertainment, information, and music for the woman at home’.The focus was middle class and domestic, but over the next two decades the programme would facilitate discussion of a wide range of issues including health and medicine (a programme on the menopause generated a wave of grateful letters from listeners, at a time when women’s health was seldom discussed in public), relationships (including, controversially, divorce), psychology, and equal pay. Woman’s Hour thus significantly broadened the definition of women’s programming. After the war Front Line Family, the BBC’s first soap opera, became The Robinson Family. It ran on the Light Programme until the end of 1947 and at its peak drew an audience of over 3.5 million UK listeners. In January 1948, it was succeeded by Mrs Dale’s Diary, scripted by Jonquil Anthony and featuring Ellis Powell in the title role as a family doctor’s wife. It presented a picture of middle-­class suburban London, with a focus on women’s lives. Soap opera quickly became an established and popular genre and in 1950, first on the Midlands Home Service, and from 1951 in the Light Programme, listeners were introduced to the ‘everyday story of country folk’, The Archers. This new serial sought to appeal to both male and female listeners, with a strong male lead and a narrative set in the working world of farming. It offered topical information about agriculture, as well as entertainment, and by 1953 had a regular audience of 9.5m. It is still broadcast today. During the daytime, some (lucky) children heard BBC programmes for schools, on wireless sets installed in their classrooms. At 5 p.m., after the school day was over, Children’s Hour began on the Home Service, still under the supervision of the genial Derek McCulloch (Uncle Mac). It offered talks, music, and drama. The former schoolteacher David Davis read stories on air, such as Black Beauty, The Treasure Seekers, The Wind in the Willows, and the Just So Stories, and produced popular dramatized versions of books by authors like

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

118

T h is is t h e BBC

E.  Nesbit (The Railway Children) and Anthony Buckeridge (the Jennings books). Davis took over from McCulloch as head of Children’s Hour in 1953. News was broadcast on the Home Service at 6 p.m. Then, after the evening meal, families could sit down together and listen to the BBC’s best entertainment programmes. The Home might offer some clas­ sic­al music, a variety programme, a brief talk such as Alistair Cooke’s regular Letter from America, a drama serial, or a literary adaptation, followed by another news bulletin at 9 p.m. Much drama was middlebrow, but Louis MacNeice’s 1946 play The Dark Tower, starring Cyril Cusack and with music by Benjamin Britten, represented an ac­know­ ledged creative milestone. This dream-­like fantasy tale, ‘a parable play on the ancient theme of the Quest’, expertly used sound to play on the listener’s imagination.5 It touched on themes of loss, separation, honour, duty, and futility that recalled the wartime ordeal of many British families. The Home Service also provided popular, undemanding comedy drawing on Music Hall traditions, with shows such as the situation comedy Ray’s a Laugh (1949–61, also broadcast on the Light Programme), starring the wise-­cracking Liverpudlian Ted Ray and his Australian ‘radio wife’, Kitty Bluett. The show helped launch the career of Peter Sellers, who (alongside Kenneth Connor) was part of the supporting cast until 1954, and who used the show to develop a huge range of different comic voices.The wartime hit comedy ITMA continued on the Home Service until 1949: its star, Tommy Handley, died just after recording the final episode in the show’s twelfth series. Handley’s memorial service was held at St Paul’s Cathedral, and the BBC director general broadcast a tribute to the much-­loved com­ edian. ITMA’s chaotic, radiogenic approach was later picked up by The Goon Show (1952–59), starring Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Michael Bentine, and Harry Secombe.The Goons added a panoply of new, recurring characters and intensified the surrealism and anarchy of earlier radio comedies with an even wider range of bizarre sound effects. They also provided a little satire. Their silly voices and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

119

catchphrases entered the vocabulary of fans in Britain and around the world: Bluebottle (Sellars) often read out his own stage directions (‘Enter Bluebottle, waits for audience applause . . . not a sausage.’), while Major Bloodnok (also Sellars) regularly and universally condemned his enemies as ‘you filthy swine’. Those tuning into the Light Programme in the evening expected to hear light music, drama, variety, and comedy. Early-­evening schedules might kick off with a dramatization of one of Richmal Crompton’s William stories or an episode of the hugely successful thriller Dick Barton (1946–51) which recounted the adventures of the British crime-­busting ‘special agent’ and attracted audiences of up to 15 million. Similar thrills, in a sci-­fi setting, were later provided by Journey into Space (1953–58), ‘a tale of the future’, written and produced by Charles Chilton. At 7 p.m. the Light Programme broadcast the news, with Radio Newsreel providing actuality coverage of current affairs including, in 1947, a famous eyewitness account of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Later in the evening the Light Programme broadcast shows like Variety Bandbox, billed as the weekly variety ‘highspot’ and offering a rapid succession of music and comedy acts. The show provided a break for new stars like Tony Hancock, Beryl Reid, Dick Emery, and Frankie Howerd. In the evening, the Light Programme also broadcast comedy series such as the hugely popular sit-­com Much-­Binding-­in-­the-­Marsh (1947–53), starring Kenneth Horne and Richard Murdoch. Radio comedy reached its apogee in the 1940s and 1950s, adopting a range of different approaches to the serious business of raising a laugh. The Light Programme maintained the tradition of the comedy revue with Take It From Here (1948–59), in a souped-­up form influenced by US radio comedy.Written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden and featuring Jimmy Edwards, Dick Bentley, and Joy Nichols, the show bombarded listeners with a fast-­paced mixture of gags, sketches, spoofs, and music. Radio comedy remained male dominated: shows were generally written by men, often working in pairs, and male stars often worked as double acts. Nevertheless, women did find key writing

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

120

T h is is t h e BBC

and performing roles, albeit often as part of wider ensembles. Educating Archie (1950–60) was an excellent example: the show made stars of Julie Andrews, Hattie Jacques, and Beryl Reid, as well as Tony Hancock. Ventriloquism, ironically, provided its suitably radiogenic premise: the show starred the impudent dummy Archie Andrews and his long-­ suffering sidekick the ventriloquist Peter Brough. The iconic radio sit-­com of the period was undoubtedly Hancock’s Half Hour (1954–61), written by Alan Simpson and Ray Galton. The show was based on characterization, dialogue, dry and sardonic wit, and social observation rather than gags, although it also included plenty of broad and more obvious humour, and sometimes an elem­ ent of the surreal. Tony Hancock starred as the egotistical, depressive, and acerbic central character, but the show also relied on a strong supporting cast including Sid James, Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams, and Hattie Jacques. In its comedy, as in all its programmes, the BBC was reluctant to offend. Producers were directed to avoid transgressing accepted social and cultural norms and mores. There was precedent for this: before the war the BBC had banned some records, issued strict guidelines on unacceptable jokes, and censored risqué performers like Ronald Frankau. On-­air impersonations of politicians were banned, making satire difficult. In 1949, a confidential BBC ‘Green Book’ was produced to codify restrictions and provide guidance for writers and producers. Jokes that involved references or even allusions to sex, homosexuality, underwear, or toilets—all staples of traditional Music Hall comedy—were banned. Writers were also directed to limit the number of jokes about drinking and about social class. This did not leave much to laugh about.Yet the regulations were not always rigorously or consistently enforced, and post-­war radio comedy continued to rely on a restrained suggestiveness, including plenty of double entendres. Although some racist slurs were banned, racial (and gender) stereotypes continued to provide another key element of some comedy acts.The first post-­war series of ITMA was set on a tropical island called Tomtopia, with Handley as the colonial governor, and characters

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

121

included Chief Bigga Banga and Wamba M’Boojah (whose Received Pronunciation supposedly derived from time spent as a BBC Overseas Service announcer). The decolonization of BBC comedy was a long way off. For those who wanted more serious fare, the Third Programme (broadcasting only in the evening) offered classical music (including both familiar and new works), opera, literary readings and adaptations (between 1955 and 1956, it broadcast The Fellowship of the Ring, Titus Groan, and Lord of the Flies), serious drama, and talks on the arts and sciences. The astronomer Fred Hoyle’s talks on Continuous Creation (1949) were a notable success, coining the phrase ‘Big Bang’ to describe the creation of the universe. The annual Reith Lectures, broadcast on the Third and repeated on the Home, were established in 1948 to underline the educational role of radio. The first series was given by Bertrand Russell, and each year speakers shared their views on subjects ranging from philosophy to history, science, and world affairs. The Third provided an important new outlet for experimental plays, including Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood (1954), Samuel Beckett’s All That Fall (1957), and, later, early work by Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. Some accused the network of snobbery and inaccessibility. Periodic attempts were made to offer more popular programming, including the comedy series Third Division (1949), scripted by Muir and Norden and starring Sellers, Secombe, and Bentine. Nevertheless, most listeners regarded the Third as too ‘highbrow’ and avoided it like the plague. At weekends, the Home Service and the Light Programme provided further opportunities for family listening. On Saturdays, listeners could enjoy (or endure) plenty of sports coverage on both the Home and the Light. Without any competitors, the BBC gained access to most sporting events at little cost: some of the most popular sports commentators of the era became household names, including Stewart MacPherson, Rex Alston, and Brian Johnston. There was no attempt to return to the arid pre-­war BBC Sabbath. On Sunday lunchtimes, light entertainment was provided by The Billy Cotton

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

122

T h is is t h e BBC

Band Show (1949–68), broadcast live from London’s Aeolian Hall and mixing popular big band music with old-­fashioned comedy. Each week the show started with a fanfare and Cotton’s signature call of ‘Wakey, WAKEY!’ On Sunday afternoons, on the Light Programme, Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon picked up on the success of their wartime Hi, Gang! show with the long-­running sit-­com Life with the Lyons (1950–61). Another Sunday crowd-­pleaser was Family Favourites (later known as Two-­Way Family Favourites), which replaced the wartime Forces Favourites. It used messages and record requests to link up the many service personnel still stationed overseas with their families in Britain, with regular presenters including Cliff Michelmore and Jean Metcalfe (who themselves later married each other). Many radio producers and performers of this era travelled the country to make their shows, taking advantage of the ready availability of outside broadcasting equipment after the war, and seeking to create an echo of the unity-­in-­diversity of the nation. One extremely popular weekend show was Have a Go!, a light-­hearted quiz with an estimated audience of 20 million. Based on an American show that BBC producers had heard while visiting the US during the war, it was presented by the former newsreader Wilfred Pickles, who used his friendly manner and Yorkshire accent to win over listeners and encourage audience participation. Pickles travelled around the country meeting contestants and doling out modest prizes of local produce or cash, accompanied by his catchphrase prompts to his wife (who co-­presented the programme), ‘What’s on the table, Mabel?’, and to his producer Barney Colehan, ‘Give ’em the money, Barney!’ On the Home Service, Down Your Way (1946–92) was broadcast on Sunday afternoons, initially presented by Stewart MacPherson, then by Richard Dimbleby and, from 1955, Franklin Engelmann. Each week listeners were taken to a different town in the UK, heard conversations between the host and the residents, and listened to the musical requests of those interviewed. Similarly, in 1950 Any Questions? made the leap from the West of England Home Service to the national network and was henceforth broadcast on Friday evenings in the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

123

Light Programme and Saturday mornings on the Home Service. A panel provided answers to ‘questions of the moment’ posed by the studio audience. The show was broadcast from a different part of the country each week, with Freddy Grisewood acting as the ‘Travelling Question-­Master’. And, in 1957, Gardeners’ Question Time was transferred from the Home Service North to the national networks, initially on Saturdays on the Light Programme, quickly moving to Sundays on the Home Service. A panel supplied gardening tips from a new outside broadcast location each week.These peripatetic programmes all served the BBC’s ongoing mission to link the different parts of the UK together into a shared imagined community. Some of the radio programmes of the 1940s and 1950s are still fixtures of BBC schedules today. This partly reflects habit and nostalgia, but also the fact that such shows were effectively formats, containers which could accommodate changing content, hosts, and presentation styles over time.They were able to evolve and continually renew their appeal to listeners. Conversely, other very popular programmes from this era, particularly those that were hangovers from the war years, today seem hopelessly dated, their appeal to past audiences impossible to explain. They reflected older ways of ordering national life, older viewpoints on British culture and society, and older traditions of entertainment that stretched back to the days before radio. Throughout this period BBC radio news continued to rely heavily on material provided by news agencies, although syndicated news was supplemented with material provided by the Corporation’s own staff of journalists. As its network of international correspondents grew, in 1955 the head of current affairs, Stephen Bonarjee, introduced a new series, From Our Own Correspondent, which allowed journalists to file longer reports on more unusual topics. The Week in Westminster meanwhile continued to provide coverage of British parliamentary politics, presented by working MPs. The BBC was still not in the business of investigative journalism, and its current affairs coverage remained deferential to politicians: they were not asked searching questions on-­air. The ‘Fourteen Day rule’, agreed with the government, prevented the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

124

T h is is t h e BBC

BBC from covering anything that would be debated in parliament over the coming fortnight.This agreement was only terminated in the wake of the intense political disagreements that accompanied the Suez Crisis of 1956. More generally, it was the impact of commercial television that would eventually lead the BBC to adopt a critical approach to current affairs broadcasting and a more confrontational on-­air attitude to politicians.

External Services The BBC had been a weapon of British propaganda during the Second World War, deployed to defeat fascism and support the Allied military endeavour. It also played a role in the post-­war British military occupation of Germany: the BBC German Service’s Hugh Carleton Greene (brother of the novelist, Graham Greene) was sent to Hamburg to run broadcasting in the British zone. Nevertheless, many hoped that the Corporation would be able to contribute to the making of a more pacific international order and become, in Haley’s words, ‘the newest of the great instruments of peace’.6 The old inter­ nation­alist ideals about cultural exchange and understanding that had shaped the BBC from its foundation, and which were encapsulated in its official motto,‘Nation shall speak peace unto nation’, seemed more, not less, relevant after the Second World War.Yet, despite such idealistic rhetoric, employees were quickly redeployed from anti-­ fascist propaganda battles to fight as Cold War warriors. After his time in Hamburg, Greene became head of the BBC’s East European Service, broadcasting to the USSR’s new ‘satellite’ states behind the Iron Curtain. BBC officers also continued to work to support British imperial and colonial authority and influence, even as Britain’s status as a global power entered into an increasingly obvious and irreversible decline. In fulfilling these roles, the BBC remained closely linked with other elements of the British state. Following the dissolution of

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

125

Britain’s wartime propaganda agencies, the Foreign Office took over responsibility for liaison with, and direction of, what became known as BBC External Services. These comprised all of the Corporation’s inter­nation­al broadcasting operations, as well as Monitoring (which provided intelligence reports based on the content of broadcast services from other countries, working in cooperation with similar US monitoring operations) and the Transcription Service (which supplied recorded programmes on disc for overseas broadcasters at a nom­in­al price). The 1947 royal charter recognized that the Corporation would retain ‘editorial independence’ in making programmes for its External Services. However, it also specified that the BBC should obtain information from the government to assist in broadcasting, and that it was required to operate international services in the national interest. Funding was provided through a direct grant-­in-­aid from the Foreign Office, initially set at £3.15m. The Foreign Office had responsibility for deciding which languages the BBC would broadcast in and for how many hours each week. Some wartime services were scaled back, while new ones were introduced to reflect changing priorities. In 1946, nineteen BBC foreign-­language services were in operation, including a new Russian Service. The BBC had previously agreed, at the request of the Soviet government, not to broadcast in Russian, but new foreign policy contexts required a different approach. BBC services in a range of Asian languages were also prioritized to support British imperial and foreign policy objectives in another crucial Cold War arena. Haley argued that BBC External Services should not be a weapon of psychological warfare deployed to overthrow hostile governments. Their role would instead be to broadcast truthful news and to reflect the diversity of British opinion on key issues. Democracy would be performed on-­air, reflecting British ideals and providing an example to be emulated by others. However, the government retained a voice in shaping the nature and content of BBC international services. Where this influence ended, and where ‘editorial independence’

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

126

T h is is t h e BBC

began, was never entirely clear. Much depended on the attitudes and actions of individual BBC staff and civil servants, and on changing circumstance. John Coatman, a former head of news, argued that the BBC had effectively come under government control during the war, and that habits of deference to authority persisted into peacetime. ‘The naked truth is that the B.B.C., by a process of inevitable development, is now in the position of a quasi-­governmental institution which is steadily approximating in outlook, in organisation and in ultimate control the position of an ordinary government department.’7 The ambiguity that characterized the relationship between the BBC and the government created problems, but also often proved useful. It allowed the Corporation to appear to remain independent, while in practice it worked closely with the government. Space was created for creativity and for the broadcasting of multiple perspectives, while ensuring that British foreign policy agendas were respected and pursued. This helped the BBC retain its position as a powerful tool of British overseas influence and propaganda. After the war, Ivone Kirkpatrick, the government-­appointed head of the BBC European Service, moved back to the Foreign Office to take charge of overseas information work. One of his responsibilities was liaison with the BBC, and this arrangement provided some continuity with wartime approaches and understandings. At Kirkpatrick’s recommendation, Major-­ General Sir Ian Jacob was appointed to replace him at the BBC. Jacob had been military assistant secretary to the War Cabinet and one of Churchill’s key advisers. He could be expected to work closely with civil servants and to act as a conduit for official guidance and advice. By 1948, Jacob was convinced that the BBC should conduct a ‘vigorous systematic attack’ on communism and the USSR.8 The per­ form­ance of objectivity and debate on-­air was compatible with a subtle but pervasive and persistent anti-­communist message, which appealed particularly to listeners in the USSR’s Eastern and Central European ‘satellite’ states. In Czechoslovakia, for example, it was believed that more people tuned into the BBC than to the country’s

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

127

own broadcasting service. BBC broadcasts offered a means to drive a wedge between members of the communist bloc, and between communist governments and their citizens. Propaganda methods employed during the Second World War were repurposed for the Cold War and, in the case of the German Service, for example, some of the programmes used against the Nazi regime were kept going (and still made by the same people) in order to undermine trust and faith in the new communist government. The BBC subsequently worked closely with the Foreign Office Information Research Department, set up in 1948 to coordinate Britain’s anti-­ communist propaganda campaign. Its head, Ralph Murray, would later become a BBC governor. Liaison was also maintained between the BBC and the British secret intelligence service MI6. This allowed coded messages to be sent to agents in the Eastern bloc via BBC foreign-­language broadcasts, and also gave MI6 access to listeners’ letters received by the BBC via cover addresses in Eastern bloc countries. The secret service also continued to vet prospective BBC staff, a practice that went back to the early 1930s. Job applicants who were suspected of communist affiliations could be turned down without being told the reason why: a ‘Christmas tree’ symbol was stamped on their personnel file, a practice that only ended after it was exposed in 1984. Émigrés and defectors working for External Services were meanwhile kept under surveillance by British-­born managers. News bulletins and current affairs content were prepared centrally within External Services and distributed to the various language services for translation. The need for consistency between services was emphasized: the BBC was aware that people ‘cross listened’ to different language services, and that any inconsistencies would be spotted and potentially undermine trust in BBC news.Those working in the foreign-­language services during this period thus had limited scope to edit or write their own news reports.They had even less autonomy if they worked in one of the ‘minor’, less well-­resourced services which did not have access to a budget sufficient to make other sorts of programmes.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

128

T h is is t h e BBC

In 1949, BBC External Services broadcast around 50 per cent more hours for overseas audiences than did the USSR, and more than three times as much as the US. However, unlike the licence fee revenue that reliably supported BBC domestic services, the size of the Foreign Office grant-­ in-­ aid had to be negotiated each year. This robbed External Services of financial security: the BBC seldom got as much money as it asked for, and in an atmosphere of post-­war austerity, the grant-­in-­aid was an obvious target for belt-­tightening. Nevertheless, External Services broadcast output was vast, and a crucial element in the ‘cultural Cold War’. It included news, commentaries, talks, features, sports, music, and light entertainment. In 1955, External Services employed around 3,800 staff, just over a quarter of the total number of BBC employees. It broadcast 552 broadcast hours per week, more than all BBC domestic radio and television services combined. International broadcasting, funded by the British state, clearly remained an essential part of the Corporation’s core business, even though most British listeners and viewers were largely oblivious to its existence. As well as its numerous foreign-­language services, the BBC con­ tinued to broadcast globally in English, notably through the General Overseas Service (GOS). The English-­language services for specific regions which had been established during the war, such as the North American Service (NAS), also continued to operate.The US remained a key target audience, as did a wider ‘British world’ comprising the ‘old Commonwealth’ countries of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Broadcasters in these countries continued to rebroadcast BBC programmes, especially news and current affairs, and often made good use of the BBC Transcription Service. The latter remained a key tool of British soft power, mainly providing recordings of programmes in English and including an enormous selection of the BBC’s best entertainment programmes, such as The Goon Show and Take It From Here. The Corporation did not seek to generate financial returns from the Transcription Service. A non-­commercial approach

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

129

was sustainable because radio programmes were relatively cheap to produce, and because the costs of transcriptions were covered by the Foreign Office grant-­in-­aid. Programmes could thus be provided to overseas broadcasters for a nominal fee, cementing the BBC’s overseas reputation and projecting British cultural influence. The BBC did not seek to resurrect its Empire Service after the war, but the GOS was designed to serve (among others) British ex-­pats and English-­speaking colonial listeners around the British empire. The Corporation also continued to advise British and colonial governments on imperial and colonial broadcasting policy. During this period, the Treasury made ‘colonial development’ funds available to build up broadcasting facilities in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. The BBC assisted the Colonial Office in this work by providing experts to set up new stations, and programmes for the new services to relay and broadcast. This imperial role included the development of a BBC English by Radio language teaching project and a special Colonial Schools Transcriptions Unit. The BBC’s Training School also enrolled hundreds of African and Asian broadcasters who came to Britain to learn new broadcasting techniques before returning to run colonial broadcasting services. In the late 1940s, the British government even contemplated handing over the running of a proposed ‘West African Broadcasting Corporation’ entirely to the BBC for an initial seven-­ year period. The Corporation’s empire-­building tendencies were still very much apparent. From the mid-­1950s, as the pace of constitutional decolonization accelerated across Africa and Asia, the BBC supplemented its Asian-­ language international broadcasts with new services in a range of African languages. The aim was to support British influence in postcolonial states and to counteract the anticolonial radio propaganda of Radio Cairo and other stations. The BBC also supported British counter-­ insurgency operations during wars of decolonization, attempting to win over ‘hearts and minds’ and combat anticolonial nationalist resistance to empire. This was most obvious in Malaya,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

130

T h is is t h e BBC

where Hugh Carleton Greene was seconded from the BBC East European Service to the Colonial Office for a year to run the official anti-­communist psychological warfare campaign. Such contributions were recognized and rewarded: in 1955 Greene was made controller of BBC Overseas Services. The geopolitical changes of decolonization were closely interlinked with the developing Cold War, as was forcefully demonstrated by the events of autumn 1956. On 23 October, the Hungarian Revolution, a popular revolt against the communist government, began. On 29 October, Israeli forces invaded Egypt: this action had been secretly planned in collaboration with Britain and France, in the wake of the Egyptian government’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. On 4 November, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest. The next day, British and French paratroopers landed in Egypt to take control of the Suez Canal in advance of amphibious landings. The attack on Egypt was condemned by the UN, and pressure from the US led to an almost immediate ceasefire, later followed by a humiliating British and French withdrawal. The Western bloc was left divided and unable to take a firm stand against the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution by the Soviets.The Suez Crisis also split British public opinion and eventually led to the resignation of two junior ministers and of the British prime minister, Sir Anthony Eden. BBC coverage of events in Hungary, for audiences at home and around the world, was extensive, relatively uncontroversial, and generally deemed a success. It drew on information provided by Radio Budapest and BBC Monitoring, but also from British official sources, including the Foreign Office and the British legation in Budapest. It found a wide audience in Hungary. Afterwards, as some 200,000 Hungarians fled the country in the wake of the uprising, the BBC broadcast private messages from the refugees back to their families, an effective method for building up an even bigger audience in Hungary. The BBC’s role in the Suez Crisis was much more controversial, and involved the most significant clash between the Corporation and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

131

the British government of the entire Cold War era. In domestic and external services, BBC news editors followed the standard practice of reflecting the breadth and diversity of British opinion. Given the intense divisions generated by the invasion of Suez, this inevitably meant giving airtime to outright criticisms of Eden’s government.This approach was also maintained in the BBC Arabic Service, the British government’s key means of distributing propaganda in the  Middle East. Embattled, and a sick man, Eden put pressure on the Corporation to fall into line behind the government and support the British invasion. He threatened to reduce or entirely withdraw Foreign Office funding for External Services and to install a Foreign Office liaison officer in Bush House to direct broadcasting policy and ensure that official material was broadcast. A complete government takeover of BBC international broadcasting seemed possible, and some believed that the domestic editorial independence of the BBC was also at risk. The Foreign Office’s Ivone Kirkpatrick, who had directed BBC European Services during the Second World War, orchestrated and delivered these threats.They were received by Sir Ian Jacob, Churchill’s former military adviser, who in December 1952 had taken over from Haley as director general. Surprisingly, Jacob stood up to Kirkpatrick and refused to order a change in editorial policy. A Foreign Office liaison officer was installed at Bush House on 1 November, but before Eden could take further action against the BBC, US pressure forced him to call off the invasion of the canal zone. He resigned shortly afterwards.The threatened budget cuts were not immediately imposed. Yet the BBC did not escape unscathed. During the later 1950s, the Foreign Office grant-­in-­aid was repeatedly scaled back, and the government refused to finance a proposed BBC television transcriptions service. The latter decision had significant implications. If the BBC was to distribute its television programmes overseas, it would not be able to follow the non-­commercial approach used for radio transcriptions. It would need to sell television programmes in overseas markets, at prices that at least covered its costs.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

132

T h is is t h e BBC

Television During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the BBC’s domestic television service expanded significantly, but slowly. In June 1946, the pre-­war service from Alexandra Palace resumed, picking up exactly where it left off: it even started, knowingly, with the Mickey Mouse cartoon that had been the last thing it broadcast in 1939. Viewers were now required to buy a combined radio and television licence, which at £2 was double the price of a radio-­only licence. In the early 1950s, tele­vi­sion ‘detector vans’ were introduced to patrol the streets and encourage unlicenced households to pay. In 1946 television reception was still only available in London, and in austerity Britain only a small minority of relatively wealthy households could afford television sets: perhaps 15,000 were in operation. The BBC did not see television as a priority for investment of its own scarce resources. Radio continued to provide the universal service and was prioritized accordingly. The extension of the television service to areas outside London was slow: it only reached viewers in Northern Ireland in spring 1953, and even then did not cover the entire province. Programmes were broadcast for part of each afternoon, and in the evening. Resource scarcity and relative audience size were not the only reasons for the Corporation’s glacial approach to expanding the service. Some at the BBC saw the development of the ultra-­highbrow Third Programme, which attracted a tiny minority of radio listeners, as a higher priority than television. Radio was an established artform. In contrast, television seemed a parvenu medium, derivative, clumsy, expensive, even vulgar. As with radio in its pioneering phase, television initially relied on older, established cultural forms. It only gradually developed its own distinctive genres and approaches. Early television drama owed a lot to the traditions of the theatre, for example, and to a lesser extent of cinema. Much programming simply sought to provide a visual equiva­lent of what had become the staples of radio broadcasting.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

133

The tone was not ‘highbrow’: schedules included filmed dramas, comedies, and factual programmes, but were predominantly filled with live entertainment.Television news bulletins were read by an announcer, ­off-­screen until 1955, while still photographic images were shown to illustrate the story. ‘Newsreels’ showed semi-­topical footage of recent events. This approach reflected the conservatism of the news division, but also the real difficulty of acquiring up-­to-­date newsfilm, especially from overseas. Children’s programming quickly became an afternoon fixture, and a children’s television department was set up in 1950. It was headed by Freda Lingstrom: while men had historically dominated the running of children’s radio, women would play a key role in children’s tele­vi­ sion. Early programmes included Muffin the Mule (presented by Annette Mills), Whirligig, and Harry Corbett’s Sooty, as well as a Sunday afternoon magazine programme, For the Children, and literary adaptations and drama. Crackerjack (1955–84) adapted the traditional variety programme format for children, and included comedy sketches, music, and quizzes, with a live audience. In 1952, for the under-­fives, Lingstrom introduced Watch with Mother, made up of short programmes including Andy Pandy, The Flower Pot Men, The Woodentops, Picture Book, and Rag, Tag and Bobtail. The visual qualities of television were used to teach children about language, relationships, and storytelling. Afternoons were also increasingly devoted to programmes aimed at women, largely defined as housewives. Like Woman’s Hour on radio, the cultural tone of women’s programming on television in the 1940s and 1950s was middle class, and the emphasis was on the domestic. Designed for Women, produced by Mary Adams and broadcast from 1947, took its cue from print magazines published for women, and focused on childcare, cookery, fashion, and leisure. It was initially going to be called Television Tea Party and producers envisaged a chat-­ show format: women gathering to talk, on-­air. The presenter Jeanne Heal anchored the show. From 1953, a more wide-­ranging Mainly for Women slot was introduced, and the next year Doreen Stephens was

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

134

T h is is t h e BBC

appointed to the newly created position of editor of women’s ­programmes. In 1955, a separate Department for Women’s Programmes was created. Sports coverage was televised from an early stage, including outside broadcasts of the 1948 London Olympic Games (which were also covered in radio broadcasts for listeners at home and overseas). Coverage of the ‘austerity Olympics’ gave a sense of what television might achieve in the future: the television service provided fifty hours of outside broadcasts over two weeks. This mammoth task required two years of planning, the purchase of sophisticated new mobile tele­ vi­sion equipment, and compelled the BBC to bring together all its outside broadcast equipment from across the country. Periodically the service also provided coverage of a range of less spectacular sporting events, including tennis, cricket, soccer, and rugby. Television required significant changes in sports presentation styles. Radio commentators had grown used to describing the action for listeners: television commentators had to learn not to do this, to let footage speak for itself, and to explain and analyse instead. Television had the potential to make sport accessible to a much wider audience than ever before, but disputes with organizing bodies over payments slowed the development of televised sport. Finally, in 1954, BBC television introduced its first regular sports programme. In a brief thirty-­minute slot, Sportsview sought to survey the week’s key events, using film, studio interviews, and some live outside broadcasts. It scored an early coup when it managed to film Roger Bannister run the four-­minute mile for the first time. Sportsview also introduced the long-­running BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards, an attempt to deepen public engagement with sport. Moving from radio to take up a position as television talks producer, from 1948 Grace Wyndham Goldie introduced a range of tele­vi­sion programmes on politics and current affairs, putting government ministers on-­air in Press Conference, and introducing series such as Foreign Correspondent and International Commentary to cover world affairs. Well-­known former war correspondents Chester Wilmot and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

135

Edward Ward were used as presenters, as were sitting MPs. Television documentary also began to develop as a genre, notably with the investigative documentary programme Special Enquiry, introduced in 1952 and providing ‘a monthly television report on problems of national importance’. It mixed traditional documentary film methods—archive footage, location filming, and (scripted) talking heads—with investigative reporting.9 From 1953, Panorama, initially presented as a magazine programme that also covered the arts, provided additional time in the television schedule for the coverage of current affairs. In the evening, much of the BBC television schedule was devoted to pure entertainment. Drama had been televised since before the war, and milestone productions of the early 1950s included The Quatermass Experiment (1953), broadcast in prime-­time and the first successful British attempt at serialized television sci-­fi . One critic thought it ‘quite the best of TV’s serial offerings so far’—for six weeks, every Saturday, it had sent viewers to bed ‘with ears cocked for the weird hum of spaceships and with eyes strained to detect incipient spores. And in an age that is so familiar with guided rockets and atomic horrors, that is no mean achievement.’10 The following year a two-­part adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-­Four, starring Peter Cushing, won more grudging admiration from the same viewer: ‘To take a long-­winded ironical essay and convert it into two hours of absorbing horror comic for the delectation of millions’ was a significant achievement. ‘When the play ended and the screen returned to such mundane matters as the weather and news of 1954 I found myself regarding my TV receiver with a new respect and no little awe. Big Brother seemed to be still there in the penumbral background.’11 Light entertainment, meanwhile, took the form of shows like What’s My Line (1951–63), which adapted a format from America’s CBS network. Watching the launch, the Daily Mail’s radio and tele­vi­ sion columnist thought that the production was ‘appallingly bad’, and that the chair, Eamonn Andrews, spoiled the programme because he ‘seemed unable to appreciate that he was not the main character’: ‘but the idea behind it is excellent’.12 The show soon hit its stride, as did

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

136

T h is is t h e BBC

Andrews. Each week four panellists, wearing full evening dress, were tasked with guessing the unusual occupation of a member of the public. The panel would also don blindfolds to guess the identity of a celebrity guest. The familiar radio personality Gilbert Harding frequently appeared as a panellist, delighting viewers with his periodic irascible outbursts, and the show also featured regular appearances from other television personalities such as Lady Isobel Barnett, Barbara Kelly, David Nixon, Ben Lyon, Richard Dimbleby, and Bob Monkhouse. The show was cheap to make, popular with viewers, and launched the British television career of Andrews, who became the first of a long line of Irish presenters to make it big at the BBC. He also presented This is Your Life (1955–64), another hugely popular format imported from the US, which traced the life story of a new special guest every week. Another established radio personality to make the jump to tele­vi­ sion was Arthur Askey, who starred in the first real breakthrough BBC television comedy show, Before Your Very Eyes (1952–55), which also featured the glamour model and actor Sabrina (Norma Ann Sykes) and the comedian and actor Terry-­Thomas. It was not just individual stars who moved from radio to television, but also tried-­and-­tested formats and programmes, including The Brains Trust, first televised in 1950. Music also found a place in post-­war television schedules: music programmes could be made more visually appealing by adding dan­ cing, and from 1950 Come Dancing was broadcast from locations such as the Lyceum Ballroom on London’s Strand and Birmingham’s Casino Ballroom. The show also offered dancing lessons, cabaret, and beauty pageants, and its creator, Eric Morley, went on to launch the annual Miss World contests, televised by the BBC from 1959. Britain had been a diverse society long before the Second World War, and in the 1920s and 1930s radio and, later, television, had to some extent attempted to reflect this. When the television service was relaunched after the war, at least six different acts featuring Black musicians were broadcast during its first six months, included the singers Edric Connor and Evelyn Dove and the pianist

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

137

Winifred Atwell, who all became familiar fixtures of BBC television programmes. However, they proved the exceptions: most Black performers struggled to make a career out of broadcasting in the 1940s and 1950s. Those who did make it onto the screen were usually entertainers and, as also continued to be the case in radio, few were able to secure roles in other genres of programming. Meanwhile, in 1956 one of the BBC’s most popular genres of radio light entertainment made the move to television, with the launch of the blackface Black and White Minstrel Show. It quickly became the most watched programme on the BBC television service. Nevertheless, issues of race, prejudice, and inequality did begin to be addressed on-­screen in the 1950s. On 22 June 1948, migrants from the Caribbean disembarked the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks. Viewers of the BBC’s Newsreel programme were told, in traditionally imperial terms, that the new arrivals were ‘citizens of the Empire sailing to the Mother country with good intent’.13 Subsequently, discourses of citizenship and belonging changed in the face of decolonization and of growing racial tension. From the early 1950s onwards, producers began to make television programmes that examined race relations in contemporary Britain, including the milestone 1955 Special Enquiry documentary Has Britain a Colour Bar? In 1956, a pioneering BBC ‘dramatized documentary’, A Man from the Sun, sought to provide a realistic depiction of the lives of migrants from the Caribbean and the prejudices they encountered. It did not flinch from showing bigotry, exploitation, squalor, and prostitution, but also emphasized the humanity and endurance in the face of prejudice of those who had come to live and work in the UK.14 The Daily Mail judged it ‘touching and absorbing’, an expert combination of facts and drama.15 One event did more than anything else to promote the uptake of television by households across Britain in the early 1950s: the Coronation of Elizabeth II, the first true ‘media event’ of the tele­vi­ sion age for the BBC, which took place on 2 June 1953 at Westminster Abbey. The Corporation knew from the earliest stages of planning

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

138

T h is is t h e BBC

how important live, outside broadcast coverage of the Coronation would be and pushed hard for cameras to be allowed into the Abbey. In a demonstration designed to convince the government that the resulting programme would be suitably dignified, cameramen were instructed to use wide lenses that took in the sweep of the interior scene but could not produce close-­ups of people. Officials were satisfied, and coverage was duly approved, but on the day, the BBC used lenses capable of providing detailed shots of the Queen that, if anything, enhanced the impact of the ceremony on those watching the television broadcast. Richard Dimbleby provided the live television commentary on the service and procession. Many households bought television sets in preparation for the Coronation. It was estimated that 56 per cent of the UK population watched the service, at home or in the houses of friends, family, or neighbours, or in public places like cinemas, village halls, or pubs. Crucially, the number of viewers, some 20 million, significantly exceeded those who listened to the BBC’s radio coverage (11.7 million). Footage was flown to Canada on RAF jet bombers, so that it could be broadcast the same day by the Canadian national broadcaster and the US television networks. In the wake of the Coronation, for the BBC and for many British households, television became the dominant broadcast medium. By 1955, BBC television transmitters covered 92 per cent of the UK population, and provided thirty-­five hours of programming every week: 4.5 million British households paid for television licences. However, that same year, the BBC lost its monopoly of British television. Huge challenges for the public broadcaster would follow.

The end of the monopoly The BBC’s initially cautious approach to the development of tele­vi­sion had drawn unfavourable comparisons with the rapid development of the new medium in the US, fuelling calls for the introduction of

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

139

commercial competition in the UK. In 1950, the BBC’s head of television, Norman Collins, resigned, partly in protest at the slow pace of development of the service. He launched a public campaign to end the Corporation’s monopoly. In its defence, the BBC turned to old familiar ideas about cultural standards and the need to prevent Americanization. Managers repeatedly emphasized the supposedly low cultural level of US television, and blamed it on the market mechanism. Commercial broadcasters, it was argued, might lavish money and attention on programme standards but always ended up catering to the lowest common denominator of taste. Profit was their primary motivation, and to make as much money as possible they produced programmes calculated to attract the biggest audiences.The ‘product’ of commercial broadcasting was not programmes but, in the final calculation, the audience. The bigger the audience broadcasters could deliver to advertisers, the more money they could charge for commercial sponsorship. In countries like Canada and Australia, where a mix of public service and commercial broadcasting had been introduced, the BBC argued that advertising and the profit motive still acted to drive down cultural standards. Public broadcasters had to mimic their commercial competitors if they wanted to retain an audience and, ultimately, to survive. If British broadcasting were to continue to pursue a constructive social and cultural purpose, the BBC and its supporters argued, then the public service non-­commercial monopoly had to be maintained. These arguments did not wash with Winston Churchill’s government, elected in October 1951. Conservative hostility to the BBC monopoly reflected a basic libertarianism, intensified by a post-­war determination to roll back as many official constraints on private enterprise as possible. As austerity eased, it was also a response to the demands of entrepreneurs seeking new business and advertising opportunities in an increasingly prosperous consumer society. Champions of commercial broadcasting emphasized the virtues of liberty, choice, and enterprise. Churchill’s government ignored most of the recommendations of the 1949 parliamentary committee on

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

140

T h is is t h e BBC

broadcasting policy (headed by Lord Beveridge) and went its own way. It renewed the BBC’s royal charter and licence for ten more years, with the proviso that competition should be introduced in tele­ vi­sion as soon as possible. Notice had been served on the monopoly. In March 1954, a new public authority, the Independent Television Authority (ITA), was established to manage commercial broadcasting. The ITA would handle advertising, issue licences to private com­pan­ ies to run programme services, and regulate these licensees. Because the ITA would also run the transmitter infrastructure required for commercial broadcasting, the private licensees would not need to invest much fixed capital. They would concentrate on making programmes. In theory, it would thus be possible to revoke their licences if they did not produce content of the standard that the ITA demanded. Indeed, the ITA was explicitly charged with ensuring that commercial broadcasting was run as a ‘public service’. It had to ensure that licensees broadcast a substantial amount of British-­ made content; operated according to accepted standards of taste and decency; kept advertising limited to five minutes per broadcast hour and entirely distinct from programming; and provided accurate and impartial news. Independent television (ITV) stations were also tasked with providing the regional perspectives that had been marginalized by the BBC, with different companies being licensed to provide programmes for different regions. The challenge ITV posed to the BBC was significant. Not only did the Corporation now face competition for viewers, but it had also lost its role as the sole purveyor of ‘public service’ programming in Britain. Moreover, if the ITA was set up to be ‘independent’, as its name suggested, was this an implicit criticism of the BBC’s close links with other elements of the state, and a further vulnerability? As the critic Peter Black put it, many viewers saw the BBC as a ‘semi-­official mouthpiece. However brave and honest its programmes, when the time comes for the semi-­official voice to speak it can no more avoid the safe, the bland, the approving, than a hand can help drawing itself back from the fire.’16

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

141

The complacency of the BBC in the face of this new source of competition has been somewhat exaggerated. Commercial television came to London and the surrounding area on 22 September 1955.The BBC responded with a publicity coup of its own, killing off Grace Archer, one of the leading characters in its popular radio soap opera, The Archers, that same evening. In the medium term, the Corporation sought to compete with ITV by transferring even more of its most popular radio programmes to television. Life with the Lyons made the leap in 1955, followed by Hancock’s Half Hour in 1956, and The Billy Cotton Band Show in 1957. New entertainment offerings included the first television soap opera, The Grove Family (1955–57), and the gentle police drama Dixon of Dock Green (1955–76), starring Jack Warner (the brother of Elsie and Doris Waters). Expanded sports coverage was provided on Saturdays in a new slot, Grandstand (1958–2007), presented by David Coleman. Grandstand took a fresh approach to sports broadcasting, piecing together live outside broadcasts of various sporting events, one after another. Children’s television also continued to develop, notably with the introduction of the magazine programme Blue Peter (1958–present), with its emphasis on encouraging children to get involved in the world around them and to write in to the programme. From 1963, a lucky few were rewarded for their efforts with the fabled Blue Peter Badge. Presenters also encouraged children to make things from household objects, lodging the phrase ‘Here’s one I made earlier . . .’ into the national imagination, as they produced perfect versions of the project from behind the counter, that generally bore little resemblance to what children were turning out at home. Unlike radio, BBC television also broadcast new types of pop and rock ’n’ roll music, especially in the Saturday magazine programme Six-­Five Special (1957–58) which aimed to develop a youth audience. Subsequently, Juke Box Jury (1959–67), compered by David Jacobs, regularly brought (at least snatches of ) new popular music to family television audiences. A panel of celebrity judges listened to new

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

142

T h is is t h e BBC

records and gave their opinion on whether they would be a ‘hit’ or a ‘miss’. Punch’s television critic thought that ‘No other programme better illustrates our society or more accurately depicts its values’. Music was rated purely according to its ability to sell records. ‘Badness commands success, quality is a drug on the market, publicity makes stars and the herd instinct keeps them going.’17 Viewers loved it. On weekdays, early-­ evening viewing was anchored by Tonight (1957–65), a light-­hearted magazine programme blending entertainment and current affairs which, by 1960, had an average audience of nine million viewers. Produced by Donald Baverstock and Alasdair Milne and presented by Cliff Michelmore, Tonight featured current affairs reports and interviews, employing a new generation of tele­vi­ sion reporters such as Alan Whicker, and made a notable feature of topical calypsos sung by the Guyanese musician Cy Grant. The programme was ‘so levelly excellent’ that it only occasionally invited either positive or adverse comment from critics.18 The BBC’s attempts to inform and educate viewers meanwhile continued. Panorama increasingly focused on current affairs, with its status as a flagship programme enhanced when Richard Dimbleby became lead presenter. Monitor (1958–64) introduced a fortnightly contemporary arts documentary slot to BBC television: it was devised, edited, and presented by Huw Wheldon, and drew on contributions from Ken Russell and Melvyn Bragg, among others. Face to Face (1959–62), produced by Hugh Burnett, exposed public figures (including BBC insiders like Gilbert Harding and even Reith himself ) to scrutiny in simple but direct interviews, conducted by John Freeman. Patrick Moore introduced viewers to astronomy in The Sky at Night (1957–present). David Attenborough’s Zoo Quest (1954–63) brought natural history to prominence on British screens, as did Peter Scott’s Look (1955–69). Further pioneering wildlife television programming would be produced by the BBC natural history unit, founded in 1957 in Bristol by Desmond Hawkins and part of a wider attempt to stimulate regional television production.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

143

The BBC also began to revise and update its approach to television news, driven by strong competition from the ITA’s Independent Television News (ITN) service, which had introduced lively and engaging American approaches to on-­screen journalism to British viewers. ITN made greater use of topical newsfilm and other visual presentation techniques, adopted a less deferential attitude to politicians, and included ‘vox pops’ with ordinary people. Hugh Carleton Greene was appointed head of news in 1958 with a mandate to bring reform, and by the time of the 1959 general election the BBC was offering more dynamic, critical, and journalistic political coverage. The Corporation also reaped the benefits of membership of the British Commonwealth International Newsfilm Agency (later renamed Visnews), which it had taken the lead in establishing. Based on collaboration among a group of Commonwealth partners, the new agency provided the BBC with a global supply of topical newsfilm.The Commonwealth connection still seemed to offer answers to some of the BBC’s problems. In 1958, nine million combined radio and television licences were issued: they cost each household £3, plus an extra £1 excise duty.The number of households with television sets exceeded, for the first time, those with sound-­only licences (which still only cost £1). That year BBC expenditure on television also exceeded its budget for radio for the first time, and audience research confirmed what many people suspected: radio was becoming the preserve of older people, and audiences were generally listening for a shorter period of time each evening than ever before.The time spent watching television was increasing, as prejudice against the ‘idiot’s lantern’ began to fade. People watched an average of two hours of television every evening: around half of the adult population was sat in front of the television set during peak viewing hours. Television was no longer the preserve of the middle classes: as more and more households bought sets, the social reach of the medium broadened. The impact of class and education on viewing habits was also becoming clear. Those deemed by the researchers

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

144

T h is is t h e BBC

to be of a lower ‘cultural level’ tended to watch more television, to prefer ‘undemanding relaxation’, and to watch ITV for the entire evening.19 For the BBC, still heavily invested in radio, and committed to informing and educating television viewers as well as entertaining them, these trends were concerning. The BBC made almost all its television content itself, using its own production facilities and staff. It screened few foreign imports and hardly any movies: the major Hollywood studios severely restricted the broadcasting of their products, to twelve films per year, fearing the damage that television threatened to inflict on the cinema industry. For the BBC, the cost of television production, always much more expensive than radio, was a significant issue. Competition with ITV drove up costs further, as the Corporation found itself bidding for the limited available on-­screen talent and for the rights to cover sporting events. Careers in broadcasting were now possible outside the BBC and wages for production staff also started to increase. However, in the 1950s, the accelerating take-­up of the more expensive licences required to watch television covered these costs. Revenues generated by overseas sales were negligible, and BBC programmes were thus made with only the domestic audience in mind. Outside the US, there were few major markets for television exports, and the BBC had yet to crack America. Television exchanges with Europe, most notably the Eurovision Song Contest (first televised by the BBC in 1956, to promote usage of the new West European television relay network), were meanwhile seen as part of the Corporation’s public service inter­ nation­al role, not a way to make money. They remained modest in scope.

Conclusions Between 1945 and 1959, Britain’s broadcasting landscape was radically transformed, seriously challenging the BBC’s traditional approaches to its work. The public service monopoly was swept away by the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Losi ng con t rol, 1945–1959

145

introduction of commercial television. Radio lost its role as the focus for evening entertainment. In 1957, the Radio Times magazine moved its television listings to take top billing, relegating radio to the back pages. By 1958, the average evening radio audience had shrunk to three-­and-­a-­half million. Commercial radio competition had not yet been authorized in the UK, because the government feared that doing so would spread available advertising revenues too thin and undermine ITV.   The BBC thus still enjoyed a wireless monopoly. But did radio have any real future as a medium? Although rumours of the demise of wireless proved exaggerated, the BBC would never again command the massive radio audiences of previous decades. Indeed, it would in the future be required to rethink its entire radio operation. Overseas, the BBC continued to serve British official imperial and Cold War interests. However, it had suffered a bruising encounter with the government during the Suez Crisis and had subsequently seen the Foreign Office grant-­ in-­ aid that supported its External Services progressively cut back. The vulnerabilities created by its role as a state-­sanctioned global voice for Britain had become obvious. Most worrying, perhaps, was the fact that despite the massive resources it had redeployed into television during the later 1950s, the BBC seemed to be losing the battle with ITV for the hearts and minds of viewers. Although the ITA was meant to ensure that commercial television was run as a public service and to offer local perspectives, the programme providers concentrated overwhelmingly on networked, big-­budget, light entertainment, particularly during peak evening broadcast hours. This allowed them to attract huge audiences and drive up advertising revenues: the media magnate Roy Thomson famously described commercial television as ‘a licence to print money’. The BBC, in contrast, adopted a mixed approach to scheduling and included more challenging material in evening programming alongside more crowd-­pleasing offerings. This worked to the advantage of the commercial broadcasters: many viewers simply switched on to ITV at the beginning of the evening and (in the days before remote-­control sets) stuck with it until they turned off and went to

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

146

T h is is t h e BBC

bed. BBC television also seemed less in tune with the rapidly chan­ging, youth-­oriented, consumerist atmosphere of the late 1950s. As a result, it haemorrhaged viewers. By July 1957, in places where viewers had a choice of stations, somewhere between 60 and 80 per cent tuned into commercial television. By the end of the decade, the Corporation had started to fight back, adopting a more populist approach.This improved viewing figures and gave the BBC around 42 per cent of the evening television audience. Still, many doubted whether the licence fee funding system, a universal charge, could be sustained for long in a situation where the Corporation served only a minority of the population. A radically new approach to making programmes and finding an audience seemed to be required.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

5 Transformation and stagnation, 1960–1979

O

n 2 January 1960, as the festive season came to an end and a new decade began, the BBC offered British audiences what was, in many ways, a typical Saturday line-­up. BBC television operated in black and white, was still restricted to a single channel, and only began broadcasting in the afternoon. It started its national service at 1 p.m., with four hours of Grandstand sports coverage. The rest of the day’s television schedule was filled with light entertainment, popular drama, and more sport. The aim was clearly to draw viewers away from ITV, the commercial television service, by providing plenty of popular programming. Family afternoon entertainment took the form of a ten-­year-­old Western series imported from the US, The Range Rider, and a repeat episode of an established BBC favourite, Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. After news and more sport, viewers could settle down to enjoy some of the BBC’s most popular programmes: Juke Box Jury; Dixon of Dock Green; another imported Western, Laramie; The Jimmy Logan Show (a vehicle for the Scottish entertainer, combining music and comedy and co-­scripted by Terry Nation, later to become famous for his work on Doctor Who); and an omnibus edition of the sci-­fi drama Quatermass and the Pit. The latter had been so popular when originally shown that local democracy had almost ground to a halt: Hereford City Council had considered

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

148

T h is is t h e BBC

adjourning a meeting to allow members to watch it in a nearby hotel. As one critic remarked, ‘when the B.B.C. goes in for horror it does so in a high-­class way’.1 Quatermass was followed by yet more sport; a late-­night travel documentary narrated by David Attenborough, providing a token amount of educational content; and then a final news bulletin, broadcast before the service closed down just before midnight. Although it had to compete with ITV for viewers, the BBC still retained its monopoly of all radio broadcasting in the UK. Listeners had a choice of three radio networks: the Home Service, the Light Programme, and the Third Programme. As with BBC television, the Home and the Light sought to maximize audience appeal by offering plenty of light music (though not rock ’n’ roll), sports, drama, and light entertainment, including familiar shows like Music While You Work, In Town Tonight, Desert Island Discs, and Take It From Here. Both networks also still carried some programming for children, even though most younger audience members had already adopted tele­vi­ sion as their medium of choice. Many of the programmes broadcast on the Home and the Light that day were repeats that listeners might have heard already, days, weeks, or months earlier. There was less live radio than there had been a decade earlier, and some music programmes had come to rely on recordings rather than live bands or orchestras. The BBC’s radio budget had been squeezed as more and more resources were devoted to television and competition with ITV. That Saturday, radio nevertheless provided the medium through which the BBC sought to discharge its charter obligation to inform and educate the British public. In the morning, when it did not have to compete with television, the Home Service’s schedule included Christian religious broadcasting in the form of Lift Up Your Hearts, classical music, topical reports from around the world in From Our Own Correspondent and The Eye-­Witness, and Science Survey. The latter had originally been broadcast by the Third Programme, which that evening offered listeners similarly serious fare: a repeat of a feature about Churchill’s wartime broadcasting; a concert performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra; a talk about ‘Communism and British

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

149

Intellectuals’; poetry readings; and a classical song recital. Thus, the BBC entered the Swinging Sixties. That same day, at ‘a time of week that only a full-­blooded bureaucracy could fix’, Hugh Carleton Greene took over as director general of the BBC.2 Newspaper profiles emphasized Greene’s physical presence: he was almost six-­and-­a-­half feet tall, with a girth to match, and an unusually large head. They also dwelled on his love of beer and of detective and spy novels and the fact that, unlike his predecessor, the bowler-­hatted military man Sir Ian Jacob, Greene was a BBC insider, broadminded and generally popular with colleagues. Nevertheless, like Jacob, Greene was a ‘policy man’, not a programme maker.3 His background was in journalism, wartime and Cold War propaganda work, and administration. On the face of it, he was an unlikely choice to lead the BBC to meet the major challenges facing its domestic services, and to adapt to what turned out to be a period of rapid social and cultural change. Nevertheless, Greene was to become known as an enabler of profound and constructive reforms that produced a creative golden age for the BBC. By the time he stepped down as director general in 1968, the BBC was running two television channels (one of which was broadcasting in colour), four national radio networks, and a growing portfolio of local radio stations. During the 1960s, the Corporation continued to make crowd-­pleasing entertainment programmes and succeeded in winning back a majority share of the UK television audience. It also produced challenging dramas that subjected British society to critical scrutiny, comedies of enduring artistic value, and current affairs programming that exposed politics and national life to more rigorous analysis than radio or television had ever previously provided. Many believed that, during the Sixties, the BBC harnessed the full potential of public broadcasting to exert a constructive, even transformative, influence on multiple aspects of British life. However, others thought that the Corporation went too far, undermining established authority and moral standards, and spending too much public money. During the 1970s, when the inevitable reaction set in,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

150

T h is is t h e BBC

it would adopt a much less inspiring approach to its work, while fa­cing an increasingly hostile environment for public broadcasting.

Into the Sixties One prominent television critic suggested that Greene’s first task as director general would be to overhaul the BBC’s programme offering. He needed to create ‘a more acceptable public image’, less associated with war and austerity, and more in tune with a prosperous new era. ITV, busy generating huge advertising revenues, carried none of that historic baggage: its only problem was ‘the increasing embarrassment of all that money’.4 Greene was certainly aware of these issues as he steered the BBC through an official review of broadcasting, announced in 1960 and chaired by the industrialist Sir Harry Pilkington. The government had already made it clear that the BBC’s charter would be renewed (it was extended in 1962, and a new charter was issued in 1964), so the Pilkington Committee was tasked with investigating other issues. In particular, it was appointed to determine how an add­ ition­al national television network, to complement BBC television and ITV, should be run. Greene conducted a highly effective campaign: ‘It was an exercise in psychological warfare and I confess that I found my experience as Head of Psychological Warfare in Malaya in the early 1950s extremely useful.’5 He aimed to persuade the committee that the Corporation should be given the authority to run both the new television network and a system of local FM radio stations, which the Corporation hoped to build. He was damning in his verdict on the BBC’s rivals. ITV, Greene argued, was not a ‘public service’ broadcaster, despite the high-­ minded mission that the government had assigned to the Independent Television Authority (ITA) in 1954. Commercial tele­vi­ sion companies were not informing or educating viewers. They had, predictably, come to focus on only one thing: making money. They did this by producing a constant stream of undemanding light

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

151

entertainment. Greene emphasized that the BBC, in contrast, sought to serve all groups in society with a wide-­ranging offering. Many outside observers agreed with Greene’s verdict. Punch’s editor and perceptive television critic, Bernard Hollowood, thought ITV programming could be divided into ‘pops’—‘comedy, melody, melodrama and sport’—and ‘sops’—‘face-­ saving balance items for the minorities’. The former were ‘expensive, lavish, big, brassy and contemptuously corny’, and made lots of money, while the latter were produced on a shoe-­string, grudgingly supplied to keep the ITA happy. The BBC made better programmes, Hollowood argued, and even provided better sports coverage: ‘A regular viewer of both services gets the impression sometimes that one channel is operated by muddied oafs and flannelled fools and the other by a lot of beastly slackers.’6 When it came to the quality of ITV programmes, at least, the Pilkington Committee’s report largely agreed with both Hollowood and Greene. It recommended that the ITA regulate the commercial broadcasters much more strictly in future to ensure they produced programmes of a higher standard.The report also endorsed the BBC’s work and recommended the Corporation be given authority to develop both the new television network and local radio broadcasting. The government delayed a decision about local radio, but it did agree that the BBC should provide the new television network. BBC2 would be launched in 1964: the Corporation’s existing television service would be renamed BBC1. When Greene took over as director general, most of those UK viewers who had a choice between television channels were still opting for ITV. One audience survey, focusing on the week ending 18 September 1960, revealed that the ten programmes with the highest viewing figures had all been broadcast on ITV, and all consisted of various forms of light entertainment and serial drama. The BBC had already started to adjust its offering in the late 1950s to compete, providing more light entertainment. However, Greene now pressed colleagues to go even further, with the aim of attracting the lion’s

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

152

T h is is t h e BBC

share of the UK television audience. The aim, however, was not to engage in a race to the bottom. Greene argued that the BBC’s freedom from commercial pressures could allow it to produce the best of everything, including high-­quality versions of the sorts of entertainment programmes that ITV had made a success of. Producers would be encouraged to pioneer new approaches, techniques, and material, in order to beat ITV at its own game.They would also be liberated to produce programmes of a kind that ITV did not, and to shine a crit­ ic­al light on British society, culture, and politics. In the words of Huw Wheldon (a successful BBC presenter and producer who became controller of programmes, 1965–68, and managing director, 1969–75), the BBC’s purpose was to make ‘the good popular and the popular good’.7 This new approach worked. By the end of 1962, in places where viewers had a choice, the BBC had begun to outstrip ITV’s audience share for the first time. Greene’s BBC also benefited from decisions to invest in television infrastructure that had been made under Jacob. In June 1960, it opened a brand-­new Television Centre at Shepherds Bush, West London. The building provided cutting-­edge production facilities and accommodation suited to the scale and complexity of television production. Studio 3 in Television Centre was almost three times the size of Broadcasting House’s Concert Hall. Will Wyatt described what everyday life in the BBC’s ‘concrete doughnut’, or ‘fun factory’, was like in the late 1960s, when most drama was shot in studios rather than on location, and when heavy drinking during working hours (in different venues according to social class and professional status) was the norm: Trailers of scenery would clog the perimeter road: interiors of humble cottages and grand houses, trees, bushes, boulders, garden gates, temple columns, cut-­away cars, the Tardis. At lunchtime in the canteen there would be Romans, cybermen, policemen, citizens of Dickensian London, ancient Britons. The BBC Club bar on the fourth floor would fill up at lunchtime and, again, at 6.00 p.m., for the hour between rehearsal and recording in the studio.There was a small bar to the left as you went in, which was where both presentation and light entertainment staff and stars gathered. In the large main room groups

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

153

of sceneshifters sat with all the pint glasses in West London spread on tables in front of them. There were BBC colleagues having a beer or glass of wine before going home, and actors, extras and production staff waiting to return to the studio.8

Regional television production centres were also established at Cardiff, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, and Bristol, to make programmes about the ‘Regions’ for local and national consumption. Some of them also specialized in various genres of programming, such as natural history in Bristol and, later, programmes for immigrants in Birmingham. These were carried on the national television network. All this investment and activity reflected the fact that television had become the urgent priority for the BBC. More broadly, television had assumed a central role in British political, social, and cultural life, and achieved near-­universal reach. Politics was certainly reshaped by the presentation and discussion of current affairs on television: surprisingly, perhaps, the prime minister Harold Macmillan proved an adept television performer, despite or because of his patrician manner. Programmes like Panorama provided more coverage of politics and current affairs than ever before. By 1964, 90 per cent of UK homes had television sets: on election night that year, BBC television coverage ran for eighteen hours and attracted a substantial audience. The BBC now gave politicians a crucial means of communicating with the public, but its presenters and journalists also confronted them with a more critical, questioning approach. The Corporation was now, finally, in the business of journalism. This did not come without risk: MPs, prime ministers (including Macmillan’s successor, Harold Wilson), and the political parties came to nurse individual and col­ lect­ive grievances against the BBC and to accuse it of bias.

Popular and provocative television During the 1960s, popular genres of programming remained at the heart of the BBC’s television offering. Sports coverage offered a way

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

154

T h is is t h e BBC

consistently to attract regular audiences, and by the summer of 1962 it occupied more than 20 per cent of BBC broadcast hours. The Corporation continued to enjoy exclusive contracts with the governing bodies of sports such as athletics, swimming, cricket, and rugby. Soccer was of central importance, and the BBC operated a cartel with ITV to negotiate television rights. In 1964, it introduced Match of the Day to offer Saturday evening highlights and analysis of key soccer fixtures. This drew on brand-­new video editing technology, which made up-­to-­date sports coverage significantly cheaper and easier to produce. Coverage of the 1966 soccer World Cup Final between England and West Germany generated the largest audience in the history of British television to date, exceeding 32 million viewers. As part of the BBC’s drive to introduce more popular programming, in 1961 it televised the hugely successful US import, Dr Kildare, and the next year produced its own attempt at glamorous contemporary soap opera, Compact, set in the world of magazine publishing. Notable new popular drama series meanwhile included Maigret (1960–63), adapted from the French detective stories of Georges Simenon, and the long-­running Dr Finlay’s Casebook (1962–71). BBC television also continued to offer some religious programming, most successfully in Songs of Praise (1961–present). Children’s television continued to develop, with Blue Peter becoming a twice-­weekly ­centrepiece from 1964, and with successful new programmes like Vision On (1964–76) with Tony Hart, designed to be inclusive of the deaf and hard of ­hearing, and Johnny Morris’s Animal Magic (1962–84), introducing children to wildlife programming. Jackanory (1965–96) encouraged a love of storytelling and reading. New programmes for pre-­school children meanwhile included Gordon Murray’s animated series Camberwick Green (1966), Trumpton (1967), and Chigley (1969). The Magic Roundabout (1965–77) was purchased from France and redubbed with entirely new characters and scripts, adding to its surreal, trippy appeal. With parents sometimes watching with children, and repeats being scheduled for over a decade or more, such programmes could influence the lives of multiple generations.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

155

Under the guidance of its head of light entertainment, Tom Sloan (1961–70), the BBC also deployed comedy as a key means to compete for viewers and produced some enduring classics. Old Music Hall traditions continued in shows that mixed comedy sketches, music, and guest appearances, most notably in The Morecambe and Wise Show (1968–77), starring Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, a huge hit cap­able of attracting over 20 million viewers at a time. Other shows meanwhile built on the well-­established broadcast genre of situation comedy. One of the most successful was Dad’s Army (1968–77), written by David Croft and Jimmy Perry, and offering the pleasurable spectacle of self-­important old men making fools of themselves. On the face of it, Dad’s Army relied heavily on the well-­established norms of broadcast comedy: catchphrases, repetition, sight gags, and stereotypes. Much of the visual comedy was provided by Clive Dunn, as Corporal Jones. However, the scripts and performances also offered something more distinctive, including a nostalgic evocation of English provincial life on the home front during the Second World War. This was a lost world, but one still remembered by many viewers. Perry and Croft also drew on themes of character and social class to generate both humour and pathos, most successfully through the inter­ action of Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring and John Le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson. Mainwaring’s burning resentment of Wilson was based on differences of birth, education, and manner. He took obvious relish when ordering Wilson around, but also frequently displayed signs of deep-­rooted insecurity and a sense of inferiority. The show drew out the comic potential of the pettiness and the warm-­ heartedness of everyday life in a small English town. Other BBC comedy programmes pursued a grittier approach and put characters in settings that owed more to theatre than to the Music Hall. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s Steptoe and Son, which initially ran from 1962 to 1965, adopted the same focus on character that had marked out their earlier hit, Hancock’s Half Hour, but departed even further from variety traditions. Steptoe and Son was not ultimately about farce, innuendo, or the surreal, but instead focused on believable

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

156

T h is is t h e BBC

dialogue and situations. It followed the lives of a father and son running a rag-­and-­bone business together, and their love–hate relationship. It played on the generation gap between the two, but also on differences of character, contrasting the pretensions and frustrated ambition of the son Harold (played by Harry H. Corbett) with the greed and wiliness of the father, Albert (played by Wilfrid Brambell). Both stars were actors rather than comedians. The show was hugely successful, with some episodes attracting an audience of over 17 million. Harold Wilson demanded that an episode scheduled for election night, 1964, be rescheduled: he feared that, after a hard day’s work, Labour voters would prefer to watch Steptoe and Son rather than make the trip to their local polling station. Weekends provided opportunities for family viewing, and one of the BBC’s biggest successes in this regard was Doctor Who. First broadcast in November 1963, the show initially included an educational element (travel through time and space offered opportunities to learn about history and science) but increasingly became a provider of pure thrills and escapism and a cult sci-­fi classic. Between 1963 and 1965 it was produced by Verity Lambert, the youngest, and only female, drama producer working for the BBC. It quickly proved a significant ratings success, despite being broadcast in a tea-­time slot, and won over adults as well as children. ‘The Doctor’ regenerated over time and was harder to pin down in terms of age, though not gender: William Hartnell played the role between 1963 and 1966; Patrick Troughton from 1966 to 1969; Jon Pertwee from 1970 to 1974; and Tom Baker from 1974 to 1981. The Doctor’s ‘companions’ also changed regularly. Together these transformations allowed the show to move with its own times and continually offer something fresh. It was the villains (including the Daleks, Cybermen, and Ice Warriors) who provided the continuity and who sent generations of petrified children scurrying to hide behind the sofa: another approved method was to watch ‘by peering through the crack of a door from the safety of another room’.9 Although Doctor Who was formulaic and often repetitive, with plots stretched out thinly across weeks and months, it sought to provide

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

157

something different from imported US serial drama or from British shows that aped American approaches. Problems were not solved with guns and violence, but rather by using thought, invention, and teamwork. The Doctor was typically older and more curmudgeonly and arrogant than his companions. He often patronized them.Yet friendship bridged the generation gap and the Doctor was proved wrong by his companions almost as often as he was right. Eccentricity was valued over conformity. The sound of Doctor Who was also unique. The show was able to draw on the expertise of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which had opened in 1958 to provide incidental sounds for programmes.The electronic sounds and music that it produced for the programme, including the iconic theme tune created by Delia Derbyshire, were new and distinctive. During the 1960s, the BBC also began to broadcast provocative television drama that explored pressing social themes and pushed at the boundaries of what was acceptable to show on-­screen.This change was associated with the appointment of the Canadian producer Sydney Newman as head of television drama in 1963. Newman had already made a mark with controversial drama productions on ITV. At the BBC, as well as commissioning Doctor Who, he introduced The Wednesday Play (1964–70; continued as Play for Today, 1970–84) offering a regular place on BBC1 for one-­off productions, most written specially for television. Some were light-­hearted, but the slot became famous for including provocative ‘kitchen sink’ dramas that brought viewers into realistic settings and explored the inequalities and challenges of everyday life. Plays reached peak audiences of up to 12 million viewers. Some of the most famous productions included Ken Loach’s Up the Junction (1965), which included treatment of unmarried sex and abortion; Cathy Come Home (1966), depicting homelessness; and In Two Minds (1967), looking at mental illness and its treatment. In 1965, Dennis Potter’s first four television plays were accepted for the slot, beginning his long association with the BBC. The Wednesday Play was not universally popular. Some productions were criticized for failing to maintain a clear division between fact

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

158

T h is is t h e BBC

and fiction, and some viewers thought they promoted immorality. Occasionally, productions were too much even for the BBC itself. The War Game (1965) offered a carefully researched, disturbing depiction of nuclear devastation. However, following consultations with civil servants about the implications for public support for Britain’s nuclear deterrent, senior BBC managers (notably the chairman, Lord Normanbrook, a former senior civil servant) decided that it should not be shown. It was subsequently screened only on limited release in cinemas and was not broadcast until 1985. Realism was also the selling point for the popular Merseyside police drama series Z Cars (1962–65 and 1967–78), scripted by Troy Kennedy Martin and tackling contemporary social themes. Z Cars owed a debt to US police drama, but was set ‘among the flat, earthy vowels and hardbitten consonants of the County Palatine’. It offered an effective means to compete with ITV’s Coronation Street for viewers.10 As with some productions screened in The Wednesday Play slot, Z Cars borrowed conventions from the world of documentary, blurring the boundary with fiction. It sat alongside older traditions of light popular drama in the BBC television schedule, notably the long-­established, more sedate police drama, Dixon of Dock Green. By 1963, with over 16.5 million viewers, Z Cars outstripped the audience for Dixon by some 3 million. The iconic programme of Greene’s BBC was the live and topical political satire show, That Was the Week That Was (often known as TW3). Relatively short-­lived, it only ran from November 1962 until December 1963. Incorporating music and sketches, it owed much to older review-­style programmes, but satire was something new for the BBC, which had previously avoided anything that could be construed as exposing public figures to ridicule. The need for topicality meant that the show often appeared informal and unrehearsed, and the performers made a virtue of that, offering something fresh and unpredictable each week. At the peak of its popularity TW3 attracted between 10 and 12 million viewers. The show made the careers of its

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

159

compere, David Frost, and of performers including Millicent Martin, Willie Rushton, Lance Percival, Roy Kinnear, and Bernard Levin. A huge roster of (male) scriptwriters included names that would dom­ in­ate broadcast comedy and satire over the next two decades. However, with its sometimes offensive treatment of politicians, the monarchy, and organized religion, TW3 consistently generated controversy in the press and within the BBC itself. Greene eventually decided that it needed to be cancelled. The fact that TW3 only lasted a year is an indication that the BBC of the 1960s was not fully committed to iconoclasm. Indeed, much that it did could hardly be described as radical, and at key moments it still worked to deliver the nation-­building media events that had always been a crucial element of its public service role. Christmas programmes continued to provide an opportunity for linking the country up into a single on-­air imagined community, resembling, in the opinion of one critic, a giant-­size quiz in geography, local custom and dialect. And now over to Dundee (cakes and jam and jute) for a real Scottish flavour from Wee Alan Laird, the pride of Deeside . . . and now a song of the valleys and a welcome from the hillside . . . over to Somerset, to Yorkshire (Stanley Holloway will recount the origins of the celebrated pudding) . . . to Lancashire to fetch a pocket handkercher . . . to Devon and memories of heaven . . .11

At Christmas, the BBC had in the past also sought to create a sense of connection with the empire and Commonwealth. However, by 1962, reflecting the new directions being taken by Britain, the focus was instead on Europe. That Christmas Eve, the BBC linked up with the Eurovision television network to offer viewers A Festival of Carols, live from Britain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Holland, a gesture towards a possible post-­imperial, European future. BBC coverage of the state funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965 was perhaps the defining media event of the decade, and another indication that an old world was slipping away into the past. The main

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

160

T h is is t h e BBC

commentator on the outside broadcast was Richard Dimbleby, whose voice provided an echo of continuity with the radio broadcasts of the Second World War and television coverage of the Coronation of 1953. Yet even in this regard the times were changing. Dimbleby died less than a year after Churchill, and future royal events were covered by new commentators in new ways. Satellite broadcasting meant that the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle in 1969 had a world television audience of some 500 million. That year the documentary The Royal Family (1969), directed by the BBC film-­maker Richard Cawston, sought to create a new, more human image of the royal family. Some worried that this approach shed too much daylight upon magic, stripping the monarchy of the mystique that was required for its survival. The creativity of the BBC during the 1960s was made possible not just by the work of programme makers and the leadership of people like Greene, Sloan, Newman, and Wheldon, but also by the Corporation’s relative prosperity. During this period, an increasing number of households took out television licences and, after 1968, many opted for the even more expensive new colour television licences (initially priced at £10, double the cost of a monochrome licence). By 1977, more UK households had invested in a colour tele­ vi­sion set than in a telephone line. With the licence fee providing a generous income stream, BBC staff numbers increased significantly: between 1960 and 1975, from 16,000 to 25,000. To make space, whole departments were moved into separate facilities dotted around London (only a small minority of employees were based outside the capital). This accommodation was often ramshackle and ill-­suited to broadcasting work, and the dispersal of staff exacerbated the ‘silo mentality’ that came to prevail within the Corporation. Each department was a world unto itself, a ‘fiefdom’ ruled over by a powerful ‘baron’, all of whom were men. Departments enjoyed significant autonomy and spent freely. Directors general found it increasingly difficult to control their overmighty subjects or to understand the BBC’s opaque finances. This was storing up trouble for the future.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

161

BBC2 The UK’s third national television network, BBC2, was due to launch on 20 April 1964: however, a power outage across much of London that evening closed Television Centre and delayed the grand opening until the next day. Nevertheless, for the BBC the new network was a mark of its ‘confident maturity’, coming at a time when it was more than holding its own against its commercial competitors.12 The opening night line-­up included a satirical review of the history of British broadcasting and a 90-­minute production of Kiss Me Kate, all done ‘without flaw and with serious panache’.13 BBC2 went on to broadcast the first colour programming in Britain, on 1 July 1967, with coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships:‘It was a Wimbledon no one has ever seen on television before. The clothes of the players were whiter than white, the Centre Court an inimitable green.’14 On 2 December 1967 it became the first network in Europe to begin broadcasting regularly in colour. The launch of BBC2 created new opportunities to use television as a medium of information and education. BBC1 (which switched to colour on 15 November 1969) could now focus on competing with ITV, providing plenty of light entertainment and leaving BBC2 free to do something different. ‘Serious’ programming was a priority for the network’s first controller, Michael Peacock (1964–65) and also for his successor, David Attenborough (1965–69). Under their stewardship, documentary production expanded. A key element in BBC2’s initial offering was The Great War (1964), a co-­production with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Broadcasting Commission, which marked the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the First World War.This ambitious 26-­part series was narrated by Michael Redgrave and included readings by leading actors, but also reflected growing contemporary interest in oral history and ‘history from below’. It drew extensively on footage of interviews with surviving war veterans.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

162

T h is is t h e BBC

A more patrician perspective on the past was taken by Civilisation (1969), a thirteen-­part history of Western art and thought since the Middle Ages, written and presented by Sir Kenneth Clark. Sumptuously produced in colour and shot on over a hundred locations around the world, the series took three years to make. Civilisation offered a Eurocentric, male-­dominated perspective on art history: three years later John Berger and Mike Dibb made a response, Ways of Seeing (BBC2, 1972), focusing on the ideologies underpinning art and representation. Despite such reservations, Civilisation paved the way for a succession of prestige factual television series, including The Ascent of Man (1973) and The Shock of the New (1980). As controller of BBC2, Attenborough ensured that wildlife television was also a key aspect of the channel’s output, notably with the natural history documentary series The World About Us (1967–87). BBC2 also broadcast ‘serious’ drama, including a milestone production of I, Claudius (1976), adapted from the novels of Robert Graves and starring Derek Jacobi. Another new approach to arts television was offered by Late Night Line-­Up (1964–72), presented by Denis Tuohy and Joan Bakewell. A talk show with a purposely radical and trendy ethos, it focused on television criticism but also hosted broader discussion of topical issues and the arts. Late Night Line-­Up was un­usual in that it did not have a fixed finish time. As the last programme of the evening, it ended when producers wanted it to. One critic, at least, was unimpressed when it aired a performance of a John Cage composition by the American avant-­garde cellist Charlotte Moorman, ‘wringing groans from her instrument, popping balloons, firing a revolver and playing a bomb with a bunch of gladioli, yet still keeping an omelette frying at her feet’.15 Contributors appeared late in the evening and often after spending several hours in one of the BBC’s notoriously well-­stocked ‘green rooms’: by the time the programme began, they were often the worse for drink, as were some of the crew. Programme makers had to ensure that BBC2 did not just appeal to a ‘highbrow’, minority audience. Viewers had to be encouraged to invest in the new television sets and aerials needed to pick the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

163

channel up. BBC2 could not become a visual equivalent of the Third Programme. Schedulers were aware of this and made sure that it included a wide and varied programme offering. The network prod­ uced some of the iconic children’s programmes of the 1960s and 1970s, including Bagpuss (1974) and Play School (1964–88) for pre-­ school children. The latter moved away from the BBC’s dependence on puppets in programmes for pre-­schoolers, and instead introduced live adult presenters who spoke to their audience on a more equal and spontaneous basis. Play School also made sure that diversity was reflected in children’s programming, with Black presenters including Paul Danquah, Derek Griffiths, and Floella Benjamin. BBC2 also provided space in the television schedule for non-­chart pop and rock music, complementing BBC1’s Top of the Pops. Various formats and presenters were tried, including Colour Me Pop (1968–69), Disco 2 (1970–71), and, most successfully, The Old Grey Whistle Test (1971–87) fronted by ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris and, later, Annie Nightingale (who was also, for a long time, the only female DJ on Radio 1). Popular drama was another crucial way of attracting viewers, and in this genre BBC2 made its breakthrough with The Forsyte Saga (1967). Adapted from the novels by John Galsworthy and timed to coincide with his centenary, the serial followed the lives of members of an early-­twentieth-­century upper-­middle-­class family, ‘the property-­ loving Forsytes in their mahogany-­filled mansions’.16 Production was lavish, involving 300,000 words of dialogue, one hundred and fifty characters, and a hundred sets. Repeated on BBC1 for an audience peaking at around 18 million, it gave viewers a taste of what awaited them if they upgraded their television sets and tuned in to BBC2.The last major serial to be broadcast in black and white, The Forsyte Saga marked the real beginning of the BBC’s long-­running association with popular period television drama. Comedy also helped popularize BBC2. The sketch show Not Only . . . But Also (1964–70) provided a notable vehicle for Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, while The Likely Lads (1964–66), written by

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

164

T h is is t h e BBC

Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and set in the North-­ East of England, offered situation comedy based on realism and social observation. BBC2’s biggest comedy success was Till Death Us Do Part (1966–75), written by Johnny Speight and starring Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett, a foul-­mouthed, bigoted, working-­class East Ender, with Dandy Nichols, Una Stubbs, and Anthony Booth in supporting roles. Speight used the character of Garnett to highlight contemporary ra­cism and prejudice, and the widening generation gap, but also made him human, even likeable. Critics alleged that the show thus made racism and prejudice more acceptable. Speight claimed that viewers were meant to laugh at Garnett, but some undoubtedly laughed with him.

Outrage and inequality During the 1960s, with some of its Wednesday Plays, and shows like Till Death Us Do Part, the BBC largely abandoned the old, Reithian principle that it should not knowingly offend members of its audience. Indeed, for some, the BBC’s success was now to be measured by the extent to which it shocked and upset listeners and viewers. If it was not offending people, then it was not offering sufficiently adventurous or provocative programming. Yet this approach was problematic. Broadcasting remained a public service. Literature, film, and theatre were not uncontroversial in this period, but people had a choice of what they purchased at the bookshop or the box office and could largely avoid things they did not want to read or attend. In contrast, those who bought a radio or television set also had to pay for a licence to support the BBC. They would then find it hard to avoid BBC programmes. As the focus for collective family leisure, BBC tele­vi­sion inevitably became a testing ground for what could and could not be said or shown in the public sphere. As Greene himself saw it, it revealed ‘the split between those who looked back to a largely imaginary golden age, to the imperial glories of Victorian England

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

165

and hated the present, and those who accepted the present and found it in many ways more attractive than the past’.17 As standards of public taste and decency were contested and debated, Greene’s BBC seemed to be part of the new permissive and transgressive culture of the Sixties. It was celebrated by some and demonized by others. In May 1964, after watching a discussion of pre-­marital sex in the BBC Meeting Point television documentary series, the schoolteacher Mary Whitehouse launched the Clean-­Up Television Campaign. Its manifesto protested against the ‘propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt that the BBC pours into millions of homes through the television screen . . . suggestive and erotic plays which present promiscuity, infidelity and drinking as normal and inevitable’.18 The next year she formed the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association to put increased pressure on broadcasters to conform to what she declared were the traditional standards of public morality and decency. Whitehouse complained vociferously about on-­screen depictions or discussions of sex and violence. She also targeted political satire, claiming that it undermined respect for established authority. Through letter-­writing campaigns, articles, media appearances, and court cases, she sought to stop the rot. Whitehouse was an object of ridicule for some, easily dismissed as a relic of an earlier age: one later BBC radio and television comedy show was christened The Mary Whitehouse Experience (1988–92) in her honour. Nevertheless, she played an important role in persuading politicians and civil servants to impose tighter regulation on the BBC and the other networks, aimed at upholding broadcasting standards and accountability. The permissive atmosphere of the BBC in the 1960s, meanwhile, created room for harassment and abuse. Sexism and discrimination had certainly been rife at the Corporation before 1960, but strict standards of public morality had been imposed on employees. Reith had, famously, insisted that the BBC’s chief engineer, Peter Eckersley, resign when he was named in a divorce case. However, by the 1960s, managers showed much less interest in the private lives of employees and performers (Hugh Carleton Greene was himself divorced, which

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

166

T h is is t h e BBC

did not prevent his appointment as director general, although a second divorce contributed to his decision to resign in 1968). In some cases, they turned a blind eye to harassment, sexual assault, and rape occurring on BBC premises. One sexual predator who we now know exploited his position at the BBC to abuse at every possible op­por­ tun­ity was the DJ Jimmy Savile. His career was given a huge boost when he became a regular presenter on BBC1’s pop and rock music show, Top of the Pops (1964–2006), in which Top 40 chart stars performed in front of a studio audience of young people. As well as working on BBC radio, Savile also anchored other BBC television series, most famously the family show Jim’ll Fix It (1975–94), in which he posed as a benign, eccentric, avuncular figure solving the problems faced by the children who appeared on the programme, making their dreams come true. As became clear after his death, Savile’s prolific, unpunished record of sexual offending was in fact the stuff of nightmares. In the course of his work for the BBC, Savile sexually assaulted and raped women, teenage girls, and children as young as eight. Some rapes and attempted rapes took place on BBC premises and a number were reported to BBC staff but were seemingly neither investigated nor referred up to senior management.This failure to respond reflected the barriers to communication within the internally divided BBC, the lack of protection available to whistle-­blowers, and a fear of upsetting ‘the talent’. The widespread tolerance of sexual harassment that pervaded the Corporation compounded these problems. One BBC chairman was a known harasser: according to the BBC’s official his­ tor­ ian, ‘BBC managers had to manage, muffle, [and] absorb this behaviour’.19 However, opting for damage limitation rather than confronting perpetrators was wrong, and a serious mistake. Senior figures at the BBC almost certainly had some knowledge of Savile’s crimes and presumably chose not to act. The BBC presenter and convicted paedophile Stuart Hall also sexually harassed women and committed sexual assaults on BBC premises, while Rolf Harris used the position and status he achieved as a BBC entertainer to assault girls and women

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

167

off-­premises. It has been revealed that BBC managers in Manchester were aware of Hall’s crimes but did nothing. The willingness of BBC managers to turn a blind eye to harassment and rape was also a consequence of the fact that very few women occupied senior positions at the Corporation. Some attempts to remedy the Corporation’s male-­dominated working culture and public face were made during the 1970s, particularly in the wake of a damning internal report of 1973, Women in the BBC. In 1975, Clare Lawson Dick was made controller of Radio 4: she was only the second woman in the history of the BBC to achieve controller status. In 1978, she was succeeded by Monica Sims, who, in 1983, was promoted to become director of radio programmes. The BBC’s first female radio newsreader, Sheila Tracy, was appointed in 1974, and the following year Angela Rippon became the first regular female BBC television newsreader. In 1976, half the intake of the BBC’s traditionally male-­dominated management training scheme were women. Nevertheless, women continued to experience serious dis­crim­in­ ation in the workplace and to face barriers to their career advancement.They made up a large proportion of BBC employees, but never more than a small minority at senior levels. Discriminatory employment practices and a pervasive culture of lunchtime and after-­hours heavy drinking (in pubs and in the Social Clubs which operated on many BBC premises) excluded many women, particularly those with children. Prejudice also continued to exist against women as performers in a whole range of genres, including current affairs and comedy, and as female presenters and stars grew older, they found themselves excluded from on-­screen roles in television. During the 1960s and 1970s, the BBC probably paid more attention to the increasingly complex politics of race in the UK and overseas than to gender inequality. BBC news and current affairs programmes provided coverage of racism and racially motivated violence at home, of protest and repression during the Civil Rights movement in the US, and of the imposition of and resistance to apartheid in South Africa. The Labour government meanwhile pressed the BBC to

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

168

T h is is t h e BBC

p­rod­ uce television programmes aimed at ‘assimilating’ minority groups into Britain’s existing cultural and social order. In 1965, Hugh Carleton Greene duly organized conferences with Black and Asian leaders at Broadcasting House. He asked what the BBC could do to assist with integration: in response, several delegates argued that educating white British people about immigrants and their contributions to British life and the economy was the more urgent priority. Others emphasized the need for programmes specifically for Asian women, who it was argued were otherwise largely cut off from wider society. Migrants from the Caribbean were judged less of a priority, and for many years the BBC neglected them as a discrete and significant audience. Nevertheless, in 1968 the Trinidadian cricketer and politician Sir Learie Constantine became the first Black governor of the BBC. In the wake of the 1965 conferences, a BBC Immigrants Programme Unit was created to make special programmes for Asian audiences. Based in Birmingham, it produced weekly radio and television programmes that focused on providing information about life in Britain, English lessons, and Indian and Pakistani music. The television programmes were presented by Mahendra Kaul and broadcast on Sunday mornings, when few white viewers would be watching. As with other BBC programmes, information and education were mixed with entertainment: in 1977 the Unit even produced a soap opera, Parosi, designed to encourage Asian women to take up English-­language courses in their own neighbourhood. However, although the Unit’s music programmes were popular, Asian viewers were often unimpressed with the obviously didactic approach of many programmes. The BBC was also criticized for its tendency to treat all Asians as a homogenous unit, notably by deploying ‘Hindustani’ as a lingua franca. Many Asians in Britain either disliked the language or found it unintelligible. From the mid-­1970s, the BBC increasingly broadcast to British Asian audiences in English, and used its local radio programming to offer more bespoke material to different communities. In terms of educating white viewers about race, the BBC meanwhile produced a range of documentaries and factual programmes,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

169

including the 1974 BBC2 series The Black Man in Britain 1550–1950. This focused on slavery, inequality, empire, resistance, and decolonization, and sought to trace a long-­term history of diversity going back to the early modern period. It was presented by Derek Griffiths and produced by Tony Laryea (whose father was Ghanaian). In terms of current affairs, programme makers debated how to cover the activities of the far-­right National Front, and how much airtime to give it. Some thought it should be kept off-­air entirely. Others argued that the BBC had a duty to reflect all political viewpoints, and to demonstrate the abhorrent nature of racist beliefs. Issues of race, inequality, and prejudice were also explicitly discussed in popular comedy and drama programmes like Till Death Us Do Part and Z Cars, and two notable drama series put these topics at centre stage. Rainbow City (1967) focused on the lives of Caribbean migrants living in Birmingham. It sought to present sympathetic Black and Asian characters that white viewers could relate to, and to present mixed-­race sexual relationships on-­screen in a didactic attempt to challenge ingrained prejudices. Later, Empire Road (1978–79) sought to normalize diversity on-­screen by adopting a less obviously educational approach. It focused on or­d in­ary Black lives, presented in the setting of a soap opera. Collectively, BBC employees undoubtedly adopted a more progressive attitude to issues of race than would have been the case if they had merely sought to reflect what social surveys found were the much less open-­minded views of the majority. The results of this approach were unclear. Possibly, BBC programmes created a false and misleading impression of tolerance and understanding, concealing the reality of prejudice and tension. Alternatively, some feared that by drawing attention to race, BBC programmes exacerbated contemporary anx­ ie­ties and intensified conflict. In 1974, the retired BBC senior manager Oliver Whitley argued that broadcasters had, of necessity, to lead rather than follow: A sizable part of the population of Britain does not look with favour on smooth racial integration. Yet the broadcasting organisations are committed to its furtherance in various ways, such as programmes for

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

170

T h is is t h e BBC

immigrants, and a rigorous avoidance of mention of colour or race in reporting delinquency of any kind, unless the fact of colour or race is essentially news. This is not really neutrality. It is being on the side of the angels.20

Ultimately, the work of the BBC may have hastened the transition towards a more genuinely multicultural Britain. Nevertheless, the BBC’s own staff remained overwhelmingly white, and Black and Asian actors rarely received more than background roles on-­screen. Some white actors even ‘blacked up’ to play Black roles. Because so few opportunities were available, some Black performers, including a young Lenny Henry, were obliged to accept offers to work on The Black and White Minstrel Show. This remained one of most successful BBC television programmes of the era, with an audience of 17.5 million by 1963.The show generated increasing controversy, due to the racism and offensiveness of an approach that relied on blackface performances and archaic stereotypes. As one critic remarked, ‘I loathe the idea of Whites masquerading as Blacks in a charade dating back to a time when off-­white pigmentation was thought to be funny . . . It helps an old and ugly image to survive in immature minds.’21 However, BBC managers, including Whitley, dismissed such criticism as misguided and kept the show on-­air until 1978. As a result of such attitudes, during the 1970s many Black and Asian listeners and viewers became increasingly disillusioned with the BBC.

Piracy and the transformation of BBC Radio A sharp decline in peak audiences for the BBC’s national radio networks had set in during the 1950s, as wireless listeners became tele­vi­ sion viewers. This trend continued apace during the 1960s, although breakfast-­ time radio audiences remained significant: the Light Programme offered news and music in the early morning while, from

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

171

1963, the Home Service’s Today programme moved away from its initially broad, magazine-­style approach, to focus increasingly on news and current affairs. It came to set the agenda for public debate on a daily basis. Some daytime programmes, such as Woman’s Hour, also continued to attract a respectable number of listeners. Innovative radio programmes were still being made, such as Charles Chilton’s The Long, Long Trail, broadcast on the Home Service in December 1961, which approached the history of the First World War through the songs of the soldiers (it later formed the basis for the satirical stage play and feature film Oh,What a Lovely War!). However, television was now the focus for evening and weekend family entertainment for most British households. In response, BBC spending on radio was repeatedly cut: the Talks Division was dissolved in 1961; the Home Service Children’s Hour ended in 1964; and the Features Department, many of whose members had sought solace in the bottle or left to do other things as old ways of doing radio became obsolete, closed in 1965. The Third Programme attracted only a tiny audience and remained perpetually under threat. Much of the BBC’s radio offering in the 1960s was composed of familiar fare, drawing on long-­established approaches to programme-­ making. Situation comedy endured, with new series including The Navy Lark (1959–77) and The Men from the Ministry (1962–77). Radio comedy continued to be male dominated. Kenneth Horne anchored a succession of sketch shows, tapping the review tradition and the vein of anarchic, fast-­paced, radiogenic comedy that originated in Band Waggon. Beyond our Ken (1958–64) was written by Barry Took and Eric Merriman and offered a rapid succession of characters and gags. It was followed by Round the Horne (1965–68), written largely by Took and Marty Feldman and deploying a more risqué mix of wordplay and innuendo. It included the famous ‘Julian and Sandy’ sketches, performed by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, which played on stereotypes about camp men and drew on gay subculture and slang. Male homosexuality was illegal in Britain until 1967: Julian and Sandy

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

172

T h is is t h e BBC

were nevertheless heard in a ‘bona’ Sunday lunchtime slot. This partly reflected wider changes in social attitudes and ideas about what made for acceptable family listening, but also the use of carefully coded, insider references. While camp was acceptable on-­ air, openly gay characters and actors generally were not. The first gay kiss on BBC television, in 1970, was presented in an irreproachably respectable setting, a BBC2 production of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II. Over the decade that followed, attitudes and broadcasting conventions began, slowly, to change. In 1973, the BBC’s experiment with public access broadcasting, Open Door, broadcast an episode produced by the Transex Liberation Group. The programme covered issues faced by trans people in everyday life, but was also intended as a celebration, and was presented entirely by trans people. More controversial, and more revealing of contemporary prejudices, was a BBC television documentary, A Change of Sex. Broadcast in 1979, it followed George Roberts transitioning to become Julia Grant. Sketch shows continued to provide a cheap way of filling radio schedules, and were well-­loved by those who continued to tune in. Younger comedy performers used these shows as a springboard to bigger things. I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again (1964–73) included in its cast Tim Brooke-­Taylor, John Cleese, Graeme Garden, Jo Kendall, and Bill Oddie, who would all become stars of British television and cinema over the years that followed. Graham Chapman and Eric Idle also contributed material to some scripts for the show, which proved to be the spawning ground for later cult television comedies Monty Python’s Flying Circus and The Goodies. Panel games remained another cheap and reliable radio genre, and another key element of the BBC’s radio schedules during the 1960s and after. One of the most successful was Just a Minute (1967–present), hosted by Nicholas Parsons, with a shifting weekly panel that included several regular star performers, more or less adept at speaking on a topic for one minute without hesitation, de­vi­ ation, or repetition.The cast of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again par­odied the panel show genre in I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue (1972–present), involving a rotating roster of nonsensical games.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

173

Although many other Light and Home programmes struggled to find an audience in the 1960s, this was not because radio was a dead medium. Rather, listeners were consuming it in new ways. Most wanted music that could be left on in the background as they went about other tasks, at work, at home, outdoors, or in the car. Cheap transistor radios meant that many young people could now have a set of their own and listen in their bedroom: above all else, they wanted pop and rock music. However, BBC radio was slow to respond to these changes. It seemed to remain stuck in the 1950s, or even the 1930s, and retained veteran presenters who, to younger listeners, sounded like survivors from a past age. Will Wyatt, then a new recruit to the BBC, was struck by his encounters with the newsreaders of the 1960s, ‘distinguished looking gents with Adam’s apples that looked like a swallowed walnut’.22 In the face of the failure of BBC radio to move with the changing times, a number of illegal broadcasters sprang up to fill the gap. Stations like Radio Caroline and Radio London ‘pirated’ unauthorized wavelengths and made money by selling on-­air advertising time to commercial sponsors. Operating from ships and offshore forts around the British coastline (adding to the appearance of nautical villainy), the pirates broadcast for up to twelve hours a day, focusing on Top 40 chart music. Young, friendly, and irreverent ‘DJs’ (not a term used on the Home Service or the Light Programme), including Tony Blackburn, Kenny Everett, and John Peel, established a rapport with listeners through the informal patter deployed in US commercial radio. Their equivalents at Radio Luxembourg, including Jimmy Young, Alan Freeman, and Pete Murray, did likewise and were, similarly, hugely popular with British listeners. All this threatened to drive the final nail into the coffin of BBC radio. In August 1967, to meet this threat to its authority over broadcasting, the British government passed new legislation allowing it to take the pirate stations off-­air. The following month the BBC launched a transformed radio offering of its own. A new network, Radio 1, would henceforth broadcast almost nothing but pop and rock music, seeking

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

174

T h is is t h e BBC

to attract the young listeners who had previously flocked to the pirates. It employed many of the DJs who had previously manned the pirate stations and Radio Luxembourg, along with new presenters like Terry Wogan, who was flown to London from Dublin to host a late-­ night chat programme. Miranda Ward became Radio 1’s only female presenter: she broadcast an interview with George Harrison when the network went on-­air on 30 September 1967. With his trademark dry wit, John Peel joined the rota of presenters for the station’s Night Ride slot, broadcasting into the small hours. Once a week he presented an eclectic mix of underground music from a whole range of different genres, as well as World music, poetry readings, and interviews. He was subsequently given his own show, and broadcast punk music at a time when other BBC DJs would not play it. He became famous for broadcasting live sessions by leading acts, and demo tracks sent in by new performers hoping to make it big. The Light Programme was meanwhile relaunched as Radio 2, aimed at an older audience. From 1972, Wogan hosted and made a success of its light-­hearted breakfast programme.The Third Programme became Radio 3. Listeners would be able to tune into Radio 1, 2, or 3, knowing that they would get exactly the genres of music and other programming they wanted to hear. The Home Service meanwhile became Radio 4, which seemed to make a last stand in defence of the old-­fashioned Reithian principle of mixed radio scheduling. Radio 4 broadcast a wide range of programmes, including Today at breakfast time and some of BBC radio’s other long-­ established audience favourites from the Home and the Light, while also encouraging listeners to try something new and unexpected. It provided one of the last remaining outlets for innovative spoken-­word radio programming: probably its most notable production of the late 1970s was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1978–80), which blended surreal science fiction drama with anarchic comedy and deployed stereo music and sound effects in a strikingly effective, and funny, format. At the same time as it introduced its new national radio networks, the BBC was also finally permitted to implement its long-­held plans

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

175

for local radio broadcasting, and thus to start to rectify the national bias that had been a marked feature of BBC radio since the late 1920s. The champion of the new scheme, Frank Gillard, emphasized the importance of radio in promoting local democracy and community identity, particularly through local news and journalism.The first new station, BBC Radio Leicester, began broadcasting on 8 November 1967. By 1973, twenty local BBC stations had been established.

World Service Radio meanwhile remained the crucial way to reach audiences overseas. During the 1960s and 1970s, the BBC continued to serve the geopolitical agendas of the British state, still shaped by the twin global challenges of decolonization and the Cold War. Like US international broadcasters, in running its External Services the BBC associated itself closely with ideas about freedom and democracy. It also emphasised what it saw as its unique overseas selling point, a commitment to telling the truth.The BBC had won its reputation for veracity during the Second World War, and broadcasters and many civil servants saw this as crucial in attracting a significant audience across Central and Eastern Europe and in the USSR in a battle against communism. Paradoxically, perhaps, it was the appearance of objectivity that allowed BBC External Services to act as an effective weapon of British influence in the cultural Cold War. In the words of Gerard Mansell, head of External Services, the BBC could assist more effectively in winning the Cold War battle against communism ‘if we weren’t actually seen to be fighting it’.23 In presenting itself to overseas audiences, the BBC emphasized that it was not a state broadcaster and that it retained its ‘editorial independence’, despite receiving government guidance, advice, and funding (totalling £12 million in 1969). Many listeners must have doubted this and regarded the BBC as, to some extent, the voice of the British government. However, this did not deter them from tuning in. Most listeners probably recognized, on

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

176

T h is is t h e BBC

some level, that no international broadcaster could ever be truly independent. In an imperfect world, and in the face the strict domestic censorship and pervasive propaganda of communist regimes, the BBC seemed one of the best available sources of outside information. It might broadcast propaganda but, unlike many of its rivals, it avoided polemic. Given its success, many BBC officers and outside observers complained that repeated cuts to the Foreign Office grant-­in-­aid during the 1960s and 1970s undermined a crucial tool of British influence, limiting broadcast hours and preventing investment in new transmitters. Services to Western Europe were cut back particularly savagely, to allow the BBC to continue to serve crucial Cold War and imperial purposes. During the 1960s, widened access to radio sets capable of picking up foreign broadcasts further increased the size of the BBC’s potential audience in Eastern and Central Europe and the USSR. So did the introduction of rock ’n’ roll music to BBC foreign-­language services, a means to attract young listeners who could not hear Western music on local stations. Hooked by the music, listeners were then exposed to more overtly political content: rock ’n’ roll also, helpfully, encouraged a general attitude of resistance to, and rebellion against, established authority. BBC international broadcasts were not exclusively dedicated to news and high culture, and were all the more effective for that. In moments of crisis, such as the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, BBC services were rapidly expanded in the hope that they might play a more direct and significant political role. BBC news was widely listened to in Czechoslovakia, and during the ‘Prague Spring’ was also rebroadcast by local stations and republished by local media outlets. In the wake of the turmoil that challenged communist regimes across the Eastern bloc during the late 1960s, a new gen­er­ ation of young émigrés came to Britain and helped keep BBC External Services relevant to listeners in the target countries. They were given greater freedom to produce their own original content for the different language services, and attempted to perform democracy on-­air, in opposition to communist authoritarianism, by reflecting a

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

177

plurality of viewpoints. Anyone working in BBC External Services during this period was, ultimately, a Cold War warrior. BBC domestic services were also, subtly and sometimes not so subtly, part of this grand clash of ideologies, implicitly and explicitly supporting democracy and capitalism and underlining the oppressiveness of communist regimes. Since its foundation, the BBC had also been closely linked with the maintenance and consolidation of British imperial power and influence. The rapid acceleration of processes of political decolonization during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the withdrawal of British military power from points ‘east of Suez’ in 1968, meant that the BBC’s traditional, overtly imperial role was now neither desirable nor sustainable. Old ideas about the ‘British world’ and the ‘English-­ speaking world’ also evaporated, particularly as Britain moved towards Europe and membership of the European Economic Community (finally achieved on 1 January 1973). Geopolitical imperatives and public attitudes, at home and overseas, had changed, and the BBC in turn adapted its External Services to fit new realities. To some extent, ‘Commonwealth’ cooperation in programme-­ making, technical matters, and training continued, replacing older versions of empire broadcasting. The BBC’s prominent role in the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association gave it opportunities to exert global leadership as, closer to home, did its work with the European Broadcasting Union. Other, older ways of doing things were quietly dropped. Rebroadcasting of BBC programmes by stations in the US and the ‘dominions’ of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa had declined significantly during the 1950s. In 1962, the decision was taken to close the BBC North American Service, and the Pacific Service was also cut back. Resources were instead focused on listeners in Africa and Asia, where the spread of cheap transistor radios was delivering an expanding audience. In many postcolonial states, increasingly authoritarian regimes were clamping down on fragile press and broadcasting freedoms. This created a demand for news and information from outside, which BBC External

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

178

T h is is t h e BBC

Services were eager to satisfy. Prioritizing Africa and Asia also har­mon­ized with the desire of policymakers to perpetuate British influence in areas that had once been part of Britain’s formal and informal empire, and to ward off the spread of communism in the ‘Third World’. During the 1960s, more resources were thus devoted to the BBC’s African Service (broadcasting in English, Hausa, Somali, and Swahili) and to its Arabic Service. In 1965, the General Overseas Service was renamed the World Service: no longer prioritizing the needs of the British diaspora, it instead sought to serve anyone, anywhere, who could understand English. It focused on topicality, news, and current affairs, but also carried a range of other BBC programmes, including English-­language lessons. The aim was to capitalize on and enhance the status of English as a global language, to generate British influence and soft power. To make sure that its services were accessible to its new African and Asian listeners, the BBC also built relay transmitters in some of Britain’s remaining outposts of empire and scattered overseas military bases, boosting signals to key regions. A transmitter was opened on Ascension Island in 1967 to improve services to West Africa, and ­others were built on Masirah Island in the Arabian Sea and in Cyprus, Antigua, and Malaysia. Overseas transmitters were also periodically used to serve more specific British official requirements. In the wake of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Rhodesia’s white minority government, from 1966 until 1969 BBC programmes made in London were broadcast to Rhodesian listeners via a relay station in Bechuanaland. These broadcasts were designed to support the UK government’s attempts to persuade white settlers that African majority rule was inevitable, and that violent attempts to sustain white supremacy should be abandoned. Critics argued that this work provided clear evidence of the BBC’s subordinate status as a tool and mouthpiece of the British state. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, BBC External Services con­ tinued to operate on an essentially non-­ commercial basis. This

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

179

included the provision of training and other facilities for broadcasters from other countries (and especially from within the Commonwealth), the running of the Monitoring operation (which tracked the content of broadcasts from other countries), broadcasting radio programmes direct to overseas listeners, and distributing recorded material for use by other broadcasters. The latter work continued to be managed by the BBC Transcriptions Service. In 1964–65, overseas broadcasters were provided with over a thousand recorded programmes, taken from all genres of BBC non-­topical radio output, to be transmitted locally within their own services. Much of the work of External Services was funded by the British state via the Foreign Office grant-­ in-­aid, but other costs were absorbed into BBC general expenditure and thus ultimately covered, unwittingly, by the British licence fee payer. Accounting practices were usefully imprecise. However, the situation regarding television exports was different. Television was expensive to make, and state subsidies were not extended to the production of BBC television programmes for export. In 1961, the BBC thus established a new department, Television Enterprises (renamed BBC Enterprises in 1968), to sell content overseas at market rates.This would, it was hoped, not only cover costs but also generate revenue that would supplement UK licence fee income and fund some of the Corporation’s other work. Over the decades that followed, export sales and the wider work of BBC Enterprises would drive a subtle but accelerating commercialization of the wider BBC. Some Commonwealth countries, notably Australia and New Zealand, became significant markets for BBC television exports. However, the goal was to sell in the US, the world’s biggest and most lucrative potential market. BBC Enterprises enjoyed some success in this quest, and by the end of the 1960s the US had become the BBC’s single most important source of television export revenue. New opportunities for selling content were provided by the establishment of the US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1969. PBS’s first major

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

180

T h is is t h e BBC

BBC purchase was The Forsyte Saga, a notable success with American audiences, which led the network to establish, in 1971, the weekly Masterpiece Theatre slot. This was run by the Boston station WGBH on behalf of PBS, sponsored by Mobil Oil, and presented by the BBC’s long-­standing US correspondent Alistair Cooke. The slot was generally filled with British drama productions, many purchased from the BBC, and proved a significant source of export revenue for the Corporation. Factual series like Civilisation also sold well in the US market, contributing to the increasing emphasis placed by the BBC on making period dramas and documentaries for home and overseas consumption. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979), adapted from John le Carré’s novel and starring Alec Guinness, offered a glimpse of future possibilities for high-­value, transatlantic television production.

Aunty Beeb In 1967, the government selected Lord Hill, the former chairman of the ITA, to be the new chairman of the BBC. David Attenborough thought this ‘was like appointing Rommel to command the Eighth Army’.24 Some thought Hill had been chosen by the Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, to rein in Greene’s Corporation. Wilson was increasingly convinced that the BBC was biased against Labour. Hill’s appointment was also significant in that, for the first time, someone from the world of commercial broadcasting had been given a high-­ level role within the BBC.The government, and the BBC itself, would henceforth make such appointments when it wanted to introduce new skills, experiences, and loyalties, and to dilute the dominance of career-­BBC ‘insiders’ as a prelude to major reforms. In 1968, partly in protest at Hill’s appointment, Greene resigned. Greene’s successor as director general was, nevertheless, a BBC insider. Like Greene and Jacob before him, Charles Curran’s background was in External Services, a training ground for capable administrators experienced in dealing with politicians and civil servants and in

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

181

fighting the cultural Cold War. Curran’s time at BBC Monitoring left him well versed in Marxist thought and in Soviet and Chinese politics. He knew his enemies. He also knew that many within the BBC saw him as ‘one of the Corporation’s grey men’, a bureaucrat rather than a programme maker.25 Curran’s working relationship with Hill was difficult. He got on better with Hill’s successor, the biologist Sir Michael Swann (1973–80). Curran continued many of Greene’s policies, championing the posi­tive contribution that public broadcasting could make to British politics, culture, society, and soft power. However, the BBC of the 1970s seemed to retreat from the cutting edge of change, and to return to its older role as part of the Establishment. Some portrayed it, in stereotyped, gendered terms, as an out-­of-­date and unadventurous ‘Aunty Beeb’. Taking a less challenging approach to its work meanwhile did little to defuse the hostility of many politicians. As Swann ruefully admitted, ‘nobody loves the BBC’.26 When he became director general, Curran’s immediate concern was to rein in BBC expenditure. This had escalated with the launch of BBC2 and new local radio services. The Corporation’s 1969 stra­ tegic plan, Broadcasting in the Seventies, became infamous among BBC staff. It announced that radio services would be rationalized to cut costs. Radio 3 would broadcast on FM only and would focus mainly on classical music, with a small amount of spoken-­word arts programming. Radio 4 would largely become a spoken-­word network, pruning out the Home Service’s remaining music programmes. Regional production facilities and BBC orchestras would also be cut. The government would meanwhile be asked to fund the continued expansion of schools broadcasting and BBC local radio. These plans soon encountered serious resistance.While some of the changes to radio services were put into action, most of the cost-­ cutting proposals were shelved following significant opposition within the BBC and extended public debate. The government was meanwhile unenthusiastic about providing additional funding and agreed to authorize only modest increases in licence fee revenue. A further

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

182

T h is is t h e BBC

financial challenge arose from the abolition of the sound-­only licence fee in 1971: those who did not possess a television set could henceforth listen to radio without a licence. The financial outlook for the BBC was grim. It estimated that it would face a deficit of £4 million by 1974. As it turned out, even this prediction proved optimistic. The rampant inflation of the 1970s pushed up costs, a huge problem for the BBC given that its licence fee income was essentially fixed. Although the price of a colour television licence increased (£12 in 1971, rising to £25 by 1978), its value in real terms dropped significantly due to inflation. From 1972, the BBC also faced new costs arising from the removal of government restrictions on broadcasting hours. ITV was eager to increase its own operating hours: it made money by doing so, as more broadcast hours meant more advertising revenue. The BBC had to be seen to keep up, and extended its schedules to match, without securing additional resources. Demands from sporting governing bodies for increased payment for television rights also had to be met, and competition with commercial broadcasters for on-­screen ‘talent’ continued to drive up the BBC’s wage bill. Labour costs increased more generally as workers and their unions insisted that pay should keep up with inflation. In 1969, the Association of Broadcasting Staff (originally founded, during the war, as the BBC Staff Association) declared the first ever strike in the history of the BBC. Strikes, work stoppages, and labour disputes remained endemic during the 1970s, and BBC managers felt obliged to accept union demands for increased pay.This, in turn, enraged Wilson’s Labour government, which was attempting to impose wage restraint across the public sector. The BBC was already in bad odour with Wilson, after an ill-­judged programme about the aftermath of the defeat of his first government, Yesterday’s Men (1971). Re-­elected in 1974,Wilson threatened to impose financial discipline on the BBC by replacing the licence fee funding model with a direct grant-­in-­aid, which would have significantly increased the government’s ability to put political pressure on the broadcaster. The Foreign Office meanwhile demanded greater

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

183

transparency from BBC External Services about how government money was being spent. Wilson’s successor as prime minister, James Callaghan, subsequently proposed breaking the BBC up into several smaller organizations in order to reduce its influence and autonomy. Although this did not happen, Callaghan’s government did implement a system of yearly review of the BBC’s licence fee income. This drive to rein-­in BBC expenditure was supported by an increasingly vocal lobby, linked to prominent tabloid newspapers and especially to Rupert Murdoch’s growing media empire, which demanded that the BBC should be cut down to size or even eliminated from the UK’s media landscape entirely. Broadcasting, these interests argued, should be left to private enterprise. Enemies of the BBC made hay out of stories about profligate costs and wages. ITV expenditure was hardly restrained, but it was easy to manufacture controversy by claiming that the BBC was wasting licence fee payers’ money. In response, BBC managers began to plan spending cuts, and to rely on US television and film imports as a cheap way to fill off-­peak broadcast hours. During the 1970s, the BBC also faced new sources of competition for listeners and viewers. From 1972, the government began to license local commercial radio stations through the ITA. After fifty years, the BBC finally lost its radio monopoly. Capital Radio and the London Broadcasting Company (LBC) both began broadcasting in London in October 1973, and by 1983 forty-­three local commercial radio stations were in operation across the UK. Criticism of the BBC–ITV tele­vi­ sion duopoly also intensified, notably during the evidence-­gathering of the Annan Committee (1974–77), appointed to examine the future of broadcasting. Would-­be entrepreneurs and their supporters argued that opportunities needed to be created for small, independent tele­vi­ sion production companies. This, it was claimed, would bring greater diversity and enhanced creativity to British television screens; reflect a wider range of perspectives and experiences in a more multicultural Britain; and nurture an important new creative industry. The Annan Committee’s report proposed that a fourth television network should

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

184

T h is is t h e BBC

be created to make this possible, but Callaghan’s Labour government delayed making decisions about broadcasting policy and the renewal of the BBC charter. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives subsequently won the 1979 election and would play a decisive role in shaping the future of British broadcasting.

BBC TV in the Seventies During the 1970s, BBC television meanwhile continued to offer a mix of popular and populist entertainment, alongside programmes designed to inform and educate. To some extent, the radicalism and creativity that had marked BBC programming during the previous decade seemed to dwindle. One of the most powerful BBC ‘barons’ of the 1970s was Bill Cotton, head of light entertainment (1970–77) and controller of BBC1 (1977–81). The son of the band leader Billy Cotton, he was rooted in the old world of variety, and had extensive experience of programme production. He oversaw the creation of television schedules studded with male stars (some of whom later left for better deals at ITV) including Bruce Forsyth, Morecambe and Wise, Dick Emery, MikeYarwood,Val Doonican, and the Two Ronnies. This offering was designed to help the BBC win the competition for viewers. Doonican, with his friendly style, comfortable cardigans, and nostalgic easy-­listening music drew enormous audiences of up to 14 million, blighting the weekend viewing of children across the country. Forsyth was a more energetic on-­screen presence, appealing to all ages. As host of the big-­prize giveaway show The Generation Game (1971–77, subsequently presented by Larry Grayson 1978–82, and later revived with Forsyth), he anchored one of the highest-­rating BBC programmes of all time. After Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise moved to ITV, The Two Ronnies (1971–87) became the BBC’s flagship comedy sketch show: the double-­act of Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker, achieved peak viewing figures of 18.5 million. Parkinson (1971–82,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

185

revived 1998–2007) meanwhile introduced the US chat-­show format to the BBC, anchored by the journalist and presenter Michael Parkinson. Shown late at night, it was able to include adult discussion and more risqué comedy. In 1970, Terry Wogan began presenting Come Dancing on BBC television, and also became the BBC radio commentator for the Eurovision Song Contest (he later brought his characteristic, wry humour to the show’s television commentary, a role he held until 2008). Wogan also presented the light-­hearted Saturday evening game show, Blankety Blank (1979–90, hosted by Les Dawson from 1984, and later revived), and made it a huge ratings success, even though some senior BBC executives dismissed it (in private) as drivel. Men continued to dominate BBC television during peak hours, but one notable exception was That’s Life (1973–94), anchored by Esther Rantzen. The programme offered an unusual mix of investigative reporting (with a focus on consumer protection), social crusading (most notably on the issue of child abuse), human interest stories, satire, and light entertainment. It replaced a similar show, Braden’s Week (1968–72), which had been presented by the Canadian star, Bernard Braden, until he was sacked after appearing in an advert on ITV; Rantzen had been a researcher on Braden’s Week. Aside from its enormous popularity (with a peak audience of 22 million), one of the key achievements of That’s Life was the establishment in 1987 of ChildLine, a telephone counselling service for children and young people, following the show’s investigation of, and revelations about, the extent of child abuse in the UK. BBC1 continued to offer plenty of popular drama, such as the nostalgic series about Yorkshire country vets, All Creatures Great and Small (1977–90), and popular broad comedies including Are You Being Served? (1972–85). In the latter, written by David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd and set in a hierarchical, old-­fashioned department store, some of the humour revolved around the increasingly dated absurdities of the British class system, but innuendo, sight gags, and slapstick played a bigger role, as did jokes about camp behaviour and unsubtle allusions to homosexuality. Catchphrases remained a staple, most notably

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

186

T h is is t h e BBC

John Inman’s high-­pitched cry,‘I’m Free!’. Croft, reunited with Jimmy Perry, his Dad’s Army writing partner, also scripted It Ain’t Half Hot Mum (1974–81), based around the lives of a Royal Artillery concert party in wartime India and Burma. Like Dad’s Army, the show derived much of its humour from the irrationality of wartime life and the British class system. However, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum also occupied more treacherous ground in a period of rapidly shifting attitudes towards issues of race and sexuality. Some believed it peddled outdated and offensive colonial-­era racial stereotypes (including blackface performances) and that it also reflected and promoted prejudiced attitudes concerning homosexuality and cross-­dressing. BBC2 also offered some broad comedy and farce, notably in the cult classic Fawlty Towers (1975 and 1979), written by and starring John Cleese and Connie Booth, and co-­starring Prunella Scales and Andrew Sachs. Other comedies continued to deploy the social realism that had been introduced in the 1960s. Steptoe and Son was revived for a second run (1970–74), while Rodney Bewes and James Bolam reprised their earlier on-­screen roles in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (1972), scripted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. The television critic Peter Black judged the latter ‘BBC character comedy at its unbeaten best; not a gag in sight, every laugh springing with perfect naturalness out of the truth of the characters’.27 Clement and La Frenais went on to write Porridge (1974–77), using prison as an unusual but ideal setting for situation comedy, with the inmates (including Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale) forced to endure one another’s company while they battled with the system. A different approach to sit-­com was offered by The Good Life (1975–78), starring Felicity Kendall, Penelope Keith, Richard Briers, and Paul Eddington, a gentler and more domestic series, but notable for putting women on an equal footing with their male co-­stars. The Liver Birds probably went further in challenging traditional, male-­dominated approaches to situation comedy in the 1970s, also mining a social realist vein.Written by Carla Lane (initially with Myra Taylor), the programme focused on the lives of two young, single, self-­consciously modern women in Liverpool.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

187

It ran for nine series between 1969 and 1979, achieving peak audiences of over 10 million. Lane’s other big hit of this era was Butterflies (1978–83), which explored a very different world. It focused on middle-­aged, middle-­class life, drawing humour from the generation gap between parents and children and the dilemmas of a woman experiencing a mid-­life crisis and contemplating adultery. Resolutely shunning social realism, Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969–74) meanwhile drew on the surreal and the absurd. It updated the old tradition of review-­style comedy by playing on the visual potential of television as a medium, introducing animations, montages, and rapid cuts backwards and forwards between interconnected scenes and sketches. It also often parodied television itself, as well as the British class system and many of the traditions and hierarchies that the BBC had previously worked hard to sustain, but which now seemed relics of a different age. Another team of graduates from I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again meanwhile created The Goodies (1970–80), which followed a similarly absurd and telegenic path. Tim Brooke-­ Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Bill Oddie, ‘grand-­nephews of Monty Python’, wrote and performed the show, which exploited ‘fantasy, fast action, and the tricks of the medium to break away from the usual procession of songs and sketches . . . The show is often goodie, sometimes baddie, but never boring.’28 BBC children’s programming meanwhile continued to develop in the 1970s to include new, informative, and educational formats such as John Craven’s Newsround (1972­­–89, subsequently Newsround 1989– present), which interpreted news stories for a younger audience, and Johnny Ball’s Think of a Number (1977–84), developing numeracy and science skills. Take Hart (1977–83) encouraged children to get creative: presented by veteran broadcaster Tony Hart, it co-­starred the plasticene animated character Morph, created by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, the co-­founders of Aardman Animations. Other influential animated British programmes for children broadcast by the BBC included The Wombles (1973–75) and Paddington (1976–80). Phil Redmond’s Grange Hill (1978–2008) meanwhile focused on life at a

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

188

T h is is t h e BBC

London comprehensive school, bringing social realism to children’s television and dealing with themes such as bullying, racism, sexuality, and drug abuse. In 1976, the BBC started broadcasting children’s tele­vi­sion on Saturday mornings, as well as in the traditional weekday afternoon slot.This was a response to ITV’s successful Saturday morning children’s show, Tiswas. The BBC’s Multi-­Coloured Swap Shop was presented by the DJ Noel Edmonds, with John Craven, Keith Chegwin, and (from 1978) Maggie Philbin. It offered three hours of live programming, including competitions, cartoons, and music, seeking to build a spontaneous and genuine connection with its audience through phone-­in segments and outside broadcasts of ‘Swaporama’ mass-­gatherings around the country. It was more wholesome than Tiswas, less anarchic, and not as much fun. Information and education for adults meanwhile continued to be provided by television documentaries, including the ‘fly-­on-­the-­wall’ series The Family (1974) about the daily life of a working-­class English family, broadcast on BBC1, based on a US format, and anticipating the later genre of reality television. On BBC2, Arena (1975­­–present) focused on the arts: from 1978 it was produced by Alan Yentob, who would go on to play a major role in BBC management. Natural history broadcasting was meanwhile transformed by the thirteen-­part documentary series Life on Earth, which took several years to film and eventually aired on British television in 1979. David Attenborough championed and presented the series, after deciding to reject future BBC management roles. Making Life on Earth was a huge technical and logistical challenge, requiring a large production team (headed by the BBC veteran Joanna Spicer) and the expertise of the Corporation’s Bristol-­based Natural History Unit. Some thought that only the BBC could have made Life on Earth. The programme was clearly designed to play an educational role, offering a coherent scientific argument, promoting public understanding of natural history, and thus helping discharge the Corporation’s charter commitments. It did so by synthesizing a huge amount of new research and providing beautiful images of amazing places and creatures.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

189

It was also a prestige operation, a means of demonstrating the BBC’s continuing importance as a public broadcaster. However, all this required a huge budget, and co-­financing from Warner Brothers in the US. The series was thus not purely the product of public service broadcasting, although the loose nature of BBC accounting pro­ced­ ures did facilitate the lavish spending that was required.The series also advanced the BBC’s drive to generate commercial revenues, selling well overseas and creating possibilities for further programme exports. It established wildlife documentary as a successful and highly exportable genre, further exploited by subsequent BBC series like The Living Planet and by British commercial broadcasters. Arguably, none of this detracted from the status of the series as a triumph for public broadcasting. Life on Earth also established Attenborough’s international status as a presenter and educator, which he would later use to speak out on global environmental issues, including climate change. In terms of its charter obligation to educate, probably the most important step taken by the BBC in this period was its partnership with the Open University (OU). Enrolling its first students in 1971, the OU aimed to provide adult education to degree level by remote learning. It used BBC radio and television services, in off-­peak hours, to reach its students. The first OU course broadcast, on Radio 3, was Arts Foundation Course 1, on 11 January 1971. Radio 3 proved a crucial channel for early OU broadcasts, while BBC2 worked with the OU to make more than 300 educational television programmes in 1971 alone. In a sign of things to come, in September 1974 the BBC also introduced its text-­based interactive information platform, Ceefax, broadcast using television signals and accessed using new television sets. Ceefax hinted at a future world of on-­demand digital media.

Conclusions During the 1960s and 1970s, the BBC adapted to, and sometimes helped lead, multiple social, political, and cultural transformations

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

190

T h is is t h e BBC

which fundamentally changed the nature and face of contemporary Britain. The BBC reshaped its programme offerings to reflect the growing diversity of a multicultural society and to put more women on-­air, although both as an institution and in terms of the programmes that it made, the BBC continued to be predominantly white and male. As the gap between the generations widened, in terms of lifestyles and attitudes, the BBC also provided more material that reflected the tastes of younger audiences, including pop and rock music and new forms of entertainment and comedy, although it continued to cater for its established audiences with more traditional and nostalgic offerings. It ensured that relevant and relatable British content dom­ in­ated British television and radio, and that contemporary social and political issues were analysed and discussed in current affairs, drama, and even comedy programming. It also sought to reflect the perspectives and interests of diverse local communities, notably in the programmes provided by its new local radio stations. Yet, despite making all these adjustments, managers and programme makers continued to work on the assumption that a single, great, national audience existed and that it could be addressed by the broadcast media, especially through television. The BBC sought to capture this audience primarily by making popular entertainment programmes with the widest possible appeal, ensuring that public service broadcasting did not become something only for a minority of the viewing public, as had threatened to become the case in the 1950s. The BBC also consciously continued to play a role as an instrument of nation-­ building. In 1977, its chairman, Michael Swann, told the Annan Committee that the BBC provided the ‘social cement’ that kept the country together, through its drama and entertainment programming and its coverage of national sporting events, religious ceremonies, and royal occasions.29 Lord Reith, who died in 1971, would have agreed with this view of the BBC’s function, even though he had despised many of the new directions taken by the Corporation in the 1960s. However, during the 1960s and 1970s it became increasingly difficult to maintain faith in the existence of a single national audience.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



T r a nsfor m at ion a n d stagnat ion, 1960 –1979

191

Alongside the creation of a more diverse and multicultural society, in this period the UK began to face the impact of deindustrialization and increasing labour activism, the widening of the North–South divide, and open and intensifying civil and military conflict in the form of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In covering escalating violence, resistance, and repression in Northern Ireland, the BBC faced significant challenges to its position as the UK’s national broadcaster. Individuals and groups occupying opposing sides in the conflict shared at least one thing in common: a sense that the BBC was not, and could not be, impartial in its coverage. Since the 1920s, the BBC had always implicitly, and often explicitly, promoted the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In Belfast, it had also traditionally been closely linked (in terms of personnel and programme content) with Protestantism and Orangeism. Many Northern Irish Catholics did not regard the BBC as their broadcaster. During the 1950s, the BBC in Northern Ireland sought to broaden its appeal and to play a more active role in building some sort of political consensus. However, its critics argued that in doing so it failed to portray the realities of communal tension or to subject identities, inequalities, and prejudices to critical scrutiny. When sectarian conflict intensified in the late 1960s, the BBC sought to give airtime to a range of political viewpoints, including those of Irish republicans, and thus to serve its demo­crat­ic and journalistic functions. This failed to win over many nationalists but succeeded in angering unionists. As BBC reporters questioned the violent repression of republican terrorism by the British Army, the Corporation’s approach also increasingly displeased the UK government. In 1979, the government twice referred the BBC to the Director of Public Prosecutions under the terms of the 1976 Prevention of Terrorism Act. If the Reithian vision of unifying the nation seemed increasingly difficult to secure by the end of the 1970s, then so too did the idea that public broadcasting retained a special mission to educate and improve the British public. Greene’s reforms had created a BBC that seemed more attractive, interesting, and relevant to many people.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

192

T h is is t h e BBC

Yet they had also narrowed the distance between the Corporation and its competitors, creating schedules that aimed primarily to win audiences back from ITV and commercial radio, and incubating a BBC overseas television export operation run to make money. More and more of the BBC’s resources were devoted to television light entertainment, while some dramas were clearly made with an eye to potential sales in overseas markets. Meanwhile, most of the BBC’s radio audience opted for Radio 1 and 2, which offered little but pop and rock music and easy listening. Given all this, could the wide and increasing scope of the BBC’s activities and expenditure continue to be justified by the argument that it offered a distinctive public service? Opponents of publicly funded broadcasting, increasingly vociferous in the popular press and supported by powerful private media interests seeking new commercial opportunities, argued that they could not. The market, it was claimed, could do many of the things that the BBC was doing just as well, and should thus be given free rein to shape British television and radio. Over the next two decades, in the Britain of Thatcher, Major, and Blair, the BBC would face governments that were receptive to such arguments, and increasingly eager to put them into practice.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

6 On the market, 1980–1999

B

y 1980, television had undeniably become the dominant mass medium in Britain. It reached into almost every home, helping to shape almost everyone’s lives, and commanding enormous audiences every day of the week.While the BBC continued to devote significant resources to radio, television had undeniably become the focus for its activities, including when it put great ‘media events’ on-­air. At such moments—major sporting events, public holidays, and celebrations— broadcasting was used to draw people into a shared experience, no matter their circumstances or where they lived. The monarchy was a particularly important generator of media events. Ever since the broadcast of George V’s address at the opening of the Wembley Empire Exhibition in 1924, the BBC had exploited royal speeches, Christmas messages, coronations, weddings, jubilees, and funerals to assist in its work of building the nation. The BBC’s coverage of the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer on 29 July 1981 certainly evoked this modern, invented tradition. BBC1 began its television coverage at 7.45 a.m. that day, with Angela Rippon and Michael Wood in the studio, and continued until 1.45 p.m. Tom Fleming, who had been part of the BBC commentary team at the 1953 Coronation of Elizabeth II, described the carriage procession from Buckingham Palace to St Paul’s Cathedral; the fashion writer Barbara Griggs meanwhile gave a running sartorial commentary as the guests arrived at the Cathedral.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

194

T h is is t h e BBC

Sub-­titled television coverage for the hard of hearing was provided on BBC2, while Terry Wogan hosted radio coverage on Radio 2 (full coverage was also provided on Radio 4). Later that afternoon, on BBC1, a special edition of Nationwide, presented by Frank Bough, Sue Lawley, Richard Kershaw, and Hugh Scully, covered the departure of the royal couple on their honeymoon, and interviewed some of the wedding guests. Finally, BBC1 broadcast an hour-­ long highlights show at 9 p.m. This was a chance for the BBC to polish its credentials as the national broadcaster: it claimed that 24.6 million people watched its coverage of the Royal Wedding, compared with ITV’s audience of 8.2 million. When audiences wanted royal ceremony, they still turned to the BBC.The Daily Mail’s television critic Herbert Kretzmer claimed that the television coverage was not merely as good as being there, ‘it was being there’, and that it had satisfied ‘the people’s deep, instinctive yearning for continuity’. ‘For a nation under stress, uncertain of the immediate future, the Royal Wedding broadcasts were a celebration and a needed consolation—a brief, brilliant glimpse of Camelot.’ However, Kretzmer thought that ITV’s commentary on the wedding, delivered by Alastair Burnet, had trumped Fleming on BBC1. The Corporation’s coverage of the wedding had been ‘safe, superior, solemn, maybe a shade too secure in the knowledge that it has oft walked the royal route before, mirror of Monarchy, official voice of State’. Fleming had sounded ‘almost quaintly old fashioned’. In contrast, ITV (which had suspended commercial breaks for the duration) was ‘friendly, folksy, newsy, less inclined to display exaggerated reverence, mirror of the masses, voice of the people’.1 The two commentaries seemed to have encapsulated the fundamental difference between the public service broadcaster and its commercial rival. Some three years later, the BBC played a key role in a very different set of media events. On 24 October 1984, on BBC1’s Six O’Clock News, Michael Buerk reported from Ethiopia on the developing famine, with shocking footage of human suffering shot by the cameraman Mohamed Amin. Buerk’s report was subsequently aired on over four hundred television stations around the world. It prompted

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

195

the musicians Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to organize an unprecedented transatlantic charity music event, Live Aid, which in turn relied on broadcasting to capture the public imagination and bring in donations. The BBC helped make the event happen, turning its services over to support a huge fundraising effort. Together BBC1, BBC2, and Radio 1 broadcast a full day of coverage of what the Radio Times called ‘the greatest rock event of all time’, featuring some of the biggest names in popular music. Radio and television coverage began at midday on 13 July 1985 and went on continuously until 4 a.m. the next morning. Music was broadcast live from London’s Wembley Stadium (a key venue for BBC media events, where George V had opened the Empire Exhibition in 1924, and where key soccer matches including the 1966 World Cup Final had been played) with additional live feeds from the US and around the world. BBC DJs, including Janice Long, Richard Skinner, Mike Smith, Andy Kershaw, and Paul Gambaccini, were kept busy for sixteen hours of performances, interviews, and fundraising. Nancy Banks-­Smith, writing in the Guardian, compared Geldof to ‘one of those uncomfortable Old Testament prophets, the kind who knocked down Jericho with the aid of a small brass section and enthusiastic audience participation’. ‘Television,’ she concluded, ‘is mostly a middle-­aged medium. I have not seen it so remorselessly hijacked by the young, cuffed round the ears, hauled by the scruff out of the living room, mugged for money. I bet when the walls fell down Jericho was flabbergasted, too.’2 Well over half of the UK population watched some part of the Live Aid coverage, which reached an estimated global audience of one and a half billion. BBC broadcasting in support of charitable work dated back to the 1920s, and in the age of television had already produced the Children in Need charity telethon, a more sedate affair launched in 1980 and anchored (until 2005) by Terry Wogan. The famine in Ethiopia led to the establishment by Richard Curtis and Lenny Henry of another BBC telethon, Comic Relief, an annual, star-­studded fundraising media event that, like Children in Need, continues to this day. By producing such media events, the BBC undoubtedly helped create an imagined national community, and indeed for a few hours it

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

196

T h is is t h e BBC

was able to draw together a global audience.Yet the 1980s was also a time of disunity. The atmosphere created by media events like the Royal Wedding and Live Aid temporarily distracted attention from long-­running conflicts that split the country, generated international strife, and disrupted the BBC’s attempts to speak to and for the nation. Britain’s Conservative prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, whose political views and personality seemed to dominate the decade, claimed that she wished to overcome disunity and bring the nation together. Yet many saw her policies, particularly her introduction of neoliberal economic reforms, as exacerbating division. Thatcher herself seldom regarded the BBC as an ally in her enterprise, resenting aspects of its coverage of both domestic and foreign affairs and disliking its public service mentality and supposed profligacy. Thatcher’s governments, and their Conservative and Labour successors, sought to use the discipline of the market to bring the BBC to heel. They also appointed governors who were expected to ensure the Corporation toed the line. Directors general who did not get the message were removed. Under John Birt, director general from 1993 to 2000, the BBC proved willing and able to anticipate what the government wanted and to implement major reforms. Birt won the support of prime ministers but lost the goodwill of many of his colleagues in the process.

Public broadcasting in Thatcher’s Britain Throughout the 1980s the BBC continued to seek to inform, educate, and entertain listeners and viewers across the UK. Audiences consumed programmes delivered to them via the Corporation’s radio and television networks. Television occupied the central place in most people’s leisure time but, following the precedent set by radio two decades earlier, it now began to be consumed in new ways. Watching television became less of a communal family experience, as more households invested in multiple television sets and bought video

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

197

cassette recorders (VCRs). Family members could now watch different programmes at different times. This change was only just beginning, and huge primetime television audiences continued to exist. Some programmes could still have a near-­universal impact, drawing viewers together across divisions of community, geography, gender, class, and age. However, fragmentation of the audience would continue in­ex­or­ ably over the decades that followed, as new technologies were adopted and as the number of channels and forms of media content available multiplied. In terms of programming, the pervasive problem faced by the BBC during the 1980s was competition from ITV. Hit by years of rising costs, and with the value of its licence fee revenue eroded by inflation, the standard of the BBC’s output fell noticeably during the late 1970s and early 1980s. ITV meanwhile prospered as its advertising revenues remained buoyant, and the commercial television companies produced a number of high-­quality programmes. In the crucial field of drama, ITV was by the early 1980s making more programming than the BBC. With series like Brideshead Revisited (1981) and The Jewel in the Crown (1984), ITV scored notable popular and critical successes. The Corporation was condemned by critics when it tried to compete with The Jewel in the Crown by running a lightweight American mini-­ series, The Thorn Birds. The BBC also had to compete with ITV’s move into breakfast television, following its launch of TV-­am in 1983. In response, BBC1 launched its own Breakfast Time programme, anchored by Frank Bough and Selena Scott. Commercial broadcasters hoped to make money from extended broadcasting hours, allowing them to generate increased advertising revenue (though this did not ultimately turn out to be the case for TV-­am). For the BBC, increased hours represented a significant drain on resources at a time when rev­enues were essentially fixed. The Corporation could ill-­afford its venture into breakfast television. The threat posed by competition from ITV was serious. BBC1’s share of the television audience dropped from 49 per cent in 1976 to a low of 35.9 per cent in 1984. To bring viewers back, on 19

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

198

T h is is t h e BBC

February 1985 BBC1 launched the bi-­weekly soap opera Eastenders, designed to run year-­round. This was a significant risk. Some £1.6 million had to be invested in dedicated sets and studios (at the BBC’s recently ­purchased Elstree site) to make continuous production possible. Other drama series had to be axed to finance this. Revealingly, some senior executives worried that the series would be down-­market and ‘vulgar’, but it was nevertheless supported by BBC1’s controller, Michael Grade. The aim was to build up viewer loyalty with unfolding serial drama, broadcast at the same times every week, that could become a focus for habitual family viewing. The series would also have a distinctive public service ethos, providing social realism in its depiction of life in London’s East End. The setting was also designed to contrast with that of the show’s main competitor, ITV’s long-­running Manchester-­based soap Coronation Street, and critics could not avoid drawing comparison between the two, sometimes to the disadvantage of Eastenders. Anthea Hall, in the Sunday Telegraph, compared the every­day ordinariness of the plots of Coronation Street when it had launched twenty-­five years previously, with the more visceral approach of Eastenders. Maybe the American soap operas have quickened the pace of things. The first week brought us suspected murder, proposed abortion for 40-­year-­old Pauline’s ‘mistake’ and promise of a feud. Race not class lurks.When the two Bengali shopkeepers Saeed and Naima notice old Reg hasn’t been coming in for his milk, gossips Lou and Ethel cluck ‘It’s something when its Asians ’oo notice you’re missing’ . . . Leslie Grantham as Den the publican promises good romantic interest . . . I think I’m hooked.3

Grantham immediately generated valuable additional publicity for the show when it emerged, soon after the launch, that he had previously partially served a life sentence for murder. Eastenders immediately began to grapple with a range of contemporary social and personal themes, including abortion, racial prejudice, teenage pregnancy, and sexuality. Mary Whitehouse was predictably outraged, but viewers loved it. Episodes of Eastenders

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

199

attracted an average audience of over 20 million by the end of 1985. In the course of each month, the soap reached a staggering 70 per cent of the UK population. By tackling controversial issues, it generated significant newspaper coverage and publicity, further boosting audience figures. The tradition of televising a spectacularly bleak and miserable Christmas episode, in contrast to the cosiness of the rest of the festive schedule, entrenched the series even more deeply in col­lect­ive viewing habits. Eastenders also reflected and championed the BBC’s wider attempts to add more diversity to British screens. It introduced its first openly gay relationship in 1987 and its first HIV-­positive character in 1991. The show became a key bastion of public broadcasting, providing the mass audience that was required to justify the universal charge of the licence fee. In its wake, other popular serial dramas, such as Casualty (1986–present), were also developed to help attract viewers back to BBC1. Chat shows offered another way to bring in an early evening audience, which schedulers hoped would stay with BBC1 into primetime (though the rise of remote controls for television sets would soon undermine this strategy). In 1980, Russell Harty was brought over from ITV to host his own show (initially on BBC2, later on BBC1) and almost immediately generated priceless publicity with a notorious, catastrophic interview with the model, actor, and singer Grace Jones. The reliably popular presenter Terry Wogan meanwhile fronted his own Saturday evening chat show on BBC1 from 1982, attracting over 10 million viewers. Conceived of as a replacement for Parkinson, Wogan relied on its presenter’s unique combination of charm and intense intelligence. Wogan could disarm his guests while subtly exploiting soft underbellies. Wogan is nobody’s fan. Probing David Frost’s success in travelling around the globe, he inquired as to whether it was due to his stamina. ‘It certainly can’t be your talent,’ laughed Terry, with that inimitable style. Even Frostie had to laugh. Wogan understands the thin line between madness and reality in another dimension. Interviewing Dr Richard Lawrence and Lady Buchanan-­Jardine about UFOs, Wogan

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

200

T h is is t h e BBC

conveyed perfectly the battiness of believing in flying saucers, and yet the perfect plausibility of the matter.4

Wogan deployed the same skills a decade later, when he interviewed the former footballer and BBC sports presenter, and self-­proclaimed son of God, David Icke. Some thought this a cynical attempt to boost ratings: as a Guardian journalist put it, ‘Didn’t Smollett get it right: one half of the nation is mad, and the other half is watching Wogan.’5 That was in the future. In 1985, after Harty was taken off-­air, Wogan was moved to a live, 7 p.m. slot, three times a week. For the rest of the decade his show would act as a linchpin for BBC weekday evening schedules. Kilroy (1986–2004) meanwhile entrenched the chat show format in BBC1 daytime schedules, with its host Robert Kilroy-­Silk (a former Labour MP) bringing to British screens the approach deployed by Oprah Winfrey in the US. Members of the public became part of the show, which encouraged audience participation and discussed contemporary social and personal issues. Situation comedy also continued to offer a key means to generate viewer loyalty and affection for the BBC. Many attempts to develop new series failed, but a few hugely successful programmes came to anchor BBC primetime and weekend television schedules. The most obvious triumph was Only Fools and Horses, which ran from 1981 until 1991 and was regularly resurrected for Christmas specials thereafter. The writer, John Sullivan, had already produced a hit sit-­com for the BBC in the form of Citizen Smith (1977–80), which played on themes in modern working-­class London life. Only Fools and Horses exploited similar territory, but without Citizen Smith’s lampooning of radical far-­left politics. Instead, it gently sent up Thatcher’s entrepreneurial Britain, focusing on the shady, get-­rich-­quick schemes of Del Boy Trotter, played by David Jason. It also took up some of the themes of the BBC’s earlier sit-­com hit, Steptoe and Son, notably by focusing on the close but sometimes dysfunctional all-­male family unit of Del Boy, Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst), and Grandad (Lennard Pearce, later replaced by Uncle Albert, played by Buster Merryfield). Despite relatively poor viewing figures and negative critical responses to its first

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

201

series, Only Fools and Horses was renewed and went on to top UK television ratings. One episode set the record for the largest ever UK audience for a sit-­com, with 24.3 million viewers. The BBC also turned to some of its veteran comedy writers to produce nostalgic, family entertainment. Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who had earlier scripted Dad’s Army and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, wrote Hi-­de-­Hi! (1980–88), evoking the lives of entertainers working in a British holiday camp at the end of the 1950s. Croft also reunited with Jeremy Lloyd, his writing partner for Are You Being Served?, to pen ’Allo ’Allo (1984–92). Set in wartime France, the series drew on the traditions of physical comedy, catchphrases, sight gags, innuendo, and cultural stereotypes about homosexuals and foreigners that dated back to the days of the Music Hall. It also spoofed the whole genre of Second World War film and television drama. This proved a hugely popular formula, involving comic and incompetent German and Italian occupiers, English stiff-­upper-­lips, and an over-­sexed French resistance. Less nostalgic in its focus, Bread (1986–91), written by Carla Lane, was another huge success with viewers. Focusing on a working-­ class Catholic family in Liverpool, it attracted audiences of up to 21 million, although it was criticized by some for adopting a lightweight, cartoonish approach, lacking the social realism that many had come to expect from Lane’s previous writing. It was already clear from ITV’s schedules that high-­quality American imports could also attract large primetime audiences. The BBC had traditionally viewed itself as a bulwark against American commercial culture, and many senior executives remained sceptical about the quality of US drama and comedy. However, imports could often be secured relatively cheaply, making them increasingly attractive to a cash-­strapped BBC. As a result, during the 1980s crowd-­pleasing US imports like Dallas, Starsky and Hutch, Cagney & Lacey, and Kojak were used to fill up to 20 per cent of peak viewing time on BBC1. Increasing reliance was also placed on made-­for-­cinema Hollywood films. Old movies could provide a cheap filler during off-­peak hours, while newer blockbusters could be deployed in the battle for viewers at

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

202

T h is is t h e BBC

weekends or on public holidays. However, this approach opened the BBC up to criticism. After all, British viewers did not need a public broadcaster to provide them with American soaps, drama, and movies: ITV and the new network Channel 4 already did this. Similarly, while the BBC made plenty of programmes for children (presented from ‘the Broom Cupboard’ in Television Centre by Philip Schofield, Andy Crane, and Gordon the Gopher), it also aired cheap imported US serial dramas, including seemingly endless repeats of Gentle Ben and The Littlest Hobo. Its offering in this regard seemed almost identical, or even inferior, to that of ITV. To justify the licence fee, the BBC had to provide the sorts of programmes that would attract large numbers of television viewers back from ITV, while at the same time demonstrating that there was an important and distinctive role for public broadcasting by doing the sorts of things commercial broadcasters would not. Getting the balance right was a difficult task. The fact that the BBC’s different departments, or ‘baronies’, retained significant creative and financial autonomy, could be an advantage in this regard. However, the Corporation’s loose, chaotic organizational structure was also a source of budgetary problems and, increasingly, of scandal at a time when its editorial approach and expenditure were being closely scrutinized by hostile politicians, competitors, and the right-­wing press. While the BBC struggled to compete with some of the prestigious and popular dramas made by ITV in the 1980s, it continued to make distinctive drama programmes with a social and political edge. Opportunities for radical social commentary had traditionally been provided by the regular slot for one-­off dramas, Play for Today, and in 1984 one of these plays produced a hugely successful spin-­off series, Boys from the Blackstuff (1982). Written by Alan Bleasdale and produced in Birmingham, the series deployed a powerful mixture of social realism and dark humour to explore the impact of the economic recession of the early 1980s, including mass unemployment and life on the dole. Although it aired on BBC2 in a Sunday night slot, it won both critical praise and a significant audience, and was

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

203

repeated on BBC1 almost immediately. For the Telegraph, it effectively condemned ‘a system that throws human beings on the scrap heap’.6 The Guardian thought it a perfect representation of a ‘fearful society’.7 At least one character became a folk hero: Yosser (played by Bernard Hill), with his catchphrase ‘Gizza job!’ and trademark headbutt, incited copycat violence in many school playgrounds. However, Boys from the Blackstuff proved a swansong for Play for Today, which was cancelled in 1984. BBC one-­off dramas had proved influential, but erratic and patchy in terms of quality. They did not generate the audience loyalty that long-­ running series could, and which was crucial if the Corporation was to win back viewers from ITV. Moreover, series were much easier to sell overseas than were one-­off productions, and this was an increasingly significant concern for a BBC determined to develop new export revenues. Some of the key artistic and critical successes for BBC drama in this period were thus series and mini-­series.The playwright Dennis Potter produced a string of inventive, challenging, and surprisingly popular series for the BBC, including Pennies from Heaven (1978) and The Singing Detective (1986), although Blackeyes (1989) was criticized by some for its prurient and misogynistic content. Shunning the trend towards cinematic production values in television drama, Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads (1988) monologues sought to strip things back to a more theatrical, and more idiosyncratically British, tradition. Periodic attempts to produce drama with an overtly political edge meanwhile mired the BBC in controversy. A four-­part series about the First World War, The Monocled Mutineer (1986), written by Alan Bleasdale, added fuel to accusations of BBC left-­ wing bias and attracted further criticism on the grounds of historical inaccuracy. Tumbledown (1988) meanwhile reignited controversies about the Falklands War and Thatcher’s legacy. The BBC also sought to do something distinctive in its approach to comedy in the 1980s, particularly on BBC2, which screened both the anarchic, surreal, slapstick humour of The Young Ones (1982–84) and the sophisticated political comedy of Yes, Minister (1980–84) and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

204

T h is is t h e BBC

Yes, Prime Minister (1986–88). The latter two series cleverly exposed the eccentricities of British political life, and particularly the civil service, without satirizing either of the political parties or any actual politicians, thus avoiding controversy: Thatcher loved it. Other ways of demonstrating the continuing importance of public broadcasting included the production of plenty of factual output, including ‘serious’ documentaries on BBC2 in series such as Timewatch and Horizon, and more popular informative series on BBC1 such as the long-­running Tomorrow’s World. The BBC also paid increasing attention to regional television production. One key change in this connection came in 1982 with the launch of the Welsh-­language tele­ vi­sion service S4C: the BBC provided the channel with much of its programming. The Corporation also produced a significant amount of English-­language Welsh programming, which was put on-­air in BBC television slots now reserved for ‘regional variations’. Some of the programmes made by the BBC in the 1980s seemed exciting and new, but much about the Corporation’s output seemed underfunded, unadventurous and tediously nostalgic. Some thought this also reflected the nature of BBC management. Janet Street-­Porter, who was recruited from Channel 4 in 1987 to head BBC Youth and Entertainment Features, complained that the Corporation still resembled a ‘Masonic league full of ritualistic men in grey suits’, and that Saturday evening television schedules remained dominated by ‘un­attract­ive, sexist, middle-­aged men’.8 Women certainly remained underrepresented in BBC senior management. An internal investigation, led by Monica Sims, reported in 1985 on continued significant gender inequality and discrimination: Sims had recently retired as director of radio, leaving only six women in senior roles. The BBC implemented almost all of the report’s recommendations. Nevertheless, it was only in 1990 that the first woman was appointed to the BBC’s management board, when Margaret Salmon became director of personnel. Inequality behind the scenes was also apparent on-­air. On Radio 1, Annie Nightingale and Janice Long were often the sole female DJs in

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

205

schedules otherwise dominated by men. Gloria Hunniford was in a similar position on Radio 2. However, women were winning new roles at the BBC, particularly in television. In news and current affairs programmes, younger female presenters were typically allocated secondary presenting roles, with older men taking the lead. However, in 1984 Sue Lawley was made the main newsreader on BBC1’s Six O’Clock News, anchoring a crucial programme in the daily television schedule. Lawley was already a familiar television presence through her work on Nationwide and Tonight and her regular role in BBC election coverage. She often acted as stand-­in presenter on Wogan, and from 1987 until 2006 she hosted one of Radio 4’s most popular programmes, Desert Island Discs. Kate Adie meanwhile won a high-­profile role as a news correspondent in high-­risk situations, launching her career in earnest in 1980 when she reported live on the SAS action that broke the Iranian Embassy siege in London. Adie was the BBC’s chief news correspondent from 1989 until 2003. During the 1980s, male dominance of BBC comedy also slowly crumbled.Women had, in the past, mainly featured in ensemble comedies, in supporting roles, but now they fronted their own programmes. A key departure was Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, broadcast on BBC2 from 1985 until 1987 and including ‘deliciously under-­stated’ sketches, stand-­up monologues, and down-­to-­earth, observational humour.9 Similarly, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders made their breakthrough as a double act with their own sketch show, French and Saunders, broadcast on BBC2 from 1987 until 1993 (when it made the move to BBC1). Women were for the first time anchoring mainstream BBC television comedy shows. These changes were in part a response to public criticism of the BBC–ITV duopoly, which some argued had failed to represent marginalized voices in British broadcasting. Similarly, during the 1980s the BBC moved away from treating Black and Asian listeners and viewers as ‘immigrants’ and instead began to work consciously to reflect the increasing racial diversity of contemporary Britain. In 1982, it began broadcasting Ebony in an evening slot on BBC2, presented

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

206

T h is is t h e BBC

as a magazine that ‘reflects the experience, the achievement, the entertainment of Britain’s black communities’.10 Black presenters, ­ including Juliet Alexander and Vince Herbert, covered a range of topics and, in order to avoid an overwhelmingly serious and didactic tone, the programme also regularly included pop, soul, and reggae music. Initially produced in Bristol, Ebony later moved to BBC Pebble Mill, Birmingham, where the Asian Programmes Unit (formerly the Immigrants Programme Unit) was also based. The latter increasingly produced programmes in English (rather than in Asian languages, as it had during the 1970s) aimed at young, second-­generation British Asians. The old focus on ‘assimilation’ was thus replaced by new ideas about multiculturalism and ‘integration’, acknowledging and celebrating enduring differences between different communities within a wider national culture, and thus serving the BBC’s wider charter mission. As part of this drive, the BBC also started to introduce more programmes featuring Black and Asian people that were aimed at the wider national audience. People of colour found jobs on-­screen in a range of different roles: in 1981 Moira Stuart became the BBC’s first Black television newsreader and, from 1989, children’s afternoon tele­ vi­sion on BBC1 was presented by Andi Peters. Unfamiliar cooking styles were introduced to British kitchens in Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery (1982), while the Black comedian Lenny Henry ran a fictional pirate radio station from the back of a kebab shop,‘Crucial FM’, complete with a ‘Brixton Broadcasting Corporation’ jingle, in the Lenny Henry Show (1984–88). From the late 1970s onwards, BBC religious broadcasting meanwhile moved beyond Christianity, to in­corp­ or­ate a range of different faiths in a multidenominational Britain. However, despite all these changes, the BBC’s own internal research showed that in drama programmes, Black and Asian actors generally appeared only in background and non-­speaking roles and had few opportunities to develop their careers on-­screen. Hardly any BBC managers were people of colour.This was slow to change, even during the 1990s.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

207

Taming the BBC While the BBC was trying to compete with ITV and thus to justify its public service role, British broadcasting was undergoing its biggest shake up since the start of commercial television in the 1950s. The media policy reforms introduced by governments during the 1980s and 1990s reflected a wider ideological conviction that free-­market, deregulated capitalist competition was the best way to provide all types of goods and services. Previously nationalized industries, including British Telecom, British Gas, British Steel, and British Airways, were all progressively privatized. This posed an existential threat to the BBC, which in many ways still resembled a nationalized public utility. Initially, Thatcher’s government continued with the broadcasting policies planned by its predecessor, guaranteeing the position and finances of the BBC with a new royal charter and licence. The 1980 Broadcasting Act meanwhile provided for the creation of a fourth television channel, and in 1982 an act of parliament established Channel 4 with the explicit aim of putting a more diverse range of voices and stories on-­air, including Black and Asian people, young people, and women. The establishment of this new network was a blow for both the BBC and ITV, implying a failure on their part. The damage done to the BBC was particularly obvious. Although it was to be funded by advertising, Channel 4 was envisaged as a public broadcaster with an educational remit. It was to carve out a place for itself in what had previously been viewed as the BBC’s exclusive territory. In a final departure that would have huge significance for both the BBC and ITV, Channel 4 was required to commission independent production companies to make the majority of its programmes. Legislators adopted this approach in order further to encourage diversity and creativity in British television and also, crucially, to entrench market-­ based competition. The new independent production

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

208

T h is is t h e BBC

c­ om­pan­ies would prove highly entrepreneurial. They lobbied vocally for opportunities to make programmes for the UK’s other networks. Thatcher meanwhile began to consider a more profound reform of British broadcasting. This in part reflected her increasing disillusionment with the BBC’s political coverage. During her most significant foreign policy challenge, the Falklands War of 1982, she believed that the BBC’s attempts to act as an objective, neutral purveyor of news and comment were fundamentally misguided. Instead, she believed, the Corporation should have resolutely supported British military action against Argentina. The BBC’s new, analytical current affairs programme Newsnight (which had begun broadcasting in 1980) described troops as ‘British’ in one report, rather than as ‘ours’, a minor detail indicative of a wider approach and tone that alienated Thatcher and many other Conservatives. One MP thought BBC coverage of the war verged on treason. Thatcher was similarly angered by the BBC’s approach to the Miners’ Strike and to the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland. She thought that BBC journalists were overly critical of her policies, and unpatriotic, giving too much airtime to people she regarded as en­emies of Britain. In her mind, these two perceived failings sometimes became one and the same thing. Neither was BBC coverage of these disputes popular with Irish Republicans or the miners in England. Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, claimed that ‘What the BBC and ITN present as news is not news at all: it is pure, unadulterated bias’.11 Not for the first time or the last, the BBC was caught in a situation in which it pleased neither side in the midst of serious political conflicts. The fact that the BBC’s governors were appointed by the government gave Thatcher one means of imposing her will on the Corporation. Ignoring the principle that appointments were meant to be non-­political, she selected two loyal Conservatives for key roles on the board, the accountant and businessman Stuart Young (chairman, 1981–86) and a former editor of The Times, William Rees-­Mogg (vice-­chairman, 1981–86).Young initially thought the BBC should be

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

209

funded by advertising rather than the licence fee, while Rees-­Mogg compared the Corporation to the USSR under Brezhnev. One senior BBC executive thought that Rees-­Mogg behaved less like a vice-­ chairman, and ‘more like the leader of the opposition’.12 However, Thatcher was not happy when the governors appointed Alasdair Milne as director general in 1982. She believed that the former current affairs and documentary producer lacked either the political judgement or the management skills required to rein in his staff and to ensure that the BBC supported what she saw as the national interest. Thatcher’s hostility to the BBC was further fuelled by her growing commitment to neoliberal ideologies of free-­ market capitalism. During the 1970s, criticism of the BBC as a public enterprise had focused on bloated budgets and, in response, senior executives had sought to introduce cost efficiencies and more market-­ oriented approaches. To some extent, they anticipated Thatcherite reforms. In 1979, BBC Enterprises, the Corporation’s commercial division, was re-­established as a wholly owned subsidiary company, BBC Enterprises Ltd., to make it easier to generate commercial revenues at home and overseas. The BBC’s Publications department meanwhile sought to generate additional income through the Radio Times and other programme-­related magazines. It closed down the BBC’s un­prof­it­ able, highbrow magazine, the Listener, and focused on selling spin-­off books and other merchandize.With many households now possessing VCRs, the BBC also started to sell recorded programmes direct to customers on home video cassettes. In 1986, BBC Publications became part of BBC Enterprises Ltd and in 1990, BBC Films was established as a separate wholly owned subsidiary company to make feature films for the big screen and for subsequent broadcast. In 1981, the BBC also began marketing its Micro home computer, made by Acorn Computers and sold on a commercial basis. The idea was to promote popular information technology skills as well as to make money, and several BBC television series were produced to teach people how to use and program the machine. Its pre-­installed BBC Basic programming language proved relatively easy to master,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

210

T h is is t h e BBC

and the computer quickly became the dominant machine used in schoolrooms; it was also bought by many families for use at home. Over one and a half million were sold in the UK and overseas. The revenue raised by all these commercial activities was ploughed back into making programmes. Michael Checkland, the BBC’s financial controller, was responsible for devising many of these initiatives, and was subsequently promoted to oversee their implementation. In 1980, he became director of resources and, in 1985, deputy director general. As well as encouraging a more commercial approach, Checkland sought to drive down the BBC wage bill by taking a tougher line with trade unions and by imposing staffing cuts. This resulted in a wave of strikes in early 1984, which caused serious disruption, but management ultimately triumphed. The number of ­people employed by the BBC dropped from 30,000 in 1983 to 26,000 in 1984. However, Checkland was less successful in his attempts to reduce the autonomy of independent-­minded BBC barons and programme makers, who continued to do, and spend, largely as they pleased. In 1984, the BBC asked the government to authorise a 41 per cent increase in the licence fee. Inflation had seriously undercut the real value of the existing fee, and the BBC needed money to invest in new broadcasting technologies. This request, at a time when many households were still struggling financially in the wake of a severe economic recession, provoked widespread public criticism. It did not go down well with Thatcher’s government, which approved only a more modest (though still significant) increase, from £48 to £54, and appointed a committee to examine the future financing of the BBC. This was chaired by the monetarist economist Professor Alan Peacock. To Thatcher’s disappointment, in his report Peacock concluded that more competition needed to be introduced into British broadcasting before any move to fund the BBC via subscriptions or on-­air advertising would work. However, he did recommend that, in the meantime, the licence fee should be linked to the retail price index, to impose financial discipline on the BBC. The government

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

211

immediately adopted this measure. Peacock also suggested that, to enhance competition, BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 should be privatized, and that both the BBC and ITV should be obliged to commission a proportion of their programmes from independent commercial production companies, following Channel 4’s lead. The BBC fended off the former suggestion but would soon have to deal with the government’s implementation of the latter measure. The BBC was embroiled in further controversy over its political coverage when, in January 1984, Panorama broadcast a report called ‘Maggie’s Militant Tendency’.This supposed exposé of far-­r ight elem­ ents in the Conservative party prompted a long-­running legal investigation of BBC editorial decisions. Further controversy was generated by a 1985 Real Lives documentary about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which gave a sympathetic hearing to both a republican and a loyalist terrorist. The government pressured the BBC not to show it: the governors obediently spiked the programme, and it was only broadcast later in edited form. When the chairman Stuart Young died in October 1986, Thatcher appointed another loyal Conservative to replace him, Marmaduke Hussey, with a mandate to reform the BBC from within. A former managing director of The Times, Hussey already enjoyed a close alliance with his fellow-­governor and Thatcher supporter William Rees-­Mogg. He had also supported Rupert Murdoch, following the Australian media magnate’s takeover of The Times.When consulted by Thatcher, Murdoch endorsed Hussey’s appointment. Hussey took a much more active role as chairman than had his predecessors and began to usurp power from Milne, the director general. He immediately decided that the ‘Maggie’s Militant Tendency’ legal case was unwinnable and the BBC settled, paying almost £300,000 in costs and damages. Within three months of his appointment as chairman, and following another outcry concerning a BBC report on the Zircon spy satellite project, Hussey moved decisively against Milne and forced him to step down. For the first time ever, and to Thatcher’s evident satisfaction, a director general had ef­fect­ ive­ly been sacked by the government-­appointed BBC governors.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

212

T h is is t h e BBC

The board installed Michael Checkland in Milne’s place, and he in turn recruited John Birt, an outsider from the world of ITV, as deputy director general. Birt could be relied upon to implement reform. He was a believer in entrepreneurialism and in the new ideologies of corporate leadership and change that were coming to dominate British business. Management was not enough. Good chief executives had to be leaders, their achievements measured by the amount of change they catalysed. Birt was immediately struck by the deficiencies of BBC management. He thought it was ‘stuck in the 1950s’ and ­likened it to a Mafia family or a medieval royal court, functioning on rumours and behind-­the-­scenes deals and riven with intrigue and internal power struggles between rival, unaccountable baronies.13 Nobody said what they meant: information was power and was therefore closely guarded. The BBC lacked what Birt regarded as functioning systems of editorial, administrative, and financial control. He thought it was chaotic, bloated, and wasteful of licence fee payers’ money. At Hussey’s request, Birt set about reforming the BBC’s news operations and imposing tighter budgetary and editorial controls on the Television Current Affairs Unit. For the first time, a single set of comprehensive BBC editorial guidelines was compiled. Birt claimed that these reforms would free journalists to pursue more imaginative, analytical, and well-­informed lines of enquiry. However, some argued that the result was the muzzling of journalists, with managers intervening to delay or prevent the broadcasting of stories likely to arouse government hostility. A notable example was the 1991 Panorama ‘supergun’ story, which examined claims that Britain had supplied the Iraqi military with a powerful artillery piece. With British soldiers engaging in the First Gulf War, senior managers judged that this was not a desirable story to tell. BBC journalists also continued to be hobbled in their coverage of the Troubles, although this owed more to direct government restrictions than to management interference. Government intervention reached a bizarre climax in the ‘broadcast ban’ imposed between 1988 and 1994. This was applied to any

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

213

or­gan­iza­tion potentially linked to terrorism, but primarily affected the Irish republican party Sinn Fein, which was widely believed to be the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. Broadcasters were prevented from using the voices of Sinn Fein speakers, including elected members of parliament. Their words were instead read by actors and dubbed over the television footage.The results were strange, counterproductive, and in the eyes of some an affront to independent journalism and political liberty. To continue the reform of the BBC, Hussey meanwhile pressed Checkland to make further staffing cuts (7,000 jobs were duly elim­ in­ated between 1986 and 1990) and to increase commercial revenues to help make up for the licence fee freeze. Unintentionally, this opened the Corporation up to a different line of criticism: it could now be accused of unfairly competing with and crowding out private enterprise, a charge that had periodically been levelled against it since the 1920s. The BBC’s practice of promoting its own magazines on-­air, while refusing to advertise rival publications, earned it a reprimand from the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. In a further blow to the BBC’s commercial ambitions, in 1991 the Radio Times was stripped of its monopoly on the printing of weekly BBC radio and television schedules. The Radio Times now had to compete with the TV Times, and with weekend newspapers which began to publish listings in special supplements. Its circulation began to fall.

Birt’s choice Conservative hostility to the BBC reflected a deep-­rooted conviction that the Corporation was inherently left-­wing. In February 1990, the outspoken Thatcher loyalist MP Norman Tebbitt claimed that ‘The word “conservative” is used by the BBC as a portmanteau word of abuse for anyone whose views differ from the insufferable, smug, sanctimonious, naive, guilt-­ridden, wet, pink orthodoxy of that sunset home of the third-­rate minds of that third-­rate decade, the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

214

T h is is t h e BBC

nineteen-­sixties’.14 Later that year the government reduced the value of the licence fee to the BBC by 3 per cent, as an encouragement to con­ tinued reform, and transferred responsibility for licence fee ­collection from the Post Office to the BBC itself. Birt enthusiastically set about cracking down on evasion and reducing the costs of administering the system. The 1990 Broadcasting Act provided for the creation of a fifth commercial terrestrial television network (not actually established until 1997) and, more importantly, obliged the BBC and ITV henceforth to commission a quarter of all their programming from independent production companies. That year a separate Radio Broadcasting Act also authorized the introduction of commercial national networked radio. Classic FM was duly established in 1992, mainly playing recordings of accessible classical music introduced by friendly presenters.This posed a major threat to Radio 3, with its con­ tinued commitment to expensive live music, reputation for presenting difficult content in an aloof manner, and small audience. Radio 1 meanwhile faced new competition from Virgin 1215, which broadcast popular, middle-­of-­the-­road pop and rock music and employed big-­ name DJs, including some former BBC presenters. In response, the BBC sought to rebrand Radio 1 for a younger audience, and to move the network’s older listeners over to an updated Radio 2. In 1993, Radio 2 launched a new breakfast show, Wake Up To Wogan, which soon attracted a daily audience of up to eight million. DJs and presenters including Steve Wright, Jonathan Ross, Mark Lamarr, Paul Jones, and Bob Harris were moved from Radio 1 to Radio 2, which became the BBC’s most popular radio station. The Corporation also sought to fend off further commercial competition by introducing Radio 5 Live, a continuous service of news and sport. Attempting to pre-­empt further attacks on BBC funding, senior managers undertook further voluntary reforms.The new legal obligation to buy programmes from the private sector allowed Hussey to demand additional massive cuts to staffing and production facilities. Birt, who had already gained a reputation as the most hated man in

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

215

British broadcasting, developed a new policy to achieve these savings, ‘Producer Choice’. The BBC would be divided up into almost five hundred ‘business units’, each with its own business plan, and all trading with one another. Those who commissioned programmes would be able to buy content and services either from independent production companies or from BBC departments. The latter would have to compete for work not only with each other but also with the independents. The Corporation’s own production facilities would need to operate on a competitive basis or go to the wall. Birt presented his reforms as being about freedom and choice, a means to promote cre­ativ­ity while cutting costs.The invisible hand of competition would, he claimed, bring only benefits. Producer Choice came into effect in April 1993: a few months earl­ier, Birt had replaced Checkland (who had fallen out of favour with Hussey for not cutting fast and hard enough) as director general, after a long period as his named successor. Birt claimed that Producer Choice reduced the cost of making programmes by up to 50 per cent, allowing the BBC to improve the scope and quality of its output despite declining licence fee revenue. However, Birt’s critics thought Producer Choice destructive and nonsensical.The BBC in effect paid twice-­over for production facilities, paying market rates to private suppliers while also spending money to maintain its own facilities that went unused. On paper, the cost of making an individual programme might be lower, but overall BBC expenditure increased, at least until in-­house facilities could be axed. Producer Choice was clearly about cutting back operations and letting staff go, with political imperatives in mind. It chimed with wider government policies of creating in­tern­al markets in the public sector, for example in the National Health Service. Birt actively courted first Thatcher, then John Major (who succeeded her in 1990) and, from 1997, the ‘New Labour’ prime minister Tony Blair. Later, after leaving the BBC, Birt would become a senior adviser to Blair’s government. At the BBC, Birt hired expensive external consultants and business advisers to recommend further changes in management and policy

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

216

T h is is t h e BBC

and found news ways to introduce internal markets. He also appointed highly paid senior managers from the private sector and sought to entrench a new organizational division between ‘broadcast’ and ‘production’ directorates (which many thought artificial and cumbersome). The old baronies of the BBC began to crumble. During the 1990s, over 10,000 staff left the BBC or were made redundant, as jobs were effectively outsourced to private contractors. Many former BBC staff were henceforth paid as freelancers. Some senior executives in the new production companies, and some on-­screen stars, were able to earn a lot more money, but many experienced deteriorating terms and conditions of employment. Some of the independent production companies, which were meant to be beneficiaries of these changes, meanwhile complained of their unequal working relationship with the BBC. As the biggest commissioner of programmes in the country, the Corporation had the power to dictate the terms of contracts. It hoovered up the lucrative exploitation rights on secondary programme sales and merchandizing. Questions were also asked about the ethics of opaque, behind-­the-­scenes deals between BBC commissioners and independent producers. Some commissioners left the BBC to accept lucrative job offers from production companies.Were rewards being offered for services rendered in the past or promised in the future? Internal markets inevitably produced new forms of inequality, with greater rewards for the few and precarious employment for the many.

Intensifying competition, extending choice Birt and other senior BBC managers deemed cost savings and the development of commercial revenues crucial in the early 1990s because, with the freeze on the licence fee still in place, the BBC simply did not have enough money to make programmes. By 1991, thirty per cent of broadcast hours on the two BBC television networks were filled with repeats of programmes which had already been shown at

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

217

least once before. That summer, BBC1’s Sunday evening schedule included no new drama or comedy. This contrasted with ITV’s line up, which included plenty of new, high-­quality, popular programming, funded by buoyant advertising revenues. During the 1990s, the threat posed by ITV abated, as advertisers began to shift their expenditure away from commercial terrestrial tele­vi­sion and towards new media. However, for the BBC, competition now came from a new source. Continuing Thatcher’s work, John Major’s Conservative government supported the further deregulation of commercial broadcasting. In some ways this seemed a democratic move, potentially boosting media plurality. However, in practice, the government’s desire to strengthen UK media conglomerates and thus (it was hoped) boost global export revenues meant that deregulation took the form of the removal of barriers to media cross-­ownership. This allowed Rupert Murdoch’s multinational media empire to become an even more powerful presence in the UK and to develop its own satellite broadcast division, Sky. This absorbed its competitor, British Satellite Broadcasting, in 1990 to become BSkyB. Murdoch established Sky News in 1989 as a rival to the BBC’s news operations, and to provide an alternative for viewers who disliked the public broadcaster and suspected it of political bias. More worryingly for the BBC, Sky Sports began broadcasting in 1991 and began to spend heavily to secure exclusive television rights to major sporting events. This played a significant role in the establishment of Premier League soccer. After dominating sports coverage for so long, the BBC and ITV were relegated to a marginal position. The cost of television rights for major events soared by up to 30 per cent in a single year. Sports programmes had traditionally been cheap television, but they now became one of the most expensive forms of output. In 1987, 64 per cent of all hours of televised sport were broadcast by the BBC. A decade later, that figure had fallen to a mere 9 per cent. Terrestrial television viewers were denied access to many major sporting events, and in 1998 the government had to step in with a list of protected events which had to be made available on free-­to-­air channels.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

218

T h is is t h e BBC

The world of professional sport was, in turn, transformed and distorted by the huge television revenues now associated with certain sports, events, and teams, and by the reduced funds available to others. This outcome seemed a clear demonstration of the continued case for regarding broadcasting as a public utility predicated on the principle of universal access. Nevertheless, many consumers proved willing to make substantial subscription payments for satellite sports coverage, while complaining vociferously about the cost of the BBC licence fee.The latter was a modest outlay for households in comparison with satellite subscription charges and was used to fund a whole range of services that satellite broadcasters did not have to provide and did not view as profitable. Nevertheless, public opposition to the licence fee intensified. After 1997, New Labour continued to deregulate broadcasting and actively courted Murdoch, hoping to win favourable treatment from his various channels and publications. Murdoch meanwhile used his media outlets (including The Times) to encourage vocal criticism of the basic idea of public broadcasting, arguing that the BBC represented an unfair and unnecessary source of competition that stifled private enterprise. Those on the libertarian right wing of British pol­ it­ics similarly hoped that scandals about BBC spending and editorial failures would undermine public broadcasting, and perhaps ultimately contribute to its extinction. In addition to realizing efficiency savings through Producer Choice, in the early 1990s the BBC sought to work within its revenue constraints by focusing on certain core activities. A 1992 policy document, Extending Choice, proposed concentrating resources in several key areas. The title was somewhat perverse: viewers, the document proposed, would in the future be offered more choice by a wider range of different providers but would receive a more restricted programme offering from the BBC. The Corporation’s aim would be to offer ‘high-­quality’ programming for everyone, focusing on areas that were poorly served by commercial broadcasters. News and current affairs, British-­made entertainment, specialist programming with an

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

219

educative purpose, and outward-­looking programmes aiming to project Britain to a wider world, would all be key areas for BBC activity. The Corporation would meanwhile ‘withdraw from programme areas or types in which it is no longer able or needed to make an original contribution’, although it would continue to make popular entertainment programmes. The latter would need to be ‘services of distinction and high quality’ rather than a means for ‘attracting a large audience for its own sake’.15 Much of this seemed a bland restatement of traditional priorities, compiled by committee (at least one employee returned the document to management, marked ‘Unsolicited Junk Mail’), but at the very least it signalled that further programming and staffing cuts were on the cards. Extending Choice emphasized drama and comedy as crucial to the BBC’s role in producing original British content, and during the early 1990s money saved in other areas was diverted into both these genres of programming.The results were mixed. BBC1 struggled to commission popular series that could form a centrepiece for its television schedules year on year. Facing falling ratings, Wogan was dropped, and replaced with the ill-­fated soap Eldorado (1992–93). Following the lives of British ex-­pats in a fictional Spanish setting, this was made in conjunction with Verity Lambert’s independent production company as a British answer to imported, glossy, and glamorous US and Australian soaps. It was heavily promoted before it was launched, and a set was purpose-­built in Spain. However, the series was criticized for its extravagant costs (despite the supposed efficiencies brought by new BBC financial management systems), sleazy tone, and poor scripting, acting, and production. It was then cancelled. In order to keep up with the soaps offered by rival broadcasters, the pace of production at Eastenders was ramped up to allow thrice weekly scheduling. Casualty was also renewed, and more episodes were commissioned in each series in an attempt to compete with ITV’s popular police drama The Bill. Some of the successful, mainstream popular dramas broadcast on BBC1 in this period included Lovejoy, revived between 1991 and 1994

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

220

T h is is t h e BBC

after an earlier series in 1986, and The House of Eliott, which ran over the same period and cast female actors in strong leading roles. Silent Witness began broadcasting on BBC1 in 1996 and became a long-­ running staple of the network’s schedules. As part of the continuing regionalization of television production, BBC1 also commissioned Hamish Macbeth (1995–97) from BBC Scotland and Ballykissangel (1996–2001) from BBC Northern Ireland (together caricatured as the ‘Sunday night Celts-­in-­the-­countryside tradition’).16 An edgier approach to drama, competing with the sorts of shows being produced by and imported from the US networks, was BBC2’s This Life (1996–97), which offered a no-­holds-­barred look at the life of twentysomethings in London. Following the demise of the single drama, ‘serious’ productions took a back seat. Nevertheless, the BBC had significant critical successes with Peter Flannery’s Our Friends in the North (BBC2, 1996), a ‘brilliant throwback’ to the traditions of the television plays of the 1960s and 1970s, and Jimmy McGovern’s The Lakes (BBC1, 1997–99).17 The BBC also produced a string of period costume dramas, literary adaptions that employed cinema-­ style production techniques and plenty of location shooting, including Middlemarch (1994), Martin Chuzzlewit (1994), Pride and Prejudice (1995), Our Mutual Friend (1998), and Vanity Fair (1998). Such series ticked all the boxes: they fulfilled the BBC’s public purpose by delivering high-­quality British drama, drew on and popularized British cultural masterpieces, and educated while entertaining. Period drama could attract significant domestic audiences. However, from the BBC’s point of view, their main purpose was arguably to generate export revenues. They sold well in overseas markets, notably the US, which is why the BBC could afford to lavish resources upon them. The growing drive to maximize commercial export revenues thus increasingly determined what sorts of programmes viewers in the UK were offered. The BBC comedies of the 1990s were less nostalgic than their predecessors. One Foot in the Grave (1990–2000) tended to shun sentiment in favour of focusing on the trials and tribulations of a

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

221

grumpy old man, Victor Meldrew, a career-­defining role for Richard Wilson. BBC radio meanwhile continued to provide a laboratory for new comedy talents and approaches, in which experiments could safely be conducted without hazarding the enormous expenditure associated with television. Some of BBC’s most successful comedies of the period started on radio before making the leap to television. The Mary Whitehouse Experience was broadcast on Radio 1 (1989–90) before moving to BBC2 (1990–92); its observational humour and sketches launched the careers of David Baddiel, Rob Newman, Steve Punt, and Hugh Dennis. Steve Coogan’s spoof chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge (BBC2, 1994–95) was based on a character he developed for Radio 4’s On the Hour (1991–92), a show which also spawned Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris’s parody current affairs programme The Day Today (BBC2, 1994). The BBC also finally managed to replicate the success of Radio 4’s News Quiz with the tele­vi­sion satire show Have I Got News forYou (1990–present). However, it did not manage to retain all its successful radio comedies: Whose Line is it Anyway? started life on Radio 4 in 1988, but then moved to Channel 4 television, where it ran for over a decade. By the mid-­1990s, the gap between BBC and ITV viewing figures had largely been eliminated, partly because of the BBC’s new, more focused approach to making and commissioning original programming, but also because of problems faced by the commercial broadcaster, as advertising revenues declined in a rapidly changing media marketplace. Other shows that helped the BBC compete included some straight-­up crowd-­pleasers, such as Noel Edmonds’ live Saturday extravaganza, Noel’s House Party (1991–2000). Others had an informational, public service flavour, including two long-­running series that had been established in the 1980s, Watchdog and Crimewatch UK. Other new ‘reality’ shows also had an informative, educative mission, catering to new trends in home improvement and growing popular interest in interior design. Shows like Changing Rooms (1996–2004) and Ground Force (1997–2005) initially seemed like a plausible extension of the BBC’s public service remit. However, because they were relatively

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

222

T h is is t h e BBC

inexpensive to produce, a flood of similar makeover shows, usually made as cheaply as possible by independent production companies, soon filled daytime schedules. They contributed to a sense that, although BBC1 (rebranded as BBC One in 1997, with an equivalent name change for BBC Two) had succeeded in competing with ITV, it had done so at the expense of its distinctiveness as a public broadcasting network. Extending Choice had identified the broadcasting of diversity as one of the BBC’s ‘public purposes’. During the 1990s, the BBC put more women on-­air in high-­profile roles, including new Radio 1 DJs like Jo Whiley, Zoe Ball, and Sara Cox, and new television sports presenters such as Sue Barker and Clare Balding. In factual programming, Sister Wendy Beckett made an unusually popular, and idiosyncratic, series of art history documentaries. Women played a key role in the major comedy shows of the decade, including the sit-­com Birds of a Feather (1989–98), starring Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson, and Lesley Joseph, and Caroline Aherne’s The Mrs Merton Show (1993–98) and The Royle Family (1998–2000). French and Saunders moved from BBC2 to a prime slot on BBC1 in 1994. The show ran until 2005, with a significantly increased budget which allowed writers and producers to deploy a wide range of visual gags, spoofs, and satire. Saunders subsequently headlined the BBC’s comedy offering with Absolutely Fabulous (1992–96 and 2001–04), with Joanna Lumley, while French went on to make The Vicar of Dibley (1994–2007, subsequently revived in various formats). At the same time, while inequalities clearly remained, more women reached senior positions in BBC management: in 1999 Jane Root became the first female head of a BBC television channel when she was appointed controller of BBC Two. To present a case for the distinctive contribution being made by public broadcasting, the BBC also continued explicitly to serve a wide range of communities. People of colour starred in several new comedy series, aimed at Black and Asian audiences, but also at the country as a whole: notable successes included The Real McCoy (1991–96) and, finding an even wider audience, Goodness Gracious Me (1998–2001,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

223

with an earlier Radio 4 incarnation in 1996), which helped establish the careers of Meera Syall, Nina Wadia, Sanjeev Bhaskar, and Kulvinder Ghir. Goodness Gracious Me sent up Asians in Britain, particular the generation gap between those who had migrated to the UK and those who had been born there. It also took a swipe at white British culture, including the famous ‘Going for an English’ sketch (‘Waiter, bring me your very blandest dish. Yes of course I know what I am ordering!’). Bhaskar argued that the show used stereotypes to challenge rather than reinforce prejudices. ‘Racial stereotypes replace the true, complicated image of a nation with something much narrower. I think that we are actually adding to our audience’s perceptions of Asian culture.’18 Although openly gay people remained underrepresented on British screens, during the 1990s the BBC did also start to produce television programmes aimed explicitly at queer audiences, albeit late at night and on BBC2, with Gaytime TV (1995–2000). Channel 4 had produced its own Out on Tuesday six years earlier, initially provoking significant hostility from the press, and pioneering programmes specifically aimed at gay listeners had also been introduced on Radio 1 and Radio 5 Live. Gaytime TV was intended as much as a lifestyle programme as a forum for discussing social and personal issues, and it set time aside for entertainment and fun: Martina Navratilova appeared on one episode of the show to autograph a pair of Bjorn Borg underpants worn by the presenter, the comedian Rhona Cameron. The aim was to attract as wide an audience as possible, including straight viewers. Rejecting the earnestness of its predecessor, Out on Tuesday, it was ‘remarkably self-­confident, endearingly smutty and celebratory’: one critic thought that ‘in a sexually repressed, often joyless culture’, British television needed ‘more of this kind of programming, with its cheerful sauciness’.19 Extending Choice had identified independent, critical journalism as another ‘public purpose’ that could justify the continued existence of public broadcasting, and it remained a central commitment for the BBC in the 1990s. Here, the Corporation was able to take advantage of the weakening of other outlets for journalism. During the later

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

224

T h is is t h e BBC

1990s, the companies that held the different ITV regional franchises began to merge and rationalize their operations. Independent Television News, which for over thirty years had been a major competitor for the BBC’s television news operation, was starved of resources and entered a period of decline. Channel 4 News stepped into the gap to some extent, but its audience remained relatively small. Print journalism also suffered a massive stripping out of journalistic capacity during this period, as large media conglomerates sought to maximize profits by cutting costs. The BBC could now present itself as one of the few remaining homes for critical investigative journalism. As well as strengthening its news operation, the BBC seized opportunities to provide expanded arenas for debate about politics, providing a public service to Westminster and to democracy. Moving away from an older emphasis on objective, factual reporting, BBC cor­res­ pond­ents became commentators, providing editorial content as well as factual reporting. They claimed to offer the inside story on current affairs. This attention flattered politicians and gave them new opportunities to engage with the public. Yet it also made the BBC more vulnerable.The more it focused on journalism and political comment, the more it provoked the ire of the political parties, which remained sensitive to any hint of bias against them. Politicians who were denied the coverage they thought they were due, or who suffered from it, bore grudges. The aggressive style of BBC political journalism could lose the corporation friends: in an interview during the 1997 election campaign, Jeremy Paxman famously asked Michael Howard the same question twelve consecutive times, searching in vain for a direct answer. With its focus on UK national politics the BBC also became increasingly vulnerable to criticism from Scottish and Welsh nationalists, who argued that the Corporation was too closely identified with the Union. As the Blair government pushed ahead with the devolution of some government functions to Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish assemblies, the BBC was left dangerously exposed. It did increase the regional production of television, mandating in 1993 that a third of programme output had to come from regional centres. However,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

225

Birt remained fiercely opposed to any attempt to break the BBC up into separate broadcasting authorities to match the increasingly devolved nature of the UK. In 1998, he successfully resisted moves to allow a Scottish opt-­out from BBC One’s Six O’Clock News, arguing that this would undermine the sense of a national community. Whether digging in its heels would work in the long term was another matter.

Selling Britain During the 1980s, the BBC’s crucial role projecting British culture and influence overseas perhaps made the Thatcher government pause before pushing for an even more extreme reform of British broadcasting. Much of Britain’s influence and persuasiveness in the sphere of international broadcasting derived from the goodwill the BBC had built up over previous decades, and from its status not just as the voice of Britain overseas, but as the country’s domestic broadcaster. Any break-­up of the Corporation would have endangered this important Cold War weapon. In 1982, BBC External Services claimed an overseas audience of 100 million. Two-­ thirds of listeners used BBC foreign-­ language services, with the rest tuning into the English-­ language World Service. In 1984, External Services broadcast for 721 hours weekly, in English and thirty-­six other languages, although as funding continued to be squeezed it fell further and further behind international broadcasters based in the US, USSR, and China, and even West Germany, in terms of broadcast hours at least. In 1988, External Services, including all the foreign-­language services, was renamed the BBC World Service, making better use of a valuable, internationally recognized British brand. From the mid-­1980s, in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, the USSR pursued new policies of glasnost (openness and transparency) and perestroika (reform and reconstruction) under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev. This allowed the BBC to operate across the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

226

T h is is t h e BBC

Eastern bloc in a much less hostile climate, with Soviet jamming of the BBC Russian Service ending in 1987.Two years later BBC cor­res­ pond­ents were on the spot to cover the collapse of communism across Central and Eastern Europe. Former dissidents now entered government, and many of them credited the BBC’s External Services with a significant role in the maintenance of resistance to communism during the Cold War years. When an attempted coup took place in the USSR in 1991, aimed at maintaining communist rule, Gorbachev was imprisoned at his Crimean dacha. He kept up with events in Moscow by listening to the BBC short-­wave World Service. Afterwards he personally thanked the BBC correspondent Bridget Kendall for her role in covering the failed rebellion. Events in the former Eastern bloc between 1989 and 1991 marked a period of triumph for the World Service. However, with the Cold War apparently over, the future role of BBC international broadcasting was suddenly in doubt. Why should the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) continue to provide the BBC with a grant-­in-­aid after the so-­called ‘end of history’, when challenges to Western hegemony and interests seemed to have disappeared? Across the former Eastern bloc, audiences for the World Service rapidly declined as listeners and viewers turned instead to their liberated post-­communist domestic media (which were established with the help of the BBC and other Western advisers). Nevertheless, those running the World Service argued that there was still plenty of work to do. Publicly the BBC had always claimed that it was not directly engaged in fighting the Cold War. Rather, it presented itself as committed to the high-­minded work of disseminating truthful and ac­cur­ ate news and information, serving British interests only indirectly by promoting knowledge and freedom. In the 1990s, it would continue to make this case, presenting itself as a benevolent internationalist service to humanity, described by the secretary-­general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, as ‘perhaps Britain’s greatest gift to the world this century’.20 More pragmatically, to ensure that UK state funding continued, the World Service worked closely with British civil servants to advise on

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

227

projects to support independent media in other countries, as well as more general community building and development initiatives across the former Soviet bloc and in the Global South. It also branched out into television. To compete with the US 24-­hour television news service CNN, in 1991 the BBC launched its own satellite television channel. BBC World Service Television went on-­air shortly after the end of the First Gulf War and was relaunched in 1995 as BBC World News. In 1994, a BBC Arabic Television service was also established, in partnership with a commercial company owned by the Saudi Arabian royal family. However, this experiment collapsed in acrimony after only two years, due to Saudi displeasure with the BBC’s coverage of the country’s affairs. This proved a significant own goal for the BBC. Many of the service’s staff were subsequently involved in setting up the Qatari government’s Al Jazeera Arabic television news channel, which would become a formidable rival for the BBC in the Middle East. Despite these attempts to find new roles, the FCO grant-­in-­aid was progressively cut as the usefulness of the World Service as a means to serve British foreign policy goals declined. The resolutely non-­ commercial World Service, state funded and accustomed to providing programmes to listeners who were never asked to pay for them, was also clearly out of step with Birt’s BBC. It worked on a model that had little to do with markets. Unsurprisingly, Birt was perceived as lukewarm towards the World Service, even hostile. In his memoirs, he (unfairly) described it as ‘a broadcasting service preserved in aspic, speaking with the plummy tones of a Britain that scarcely existed any longer’.21 Seeking to open up Bush House to the purgative influence of competition, Birt attempted to extend Producer Choice to the World Service’s English-­language operations. Senior World Service managers past and present (notably John Tusa) rallied opposition and supported a ‘Save the World Service’ campaign. The FCO, which Birt had neglected to consult, was irritated by the resultant media fallout. Nevertheless, Birt ultimately won the battle, and over the years that followed the World Service would become more closely integrated with the BBC’s domestic news operations and internal markets.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

228

T h is is t h e BBC

This was clearly part of a wider change in terms of the BBC’s international role, reflecting a new drive to sell various forms of factual and entertainment content in a global media marketplace. The BBC promised to use its strong position as a licence fee-­funded UK programme producer and commissioner to spearhead a wider British media export drive. It would work with independent producers to generate increased profits for British business and soft power for the nation. This would, it was argued, be a virtuous circle. Export rev­ enues would help fund even more programme production, providing public service broadcasting at home at a lower cost, and generating additional content for export. The Major government was receptive to this new approach, which was clearly designed to strengthen official support for the Corporation’s work. Subsequently, the BBC also persuaded Tony Blair’s government that the Corporation could act as the anchor for the creative division of ‘UK Plc.’ and promote the soft power of New Labour’s ‘Cool Britannia’. In 1994, BBC Enterprises was rebranded as BBC Worldwide and launched a massive revenue-­raising drive. BBC Prime was established in 1995 as a complement to BBC World News and provided overseas satellite television subscribers (mainly in Europe, Africa, and Asia) with British light entertainment programming. Subsequently, a partnership was also established with the US company Discovery Communications Inc. to sell factual programmes overseas and to establish new channels in foreign markets. Co-­productions with US public broadcasting stations were a casualty of this new deal: the BBC’s new partners demanded exclusivity. The BBC America satellite and cable channel went on-­air in 1998, offering US subscribers direct access to a range of BBC programmes. BBC World News, BBC Prime, and BBC America all generated additional revenue for the Corporation by selling on-­air advertising time. These new departures begged some questions. If the BBC ­concentrated on global export markets, could it also continue to discharge its traditional mission of providing UK audiences with distinctively British content? If it chased dollars, could it continue to

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

229

protect and promote British culture and build national identity? Programmes designed to reinforce British cultural traditions, or to encourage British performers and artists to undertake difficult and challenging work, were unlikely to sell well overseas. During the later 1990s, shifts in the global media landscape also made it more difficult to present the BBC’s support for independent production companies as a contribution to the UK creative economy.This was because many of those companies were absorbed into large multinational media conglomerates, which focused on selling profitable light entertainment ‘formats’ bland enough to have global appeal.They arguably had little interest in delivering distinctively British programming.

Going digital The BBC was not a happy place in the 1990s, and Birt’s critics were legion.They portrayed him as ignorant of and insensitive to the traditions of the Corporation, and as a cold, uncharismatic, egotistical figure, increasingly remote even from other senior managers. The playwright Dennis Potter likened him to a Dalek. Even the working relationship between Hussey and Birt foundered. Each claimed the lion’s share of credit for defusing government hostility towards the BBC and for achieving, in 1997, charter renewal and the first increase in the licence fee for thirteen years. In reality, the extent of the BBC’s transformation during the 1990s went beyond the achievements or ego of any one individual. In 1997, in a further act of privatization, the BBC sold off its transmitter infrastructure to Castle Transmission Services for £244 million. Birt viewed this as a windfall, divesting the Corporation of ­soon-­to-­be-­obsolete assets and providing funding for the transition to digital terrestrial television and radio broadcasting. However, others saw it as an example of selling off the UK’s ‘family silver’, part of a wider process by which undervalued public assets were transferred into private hands, often to be purchased by foreign or multinational

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

230

T h is is t h e BBC

companies.The BBC, and thus ultimately the licence fee payer, would henceforth need to pay a profit-­making company to transmit BBC television and radio programmes. The sale also meant that the BBC lost a significant proportion of its engineering operations, shedding staff and further focusing its operations on making, commissioning, and selling programmes and exploiting content to generate the maximum possible revenue. The need to find resources to fund the switch to digital broadcasting was pressing by the late 1990s. Digital technologies promised eventually to transform almost every aspect of the BBC’s work, offering the prospect of the multiplication of channels and media, more choice for audiences, better sound and picture transmission quality, on-­demand access to content, and opportunities to consume programming and information on the move. Senior managers recognized that they would need to take the initiative to avoid being left behind.They also saw the digital switchover as another way to persuade the government of the continued relevance of public service broadcasting: the BBC could exert leadership by taking responsibility for managing the transition. The BBC made a key early move in this direction when, in 1994, it launched its ‘bbc.co.uk’ website, soon home to a rapidly expanding portfolio of information and interactive content, including BBC News Online. The website operation was permanently authorized in 1998, and quickly became one of the largest and most visited websites in Europe. In 1995, the BBC also launched digital audio broadcasting (DAB) services for all five of its radio networks. This provided key support for the rollout of digital radio in the UK. Uptake of cable and satellite television had increased significantly in the UK during the 1990s, reaching some 7.5 million households by the end of the decade.The BBC lobbied hard to ensure that its stations were available on cable and satellite systems. In the late 1990s, it also offered cable and satellite subscribers three new digital channels. BBC News 24 began broadcasting in 1997, a round-­the-­clock rolling news service. It was also made available on BBC One after the network’s main programmes had finished for the night. BBC ­

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

231

Choice focused on entertainment, while BBC Parliament provided coverage of debates at Westminster. Both began broadcasting in 1998. That same year all BBC television channels were also made available to viewers using the UK’s new digital television transmission (DTT) service, established as a joint venture by some of the ITV franchise companies. Households required an ‘ONdigital’ set-­ top box to decode the DTT signal. In 1999, another new digital channel was introduced, BBC Knowledge, focusing on educational programmes. Cable, satellite, and DTT also provided the BBC with new opportunities to generate domestic commercial revenues. BBC Worldwide took the lead and developed new partnerships with other commercial broadcasting companies. In 1995, a joint venture with Flextech Television placed BBC programmes on new commercial cable and satellite channels under the UKTV brand. This had originally been established in 1992 as a joint venture between the BBC and the commercial broadcaster Thames Television, which had launched UK Gold as a pay-­TV service, focusing on light entertainment. In 1997, three other channels were added: UK Horizons (documentaries); UK Style (cookery, gardening, and lifestyle programmes); and UK Arena (film, drama, and the arts). Effectively, this was a means to use content that had already been funded by the licence fee payer to generate add­ ition­al revenues from subscribers and advertisers, without opening the BBC’s own channels to sponsorship. It provided revenue to make more programmes, allowing BBC One and BBC Two to screen fresh material while the repeats aired (and made money) on UKTV channels. Working through its subsidiary companies, the BBC was thus by the end of the decade, at home and overseas, fully engaged in commercial broadcasting.

Conclusions The transformations which overtook the BBC during the 1980s and 1990s were profound, but often hard to spot on the surface. John Birt’s

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

232

T h is is t h e BBC

remuneration arrangements and tax deductible Armani suits made the newspaper headlines, fuelling wider criticism of BBC profligacy and hypocrisy. Yet few UK listeners and viewers were overly bothered about Producer Choice, and even fewer knew of the existence of BBC Worldwide, BBC Prime, or BBC America (although many of the Corporation’s own staff were worried about what these initiatives augured for the future). Few viewers would have paid much attention to the credits of BBC programmes which showed that they had in fact been made by UK or foreign-­owned independent production companies. Few would have remarked on the fact that the commercial broadcaster UKTV was part owned by the BBC. Few households invested in the set-­top boxes required to watch the new DTT service, or in the DAB sets needed to pick up digital radio, although many had started to turn to bbc.co.uk as a crucial source of information on the Internet. The BBC’s free-­to-­access website also attracted users around the world. For the Corporation’s global audiences, the rapid reorientation and commercialization of the BBC’s overseas broadcast services was probably more obvious than changes in UK broadcasting were to domestic viewers and listeners. The World Service continued to provide radio programmes in English and in a number of foreign languages, free of charge to listeners. However, foreign-­language radio services were clearly being cut back, and the World Service’s new television operations operated on a subscription basis and focused less on information and education, and more on marketable entertainment. The BBC of the 1980s and 1990s was arguably more deferential to government. It was cowed into submission by an interventionist board of governors and a senior management willing and sometimes eager to anticipate state pressure by enacting market reforms and imposing stricter editorial guidelines that kept controversial current affairs programmes off-­air. At the same time, in order to retain an audience and thus ultimately to safeguard its own existence, the BBC successfully reoriented itself to seem less middle class, male, white, and straight.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



On t h e m a r k et, 1980 –1999

233

It looked and sounded less like the voice of a cultural and socio-­ economic elite. As part of this latter change, Birt also believed that he had ended the venerable, symbiotic relationship between the BBC and the British monarchy. On 5 November 1995, with the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in jeopardy, and following an interview given by Charles on ITV earlier that year, the BBC screened a long interview with Diana. This allowed her to present her views direct to the public and to launch a blistering attack on both the institution of the monarchy and individual members of the royal family. The interview was secured by the BBC journalist Martin Bashir. Birt, along with Tony Hall, managing director of news and current affairs, arranged for it to be scheduled without giving Buckingham Palace the customary advance notice of a programme dealing with the monarchy. Birt also concealed the interview from the BBC chairman: Hussey’s wife was a royal lady-­in-­waiting and Birt feared a leak. The two men had already fallen out, and an enraged Hussey sought Birt’s dismissal. However, the interview was an enormous success with viewers. In the UK, 23 million people watched it, as did millions more around the world. Bashir won praise and awards for his coup. When Hussey’s attempt to oust Birt failed, the chairman himself resigned. The interview certainly seemed to signal a change in the BBC’s relationship with the monarchy. The Corporation had traditionally produced the Queen’s televised Royal Christmas Message, but after the interview that privilege was pointedly withdrawn and instead granted to ITN for a three-­year period. Allegations meanwhile surfaced that Bashir had secured the interview with Diana through deception. These claims were dismissed after an internal review headed by Hall, though they would later resurface to destroy Bashir’s reputation and damage that of both Birt and Hall. However, it would be wrong to accept Birt’s claim that the Diana interview ended the BBC’s traditional deference to royalty.The interview was part of a chain of events that culminated in Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris, in the early hours of the morning of 31 August

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

234

T h is is t h e BBC

1997, as her driver attempted to escape the paparazzi. The UK tabloid press switched, overnight, from vilifying Diana for her affair with Dodi Al-­Fayed to catalysing an unprecedented public outpouring of grief and mourning. This was accompanied by anger against the royal family for its treatment of Diana. A televised address by the Queen, broadcast the night before Diana’s funeral, did little to defuse this hostility. The funeral itself proved the greatest media event since Charles and Diana’s wedding, sixteen years earlier, and the BBC was again fully involved in bringing it to the nation and the world. BBC One’s coverage of the day’s events started at 6.30 a.m. with a Newsround special for children. Newsround was repeated at 9 a.m. on BBC Two, with both BBC television channels then providing a simultaneous broadcast of the funeral from 9.30 a.m. David Dimbleby presented the television coverage of the funeral procession and of the ceremony itself, his presence echoing the role played by his father on similar historic occasions in the past.Tom Fleming, who had been part of the commentary team for the wedding of Charles and Diana, also helped cover the funeral. Continuously until 6 p.m. that evening, BBC television coverage followed the coffin on its journey to its final resting place at Althorp House, Northampton. At 10 p.m. a special tribute programme was broadcast on BBC One, Farewell to the People’s Princess. Throughout the day the BBC also provided live radio coverage across its five national networks. It subsequently received numerous complaints that it had provided too much coverage, but the viewing figures spoke for themselves: the combined British television audience reached 32.1 million, a viewing figure probably only exceeded by the 1966 soccer World Cup. The global audience was estimated at 2.5 billion people. Despite all the challenges and changes of the previous two decades, and the ambition of some staff to move away from the Corporation’s traditional, deferential approach, the BBC clearly retained its status as the great national and international purveyor of royal media events, and the voice of the Establishment.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

7 At risk, 2000–2022

A

s the BBC entered the twenty-­ first century, it occupied a stronger position than at any time since the early 1970s. Sweeping internal reforms seemed to have defused much of the hostility that had been aimed at the Corporation over the previous decades, and to have allowed the BBC to focus its revenues on producing original and popular programming. It had eliminated ITV’s ratings lead and faced diminishing competition from its long-­term rival: advertising revenue was now spread much more thinly among commercial broadcasters, reducing their capacity to make attractive content. Airtime on commercial television was increasingly dominated by repeats, imports, and a repetitive diet of cheaply made reality shows and home makeover programmes. In contrast, the BBC had won a relatively generous licence fee settlement in 1997 and was generating substantial commercial revenues in the UK and globally. By 2003, the Corporation employed 27,000 people, had an annual budget of £2.7 billion, owned lucrative commercial broadcasting subsidiaries, and had launched a wide range of ambitious new digital services to meet the demands of broadcasting in the new century. In 2005, in an optimistic statement about the future, the BBC unveiled a renovated Broadcasting House, which would act as a consolidated home for its previously dispersed London operations. The old building, which had opened in the 1930s, was extensively modernized (although perhaps post-­modernized would be a more

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

236

T h is is t h e BBC

ac­cur­ate description) and an entirely new wing was added. Thus refreshed, the site again became an expression of the Corporation’s aspirations to stand at the cutting edge.Yet it also consciously harked back to the BBC’s heritage. The decorative external features of the 1930s building were retained, and the meeting rooms in Broadcasting House were named after, and decorated with pictures of, famous names from the BBC’s past: characters from sit-­coms, dramas, and soap operas; comedy stars like Frankie Howerd and Morecambe and Wise; presenters including Jill Dando, Huw Wheldon, and Robin Day; journalists such as Richard Dimbleby and Brian Hanrahan; and the pioneering chief engineer Peter Eckersley (finally forgiven after a post-­BBC career spent championing commercial broadcasting). In 2012, the new part of the building was renamed the John Peel Wing, after the influential Radio 1 DJ, and in 2016 an adjacent BBC office building was christened Wogan House to commemorate Terry Wogan’s contribution to the Corporation’s success. Many staff clearly cherished the BBC’s history. However, others were not sure how deeply rooted this sense of the Corporation’s past was. In the BBC comedy show W1A, which parodied the internal life of the Corporation (the name of the programme was derived from the postcode for Broadcasting House), when the new ‘head of values’ referenced the legacy of Lord Reith at a meeting, after much nodding it quickly became apparent that most people in the room did not know who the founding director general was. The apparent strength of the BBC’s position in 2000 quickly proved illusory. One key threat was the continued deregulation of the British media industry, which was driven and compounded by the rapid pace of technological change. By 2005, more than 400 television channels and over 300 radio services were broadcasting in the UK. The great national audience that the BBC had previously sought to serve became elusive in an era of media fragmentation. Relatively few shows could now hope to attract an audience of over 10 or 20 million, as had been possible and indeed a relatively frequent achievement only a few years previously. BBC channels attracted a combined share of just over

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

237

a third of the UK television audience, hardly compelling evidence that the BBC remained the nation’s universal broadcaster. New metrics had to be found to demonstrate the Corporation’s reach and thus to justify the licence fee: in 2004 the BBC claimed that 93 per cent of the UK audience used its services at some point each week. Within a few years, online media consumption had emerged as an even more serious threat to the BBC’s ambitions. The Corporation was an early adopter of digital technologies and had scored a notable initial success through the bbc.co.uk website. In 2007, it launched its pioneering on-­ demand Internet streaming service, BBC iPlayer. However, it soon fell behind in the face of intense competition from massive global media players, including social media platforms and new commercial streaming services backed by US-­based transnational corporations. Old ways of thinking about broadcasting, in terms of channels, networks, and programmes, began to lose much of their meaning, and the traditional division between home and foreign audiences crumbled. Viewers and listeners became users and sub­ scribers. The very word ‘broadcasting’ began to sound obsolete, and the context for media consumption changed dramatically as in­di­vid­ uals watched content on laptops, tablets, and mobile phones, on the move as well as in their own homes. If a family gathered around a television set in the evening, each individual member could now simultaneously be consuming other forms of media content on their own devices while ‘watching’ a programme. People could engage with that programme in new ways, ‘tweeting’ about it live and enjoying (or being infuriated by) the online comments of others. In addition to all this, over the course of 2003 and 2004, the BBC faced the biggest challenge to its established relationship with the government since the Suez Crisis of 1956. Triggered by Tony Blair’s decision to support the US-­led invasion of Iraq, controversy over BBC reporting culminated in the resignation of the chair of the board of governors and what effectively amounted to the sacking of the director general. This heralded a period of almost continuous crisis for  the BBC, as a string of scandals and failures resulted in press

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

238

T h is is t h e BBC

controversies, apologies and internal enquiries, and the resignation of another director general. And from 2010 onwards the BBC faced a Conservative party that, finally back in power, seemed determined to cut the Corporation down to size and perhaps even to eliminate it entirely.

Dyke’s BBC In January 2000, Greg Dyke succeeded John Birt as director general. Both men came from working-­class backgrounds and had worked their way up through journalism and commercial television management before joining the BBC. Dyke shared some of Birt’s enthusiasm for the modern cult of leadership and corporate change, as well as his dislike of the conservative, civil service mentality of many BBC managers. In most other ways, however, the two men were very different. Birt, the remote, jargon-­ loving (his critics coined the phrase ‘Birtspeak’), neoliberal manager, had been deeply unpopular among many of the BBC’s employees. Dyke presented himself as straight-­ talking and down-­to-­earth, a listener who could empathize with the concerns of staff and restore their battered morale. He very publicly set out to dismantle some of the worst excesses of Birt’s accountant-­ driven regime. His grand aim was to release the creative potential of staff by creating ‘One BBC’ in which internal divisions would be overcome and all could collaborate to make the best programmes. If Birt was a Dalek, Dyke wanted to be The Doctor. However, Dyke benefited from the cost savings which Birt had realized, which had allowed resources to be focused on making programmes. He also did nothing to reverse one of the key changes of the Birt years, the progressive commercialization of the BBC. Some, including the Conservative leader William Hague, had vocally opposed Dyke’s appointment on the grounds that he was an active Labour party supporter. Dyke was immediately criticized by others for dumbing down the BBC, when he moved the main tele­vi­ sion news on BBC One from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. in order to clear

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

239

primetime for the most popular programming. Yet he refused to reverse the decision, arguing that it signalled the BBC’s determination to reclaim its place at the heart of British home entertainment. US imports were cut and more money was ploughed into making quality television drama, to ensure that BBC One provided distinctive programming. Dyke also sought to bring more sports back to terrestrial BBC channels, including football, although commercial and satellite networks generally continued to outbid the BBC for the rights to prestige events. In 2001, he caused controversy by calling the BBC ‘hideously white’. The previous year the Corporation had appointed its first head of diversity, Linda Mitchell, and in 2003 it made new commitments to increase the proportion of Black and Asian staff. Dyke also set out to return some power to programme makers, and to eliminate the more perverse aspects of Birt’s system of internal markets. He dismantled the complex system of cross-­departmental billing, ended the cumbersome division between production and broadcast directorates, and curtailed the practice of bringing in external consultants. The shift of television production to the English regions and to Scotland,Wales, and Northern Ireland meanwhile continued. This reflected UK political devolution but was also intended to head off demands that the BBC be broken up into separate authorities for each of the four nations. A major new production centre was planned in Manchester, though implementation was slow. Senior managers blamed the reluctance of staff to leave London: the new site at MediaCityUK, Salford Quays, did not open until 2011. After Birt’s departure, the BBC’s digital television provision was also significantly revised. It had become clear that the multiplication of channels available to UK viewers would mean an inevitable fragmentation of audiences. Specific groups would need to be targeted with bespoke programming so that they did not switch to other channels. BBC News 24 and BBC Parliament survived, but BBC Choice and BBC Knowledge were replaced by new channels serving distinct audiences. BBC Three (launched February 2003) was pitched at younger viewers, who were deserting the BBC’s services for Channel

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

240

T h is is t h e BBC

4 and various satellite and cable channels. BBC Four (launched March 2002) offered a home for cultural and arts content and sought to maintain the Corporation’s position as the key provider of factual programming. CBeebies and CBBC (both launched in February 2002) provided daytime programming for children of different ages, a key target for commercial broadcasters and recognized as the adult audience of the future. Each of these new channels carried a higher proportion of original, British content than did their digital competitors. Each quickly developed their own loyal, though in some cases relatively restricted, audiences. In 2002, the UK’s fledgling digital terrestrial television (DTT) service faced a crisis when the provider, ITV Digital, collapsed after failing to attract enough users. The BBC stepped in to back a new system, Freeview. This provided a subscription-­free means to access multiple digital channels and ensured that the BBC was not forced to rely on Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB satellite system to bring its digital channels into people’s homes. In contrast to its failed predecessor, Freeview was an almost immediate success. Four million set-­top boxes were sold within twenty months of the launch of the scheme. Manufacturers later integrated Freeview receivers into television sets, and the Freesat satellite system, a joint venture between the BBC and ITV, was introduced in 2007 to provide a subscription-­free digital signal to parts of the UK not covered by Freeview. In October 2012, the last of the UK’s analogue television transmitters was switched off. The BBC also expanded its digital audio broadcasting (DAB) offering. Digital broadcasting of the five existing analogue BBC radio channels was complemented with the launch of additional DAB-­only channels, including 5 Live Sports Extra, 1Xtra, 6 Music, and BBC 7 (relaunched in 2011 as Radio 4 Extra). In 2002, the BBC also unveiled a Radio Player website, which allowed users to stream live radio over the Internet and to ‘listen again’ to programmes broadcast over the previous week. The FM broadcast offering was meanwhile revised, with the BBC’s Asian Network (initially introduced in the Midlands) made available nationally, and Radio 2 rebranded with brasher DJs and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

241

a younger sound, better to compete with commercial rivals. Radio 2 audience figures climbed, though some older listeners deserted for new commercial digital stations aimed at their demographic. The bbc.co.uk website meanwhile continued to provide a huge amount of free, non-­commercial content on an extremely wide range of topics, including news. By 2004, ten million adults were accessing it every month. Critics argued that the website was too big and carried too much information unrelated to any aspect of the BBC’s work as a broadcaster. However, its supporters saw it as an important counterweight to US dominance of Internet content. With the move to digital broadcasting, BBC schedulers sought to save money by re-­using the same content across different television channels. This also offered a way to tempt viewers to try new channels. On a weekday, BBC One started with its Breakfast programme, followed by Kilroy and the Morning Show; the rest of the morning and early afternoon schedule was generally filled with cheap reality shows like Bargain Hunt, repeats, and imported dramas and soaps like Murder She Wrote and Neighbours. CBeebies and CBBC then took over, providing children’s programmes such as Teletubbies (which infuriated many adults, but went down ‘like hot custard’, the Teletubbies ­favourite dish, with the under-­fives), and then, for older children, a programme such as Blue Peter, before a repeat of Neighbours, followed by the 6 p.m. national and local news.1 Bigger budget reality shows like Animal Hospital followed, perhaps with an episode of Eastenders, some investigative reporting in a programme such as Kenyon Confronts, a documentary, and a repeat of a ‘classic’ comedy like Only Fools and Horses. Towards the end of the evening an old Hollywood movie might be shown, followed by a selection of programmes with sign language, before BBC News 24 took over the channel for the rest of the evening. BBC Two meanwhile offered daytime schedules made up of children’s programmes from CBeebies and CBBC, repeated docu­men­tar­ ies from BBC One, old films, and some political and business programming. More upmarket reality and lifestyle shows like Escape to

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

242

T h is is t h e BBC

the Country and Ready, Steady, Cook were followed by early evening programming designed to attract a youth audience, such as TOTP2 (archive footage from Top of the Pops), The Weakest Link, and US imports like The Fresh Prince of Bel-­Air, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Simpsons. Primetime was occupied by factual and lifestyle ­programmes (What Not to Wear was one popular offering) and comedy such as The Office, rounded off by Newsnight and factual programmes taken from BBC Four. Through the night, BBC Two broadcast educational programmes for Open University and for schools, which viewers could record for later use. CBeebies and CBBC broadcast children’s programming throughout the day, closing down for bedtime. BBC Three started broadcasting at 7 p.m. with news (including celebrity gossip), followed by music programmes, youth-­oriented factual content, imported thrillers, and repeats of BBC One and BBC Two shows like What Not to Wear and Little Britain. BBC Four similarly started at 7 p.m., broadcasting classical and alternative music, documentaries, and arts content from the Corporation’s programme archive. On a Friday evening, with many people choosing to spend the night in, competition for viewers intensified and the BBC scheduled more popular programming. BBC One carried shows like A Question of Sport, Top of the Pops, Eastenders, Absolutely Fabulous, Have I Got News for You, and the big name chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. BBC Two meanwhile offered prestige factual shows like Gardeners’ World and Timewatch, as well as what would become the BBC’s flagship television music show, Later. . . With Jools Holland. On Saturday afternoons, Grandstand continued to anchor BBC One’s schedule, covering sports like horse racing, rugby, and golf, while The National Lottery results show was used to kick off evening viewing, which might also include a popular drama like Casualty and the resurrected Parkinson chat show. BBC Two showed old films, repeats, and factual programmes like The Big Read. Sundays on BBC One involved more sport, but in the evening, schedulers deployed blockbusters to dom­in­ ate ratings: after old favourites like Songs of Praise and Antiques Roadshow, viewers were also treated to some of the BBC’s most popular

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

243

shows, including Walking with Dinosaurs, Ground Force, and Monarch of the Glen. Across the week, the BBC showed plenty of reality shows, old films, and cheap American imports: in this regard, it was not all that different from ITV or Channel 4. However, what increasingly marked it out from the competition was its ability to produce significant amounts of British comedy, drama, and factual programming to occupy prime evening and weekend slots on BBC One and BBC Two, as well as to produce more ‘niche’ programming for specialist audiences on BBC Three and BBC Four.This could be a hit and miss affair: the Guardian television critic Rupert Smith thought that a BBC Four documentary on Dante Gabriel Rossetti was ‘an unexpected revelation’ that ‘rescued Rossetti from the clammy grip of strange, hysterical virgins who get overheated by pre-­Raphaelite art’, but that an hour of Prunella Scales musing about Queen Victoria on BBC One was in ‘desperate need of editing’.2 Much of the television that the BBC broadcast was mundane and unremarkable, but the Corporation was also making sure that it showed the sort of content, every week, that was becoming increasingly rare on other channels.

Blair, Campbell, Gilligan, and Dyke Dyke lasted exactly four years as director general. His downfall was triggered by a BBC news report which suggested that the Labour government’s case for going to war in Iraq had been purposely misleading. In September 2002, the prime minister,Tony Blair, had argued that joining the US-­led invasion was an urgent necessity. In support of this, the government had published a dossier of evidence which claimed, among other things, that Saddam Hussein’s regime could deploy weapons of mass destruction within forty-­five minutes and was thus an imminent threat to the international community. British participation in the invasion had nevertheless remained deeply

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

244

T h is is t h e BBC

unpopular at home, triggering mass public protests and a significant rebellion within the Labour party. Blair’s embattled government believed that a biased BBC editorial line was adding to its problems. The prime minister’s chief media adviser, Alastair Campbell, lodged a series of complaints with BBC managers. Dyke believed that Campbell was determined to make the BBC broadcast only the news he wanted, and that the Corporation’s editorial independence was at stake. On 19 March 2003, Blair himself wrote direct to Dyke, arguing that the BBC was getting the balance of support and dissent wrong in its coverage of British opinion about the war. Dyke rebuffed this charge and emphasized that, while the government had a right to complain about individual news items, it was illegitimate for it to make general accusations about editorial policy. There were echoes of the 1956 Suez Crisis in all this, another unpopular military intervention that had prompted a major clash between the government and the BBC. Dr David Kelly, a former senior UN biological weapons inspector and an adviser to Blair’s government, subsequently approached several BBC journalists, including the defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, with claims that the government had misrepresented the evidence about Saddam Hussein’s arsenal. Kelly met Gilligan on 22 May and told him that Campbell had worked with others in Downing Street to make the dossier more compelling: Gilligan subsequently used the phrase ‘sexed up’, though it is not clear whether Kelly did. Kelly did tell Gilligan that the government had added the insufficiently evidenced (and, it later transpired, erroneous) claim that Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction at forty-­five minutes’ notice. This formed a major element of Blair’s case for an invasion. Gilligan’s report, based on Kelly’s testimony, underwent editorial checks before it was cleared for broadcast. However, in an unscripted version broadcast at 6.07 a.m. the next day, on Radio 4’s flagship Today programme, Gilligan went further and implied that the government had known the forty-­five-­minute claim was probably wrong but had nevertheless added it to the dossier against the wishes

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

245

of its intelligence advisers. Gilligan made it clear that his anonymous source was an official who had been involved in producing the dossier. Within ninety minutes Downing Street had issued a statement claiming that the entire dossier was solely the work of British intelligence agencies, and that Gilligan’s report was factually incorrect. Before the scripted version of his report was broadcast, Gilligan responded to this statement by reiterating live on the Today programme the points he had made earlier: the intelligence agencies had thought the forty-­five-­minute claim was wrong, and the government had included it in the dossier, despite their opposition, even though it knew the claim was questionable. The implication was that the prime minister had knowingly misled parliament and the nation. Gilligan’s report triggered a massive attack on the BBC. Campbell claimed that the story was based on a single source and thus breached BBC editorial guidelines. The BBC refused to retract the story, issue an apology, or reveal the identity of Gilligan’s informant. Kelly then admitted to the government that he was the source but claimed that some of his evidence had been misreported. His identity was then leaked to the press, some suspected by the government, and in July he was called to appear before a foreign affairs select committee and an intelligence and security committee. Shortly afterwards he was found dead, having apparently committed suicide. Blair was obliged to commission an official enquiry, chaired by Lord Hutton, to examine the circumstances surrounding Kelly’s death. Campbell resigned. The Hutton Report, published on 28 January 2004, effectively exonerated the government while criticizing Gilligan’s journalism, BBC editorial practices, and the actions of the Corporation’s senior managers and governors. It attracted immediate criticism from those who claimed that Hutton had ignored the role of the government in producing misleading information about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It appeared to whitewash both Campbell’s role in the events that led to Kelly’s suicide and Blair’s complicity in Campbell’s actions. As soon as the contents of the Hutton Report became clear, the BBC governors met with Dyke to discuss their response. Although

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

246

T h is is t h e BBC

the BBC’s lawyers advised that the report was based on a flawed reading of UK media law, the chairman, Gavyn Davies, announced his immediate resignation. Dyke was initially told that he would not have to resign, but after Davies left the room this decision was reversed and the governors insisted that Dyke also step down. Dyke felt personally betrayed. He believed that some of the governors disliked him and were prejudiced against his working-­class background, and that this (along with a desire to protect their own jobs) had played a significant role in their decision. He claimed that he had effectively been fired and that the governors had betrayed the editorial independence of the BBC. The governors were certainly worried that Dyke’s ‘stock in Whitehall was very low, and his relationship with the Secretary of State [was] very poor’, and that the upcoming charter review might go badly if he stayed in post.3 Gilligan also resigned. Dyke was further incensed when the acting chairman, Lord Ryder, and the acting dir­ ect­or general, Mark Byford, stood outside Broadcasting House to issue a blanket apology to the government, seemingly validating Hutton’s findings. Many BBC staff rallied around Dyke in public demonstrations of loyalty to him and to the Corporation, and in protest against the Hutton Report and the behaviour of the governors. These demonstrations also reflected widespread opposition to the government and the war in Iraq, within and beyond the BBC. A subsequent internal BBC review of the affair exonerated all but Gilligan: he went on to pursue a successful career in print and broadcast journalism for the Conservative press and the Iranian government’s English-­language television service, and later became an adviser to the Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson.

Selling the BBC The Hutton Report damaged the BBC’s reputation for journalistic professionalism and editorial independence and meant that the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

247

next charter review was particularly fraught. New threats were also emer­ging. Relatively prosperous, the BBC had, since the late 1990s, paid higher and higher salaries to senior managers and star presenters and performers, generating significant negative press comment. The BBC’s critics used this as evidence of the Corporation’s lack of accountability to licence fee payers, and from 2003 the BBC was required to undergo regular ‘value for money audits’ undertaken by the National Audit Office. The BBC also faced growing competition for audiences from BSkyB and, more significantly, from new online media pro­viders. Much of the content consumed by UK audiences over the Internet was produced by companies and individuals operating in other countries, effectively beyond the reach of British regu­ lators. Legislators struggled to keep up with the rapidly changing media landscape. In reviewing the charter, parliament also had to consider the commercialization of the BBC, which had proceeded apace since the previous charter had been issued. Responsibility for managing overseas and domestic commercial activities rested with BBC Worldwide. A wholly owned BBC subsidiary company,Worldwide generated 54 per cent of total UK television export revenues and claimed to be Europe’s biggest exporter of television programmes. BBC senior executives argued that Worldwide’s success was a direct consequence of the scale of the Corporation’s public service operations. If the government wanted television export revenues to remain buoyant then it should neither impose cuts on the Corporation nor seek to break it up. Worldwide sold BBC television programmes direct to viewers in foreign markets, using its own dedicated subscription cable and satellite channels. By 2003, BBC America reached 34.5 million US homes, and 11.5 million households in Europe subscribed to BBC Prime (relaunched as BBC Entertainment in 2009). BBC World News served the international business community, watched in hotels and in 253 million homes around the globe, although it struggled to make a profit in the face of competition from US news channels. Partnerships with other broadcasters allowed Worldwide to develop further

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

248

T h is is t h e BBC

channels for overseas markets, notably the Animal Planet channel, a joint venture with Discovery that was available in multiple territories and exploited the BBC’s expertise in natural history programming. More and more BBC programming was made with an eye to sales in overseas markets, particularly the US.This risked a conflict with the BBC’s mandate to serve UK national and local audiences with distinctive British content. In the US, only certain types of BBC programme were in demand. It was hard to sell content that was culturally specific to Britain and thus inaccessible to many American viewers, and Eastenders was taken off BBC America in 2003 due to low ratings. Factual programmes became a key export, including the nature series The Blue Planet and the Walking with. . . franchise (the latter used computer generated imagery to provide reconstructed animations of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals). Produced as joint ventures with Discovery, such programmes could easily be re-­dubbed with a local narrator to make them more accessible to overseas audiences. The same was true of children’s animations, another growth area for exports. Worldwide also had some success selling ‘formats’ to other broadcasters: not the recorded programmes themselves, but the formulae to make them, which could be adapted to produce local variants. The quiz show The Weakest Link was a notable early example, sold as a format to broadcasters in more than eighty countries, including the US network NBC in 2001. Strictly Come Dancing also proved a highly exportable format (made as Dancing with the Stars in the US): by 2015 it had generated revenues of over £500 million for the BBC. Although nature programmes, children’s series, and generic entertainment formats made money, they were not necessarily a means to project British soft power, one of the other justifications which had been advanced for Worldwide’s activities in the 1990s. Such programmes could do little to convey a distinctively British outlook on world affairs. Sometimes, when re-­dubbed, they did not even appear as British in origin. Some links and co-­productions with the American public service television network, PBS, and especially with the station WGBH Boston, continued and perhaps offered a better way to generate

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

249

soft power. However, demand for BBC period drama and literary adaptations, a key element in the Corporation’s export drive during the previous decade and seen as a distinctively British product, declined in the face of competition from the expensively produced, gritty dramas being sold by Home Box Office (HBO) and other US networks. The Sopranos, shown in the UK on Channel 4, might not have been as original or polished as some of its fans argued, but it continued to shock and titillate even its regular viewers with un­pre­ ce­dent­ed ‘levels of nudity and profanity’.4 BBC adaptations of the works of Austen and Dickens did not have this effect. BBC Worldwide did not just operate overseas. It was also tasked with selling BBC programmes in Britain and with exploiting the secondary rights arising from the public Corporation’s programmes and brand. This included merchandizing and video cassette and digital versatile disc (DVD) home entertainment sales. In 2002/3, Worldwide turned over £658 million. It made almost twice as much from publishing and new media as it did from programme sales, and well over half its revenue came from the UK. Some of this income was generated by UKTV, part-­owned by the BBC, which became one of Britain’s largest commercial television companies. UKTV drew heavily on the BBC’s back catalogue of programmes. Its various UK digital television channels went through numerous incarnations (in 2021 they included Dave, Drama,Yesterday, Eden, Gold,W, and Alibi), with some focusing on specific genres of programming, and others offering more mixed schedules. The BBC’s stake in UKTV allowed it to use BBC programmes to sell on-­ air advertising time, competing directly with commercial broadcasters for revenue as well as for audiences. The BBC justified all its commercial operations on the grounds that profits were ploughed back into making programmes, allowing it to leverage the impact of licence fee income. However, Worldwide’s critics accused it of crowding out commercial competition, absorbing scarce advertising revenues, and making programmes that commercial broadcasters could quite easily produce themselves. It was also alleged that, due to its size and market dominance, Worldwide was able

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

250

T h is is t h e BBC

unfairly to exploit the independent production companies which made some of the BBC’s most successful exports, especially children’s programmes like Teletubbies, Tweenies, and Fimbles. Worldwide could insist on ownership of all the lucrative merchandizing and home entertainment rights arising from those programmes. Pressure on the Corporation to sell off Worldwide mounted, and venture capitalists began to circle. However, in 2004 the BBC announced that it would continue to operate the subsidiary as a key source of revenue. It conceded that its commercial operations should henceforth be restricted to areas closely linked to BBC programmes and sales. New regulations meanwhile sought to render dealings with independent production companies more transparent. Broadcasters were henceforth required to submit a code of practice to the national media regulator, Ofcom, detailing their working relationship with the independents.

Securing the future? In 2004, making the case for charter renewal, the new director general, Mark Thompson, emphasized the non-­commercial nature of the BBC. Given the formidable activities of BBC Worldwide, this seemed somewhat disingenuous. Nevertheless, Thompson promised that the Corporation would henceforth put ‘public value’ first, filling the gaps in a market otherwise dominated by the drive for profit. What was ‘public value’? The BBC defined this in terms of its work supporting universal access to media content, democratic citizenship, the richness of UK cultural life, the strength of local and national communities, formal and informal educational opportunities, and Britain’s position on the world stage. It argued that a universal public broadcaster, paid for predominantly through the licence fee, accessible to all, and interacting with all its users, was best placed to fulfil these roles. Over the next charter period the BBC promised to complete the implementation of the free-­to-­air DTT system and to provide its programmes

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

251

on-­demand to audiences via the Internet. Rashly, Thompson stated that this would include free online access to the Corporation’s vast back catalogue: ‘The BBC’s programme archive is owned by the British people.’5 Charter review took place at a time when the provision of broadband Internet access to a growing number of UK households was set to further transform the media landscape. Audiences would have access to almost unlimited content. They would be able to interact with media providers to access bespoke services and would also be able to create and disseminate their own content: they would no longer have to take what they were given. The BBC argued it had a crucial role to play in ensuring that everyone in the UK benefited from this revolution. Without public broadcasting, unmanageably complex and competing platforms would develop, requiring substantial audience investment in hardware and software and in developing information technology skills. Subscription paywalls would proliferate. Many people would be excluded. Without the BBC, high-­quality British-­made content might also become increasingly rare, because advertising revenue would continue to move online and commercial broadcasters would not be able to afford to make new programmes. Some would go to the wall or be taken over by foreign multinationals. These new global media players would have little or no commitment to producing ‘public value’ in the UK. To meet these challenges, the BBC promised to nurture British talent, focus on ‘originality’ and ‘excellence’, enhance its educational offering, and drop ‘derivative’ programmes from its schedules. It would also continue to move staff out of London, enhancing its operations across the four nations, launching local television services in up to sixty towns and cities (an unfulfilled promise), and ensuring that the perspectives of the nation’s diverse communities were represented on-­ air. All this would require further cost savings elsewhere in the BBC, as well as additional resources. The BBC also promised reform of its governance structures to render the Corporation more accountable,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

252

T h is is t h e BBC

with a renewed commitment to editorial rigour. The governors should, it argued, henceforth be independent of senior management. Their primary role would be to act as ‘trustees of the public interest’.6 The Labour government was broadly receptive to these proposals, though its response was based on two very different, and potentially contradictory, ways of calculating value. Tessa Jowell, secretary of state for culture, media and sport, claimed that the BBC was ‘as much a part of British life as the NHS’, a bastion of social democracy that ensured universal access to information and culture.Yet, at the same time, the licence fee was presented as ‘venture capital for creative production’ and the BBC was praised for its role championing British exports in the global marketplace.7 The charter was at any rate renewed, to run until the end of 2016. In an attempt to assuage critics of the Corporation’s growing commercial empire, and to ensure that its activities did not crowd out private enterprise, the media regulator Ofcom was tasked with ensuring that the ‘public value’ generated by any new, approved BBC initiative exceeded its market impact. The new charter also replaced the board of governors with a ‘BBC Trust’. This new governing body would be made up of twelve government appointees and, unlike the old board, would be constitutionally separate from senior management. It was given responsibility for setting the Corporation’s strategic priorities and ensuring that the new executive board was accountable to the public. However, this approach failed to resolve the problem of BBC governance. The Corporation was already answerable to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (established in 1981) and the Broadcasting Standards Council (established in 1988—the two organizations were subsequently merged to form the Broadcasting Standards Commission), and Ofcom also had some oversight of its activities. In most respects, however, it remained largely free to regulate itself. The BBC Trust did not represent a genuinely independent regulatory authority. It was a compromise, reflecting the Corporation’s desire to safeguard its own autonomy, coupled with the attractiveness to the government (in the wake of the Hutton Report) of being able to determine the membership

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

253

of the BBC’s governing body. It did not offer an effective means of ensuring that journalists and presenters adhered to the Corporation’s editorial policies, the key issue raised by the Gilligan/Kelly crisis. In 2008, an offensive on-­air prank call made by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand to the actor Andrew Sachs prompted significant criticism on this front. Much worse was to come. The new charter and the emphasis on ‘public value’ also failed to satisfy critics of the scale of the Corporation’s commercial activities. BBC Worldwide continued aggressively to expand its business, fuelling claims that it was exceeding the proper remit for a company owned by a public broadcaster. In 2007, it purchased the travel guide specialists Lonely Planet Publications and launched a new Lonely Planet magazine. Critics regarded this as an unfair and damaging source of competition for existing publications. Commercial tele­vi­ sion producers, distributors, and buyers meanwhile continued to complain about Worldwide’s dominant position in the market and its preferential access to export and exploitation rights for BBC programmes. Worldwide was also criticized for investing in overseas production houses over which it exerted little editorial control. In March 2009, a parliamentary committee concluded that the scale of Worldwide’s activities posed a threat to the rest of the UK’s creative economy and should be significantly reduced. The unfolding impact of the 2008 financial crisis intensified calls for the BBC to leave more space for struggling private enterprises. It also increased the pressure on the BBC to make economies in its public service operations. In March 2010, Mark Thompson announced a new ‘Putting Quality First’ initiative that would shrink the BBC, focusing resources on its core activities: journalism, cultural content, comedy, drama, children’s programming, and coverage of events that brought communities and the nation together. Expenditure on the bbc.co.uk website would be reduced by 25 per cent. Two digital services aimed at teenagers would be closed, with the BBC explicitly ceding responsibility for serving those audiences to Channel 4. In terms of radio, 6 Music would also be closed, the Asian Network

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

254

T h is is t h e BBC

would cease to operate on a national basis, and Radio 2 would be reformed to emphasize its distinctiveness from commercial rivals. Wages for senior managers and stars would be cut and expenditure on imported programmes and sports broadcasting rights limited. A commitment would be made to avoid competition with small local media outlets, and BBC Worldwide would henceforth focus on exports rather than domestic commercial activities. It would also steer clear of further corporate acquisitions and mergers. Two months later, in May 2010, Gordon Brown’s Labour government suffered a general election defeat and David Cameron and Nick Clegg formed a Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition. Almost immediately, a harsh programme of austerity was imposed on public spending, including a tough new financial settlement for the BBC. In October, the licence fee was frozen (at £145.50) until the end of 2016. An extra £17 million was top-­sliced from the BBC’s annual licence fee income to support the rollout of broadband Internet services across the UK (bringing the total amount set aside for this purpose to £150 million a year) and the BBC was required to play a bigger role in the provision of the Welsh-­language television service S4C. Most significantly, it was announced that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) grant-­in-­aid that supported the BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring would be withdrawn. From April 2014, the BBC would be required to fund these international activities itself. Together, all this amounted to an unprecedented attack on the BBC’s finances, requiring projected efficiency savings of 16 per cent over four years. Thompson asked managers to make an additional 4 per cent in savings to support the Corporation’s output and digital innovation goals. The BBC announced that it would shed around 2,000 jobs and sell off much of its estate around the country. Expenditure would be focused on flagship services and peak viewing and listening hours. Balancing the books was made more difficult by the BBC Trust’s rejection of controversial plans to shut down 6 Music and the Asian Network. Pressure to restrict the scope of BBC Worldwide’s activities meanwhile made it impossible to make up the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

255

shortfall by increasing commercial revenues. In 2011, Worldwide sold off most of its magazine business, including the Radio Times. The Lonely Planet operation was sold in 2013, at a loss of £80 million. BBC Films had already ceased to operate as an independent company and was brought inside the Corporation’s own television operation to focus on film co-­productions. Cameron’s Conservatives won the May 2015 general election, dispensing with their Liberal Democrat coalition partners. In that summer’s budget, the government conceded that the licence fee should, from 2017, be allowed to rise in line with inflation, but it also transferred to the BBC the obligation to finance free television licences for the over-­75s. This costly concession had been introduced in 2000 by the Labour government. Abolishing free licences would have been a major blow to the government’s popularity. Transferring the liability to the BBC meant that the Corporation would either need to shoulder the cost itself (an estimated annual bill of up to £700 million) or take the blame for withdrawing it. The new BBC director general, Tony Hall (Baron Hall of Birkenhead), later claimed that he had considered resigning over the issue, which potentially holed the Corporation’s finances below the waterline. Further cost-­cutting involved the closure of the youth-­oriented BBC Three digital television channel in 2016 (although it retained an online presence and programmes produced using its brand were sometimes broadcast on other channels). Earlier promises to make the BBC’s back catalogue of content available to audiences free of charge were also abandoned, in favour of generating revenue. From the end of 2015, digital content was sold direct to consumers via the BBC Store website, although this failed to attract customers and was closed in 2017. As the BBC faced another charter review, it was clear that significant additional savings would be required. Amidst all this turmoil, the BBC was able to boast of several key successes during the years of austerity. In autumn 2007, it launched its online, on-­demand streaming and download service BBC iPlayer, allowing viewers to catch up on the previous seven days of BBC

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

256

T h is is t h e BBC

tele­vi­sion and radio programming. The BBC expected that the ­service might attract half a million users over its first six months of operation, but this seriously underestimated its appeal: over the Christmas period that year, 3.5 million programmes were streamed or downloaded using iPlayer. By April 2008, iPlayer was generating around 5 per cent of all UK Internet traffic, and by March 2012, 40 per cent of online adults used iPlayer. The BBC built on this achievement with its coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games, which it presented as the ‘first digital Olympics’. This was a key opportunity for the Corporation to demonstrate its continued ability to focus the attention of the nation, and the world, on great media events. In advance of the games, it used the torch relay to link the Olympics with local communities across the UK, broadcasting up to 70 per cent of the flame’s journey around the country (including when it was carried through Albert Square during an episode of Eastenders). The BBC’s attempt to use the games to do something unprecedented in the history of broadcasting included an ambition to provide live coverage of every single Olympic event to viewers at home and on the move. The BBC covered the Olympics on all its established platforms, notably on BBC One, with further opportunities to catch up using iPlayer. It also temporarily turned over its digital television stations BBC Three and BBC Parliament to Olympic broadcasting, established a temporary digital Radio 5 Live Olympics Extra station, and offered coverage on twenty-­four online channels that were also made available to cable and satellite sub­scribers and via the BBC ‘Red Button’ digital interactive television service. In the UK, 26 million viewers watched the opening ceremony: the global audience was around 900 million. More than 90 per cent of the UK population watched some element of the BBC’s coverage of the Games. During key events, UK mobile network data usage spiked, as people used smartphones to watch during the working day. On a more everyday basis, the approach to scheduling established in the late 1990s and early 2000s continued. BBC One and BBC Two carried cheap daytime programming (reality shows, repeats, imports,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

257

old films, and children’s programmes taken from CBeebies and CBBC), but in the evening and at the weekend offered more at­tract­ ive and original fare. BBC One launched popular new programmes like The One Show, The Apprentice (a ‘wasteland of corporate idiocy’ that reminded viewers of ‘the unparalleled joy of the abominable business twonk’—‘merciless editing turns the whole thing into a panto’8), Miranda, Merlin, Mrs Brown’s Boys, and The Graham Norton Show. It offered Sunday morning political discussion in the form of The Andrew Marr Show. BBC Two, meanwhile, purveyed serious and semi-­serious content like the long-­running series Coast (a hugely popular show that started life as an Open University programme—by the time it reached its seventh series one critic wondered if there could be ‘a headland that’s been overlooked, a beach left uncombed’ in the UK), and also crowd-­pleasers like The Great British Bake Off, which later switched to BBC One, only to be poached by Channel 4.9

Broadcasting global Britain During the final years of the twentieth century, the BBC had moved away from government-­financed radio broadcasting as its key means to project Britain overseas. Instead, it had turned to in-­country projects (organized by the BBC World Service Trust charity, later renamed BBC Media Action), commercial television subscription services, and various new online platforms. The World Service continued to provide radio services in English and a range of foreign languages, mainly for those who could not access other BBC or local sources of information and news. However, it was now only one item in the BBC’s cultural diplomacy toolkit. In the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks and the subsequent US-­ led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, BBC foreign-­ language services were refocused on the Arabic-­speaking world. This was now clearly a priority area in terms of British foreign policy goals and military operations. The European language services, which had

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

258

T h is is t h e BBC

been central to Cold War broadcasting since the 1940s (and which had their roots in the period before the Second World War) were finally closed. The World Service also refocused FCO funding away from radio and towards international television services. After its earlier abortive attempt to launch an Arabic television channel, in 2008 it re-­established BBC Arabic Television, initially broadcasting for twelve hours a day. In 2009, this became a round-­the-­clock rolling news service, later renamed BBC News Arabic, and that same year the Corporation established a Persian Television service, aimed at viewers in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan (subsequently BBC News Persian). Despite this comprehensive refashioning of BBC international broadcasting to serve British geopolitical agendas, the World Service was a target for austerity cuts in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. When David Cameron’s government announced that the FCO grant-­ in-­aid would end in 2014, the BBC was forced to reduce costs significantly. During the 1990s, it had already begun to integrate the World Service’s English-­language operations more closely into the BBC’s domestic operations and internal markets. This logic was now extended to the rest of the service. In 2012, it was announced that the World Service would leave Bush House, its home since the Second World War. All of the World Service’s staff, including those who ran the foreign-­language services, would be integrated into the BBC’s main news operation in Broadcasting House.This had important consequences for the BBC’s domestic audiences. Through a range of BBC platforms, including the nightly news on BBC One, reports filed by BBC World Service correspondents stationed around the globe became much more visible. The full international scope of BBC operations was now apparent to British listeners and viewers, ­communicated by the new faces and accents included in domestic broadcast news. Although the FCO grant-­in-­aid ended in 2014, some government support was restored almost immediately. The 2015 summer budget providing for a substantial grant from the FCO’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) fund, covering around a third of the World Service’s

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

259

operating costs. As the new funding was announced, one anonymous BBC insider claimed that it would sustain the Corporation’s ‘strong commitment to uphold global democracy through accurate, impartial and independent news’.10 This short statement encapsulated a whole range of implicit and perhaps uninterrogated assumptions about what the BBC did when it broadcast news to audiences overseas, how this served British interests, and why it should be funded by the state. The 2016 royal charter added to the ideological baggage carried by the World Service: it stated that BBC news for overseas audiences should be ‘firmly based on British values of accuracy, impartiality, and fairness’.11 The BBC proceeded to establish seventeen new foreign-­language radio and online services in 2017, targeting FCO priority audiences. To maximize possibilities for listening, it purchased FM transmitter time in major cities around the world, and deployed Internet radio, increasingly accessible to many users via mobile devices. The ODA grant meant that the FCO retained the ability to specify which languages the World Service used in its broadcasts, and what the target areas should be. The focus was on Africa and Asia, reflecting the need to use ODA funding to deliver services to the Global South, but the World Service also strengthened its Arabic and Russian provision in line with British geostrategic priorities. The stated aim was to serve those who ‘sorely need reliable information’.12 Some also argued that the World Service would play an important part in selling post-­Brexit ‘global Britain’, generating soft power and underpinning a broader reorientation of the country’s economic and diplomatic relationships. This was a bold and perhaps unrealistic aspiration. Equally ambitious was the World Service’s goal of reaching 500 million people by 2022, and a billion within another decade.

Crises of governance The BBC’s global ambitions seemed all the more striking given its continued financial woes and the series of crises of governance that,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

260

T h is is t h e BBC

from 2010, significantly undermined public trust. As new revelations emerged concerning problems within the Corporation, the BBC Trust, its governing body, proved incapable of providing convincing assurances that the organization was properly run and fully accountable for its actions and failings. This precipitated further and significant institutional reform. On 29 October 2011, the DJ and presenter Jimmy Savile died. His connection with the BBC dated back to the 1960s, and over the years he had fronted some of its most popular programmes. In preparing an obituary, BBC staff were clearly aware of rumours that Savile had been a paedophile. News staff almost immediately began to investigate. On 2 December, a planned Newsnight story about the allegations was mentioned to George Entwistle (then director of the BBC’s tele­vi­sion operations and a former head of Newsnight) at a social event. However, the Newsnight investigation was dropped when it was ­discovered that earlier police enquiries into allegations of sexual abuse had been abandoned due to a lack of evidence. BBC tribute programmes to Savile went ahead, including a Christmas Jim’ll Fix It special celebrating his life. However, within a few weeks press allegations began to emerge that Savile had been a prolific sexual abuser who had perpetrated some of his crimes on BBC premises, and that the Newsnight investigation had been spiked by senior managers. In its responses, the BBC emphasized that proper editorial procedures had been followed, but pressure continued to mount over the summer of 2012. George Entwistle took up his new position as director general on 17 September. On 22 October, the BBC broadcast a Panorama report, Jimmy Savile— What the BBC Knew, which raised new questions about Savile’s crimes.The next day, when Entwistle was questioned by a parliamentary select committee, he diverged from the BBC’s previous official line, saying that the original Newsnight investigations should have been allowed to continue. MPs and outside observers were crit­ic­al of his performance: Entwistle presented a confusing picture of what looked like editorial chaos within the Corporation. An internal BBC inquiry

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

261

into the decision to cancel the Newsnight story was launched. In ­addition, Dame Janet Smith, a former Court of Appeal judge, was tasked with reviewing the culture and practices of the BBC at the time of Savile’s crimes and the Corporation’s current child protection and whistle-­ blowing policies. Then, on 2 November, Newsnight broadcast a story implicating the Conservative peer Lord McAlpine in a child abuse scandal. The allegations subsequently turned out to be unfounded. In the wake of what was clearly a catastrophic failure in the BBC’s editorial process, on 10 November Entwistle was grilled by the presenter John Humphrys on Radio 4’s Today programme. The interview was a car crash: the director general seemed to have lost control of the Corporation. Entwistle resigned later that day, after only 54 days in office. After a brief interregnum, in April 2013 the BBC’s former head of news and current affairs Lord Hall took over as director general. He was almost immediately faced with the fallout from another historic failure of BBC governance: a six-­year project to move the entire programme archive online had been abandoned, but only after it had already cost the Corporation almost £100 million. The National Audit Office concluded that the Corporation had failed to put in place structures capable of managing such an enormous project and that senior managers were ultimately responsible for this costly failure. The BBC’s subsequent pitch for charter renewal took place against the backdrop of this string of disasters. In arguing for the continued importance of public broadcasting, the BBC repeated many familiar themes, emphasizing the Corporation’s role in providing universal access to the best programmes, in ensuring that British content was available across existing broadcast services and new platforms, in binding the UK together while giving due space to ‘four nations’ perspectives, and in reflecting the diversity of the country’s many communities. The BBC emphasized the high cost of programmes made by global streaming services and the huge amount spent by Sky (formerly BSkyB) and ITV on television rights for sports. It claimed that it

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

262

T h is is t h e BBC

delivered better value for money while also providing the main source of British-­made content across a wide range of genres. It promised to continue to focus on providing trusted news tailored to the requirements of different users, especially via the Internet, and in doing so to support the UK’s collapsing local news industry. Making high-­quality, original British drama would also remain one of its core commitments. It would meanwhile continue to lead and shape the digital revolution, creating an ‘open’ and ‘Internet-­fit’ BBC. Its platforms would be made more responsive to and inclusive of user input, and open to content made by other providers. New services would include BBC ‘iPlay’ for children, BBC ‘Newstream’ to provide news on mobile devices, and an ‘Ideas Service’, to include a broadcast element but also to offer online platforms for education, the arts, and science, working with a range of partner organizations. At the time of writing, none of these services has been made available to the public, although the BBC did go on to develop and release a range of ‘apps’ to improve mobile access to its services. In a new manifestation of the BBC’s market-­driven approach, the Corporation also proposed to create a new commercial subsidiary, BBC Studios. This would make programmes not just for the Corporation but also for other commissioning bodies. BBC Studios would have the same ‘values and quality’ as the public service Corporation but would produce content on a commercial basis for British and global broadcasters and streaming services. The BBC would also generate additional commercial revenues by licensing content to commercial streaming services including Netflix and Amazon’s Prime TV. The establishment of BBC Studios would mean that independent producers faced a formidable new source of competition. To compensate, the BBC would open all areas of its television schedules (apart from news and sport) to competitive bids from independent production companies and allow them to bid for more contracts to make BBC radio programmes. In February 2016, in the midst of the charter renewal negotiations, Dame Janet Smith’s report into the Savile scandal was published (it

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

263

had been delayed so as not to prejudice ongoing police investigations). As well as detailing the extent and nature of Savile’s offending at the BBC, Smith concluded that a ‘climate of fear’ had prevented whistle-­ blowers from notifying managers or outsiders about Savile’s crimes.13 She also noted that this atmosphere persisted in 2016: staff on pre­car­ ious or freelance contracts were particularly worried about doing anything that might jeopardize their future employment by the Corporation. In response, Hall announced a review of BBC whistle-­ blowing and child protection procedures.The chair of the BBC Trust, Rhona Fairhead, had already publicly acknowledged that poor governance structures were partly responsible for the series of scandals that had rocked the Corporation. She argued that the BBC now needed a separate ‘bespoke’ regulatory authority, as well as an independent board to govern its affairs. The government had already commissioned its own independent review of BBC governance, led by the banker Sir David Clementi. In his report, published in March 2016, Clementi agreed that the Trust was broken. It had been assigned incompatible duties as ‘cheerleader and regulator’.14 He rejected the idea of a bespoke regulator (an ‘Ofbeeb’): this was likely to cause too much confusion and duplication of work. He instead recommended that the Corporation be subjected to oversight by the UK’s existing communications and media regulator, Ofcom. Clementi’s recommendations were incorporated in a Department of Culture, Media, and Sport white paper, published two months later, which laid the groundwork for a new BBC royal charter. This would run for eleven years, until 31 December 2027, an extended period which was intended to decouple the charter renewal process from the ‘political cycle’. In theory, the timing of elections had been made more predictable by the 2011 fixed-­term parliaments act. Future charter renewals would not take place around election time. However, it subsequently became clear that governments had little interest in allowing parliaments to run their full term: the hope that the next charter renewal will be less political is probably a forlorn one.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

264

T h is is t h e BBC

The new charter revised the BBC’s ‘public purposes’ to emphasize, pointedly, the need to maintain the ‘highest editorial standards’ in news and current affairs programming. Reflecting the government’s libertarian agenda, it also assigned the BBC a role ‘championing freedom of expression’.15 The BBC Trust was replaced by a new independent board. At least half of the board’s non-­executive members were to be appointed by the BBC itself, with the others appointed by the government (the first chair was Sir David Clementi). The board would oversee strategy and ensure compliance with the Corporation’s overarching public service obligations. Four ‘nation members’ would have a specific responsibility to represent the interests of each of the component nations of the UK. Ofcom was meanwhile tasked with regulating the BBC, while the National Audit Office would continue to scrutinize the Corporation’s finances. The licence fee would be allowed to increase in line with inflation over the first five years of the charter period, and the loophole that allowed people to watch BBC iPlayer without buying a television licence was closed. Greater transparency on matters such as pay would be required. Accountability was to be increased and, implicitly, independence reduced. A mid-­term charter review would examine whether the new system was working. During the review process, the government had already made it clear that, in its view, the BBC should not primarily aim for popularity. Its purpose was to provide content that the market would not otherwise deliver. However, the government’s definition of what constituted ‘distinctive’ BBC programming was vague: the BBC should be substantially different to other providers across each and every service, both in prime time and overall, and on tele­vi­ sion, radio and online, in terms of: the mix of different genres, programmes and content; the quality of output; the amount of original UK programming; the level of risk-­taking, innovation, challenge and creative ambition; and the range of audiences it serves.16

The BBC’s own definition of ‘distinctiveness’ meanwhile rejected the suggestion that it should avoid commissioning or making the sorts of programmes that commercial broadcasters were producing:

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

265

we propose two clear tests for the BBC’s distinctiveness in future: that every BBC programme or piece of online content should aspire to be the best in that genre, and that overall the range of programmes in every BBC service or online product should be clearly distinguishable from its commercial competitors.17

This was not a radical change. The government argued that the BBC should be ‘at the forefront of representing diversity both on and off screen’. It claimed that the BBC’s audiences were disproportionately white, and that more needed to be done to reflect Black and Asian perspectives and to improve diversity. The government also emphasised that the World Service played a key role in ensuring ‘that the UK continues to lead the world in terms of soft power’, and it required the Corporation to maintain funding for the World Service to the tune of £254 million each year, for at least five years, out of its own revenues. The state would meanwhile provide £85 million of additional annual funding to support ‘increased provision in specific areas’. The FCO would retain responsibility for setting the World Service’s ‘objectives, priorities and targets’.18 As in the past, this relationship would largely operate through discussion rather than dictation. The government also endorsed the Corporation’s plan to establish BBC Studios and to open up more of its broadcast schedules to bids from independent production companies. These measures, the government argued, would stimulate competition, allow Britain to sell more content overseas, and boost the UK creative economy. BBC Studios was duly established in 2017. It brought together much of the BBC’s production capacity, moved it out of the public service Corporation, and placed it under the aegis of a commercial company wholly owned by the BBC. In 2018, BBC Studios also took over BBC Worldwide and its work selling programmes and secondary ex­ploit­ ation rights and, in 2019, it assumed full ownership of UKTV and made new content deals with Discovery, Sky, and other commercial broadcasters.This approach was intended to make it easier to generate new sources of revenue for the BBC. It was also perhaps an attempt

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

266

T h is is t h e BBC

to minimize the damage that would be inflicted on the BBC if the government decided to abolish licence fee funding. The Corporation had created a commercial subsidiary to do much of its work. Other changes to the internal running of the BBC around this time reflected wider social pressures and a renewed commitment to equality. Controversy over the BBC’s gender pay gap intensified in 2017 following the resignation of its China correspondent Carrie Gracie: she cited the disparity between her pay and that of male colleagues as the reason for her decision. After reporting that the median pay gap at the Corporation in 2017 was 9.3 per cent (lower than the average for large UK companies) the BBC committed to further narrowing the disparity and to changing its employment culture more generally with the aim of eliminating discrimination. By 2020, the gender pay gap had dropped to 6.2 per cent and over 43 per cent of senior management positions were occupied by women. That year, the BBC announced its aim to be a ‘modern 50/20/12 organization’, employing ‘50% women and 50% men, at least 20% Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, and at least 12% Disabled’, with a further commitment to LGBTQ+ inclusivity.19 To date, however, every director general has been white, male, and able-­bodied, and none have been openly gay.

Losing ground online As the BBC entered the new charter period, the pace of digital media transformation showed no sign of slowing. New online platforms had already removed many of the historic barriers to international flows of media content. National radio and television systems lost much of their in-­built protection from foreign competition. A video uploaded to YouTube or posted on Facebook, almost anywhere in the world, could easily be viewed in the UK. US-­based transnational cor­por­ations like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple were meanwhile able to provide content direct to British subscribers.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

267

Some of the BBC’s new global competitors also seemed willing and able to do things that, previously, it had been argued only a national public broadcaster could do. With a huge US subscriber base and global sales via various digital broadcast and streaming services (including Sky Atlantic in the UK), HBO had the resources to make quirky comedy and lavishly produced, challenging, and gritty drama. Netflix and Amazon’s Prime TV were similarly able to produce or buy in specialist programming, including significant amounts of factual content. Some of these platforms even took over BBC shows and formats: after a series of controversies the BBC’s Top Gear team of presenters moved to Amazon’s The Great Escape, while cancelled BBC dramas Ripper Street and The Kingdom were taken up by Amazon and Netflix, respectively. The sort of competition that the BBC now faced was unlike anything previously offered by UK terrestrial and satellite commercial broadcasters. The global streaming services generated revenue from user subscriptions, but ultimately were not driven by a search for short-­term profit. They could fund losses from venture capital funds, biding their time until rivals went bust. For Amazon, television services were about generating indirect commercial benefits by binding customers into the company’s wider Prime package. With their generous budgets, the new streaming services also bid up wages and production costs for the BBC in key areas of programming, including drama and natural history. British consumers responded enthusiastically to the new streaming services. Many people continued regularly to consume BBC content, but they typically spent less time doing so. BBC radio and television audiences both dwindled, with the switch to online media consumption hitting the latter particularly hard. Between 2010 and 2019, the time the average person spent viewing BBC television each day declined by almost a third. In 2017, streaming accounted for only 6 per cent of UK viewing time, but by 2020 this figure had risen to 18 per cent, and on average people were spending less than half their viewing

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

268

T h is is t h e BBC

time watching live television. The impact on certain sections of the audience was particularly acute. As early as 2017, viewers aged between 16 and 26 on average spent more time with Netflix than with the BBC. By 2019, the BBC had also ceased to be the main provider of viewing content for the under-­15s. The BBC’s Black and Asian audience also declined disproportionately rapidly: the Corporation’s public seemed to be increasingly older, middle class, and white. As had been pointed out during the charter review process, it risked failing to fulfil its commitment to inclusivity and losing its status as a universal service. Viewers spent more time with the BBC during the COVID-­19 pandemic, but during lockdown new operators established themselves in the marketplace with astonishing speed, increasing the medium-­ term challenge facing the Corporation.Within eighteen months of its February 2020 launch in the UK, Disney+ had over 3.4 million sub­ scribers.TikTok had 5.4 million adult users in the UK in January 2020 and 13.9 million by March 2021. Takeovers and mergers meanwhile created even more formidable transnational competitors: Amazon acquired MGM, and AT&T’s WarnerMedia acquired Discovery.While the BBC remained heavily regulated and was required by the government to do many different things, global social media and streaming companies still operated essentially outside the reach of UK regu­ lators. They were largely free to do as they pleased. The BBC’s response to these challenges seemed underwhelming. To attract young viewers, it planned to reintroduce digital broadcasting of BBC Three from February 2022. To compete with global streaming platforms, in 2017 BBC Studios joined forces with ITV to establish BritBox, an on-­demand service available via the Internet to paying subscribers in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and (shortly) South Africa. This sought to generate more revenue from the BBC’s back catalogue (which an earlier director general had said was ‘owned by the British people’ and would be given to them online for free) and supplemented it with new exclusive content. More significantly, the following year a new BBC Sounds on-­ demand service was

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

269

launched, interacting with platforms like Amazon’s Alexa app and Echo speaker system, and showcasing popular radio shows (such as Friday Night Comedy and Woman’s Hour) and podcasts in an attempt to reverse the decline in the radio audience. On iPlayer, the BBC successfully pushed for permission to keep content available on-­demand for longer, to attract more users. Nevertheless, iPlayer’s usage figures grew more slowly than those of the global streaming platforms, partly because the BBC had been behind the curve in gathering data on individual viewing habits and providing personalized offerings. Indeed, a further problem now facing the BBC was its inability to access user data gathered by the different third-­party platforms that provided BBC content. Many of these platforms were built into tele­ vi­sion streaming, mobile, and gaming devices, some of which were sold direct to consumers by service providers like Amazon, Google, and Sky. Alongside other ‘traditional’ British broadcasters, the BBC also had to bargain hard with the companies that ran the platforms and built the hardware, to ensure that BBC content and its own iPlayer were easily accessible to users, prominent, and suitably promoted.This was an uphill struggle.The needs of the BBC, and indeed of British broadcasters and users more generally, had become a minor concern to the makers of platforms and hardware. British broadcasters were no longer ‘big players in a national market’: they had become ‘small national players in a global market’.20 They were likely to be ignored unless the government stepped in to support their interests. Another way to respond to the rise of the global streaming services was to emphasize that the BBC did something entirely different, almost Reithian in nature. In an age of increasingly fragmented media streams, the BBC might continue to act as the nation’s great integrator and aggregator. With its commitment to continuing digital terrestrial television broadcasting for as long as members of the public required it, and with its mixed and varied schedules, the BBC promised to bring carefully curated programmes and professional journalism to those who did not have the time, skills, or inclination to seek out content for themselves. It would help people break out of the bubbles created

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

270

T h is is t h e BBC

by social media and streaming service algorithms, exposing them to new and unexpected things. With its public service dedication to truthful and authoritative reporting, it could also help combat ‘fake news’ at a time when the newspaper industry seemed to be entering terminal decline: in 2019, it led a partnership of global media providers to establish the Trusted News Initiative. And in a globalized media landscape, the BBC could provide things that others would not: local content, material catering to diverse communities, and overarching support for British cultural production and national unity. By 2019–20, 62 per cent of the BBC’s network television programmes were made outside London and over half of the Corporation’s employees worked outside the capital.

Defunding the BBC However, under Boris Johnson, prime minister from 2019, Conservative hostility to the licence fee intensified. The argument that the BBC should be funded on a subscription basis gained ground, and the government investigated whether it should decriminalize non-­payment of the licence fee. The latter move would have represented a potentially fatal blow to the BBC’s finances. While a decision was deferred due to the impact of COVID-­19 on government business, the prospect of a fundamental change to the way the BBC was financed continued to hover in the background. If the BBC was henceforth funded by subscription, would enough individuals be willing to pay to fund its DTT services, its journalism, and its local and community broadcasting? Or would they prefer to spend their money on the bespoke entertainment offered by the global streaming services? In Britain, unlike the US, there was not a tradition of paying for public goods by subscription. Public hostility to the licence fee was also significant, fuelled by sections of the press. It became an outcry when, in August 2020, the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

271

BBC announced that free licences would only henceforth be issued to those over-­75s in receipt of pension credit.This seemingly heartless decision was publicly attacked by some Conservative MPs, even though it was David Cameron’s government that had transferred the responsibility for funding the free licences from the exchequer to the BBC. It was hard not to interpret this as a cynical move to further weaken public broadcasting. The idea that the BBC should be a national integrator also seemed unrealistic given the divided state of UK politics in the wake of the Scottish Independence referendum of 2014, the Brexit referendum of 2016, and the ‘culture wars’ that followed. Many supporters of Scottish independence accused the BBC of promoting a Unionist agenda during the debates of 2014, and of fuelling ‘project fear’ to convince Scottish voters to reject independence. Subsequently, both Leavers and Remainers accused the BBC of biased and misleading journalism during and after the Brexit campaign. In 2018, the right-­wing think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs claimed that Leavers had been ‘badly underrepresented’ in BBC political discussion programmes since the 2016 referendum.21 However, many Remainers continued to lament the failure, as they saw it, of the BBC to put across in a clear and objective fashion the realities of the economic consequences of Brexit. For both sides, ‘balance’ on this issue seemed undesirable, even impossible, because they believed that their opponents were simply wrong. Newspapers could pick a side, but the BBC could not. Indeed, the BBC’s new charter commitments were difficult to reconcile, even contradictory, when it came to such divisive political issues. How could it be simultaneously dedicated to impartiality and freedom of speech? How could multiple political perspectives be ­covered on-­air, some of them potentially misleading, disingenuous, controversial, even abhorrent, while BBC journalists themselves were required to offer no judgement as to their validity? In this increasingly fraught political climate, the BBC’s charter commitment to represent diversity also began to generate loud public criticism and controversy.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

272

T h is is t h e BBC

The idea that ‘balance’ should be judged across the total of its output was rejected, as individual news reports, interviews, and programmes were subjected to intense scrutiny. The government had, in effect, made the BBC one of the key arenas in which the developing ‘culture wars’ would be fought. Groups on all sides tended to assume that the Corporation was inherently biased against their view of the world. In July 2020, a ‘Defund the BBC’ campaign group was launched, adapting the ‘Defund the Police’ slogan adopted by Black Lives Matter campaigners in the US. The supposed leader of the campaign was James Yucel, a student at the University of Glasgow. He argued that the Corporation had failed in its duty to be politically impartial, was biased against the Conservative government, and only reflected metro­pol­itan perspectives. He thus advocated a reduction in the level of the licence fee and decriminalization of non-­payment. The campaign was closely linked to the right wing of British extra-­parliamentary politics and was supported by newspapers like the Daily Express, the right-­wing website Guido Fawkes, and some Conservative MPs. It employed several prominent pro-­Brexit campaigners. In some ways this was a flash in the pan, but it also reflected a growing public unwillingness to pay the licence fee. Between 2019 and 2021 the number of licenced households fell by almost 500,000, costing the BBC around £310 million in lost revenue. For those who did not possess television sets or watch iPlayer, the constant written demands and threats of legal action received from the BBC’s TV Licensing operation were unwelcome and infuriating.They further undermined support for public broadcasting. Those who wished to see the BBC cut down to size also played on a belief that, in the culture wars, it consistently promoted a ‘woke’ agenda that was out of touch with the values of most licence fee payers. This recalled long-­running claims, dating back to the 1920s, that the BBC was dominated by people who cherished left-­wing, metro­ pol­itan values. Notably, in the summer of 2020, sections of the press accused BBC producers of banning the inclusion of ‘Rule, Britannia!’

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

273

and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ in the programme for the Last Night of the Proms. These items had supposedly been dropped because they contained lyrics evoking empire and slavery. The BBC claimed that the decision was not political: COVID-­19 social distancing requirements meant there would be no choir or live audience at the Proms, so any attempt to stage these items would have seemed underwhelming in comparison with traditional, rousing performances. However, when Tim Davie took over as director general in September 2020, one of his first actions was to insist on a change of plan. The songs at the centre of the controversy were reinstated. Davie seemed a good choice as director general, given the government’s imminent mid-­charter review of the BBC. Acting director general during the interregnum between Entwistle and Hall, his broader background was in the private sector, in marketing. He had also run BBC Worldwide and then BBC Studios, overseeing the Corporation’s commercial operations. In the 1990s, he had stood for election as a Conservative councillor and had served as a deputy chairman for the Conservatives in Hammersmith and Fulham. In his inaugural speech as director general, Davie signalled that editorial impartiality would henceforth be more rigorously enforced. ‘If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC.’22 New social media rules for staff were announced soon after, although whether these were enforceable was another matter, as was the question of how they fitted with the charter commitment to freedom of expression. Anyway, they seemed unlikely to provide a long-­term solution to continued accusations of political bias, which came from predictable, but also sometimes from surprising, quarters. In 2021, as post-­Brexit trade regulations created uncertainty about Northern Ireland’s future place within the UK, Unionists marched carrying placards bearing the slogan ‘Defund the Biased BBC’.23 Given the Corporation’s historic and continued commitment to the Union, this seemed perverse, to say the least.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

274

T h is is t h e BBC

Conclusions The BBC approached its centenary year in the wake of two decades of perpetual crisis. The onslaught of global competition from social media and streaming services had eroded its domestic and inter­nation­al audiences across the board. It had also been subjected to continued attack on political grounds, from those who argued that it was inherently biased on a range of issues, and that this reflected poor governance, management failures, and a lack of accountability. Could the BBC continue to act as a national integrator in this increasingly divided setting? Broadcasting arrangements to mark the death of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, suggested that it could not. Previous generations would have expected the BBC to suspend normal programming on the death of a prominent member of the royal family, but attitudes had changed. Many were annoyed and baffled by the blanket coverage of the prince’s death, the huge amount of airtime devoted to tributes to his life, and the disruption of regular schedules. Philip died on 9 April 2021: within three days the Corporation had received in excess of 110,000 complaints from the public, mainly focusing on the excessive nature of its response. It was the most complained-­about event in the history of the BBC. Soon afterwards, the BBC was swept up into a new crisis that de­livered a significant blow to its relationships with the royal family, the government, and the British public. In November 2020, the Daily Mail, no friend of the BBC, had published new evidence (obtained from the Corporation via a freedom of information request) that Martin Bashir had used deception and forged documents to secure his famous 1995 interview with Princess Diana.The BBC’s critics, including Prince William, argued that Bashir’s unscrupulous journalism had played a role in destroying Diana’s marriage to the Prince of Wales and had ultimately contributed to the media frenzy that had ended in her death. The BBC was obliged to commission an investigation into

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



At r isk, 2000 –2022

275

the matter, led by Lord Dyson. His report, published in May 2021, confirmed that Bashir had deceived both Diana and her brother, Earl Spencer, clearly breaking BBC producer guidelines. Dyson also condemned the inadequacy of the BBC’s own investigations into the matter. These had taken place in 1996 and had been supervised by Tony Hall, at the time managing director of news and current affairs. Hall was an unlikely candidate for the role of impartial investigator. Along with John Birt, then director general, he had played a significant role in putting Bashir’s interview on-­air in the first place and had shared the credit for the BBC’s coup. Predictably, the 1996 investigation had failed to press Bashir on key points, and Dyson’s report concluded that BBC managers had also covered up the evidence they did find of Bashir’s dishonesty. The reputational damage inflicted on the BBC was increased by the fact that Hall had gone on to serve as director general, and that Bashir had been reappointed by the BBC in 2016 and subsequently promoted to the position of religion editor. It also transpired that a whistle-­ blower had brought Bashir’s actions to the attention of BBC management back in the 1990s, only to be ignored and then blacklisted. The BBC accepted Dyson’s findings in full. It offered an unconditional apology for its failings, a donation to charity on behalf of the Royal Family, and a large pay-­out to the blacklisted whistle-­blower. It also announced yet another internal review, to cover editorial oversight and protection for whistle-­blowers, chaired by Sir Nicholas Serota. The BBC’s trials thus continued unabated as it approached its centenary year. It is possible to exaggerate their significance. The details of each scandal were splashed across the press but quickly forgotten, and often paled into insignificance when compared with the scandals that rocked other public institutions during the same period. Defenders of the BBC would argue that it was politics and government, not the Corporation, that had changed. The BBC was still doing its job, exposing public affairs to critical scrutiny, but it was now being ­condemned, attacked, and smeared by all sides for doing so. Other

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

276

T h is is t h e BBC

broadcasters made mistakes, too, but were seldom subjected to the same degree of scrutiny as was the BBC.What concerned its supporters was the constant drip of vitriol, and the inescapable conclusion that this was part of a plan to soften up the Corporation, in advance of a major assault on its funding and its charter.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

Prospect The BBC after broadcasting

A

cross the hundred years of its history, the BBC has repeatedly transformed itself in the face of threats to its continued existence. Very much like The Doctor, its great on-­screen hero from the series Doctor Who, it has assumed new forms, more relevant to the changing world around it, in order to survive. Starting out in 1922 as a non-­profit company designed to promote the uptake of radio and keep the new medium under tight control, it quickly established itself as a public utility with a duty to serve the entire nation. This mission was enshrined in a royal charter, which, in 1927, established it as a publicly owned Corporation, supposedly free from day-­to-­day government intervention but ultimately responsible to parliament. During the 1930s, the BBC entered into a close relationship with civil servants and government ministers as it was called on to further the state’s domestic and overseas propaganda requirements. With the outbreak of the Second World War, it became the voice of the British government, although it was never just that. During that conflict, it continued to reflect and broadcast a range of different perspectives, and became adept at providing morale-­ boosting, crowd-­ pleasing entertainment. The Cold War subsequently reinforced the BBC’s importance as the key medium for British overseas propaganda and soft power.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

278

T h is is t h e BBC

However, this did not stop the government introducing domestic, commercial competition that proved a serious threat to the Corporation’s popularity with home audiences. During the 1960s, the BBC reinvented itself to meet this challenge, refreshing its offering by providing a platform for political analysis and journalism, new music, gritty drama and comedy, satire, and sometimes also provocative social commentary. Subsequently, in the face of a series of threats to its funding, and challenges from governments determined to make it toe the line, the BBC found itself fighting a continual, uphill battle to defend the continued relevance of public broadcasting. From the 1980s onwards, it sought to protect itself by commercializing its own op­er­ ations. Revenues generated in national and global markets helped sustain programme-­making and to some extent convinced governments of the importance of the BBC as a mainstay of the British creative economy. However, after two decades that saw serious crises of governance and repeated challenges to established ideas about impartiality in public broadcasting, the BBC seems to occupy a weaker position today than at any point in its history. Perhaps the most important theme running through the BBC’s century is its in-­built institutional drive to expand and survive. This has helped it overcome a whole host of challenges posed by technological, social, and cultural change, hostile and reforming governments, and global conflicts and transformations. In the face of all these threats, it has continued to aspire to entertain the nation and to speak for Britain, retaining its position as Britain’s most prominent broadcaster. Its successes have often been spectacular, long remembered, and cherished by its supporters. However, some of its failures have been equally obvious and have provided grist to the mill of the Corporation’s many enemies. When we talk about the BBC, we generally mean the public Corporation. Until the beginning of the 1980s, this was all that the BBC was. However, since then it has established a wide range of subsidiary commercial operations. These have now been drawn together under the aegis of BBC Studios, a company wholly owned by the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Prospect: T h e BBC a f t e r broa dcast i ng

279

Corporation. We might regard this change merely as the work of clever accountants, purely designed to allow the BBC to generate commercial revenues more effectively. Arguably, however, it reflects a fundamental transformation in the nature of the BBC as an institution. The public Corporation has, over the last thirty years, essentially become a commissioning body. It runs radio and television networks and digital services, but no longer makes many of the programmes that they deliver to audiences. Instead, today it fills broadcast schedules and slots on iPlayer by buying content from over 350 different independent production companies and from its own commercial operation, BBC Studios, which also makes content for other pro­ viders. It also sells its commissioned content, at home and abroad, on a wide range of commercial platforms: these include UKTV and BritBox, both part of BBC Studios, and also other platforms owned by other companies. This complex pattern of commercial operations seems to amount to a survival strategy or insurance policy, designed to ensure that some relic of the BBC’s public service operations will continue to function even if the television licence fee is heavily cut or eliminated entirely. BBC Studios might continue to make quality British drama, comedy, and factual and children’s programming, on a commercial basis, sold to many different channels and streaming services in the UK and around the world, even if the Corporation were to shrink drastically or disappear. The BBC ‘brand’ would live on to compete with, but also be carried by, global streaming services. Whether this would be enough to ensure that British audiences retained access to the quantity and quality of British-­made content they have become used to is another matter. In 2019, the ‘traditional’ British broadcasters provided approximately 32,000 hours of UK-­ originated content. Netflix and Amazon’s Prime TV together provided a paltry 164 hours. To be sure, the UK is an attractive base for the global companies that make television content, but much of what the big transnational streaming services commission in this country has very little cultural specificity. Britain might be favoured

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

280

T h is is t h e BBC

as a filming location because it offers a sophisticated production infrastructure, access to a strong pool of acting talent, and some stunning landscapes for location shooting. However, the programmes produced in the UK for the global streaming services have so far shown little sign of en­gaging with British culture or with British social and pol­it­ ical issues. It is hard to sell cultural specificity in a global marketplace. In contrast, as a public broadcaster, the BBC continues to provide not just quality British drama and comedy, but also an incredibly wide range of content, across many different fields, at a bargain price to the user. It presides over formidable local, national, and global news and sports operations, providing content that is consumed around the world across multiple platforms.The BBC’s most popular apps, downloaded onto smartphones and other devices, include BBC News and BBC Sport, alongside iPlayer and BBC Weather. The BBC also presides over extensive local and regional production operations, creating huge amounts of current affairs and entertainment content and serving diverse communities in ways that broadcasters like Sky, let alone the global streaming services, do not. In 1992, the BBC established a Disability Programmes Unit, to make content about, for, and by ­people with disabilities. Without the BBC, such programming would be much less likely to be produced. Netflix and Amazon certainly commission programmes that cast people of colour in leading roles, but their programmes are often fantasies. They seldom attempt to reflect the real, lived experiences of Black and Asian people, in the UK or elsewhere. The BBC also plays an important role in sustaining the ‘legacy’ media of terrestrial broadcast television and radio in the UK. These may well become obsolete over the next decade or so, as more and more people consume content online. However, for the moment, they continue to play an important role in the lives of many people and there is no immediate prospect that they will be closed down. ‘Channels’ might eventually become entirely redundant, or they may remain an important means to market and brand output, and for users

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Prospect: T h e BBC a f t e r broa dcast i ng

281

to continue to organize their own media consumption. By 2021, the BBC was running ten domestic television channels, fifty-­six radio stations, a substantial online presence, and an international news service broadcast in English and more than forty foreign languages. It had a legal obligation to fulfil quotas in programme genres like religion and the arts, which was imposed on no other British or transnational broadcaster. It played a key role in supporting the wider UK creative economy: one study estimated that the £1.4 billion invested by the BBC in creative production in the UK each year generated over £3.1 billion worth of output across the wider sector and delivered a significant boost to employment. The BBC is already facing severe financial constraints, following a drop in the value of licence fee funding of 30 per cent in real terms since 2010. On top of this, its decision to fund free television licences for over-­75s on pension credit will cost it around £200 million each year.The COVID-­19 pandemic has also brought significant additional costs. Moreover, with many people moving to online-­only media consumption, and in the context of public campaigning to defund the BBC, an unprecedented number of households have stopped taking out television licences. Even without further attacks on the licence fee system of funding, the BBC was going to find it hard to finance the delivery of all its charter obligations over the coming years. In January 2022, the government announced that the licence fee would be frozen at its current level for at least the next two years. Effectively, this is another very large real-­terms cut to its funding. The government also indicated that the future of the licence fee remains in doubt, and that the mid-­term charter review will focus on examining alternative funding models. Future-­gazing as the BBC enters its centenary year is made difficult by Boris Johnson’s government’s unpredictable approach to policymaking. The government may well pause before it abolishes the licence fee, or a new administration may reverse a decision to do so. Rumours of the demise of public broadcasting have certainly circulated in the past, only to be proved exaggerated. It is possible that the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

282

T h is is t h e BBC

public Corporation will survive its mid-­charter review and emerge, in 2027, from its next full charter review largely unscathed. However, it seems likely that the war of attrition waged by the government and others against the BBC over the last ten years will continue, and indeed intensify, as a prelude to major reform. If politicians do decide to alter the BBC’s basic funding model, several important questions will need to be addressed. Given the difficulties already faced by commercial broadcasters locked in intense competition for dwindling advertising revenue, some sort of subscription service has been seen as the most obvious alternative to funding the BBC via the licence fee. This might be relatively easy to implement for BBC streaming services, which could be run on a commercial basis by BBC Studios.This would provide a means of funding the quality British drama and comedy that many consumers, domestically and globally, would probably still be willing to pay for. Sales of BBC Studios entertainment and factual programming to other streaming services are already healthy and would provide a significant source of additional revenue. But how could a subscription system support the legacy media of terrestrial broadcasting? Many of those who have switched to online-­ only media consumption will presumably not wish to pay for digital terrestrial television or digital audio broadcasting services that they do not use. Many will also be uninterested in and unwilling to subscribe to BBC news services, local content, programmes for diverse communities, and the World Service, all currently funded by the licence fee. It would be difficult to erect paywalls around these services, or to fund them through on-­air advertising. The public Corporation might be left with responsibility for running these things and would perhaps become dependent on some form of direct government grant to fund them. Much might be lost in the process. The BBC is currently the most trusted news source in the UK, and in some other countries its journalism remains a significant presence: in the US, surveys have shown that there is greater public trust in BBC news than in any of

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



Prospect: T h e BBC a f t e r broa dcast i ng

283

the major American providers. Would this continue to be the case if BBC journalism was funded directly by the British state? The history of the BBC shows that the existence of public broadcasting is not inevitable and cannot be taken for granted. Its birth and its survival depended on the BBC fulfilling pressing social and cultural needs, and on it providing the best mechanism for delivering broadcasting as a public service. Certainly, inertia has also played a role in keeping the BBC going, and much of its work has been mundane and unremarkable, producing popular entertainment programming that seemed little different to (and often worse than) the output of its commercial rivals. Nevertheless, such material has long been deemed crucial to the broadcaster’s survival, attracting the mass audience the BBC needed to discharge and defend its broader role. Without popular programming, the BBC would not have endured. Today, little survives of the Reithian philosophy that emerged out of and shaped the BBC’s early work. However, there is at least one legacy of those pioneering years that retains some relevance today: the belief that broadcasting should not only keep people entertained but also make life better by helping to create a more interesting, chal­len­ ging, and inclusive society and culture. At its worst, the BBC has certainly failed to live up to this ideal and has clearly perpetuated inequality and hierarchy and acted as a tool of official influence, at home and overseas. But this is not the only story to be told. At its best, the BBC has liberated its programme makers and its audiences and encouraged them to think afresh about the world around them, day after day. For a century, the BBC has reflected and shaped life in Britain and has projected British culture and perspectives to audiences around the world. It has been able to do this because of its freedom from commercial considerations—something which has, since the 1980s, been increasingly undermined—although it is also clear that the BBC has produced its best work when it has faced competition. Another reason for the BBC’s dominating role in the British media landscape is the fact that many of the people who work for it have been deeply

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

284

T h is is t h e BBC

committed to making the most interesting, entertaining, and innovative programmes they possibly could, regardless of what senior executives or civil servants wanted them to do.The inability of managers fully to control programme makers and journalists has been both the BBC’s greatest strength and its most damaging vulnerability. The challenges faced by the BBC today are part of a long-­running set of controversies and debates about the role of public broadcasting in modern Britain, which have continued largely unabated for a century.The key question now facing the BBC is whether the opponents of public broadcasting have finally mustered the determination and the strength to impose a fundamental transformation upon the British media landscape. How long the BBC continues to play a constructive and dynamic role in British life should not just be the concern of broadcasting executives, lobbyists, MPs, and government ministers. Anyone who cares about what we read, watch, and listen to, on television, radio, or online, should think about what life would be like without the BBC, and about how the Corporation might, in the future, find new and better ways to serve all our needs.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

Endnotes

Chapter 1 1. ‘Broadcasting Begun’, Daily Mail, 15 Nov. 1922. 2. Quoted in David Prosser, ‘Marconi Proposes: Why it’s Time to Rethink the Birth of the BBC’, Media History, 25:3 (2019), 265–78, 3. ‘First Zoo Concert’, Daily Mail, 26 Sept. 1924. 4. The Broadcasting Committee: Report (London, 1923 [Cmd. 1951]), 6. 5. Richard S. Lambert, Ariel and All His Quality: An Impression of the BBC from Within (London, 1940), 155–6. 6. J. C. W. Reith, Broadcast over Britain (London, 1924), 34. 7. Lionel Fielden, The Natural Bent (London, 1960), 103. 8. ‘A Scandinavian Listener’, Radio Supplement, 30 Apr. 1926. 9. Quoted in Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, 1929–1939: Serving the Nation (Oxford, 1991), 10. 10. W. Pett Ridge, ‘The New Call to the Fireside’, Radio Times, 7 Nov. 1924.

Chapter 2 1. Radio Times, 7 Jan. 1927. 2. The Broadcasting Committee: Report (London, 1923 [Cmd. 1951]), 6, 14. 3. Report of the Broadcasting Committee, 1925 (London, 1926 [Cmd. 2599]), 13. 4. Report of the Broadcasting Committee, 1935 (London, 1936 [Cmd. 5091]), 18. 5. Maurice Gorham, Sound and Fury:Twenty-­One Years in the BBC (London, 1948), 45. 6. Collie Knox,‘Scottish Listeners Want Better Music’, Daily Mail, 18 Dec. 1934. 7. Maurice Lane-­Norcott,‘My Great Wireless Boon’, Daily Mail, 3 Apr. 1934. 8. ‘A “New Venture” ’, Listener, 16 Jan. 1929. 9. Quoted in Tom Fleming (ed.), Voices out of the Air: The Royal Christmas Broadcasts, 1932–1981 (London, 1981), 11. 10. Radio Times, 1 Mar. 1929. 11. Radio Times, 29 Mar. 1929 and 5 Sept. 1930. 12. ‘The Broadcast Drama’, Listener, 1 May 1929.

Dictionary: NOSD

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

286 E n dnot es 13. ‘The British Broadcasting Corporation—Empire Broadcasting’, Nov. 1929, UK National Archives, DO35/198/2. 14. Quoted in Siân Nicholas, The Echo of War: Home Front Propaganda and the Wartime BBC, 1939–45 (Manchester, 1996), 21. 15. Richard S. Lambert, Ariel and all his Quality: An Impression of the BBC from Within (London, 1940), 87–8. 16. Hilda Jennings and Winifred Gill, Broadcasting in Everyday Life: A Survey of the Social Effects of the Coming of Broadcasting (n.p., 1939), 34, 39–40.

Chapter 3 1. Rex Leeper, ‘Propaganda in Enemy Countries in War’, 22 June 1939, United Kingdom National Archives, Kew, FO 395/630. 2. J. C. W. Reith, Into the Wind (London, 1949), 354. 3. Norman Collins, London Belongs to Me (London, 2009 [1945]), 573. 4. Maurice Gorham, Sound and Fury:Twenty-­One Years in the BBC (London, 1948), 45. 5. Radio Times, 26 June 1940. 6. Radio Times, 24 Dec. 1943. 7. Priestley, Postscripts, 85. 8. Quoted in Brian P. D. Hannon, ‘Creating the Correspondent: How the BBC Reached the Frontline in the Second World War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 28:2 (2008), 175–94, quote at 186. 9. P. P. Eckersley, The Power Behind the Microphone (London, 1942), 168. 10. Penelope Fitzgerald, Human Voices (London, 2003 [1980]), 6. 11. Quoted in Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol. 3, The War of Words (Oxford, 1995 [1970]), 20. 12. Quoted in Gordon Johnston and Emma Robertson, BBC World Service: Overseas Broadcasting, 1932–2018 (Basingstoke, 2019), 111. 13. McCall to T.  W.  Bearup, 11 Jan. 1941, National Archives of Australia, New South Wales Branch, SP1558/2, box 82. 14. Quoted in Charles J. Rolo, Radio Goes to War (London, 1943), 142. 15. ‘Many Tongues—One Voice: 4—From Turkey Round to Algeria’, London Calling, 25–31 Mar. 1945. 16. Quoted in Alban Webb, London Calling: Britain, the BBC World Service and the Cold War (London, 2014), 14. 17. George Orwell to George Woodcock, 2 Dec. 1942, in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds), The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell,Vol. 2 (Middlesex, 1970), 306–7. 18. ‘Richard Dimbleby describes Belsen’, https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/ richard-­dimbleby-­describes-­belsen/zvw7cqt, accessed 21 Oct. 2021.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



E n dnot es 

287

19. Quoted in Johnston and Robertson, BBC World Service, 140. 20. Alan Mulgan, The Making of a New Zealander (Wellington, 1958), 112. 21. Quoted in Johnston and Robertson, BBC World Service, 99.

Chapter 4 1. J. B. Priestley, Margin Released (London, 1962), 223. 2. Quoted in Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol. 3, The War of Words (Oxford, 1995 [1970]), 652. 3. Quoted in Thomas Hajkowski, ‘Red on the Map: Empire and Americanization at the BBC, 1942–50’ in Joel  H.  Wiener and Mark Hampton (eds), Anglo-­American Media Interactions, 1850–2000 (Basingstoke, 2007), 176–91, quote at 184. 4. Broadcasting Committee 1949—General Survey of the Broadcasting Service (BBC, May 1949), 29, Manchester Central Library, Lord Simon of Wythenshawe papers, M11/6/5c. 5. Radio Times, 22 Mar. 1946. 6. Quoted in Alban Webb, London Calling: Britain, the BBC World Service and the Cold War (London, 2014), 1. 7. John Coatman, ‘The BBC, Government and Politics’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 15:2 (summer 1951), 287–98, quote at 294. 8. Quoted in Webb, London Calling, 39. 9. Radio Times, 24 Oct. 1952 10. Bernard Hollowood, ‘On the Air’, Punch, 2. Sept. 1953. 11. Bernard Hollowood, ‘On the Air, and All That’, Punch, 22 Dec. 1954 12. J. Stubbs Walker, ‘The Chairman Talks Down a Good Show’, Daily Mail, 17 July 1951. 13. Quoted in Darrell M. Newton, Paving the Empire Road: BBC Television and Black Britons (Manchester, 2011), 3. 14. ‘Television Notes’, Manchester Guardian, 9 Nov. 1956. 15. Peter Black, ‘Teleview’, Daily Mail, 9 Nov. 1956. 16. Peter Black, Daily Mail, 2 Jan. 1960. 17. Bernard Hollowood, ‘On the Air’, Punch, 31 May 1961. 18. Ibid., 17 Jan. 1962. 19. ‘Home-­truths about TV and Radio’, Guardian, 4 Jan 1960.

Chapter 5 1. ‘Quatermass and the Pit’, Manchester Guardian, 13 Jan. 1959. 2. ‘Greene of the BBC’, Observer, 10 Jan. 1960. 3. ‘Hugh Carleton Green: New Head of B.B.C.’, Manchester Guardian, 21 July 1959.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

288 E n dnot es 4. Peter Black, Daily Mail, 2 Jan. 1960. 5. Hugh Carleton Greene, The Third Floor Front (London, 1969), 130–1. 6. Bernard Hollowood, ‘On the Air’, Punch, 6 Apr. 1960. 7. Quoted in Will Wyatt, The Fun Factory:A Life in the BBC (London, 2003), 98. 8. Wyatt, Fun Factory, 39. 9. Barry Norman, ‘After This Perhaps We’ll Get Move Over, Dalek’, Daily Mail, 23 June 1965. 10. Bernard Hollowood, ‘On the Air’, Punch, 14 Mar. 1962. 11. Ibid., 3 Jan. 1962. 12. ‘A Third Voice for Television’, Guardian, 20 Apr. 1964. 13. Mary Crozier, ‘BBC-­2 in with Panache’, Guardian, 22 Apr. 1964. 14. Roger Eglin, ‘Wimbledon Colour TV Whiter than White’, Observer, 2 July 1967. 15. J. E. Hinder, ‘Television’, Punch, 2 Oct. 1968. 16. Ibid., 18 Jan. 1967. 17. Greene, Third Floor Front, 136. 18. Quoted in Wyatt, Fun Factory, 27. 19. Jean Seaton, ‘Pinkoes and Traitors’: The BBC and the Nation, 1974–1987 (London, 2015), 309. 20. Oliver Whitley, ‘The Objectives of Broadcasting’, Listener, 6 June 1974. 21. Bernard Hollowood, ‘On the Air’, Punch, 22 Apr. 1964. 22. Wyatt, Fun Factory, 30. 23. Extract from Gerard Mansell, BBC oral history interview, 1981, available at https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-­voices/coldwar/long-­war/, accessed 21 Oct. 2021. 24. Quoted in Leonard Miall, Inside Inside the BBC: British Broadcasting Characters (London, 1994), 258. 25. ‘The Day Charles Curran Quit the BBC’, Observer, 11 Aug. 1968. 26. Quoted in Tom Burns, The BBC: Public Institution and Private World (London, 1977), 33. 27. Peter Black, Daily Mail, 10 Jan. 1973. 28. Gerard Garrett, ‘Viewing’, Daily Mail, 3 July 1971. 29. Quoted in Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, 1922–1939: Serving the Nation (Oxford, 1991), 10.

Chapter 6 1. Herbert Kretzmer, ‘BBC versus ITV’, Daily Mail, 30 July 1981. 2. Nancy Banks-­Smith, ‘Money Makes the World Go Around’, Guardian, 15 July 1985. 3. Anthea Hall, ‘East End Promise’, Sunday Telegraph, 24 Feb. 1985.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi



E n dnot es 

289

4. Mary Kenny, ‘The Ultimate Brain Teaser’, Daily Mail, 13 May 1982. 5. Des Christy, ‘Crucifixion, Courtesy of the BBC’, Guardian, 6 May 1991. 6. Sylvia Clayton, ‘Blood on the Dole’, Telegraph, 11 Oct. 1982. 7. Peter Fiddick, ‘Boys from the Blackstuff ’, Guardian, 25 Oct. 1982. 8. Quoted in Jack Williams, Entertaining the Nation: A Social History of British Television (Stroud, 2004), 122. 9. Elizabeth Cowley, ‘Victoria Wood—As Seen on TV’, Daily Mail, 15 Feb. 1985. 10. Radio Times, 18 Dec. 1982. 11. Quoted in Williams, Entertaining the Nation, 73. 12. Quoted in Will Wyatt, The Fun Factory: A Life in the BBC (London, 2003), 135. 13. John Birt, The Harder Path (London, 2002), 249–50. 14. Quoted in Independent, 24 Feb. 1990. 15. Extending Choice: The BBC’s Role in the New Broadcasting Age—Staff Summary (BBC, 1992), 8. 16. Stephen Pile, ‘Familiar Taste Gives New Show its Bite’, Telegraph, 17 July 1999. 17. Seán Day-­Lewis, ‘Politics and Passion on Sixties Tyneside’, Telegraph, 16 Jan. 1996. 18. Quoted in E. Jane Dickson,‘Survival of the Funniest’, Telegraph, 4 July 1998. 19. Stuart Jeffries, ‘What a Gay, Gay Day’, Guardian, 30 June 1995. 20. Quoted in Gordon Johnston and Emma Robertson, BBC World Service: Overseas Broadcasting, 1932–2018 (Basingstoke, 2019), 1. 21. Birt, Harder Path, 430.

Chapter 7 1. Kate Kellaway, ‘Eh-­oh Laa Laa!’, Observer, 25 May 1997. 2. Rupert Smith, ‘Heavy Petting’, Guardian, 4 Nov. 2003. 3. ‘Minutes of the Governors’ Private Session’, 28 Jan. 2004, http://image. guardian.co.uk/sys-­files/Media/documents/2007/01/11/DykeMinutes 280104.pdf, accessed 22 Oct. 2021. 4. Matthew Bond, ‘Corruption on Both Sides of the Law’, Telegraph, 17 Sept. 1999. 5. Building Public Value: Renewing the BBC for a Digital World (BBC, 2004). 6. Ibid. 7. Review of the BBC’s Royal Charter:A Strong BBC, Independent of Government (Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, March 2005). 8. Sarah Dempster, ‘The Apprentice 2013—Louda, Blunta and With More Bosh’, Guardian, 4 May 2013.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

290 E n dnot es 9. Sam Wollason, ‘TV Review’, Guardian, 13 May 2012. 10. ‘BBC Director General Set to Make Case for International Expansion’, Guardian, 5 Sept. 2015. 11. Royal Charter for the Continuance of the British Broadcasting Corporation (Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, December 2016). 12. British Bold Creative:The BBC’s Programmes and Services in the Next Charter (BBC, September 2015). 13. The Dame Janet Smith Review Report: An Independent Review into the BBC’s Culture and Practices during the Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall Years (BBC, Feb. 2016). 14. Quoted in Jane Martinson and Mark Sweney, ‘Report Urges End to 94 Years of BBC Self-­regulation’, Guardian, 1 Mar. 2016. 15. Royal Charter (2016). 16. A BBC for the Future: A Broadcaster of Distinction (Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, May 2016). 17. A Distinctive BBC (BBC, April 2016). 18. A BBC for the Future. 19. ‘Tim Davie’s Introductory Speech as BBC Director-­General’, Cardiff, 3 Sept. 2020, https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2020/tim-­ davie-­intro-­speech, accessed 21 Oct. 2021. 20. The Future of Public Service Broadcasting: Sixth Report of Session 2019–21 (House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, 17 Mar. 2021). 21. ‘IEA Analysis Shows Systemic Bias Against “Leave” Supporters on Flagship BBC Political Programmes’, https://iea.org.uk/media/iea-­analysis-­shows-­ systemic-­b ias-­a gainst-­l eave-­s upporters-­o n-­f lagship-­b bc-­p olitical-­ programmes/, accessed 21 Oct. 2021. 22. ‘Tim Davie’s Introductory Speech as BBC Director-­General’. 23. News at Ten, BBC One, 21 July 2021.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

Further reading

A huge amount of work on the history of the BBC has been published, including official histories that have made understanding the BBC easier for everyone. For all its faults and blind-­spots, Asa Brigg’s monumental five-­volume official account, The History of British Broadcasting in the United Kingdom (Oxford, 1965–95), broke new ground and underpins almost every­thing that has since been written about the history of the BBC. Jean Seaton’s very different successor volume, ‘Pinkoes and Traitors’: The BBC and the Nation, 1974–1987 (London, 2015), offers other insights about the way the Corporation operated in the 1970s and early 1980s, and makes excellent use of interviews with BBC staff. Covering a later period, and certainly not an official history, Georgina Born’s Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC (London, 2004) is required reading for those interested in the internal dynamics of the Corporation. David Hendy shines a light on the operation of one particular BBC network in Life on Air:A History of Radio Four (Oxford, 2007) as does Humphrey Carpenter in The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3 (London, 1996). For those interested in the social impact of the BBC in its early years, the seminal work is undoubtedly Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, 1922–1939: Serving the Nation (Oxford, 1991). Thomas Hajkowski’s The BBC and National Identity in Britain, 1922–53 (Manchester and New York, 2010) provides more on ideas about broadcasting and national and regional identity. Siân Nicholas’s The Echo of War: Home Front Propaganda and the Wartime BBC, 1939–45 (Manchester, 1996) presents in-­depth analysis of the BBC’s domestic broadcasting during the Second World War. Christina  L.  Baade’s Victory through Harmony: The BBC and Popular Music in World War II (New York and Oxford, 2012) examines a crucial aspect of the BBC’s wartime work. Kate Murphy has made a significant contribution to our understanding of gender and dis­crim­in­ation within the BBC with Behind the Wireless: A History of Early Women at the BBC (London, 2016). On race and the BBC, key works include Darrell  M.  Newton’s Paving the Empire Road: BBC Television and Black Britons (Manchester, 2011) and Gavin Schaffer’s The Vision of a Nation: Making Multiculturalism on British Television, 1960–80 (Basingstoke, 2014). For an overview of BBC international broadcasting, it is hard to beat BBC World Service: Overseas Broadcasting, 1932–2018 (Basingstoke, 2019) by Gordon Johnston and Emma Robertson. My own work has explored the BBC’s engagement with empire, in Broadcasting Empire:The BBC and the British World, 1922–1970 (Oxford, 2012). I have

Dictionary: NOSD

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi

292

F u rt h e r r e a di ng

also looked at the early days of BBC international broadcasting in Wireless Internationalism and Distant Listening: Britain, Propaganda, and the Invention of Global Radio, 1920–1939 (Oxford, 2020).There is a huge literature on the BBC and the Cold War, with the best starting point being Alban Webb’s London Calling: Britain, the BBC World Service and the Cold War (London, 2014).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi

Index

2LO (radio station)  9, 18, 25, 28–9, 35–7 5XX (radio station)  18, 36 Absolutely Fabulous  222, 243 accents  21, 52, 84–6, 97, 121 Adams, Robert  61 Adams, Mary  133 Adie, Kate  205 advertising  12, 228 African Service  96, 178 Aherne, Caroline  222 Alan, A. J. (Leslie Harrison Lambert)  26, 34 Aldenham House, Hertfordshire  91 Ali, Rekha  99 Alexandra Palace  60–1, 132 Al Jazeera 227 All Creatures Great and Small 185 All India Radio  96, 100 ’Allo ’Allo 201 All That Fall 121 All the World Over 51–2 Allen, Chesney  84 Alexander, Juliet  206 Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme 105 Alston, Rex  121 Amazon  262, 266–9, 279–80 American Broadcasting Station in Europe 105 American Commentary 86 American Forces Network  83, 105, 111 American in England, An 83 Americanization  23, 28, 82–4, 113–14, 138–9, 201–2 Amin, Mohamed  194–5 Andrews Sisters, The  83

Andrews, Eamonn  135–6 Andrews, Julie  120 Andrew Marr Show,The 257 Andy Pandy 133 Animal Hospital 241 Animal Magic 154 Animal Planet  248 Annan, Kofi  226 Annan Committee  183–4, 190 Anthony, Jonquil  117 Antiques Roadshow 242 Any Questions? 122–3 Apprentice,The 257 Arabic Service  65–6, 71, 99, 131, 178 Archers,The  117, 141 Arena 188 Are You Being Served?  185–6, 201 Armistice Day  31 Ascent of Man,The 162 Asian Network  240, 253–4 Asian Programmes Unit  206 Askey, Arthur  58–9, 136 Association of Broadcasting Staff  182 Atlantic Spotlight 84 Attenborough, Sir David  142, 148, 161–2, 180, 188–9 Attlee, Clement  111 Atwell, Winifred  136–7 audience research  58 Aus der freien Welt 92–3 Austen, Jane  28, 249 Australian Broadcasting Commission  96, 161 Baddiel, David  221 Bagpuss 163 Baker, Tom  156

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi

294 I n de x Bakewell, Joan  162 Balding, Clare  222 Baldwin, Stanley  73 Ball, Johnny  187 Ball, Zoe  222 Ballykissangel 220 Band Waggon  58–9, 81, 171 Bannister, Roger  134 Bargain Hunt 241 Barker, Ronnie  184, 186 Barker, Sue  222 Barnett, Lady Isobel  136 Bartlett,Vernon  42, 97 Bashir, Martin  233, 274–5 Bate, Fred  97 Battle of Britain, the  85–7 Battle of Britain, The 86 Baverstock, Donald  142 BBC1 see BBC One BBC2 see BBC Two BBC 7  240 BBC America  228, 247–8 BBC Arabic Television  227, 258 BBC Basic  209–10 BBC Bitesize  2–3 BBC Choice  230–1, 239 bbc.co.uk website  230, 237, 241, 253 BBC Enterprises  179, 209, 228 BBC Films  209, 255 BBC Four  240, 242, 243 BBC iPlayer  3, 237, 255–6, 264, 269 BBC Knowledge  231, 239 BBC Media Action  257 BBC Micro home computer  209–10 BBC News (app)  280 BBC News 24  230, 239, 241 BBC News Arabic  258 BBC News Online  230 BBC News Persian  258 BBC One  1–2, 151, 161, 163, 193–5, 197–9, 202–5, 216–17, 221–2, 230–1, 234, 238–9, 241–3, 256–8 BBC Parliament  231, 239, 256 BBC Prime  228, 247 BBC Radio Player  240 BBC Sounds  3, 268–9 BBC Sport (app)  280 BBC Store  255

BBC Studios  262, 265–6, 268, 273, 278–80 BBC television service (pre-1967)  59–61, 73, 132–8, 147–8 BBC Three  239–40, 242, 255, 256, 268 BBC Two  3, 151, 161–4, 188, 189, 194, 195, 199, 202–6, 220–3, 231, 234, 241–3, 256–7 BBC Trust  252, 260, 263 BBC Weather (app)  280 BBC World News  227–8, 247 BBC World Service Television  227 BBC World Service Trust  257 BBC Worldwide  228, 231, 246–50, 253–5, 265, 273 Beaman, S. G. Hulme  55 Beckett, Samuel  121 Beckett, Sister Wendy  222 Beckinsale, Richard  186 Before Your Very Eyes 136 Belgian Service  94 Bengali Serivce  99 Benjamin, Floella  163 Bentley, Dick  119 Bennett, Alan  203 Bentine, Michael  118, 121 Berger, John  162 Beveridge, 1st Baron  139–40 Bevin, Ernest  90 Bewes, Rodney  186 Beyond our Ken 171 Bhaskar, Sanjeev  223 Big Ben  16, 64 Big Read,The 242 Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School 147 Billy Cotton Band Show, The  121–2, 141 Birds of a Feather 222 Birt, John  196, 212–17, 224–5, 227, 229, 231–2, 233, 238, 275 Blackeyes 203 Blair, Tony  215, 224, 228, 237, 243–6 Blankety Blank 184–5 Blitz, the  86–8, 96–7 Blue Peter  141, 154, 241 Blue Planet,The 248 Boat Race, Oxford-Cambridge University 41 Bob Hope Show,The 82 Bolam, James  186

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi



I n de x

Bonarjee, Stephen  123 Booth, Anthony  164 Booth, Connie  186 Borrett, Sheila  49 Bose, Kamal  99 Boult, Adrian  47–8 Black and White Minstrel Show  137, 170 Black Man in Britain,The 169 Blackburn, Tony  173 blackface  28–9, 57, 82, 137, 170, 185 Bleasdale, Alan  202–3 Bluett, Kitty  118 Bokhari, Z. A.  96 Bombers over Germany 86 Bough, Frank  194, 197 Boys from the Blackstuff 202–3 Braden, Bernard  185 Braden’s Week 185 Bragg, Melvyn  142 Brains Trust,The  80, 83, 136 Brambell, Wilfrid  156 Brand, Russell  252 Bread 201 Breakfast 241 Breakfast Time 197 Brexit referendum  271 Bridson, D. Geoffrey  50, 51, 54, 83, 111 Briers, Richard  186 Britain to America 83 BritBox  268, 279 British Commonwealth International Newsfilm Agency  143 British empire  51–2, 63–5, 74, 95–6, 100–1, 111, 114, 129–30, 159, 177–8 British Forces Broadcasting Service  111 Britten, Benjamin  118 Broadcasting House, London  3, 43–4, 59, 87–8, 91, 96, 152, 168, 235–6, 258 Broadcasting Complaints Commission 252 Broadcasting in the Seventies 181 Broadcasting Standards Commission  252 Broadcasting Standards Council  252 Brooke-Taylor, Tim  172, 187 Brough, Peter  120 Brown, Gordon  254 BSkyB see Sky

295

Buckeridge, Anthony  118 Buerk, Michael  194–5 Buffy the Vampire Slayer 242 Buggins family, the  30, 34, 89 Burgess, Guy  101 Burnett, Hugh  142 Burrows, Arthur  9, 62 Bush House, London  91, 104, 131, 227, 258 Bushnell, Ernie  96, 98 Butterflies 187 Byford, Mark  246 Cagney & Lacey 201 Callaghan, James  183–4 Calling the West Indies 98 Camberwick Green 154 Cameron, David  254, 258, 271 Cameron, Rhona  223 Campbell, Cmr A. B.  80 Campbell, Alastair  243–5 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation  96, 161 Čapek, Karel  60–1 Capital Radio  183 Carpendale, Sir Charles  62 Caribbean Voices 98 Castle Transmission Services  229–30 Casualty  199, 219, 242 Cathy Come Home 157 Caversham Park, Reading  91 Cawston, Richard  160 CBBC  2–3, 240–2 CBeebies 240–2 Ceefax 189 Chamberlain, Neville  67, 74 Change of Sex, A 172 Changing Rooms 221 Channel 4  202, 204, 207–8, 221, 223, 224, 253, 257 Chapman, Graham  172 Charles, Prince of Wales  160, 193–4, 233 charitable appeals  15, 37, 194–5 charter see royal charter Checkland, Michael  210, 212–13, 215 Chegwin, Keith  188 Chigley 154 Children Calling Home 97

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi

296 I n de x children’s broadcasting  25–6, 55, 58, 141, 147–8, 154, 163, 187–8, 248 see also CBeebies, CBBC, Children’s Hour Children’s Hour  35, 55, 74, 111, 117–18, 171 Children in Need 195 Chilton, Charles  119, 171 Chitale,Venu  99 Christmas broadcasting  34, 51–3, 159, 199, 200, 233 Churchill, Sir Winston  42, 87, 95, 108, 112, 126, 131, 139–40, 148, 159–60 Citizen Smith 200 Civilisation  162, 180 Clark, Kenneth  162 Classic FM  214 classical music  24–5, 35–6, 45, 47–8, 148–9 Clean-Up Television Campaign  165 Cleese, John  172, 186 Clegg, Nick  254 Clement, Dick  163–4, 186 Clementi, Sir David  263–4 Coast 257 Coatman, John  67, 126 Colehan, Barney  122 Coleman, David  141 Collins, Norman  78, 139 Colonel Britton see Ritchie, Douglas Colonial Office  129–30 Colonial Schools Transcriptions Unit 129 Colour Me Pop 163 colour television broadcasting  161 Columbia Broadcasting Service  82–3, 97, 135 Come Dancing  136, 185 comedy  29–31, 36, 56–9, 79–80, 89, 118–21, 163–4, 172, 184–7, 200–1, 203–4, 205, 219–23 see also variety programmes Comedy of Danger, A 28 Comic Relief 195 Commonwealth Broadcasting Association 177 Connor, Edric  136 Connor, Kenneth  118 Constanduros, Denis  98 Constanduros, Mabel  30, 34, 89, 98

Constantine, Sir Learie  168 Continuous Creation 121 Conway, Sir Martin  25 Coogan, Steve  221 Cook, Peter  163 Cooke, Alistair  86, 118, 180 Corbett, Harry  133 Corbett, Harry H.  156 Corbett, Ronnie  184 Cormack, Jessie  25–6 Compact 154 Corwin, Norman  83 Cotton, Bill  184 Cotton, Billy  77, 121–2, 184 Covent Garden  14 COVID-19 pandemic  1–3, 270, 273, 281 Cox, Sara  222 Crackerjack 133 Cran, Marion  26, 37 Crane, Andy  202 Craven, John  187–8 Crawford, 27th Earl  39–40 cricket 134 Crimewatch UK 221 Crisis in Spain 50 Croft, David  155, 185–6, 201 crooning  82, 100, 114 Crompton, Richmal  119 Crosby, Bing  80 Crystal Palace fire  42 Crystal Palace football ground  41 Curran, Charles  180–1 Curtis, Richard  195 Cusack, Cyril  118 Cushing, Peter  135 Czechoslovakia, Soviet invasion of (1968) 176 D-Day 106 Dad’s Army  155, 185 Daily Mail, The  44, 274 Dallas 201 Dando, Jill  236 dance music  28–9, 35, 47, 55, 76–7, 108 Dancing with the Stars 248 Daniels, Bebe  79–80, 122 Danquah, Paul  163 Dark Tower,The 118 Daventry  18, 36, 63, 65

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi



I n de x

Davie, Tim  273 Davies, Gavyn  246 Davies, Sir Walford  26 Davis, David  117–18 Dawson, Les  185 Day, Robin  236 Day Today,The 221 Defund the BBC campaign  272 del Frate, Pio  25 Delmer, Sefton  92 Dennis, Hugh  221 Department for Enemy Propaganda  103 Derbyshire, Delia  157 Desert Island Discs  80, 148, 205 Designed for Women 133 detector vans  132 Devi, Maharajkumari Indira of Kapurthala 99 Dibb, Mike  162 Dick Barton 119 Dick, Clare Lawson  167 Dick, Steward  25 Dickens, Charles  34, 249 Dieppe Raid  106 digital audio broadcasting  230, 240–1 digital terrestrial television  230–1, 240, 250–1, 270, 282 Dimbleby, David  234 Dimbleby, Richard  41–2, 106–7, 113, 122, 136, 138, 142, 159–60, 234, 236 disability  266, 280 Disability Programme Unit  280 Disco 2 163 Discovery Communications Inc.  228, 248, 265, 268 Disney+ 268 Dixon of Dock Green  141, 147, 158 Doctor Who  2, 147, 152–3, 156–7, 238, 277 Doonican,Val  184 Dove, Evelyn  29, 82, 136 Down Your Way 122 Dr Finlay’s Casebook 154 Dr Kildare 154 drama  28, 36, 53–5, 111, 118–19, 121, 132, 135, 141, 147, 151, 154, 157–8, 162–3, 168, 180, 185, 190, 197–9, 202–3, 217, 219–20 see also soap opera drink  152–3, 162, 167

297

Dunkirk 84 Dunn, Clive  155 Durbridge, Francis  55 Dyke, Greg  238–46 Dyson, John Anthony (Lord Dyson)  274–5 East European Service  124, 130 Eastenders  197–9, 219, 241, 242, 248, 256 Eastern Service  96, 98–9, 105 Ebony 205–6 Eckersley, Peter  16, 18, 45, 165, 236 Eddington, Paul  186 Eden, Sir Anthony  66, 130–1 editorial guidelines  212 Edmonds, Noel  188, 221 educational broadcasting  25 see also schools broadcasting, Open University Edward VIII  52 Edwards, Jimmy  119 Educating Archie 120 Eldorado 219 Elizabeth II  81–2, 233–4 Coronation of  113, 137–8, 160, 193 Elliot, T. S.  54 Elstree 198 English Family Robinson,The 98 Emery, Dick  119, 184 Empire Day  51 Empire Entertainments Unit  96 Empire Road 169 Empire Service  63–6, 75, 95–6, 100, 129 Engelmann, Franklin  122 English by Radio 129 Entwistle, George  260–1, 273 Escape to the Country 241–2 Ethiopian famine  194–5 European Broadcasting Union  177 European Service  67, 90–5, 103–4, 107, 131 Eurovision Song Content  144, 185 Everett, Kenny  173 Extending Choice  218–19, 222 External Services  124–31, 175–81, 225 Eye-Witness,The 148 Face to Face 142 Fairhead, Rhona  263 Faisal II of Iraq  71

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi

298 I n de x Falklands War  203, 208 Fall of the City,The 54 Family,The 188 Family Favourites 122 Features Department  171 feature programmes  50–1, 86–7 Feed the Brute 89 Feldman, Marty  171 Festival of Carols, A 159 Fielden, Lionel  24 Fields, Gracie  55, 77 Fimbles 250 Fitzgerald, Penelope  87 Flanagan, Bud  84 Flannery, Peter  220 Fleming, Tom  193–4, 234 Flextech Television  231 Flower Pot Men 133 Foot, R. W.  104 football Association  41, 134, 154, 217, 239 Rugby  36–7, 41, 134 For the Children 133 Forces Favourites  111, 122 Forces News Letter 86 Forces Programme  77–84, 86, 89–90, 100, 113 Foreign Correspondent 134 Foreign and Commonwealth Office  226–7, 254, 258–9, 265 Foreign Office  42, 64, 67, 76, 103–4, 124–6, 128–31, 176, 179, 182–3 Information Research Department 127 see also Foreign and Commonwealth Office formats 248 Forsyte Sage,The  163, 179–80 Forsyth, Bruce  184 Foundations of Music, The  35, 47 Four Harmony Kings, The  29 Fourteen Day rule  123–4 Frankau, Ronald  30, 56–7, 120 Franklin, Mildred  37 freedom of expression  264, 271–3 Freeman, Alan  173 Freeman, John  142 Freeview 240 Freesat 240

French and Saunders  205, 222 French, Dawn  205, 222 French Service  90–1 Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The 243 Friday Night Comedy 269 Friday Night with Jonathan Ross 242 Front Line Family  97–8, 100, 117 From Our Own Correspondent  123, 148 Frost, David  158–9, 199 Galton, Ray  120, 155 Galsworthy, John  163 Gambaccini, Paul  195 Garden, Graeme  172, 187 Gardeners’ Question Time 123 Gardeners’World 242 gardening programmes  26 see also Gardeners’ Question Time and Gardeners’World Gardner, Charles  85 Gaytime TV 223 Geldof, Bob  194–5 gender discrimination  27, 49, 61, 88–9, 96, 100, 114, 165–7, 204–5, 222, 266 general elections 1922 9 1945 111 1959 143 1964  153, 156 General Electric Company  13 General Forces Programme  100, 111 General Overseas Service  100, 128, 178 General Post Office  11–13, 18, 21, 32–3, 38–40, 49, 102 General Strike (1926)  32–4, 38–9 Generation Game,The 184 Gentle Ben 202 George V  52 George VI  52–3, 60, 74, 106, 108 Geraldo (Gerald Walcan Bright)  77 German Service  67–8, 92–4, 103, 107, 124, 127 ‘Gert and Daisy’ see Waters, Elsie and Doris Ghir, Kulvinder  223 Gielgud, Sir John  53 Gielgud,Val  53–5 Gill, Eric  43–4

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi



I n de x

Gillard, Frank  106, 175 Gilliam, Laurence  51, 83 Gilligan, Andrew  243–6 Good Life,The 186 Goodies,The  172, 187 Goodness Gracious Me 222–3 Google 269 Goon Show,The  118–19, 128 Gorbachev, Mikhail  225–6 Gordon the Gopher  202 Gorham, Maurice  43, 79 governors, BBC board of  43, 104, 116, 208–9, 211, 245–6, 252 Gracie, Carrie  266 Grade, Michael  198 Graham Norton Show,The 257 Grandstand  141, 147, 242 Grange Hill 187–8 Grant, Cy  142 Grantham, Leslie  198 Graves, Sir Cecil  104 Graves, Robert  162 Grayson, Larry  184 Great British Bake Off 257 Great Depression  49–50 Great War,The 161 Greene, Sir Hugh Carleton  124, 129–30, 143, 149–52, 158–9, 164–6, 168, 180–1, 191–2 Griffiths, Derek  163, 169 Griggs, Barbara  193 Grisewood, Freddie  56, 123 Grove Family,The 141 Ground Force  221, 243 Guinness, Alec  180 Gustav Siegfried Eins 92 Guthrie, Tyrone  54 Hague, William  238 Haley, Sir William  104, 114–15, 124–5, 131 Halifax, 1st Earl  67 Hall, Adelaide  61 Hall, Henry  77 Hall, Stuart  166–7 Hall, Tony (Baron Hall of Birkenhead)  233, 255, 261, 275 Halsey, Ernest  57 Hamish MacBeth 220

299

Hancock, Tony  119–20 Hancock’s Half Hour  120, 141 Handley, Tommy  30, 36, 56–7, 81–2, 118, 120 Hanrahan, Brian  236 Harding, E. A.  50–1 Harding, Gilbert  136, 142 Harris, Bob  163, 214 Harris, Rolf  166–7 Harry Hopeful 50–1 Hart, Tony  154, 187 Hartnell, William  156 Harty, Russell  199 Has Britain a Colour Bar? 137 Have a Go! 122 Have I Got News For You  221, 242 Haw Haw, Lord see Joyce, William Hawkins, Desmond  142 Hay, Will  30 Hayman, Joe  37 Heal, Jeanne  133 Henry, John  16, 30 Henry, Lenny  170, 195, 206 Herbert,Vince  206 Hi-de-Hi! 201 Hi, Gang!  79–80, 122 Hill, Charles (Baron Hill of Luton) 180–1 Hill, Bernard  203 Hindustani Service  98–9 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,The 174 Holocaust  93–4, 107 Home Box Office  249, 267 Home Service  73–5, 78–9, 81, 84–6, 88–90, 98–9, 106–7, 111, 114–19, 121–3, 148, 171, 173–4, 181 Horizon 204 Horne, Kenneth  119, 171 Horridge, Gladys  30 horse racing  41 House of Eliott 220 Housewives’ Choice 116 How does your Garden Grow? 57 Howard, Michael  224 Howerd, Frankie  119, 236 Hoyle, Fred  121 Hughes, Langson  83 Hughes, Richard  28 Humphrys, John  261

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi

300 I n de x Hungarian Revolution  130 Hunniford, Gloria  204 Hussey, Marmaduke  211–15, 229, 233 Hutton, Brian (Baron Hutton)  245–7, 252 Huxley, Prof. Julian  80 Hylton, Jack  37, 77 Iannucci, Armando  221 I, Claudius 162 Icke, David  200 Idle, Eric  172 I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue 172 I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again  172, 187 Immigrants Programme Unit  168, 206 In Town Tonight  56, 148 In Two Minds 157 independence of the BBC from government control  38–40, 42–3, 61–9, 72–3, 100–5, 109, 125–6, 130–1, 140, 175–6, 178, 180, 196, 207–13, 243–6 independent board  264 independent production companies  207–8, 211, 214–16, 249–50, 262 Independent Television Authority  140, 143, 145, 150, 180, 183 Independent Television News  143, 224 Ingredient X 54 international broadcasting  6–7, 61–9, 75, 105, 107–8, 257–9 see also African Service, Arabic Service, BBC Arabic Television, BBC World News, BBC World Service Television, Belgian Service, Bengali Service, East European Service, Eastern Service, Empire Service, European Service, External Services, General Overseas Service, German Service, Hindustani Service, Italian Service, Latin American Service, Near Eastern Service, North American Service, Overseas Service, Pacific Service, Russian Service, World Service International Broadcasting Union  62 International Commentary 135

Iraq, invasion of  237, 243–6 Italian Service  93 It Ain’t Half Hot Mum 186 It’s That Man Again (ITMA) 81–2, 118, 120–1 ITV  140–1, 144–8, 150–2, 157, 161, 183, 188, 194, 197, 201–2, 217, 240, 261 ITV Digital  240 Jackanory 154 Jack Benny Program,The  82, 111 Jacob, Maj.-Gen. Sir Ian  126, 131, 149, 152 Jacobi, Derek  162 Jacobs, David  116, 141 Jacques, Hattie  120 James, Sid  120 Jason, David  200 jazz music  28–9, 82, 93 Jim’ll Fix It  166, 260 Jimmy Logan Show,The 147 Joad, C. E. M.  80 John Craven’s Newsround 187 Johnson, Boris  1, 246, 270, 281–2 Johnston, Brian  121 Joint Broadcasting Committee  100–1 Jones, Grace  199 Jones, Paul  214 Joseph, Lesley  222 Journey into Space 119 Jowell, Tessa  252 Joyce, William  77 Juke Box Jury  141–2, 147 Julian and Sandy  171–2 Just a Minute 172 Kaul, Mahendra  168 Kavanagh, Ted  81 Keith, Penelope  186 Kelly, Barbara  136 Kelly, Dr David  244–5 Kendall, Bridget  226 Kendall, Felicity  186 Kendall, Jo  172 Kennedy, Joan  25 Kentucky Minstrels,The  57, 82 Kenyon Confronts 241 Kerr, Bill  120 Kershaw, Andy  195

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi



I n de x

Kershaw, Richard  194 Kiddies Corner 14 Kilroy  200, 241 Kilroy-Silk, Robert  200 Kingdom,The 267 Kinnear, Roy  159 Kipling, Rudyard  52 Kirkpatrick, Ivone  103–4, 126, 131 Kitchen Front,The  89, 99, 111 Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge 221 Knox, Collie  44, 46 Kojak 202 La Frenais, Ian  163–4, 186 Lakes,The 220 Laryea, Tony  169 Lamarr, Mark  214 Lambert, Richard  69 Lambert,Verity  156, 219 Lane, Carla  186–7, 201 Laramie 147 Late Night Line-Up 162 Later. . . With Jools Holland 242 Latin American Service  65, 91 Lawley, Sue  194, 205 le Carré, John  180 Le Mesurier, John  155 Lenny Henry Show,The 206 Letter from America 118 Levin, Bernard  159 Lewis, Cecil  54 licence fee  4, 12, 15, 33, 40, 44, 49, 104, 112, 132, 160, 181–3, 197, 202, 210–11, 213–14, 216, 229, 235, 249, 254–5, 264, 266, 270–2, 279, 281–3 Life on Earth 188–9 Life with the Lyons  122, 141 Lift Up Your Hearts 148 light music  28 Light Programme  114–23, 148, 170–1, 173–4 Likely Lads,The 163–4 Lingstrom, Freda  133 Listener,The  49, 69, 209 listener licence see licence fee listening habits  34, 53, 70, 78, 143–4, 173 Listener Research Unit  58

301

Little Britain 242 Littlest Hobo,The 202 Live Aid 194–5 Liver Birds,The 186–7 Lives of Famous Men 25 Living Planet,The 189 Lloyd, Jeremy  185, 201 Loach, Ken  157 local radio stations  13–15, 36, 45, 150–1, 174–5, 183, 270 London after Dark 86 London Bells 57 London Broadcasting Company  183 London Carries On 86 Lonely Planet  253, 255 Lord, Peter  187 Long, Janice  195, 204–5 Long, Long Trail,The 171 Look 142 Lovejoy 219–20 Lowe, Arthur  155 Lumley, Joanna  222 Lyndhurst, Nicholas  200 Lyon, Ben  79–80, 122, 136 Lynn,Vera  82 McAlpine, Alistair (Baron McAlpine of West Green)  261 McCall, Robert  96 MacClure,Victor  54 McCulloch, Derek  55, 117–18 McCulloch, Donald  80 MacDonald, Ramsay  42 McGeachy, J. B. ‘Hamish’  93 McGivern, Cecil  86 McGovern, Jimmy  220 Mackay, Peter  61 McKinney, Nina Mae  61 Macleish, Archibald  54 Macmillan, Harold  153 MacNeice, Louis  118 MacPherson, Roderick Hallowell ‘Sandy’ 74 MacPherson, Stewart  121, 122 Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery 206 Magic Roundabout,The 154 Magnet House  13 Maida Vale  44 Maigret 154

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi

302 I n de x Mainland, Leslie G.  25 Mainly for Women 133 Major, John  215, 217, 228 Man from the Sun, A 137 Man Who Went to War,The 83 Mann, Thomas  94 Mansell, Gerard  175 March of the ’45,The 51 Marconi, Guglielmo  11 Marconi Company  11–12 Marson, Una  98 Martin Chuzzlewit 220 Martin, Millicent  159 Martin, Troy Kennedy  158 Mary Whitehouse Experience,The  165, 221 Maschwitz, Eric  56 Masterpiece Theatre 180 Match of the Day 154 Matheson, Hilda  48–9 MediaCityUK, Salford Quays  239 Men from the Ministry,The 171 Merlin 257 Merriman, Eric  171 Merryfield, Buster  200 Metcalfe, Jean  122 MI6  101, 127 Michelmore, Cliff  122, 142 Mickey Mouse  132 Middlemarch 220 Millais, Helena  30 Miller, Glenn  80, 83, 84 Milligan, Spike  118 Mills, Annette  133 Milne, Alasdair  142, 209, 211 Miranda 257 Miners’ Strike  208 Ministry of Economic Warfare  103 Ministry of Information  75–6, 101–4 Miss World 136 Mitchell, Linda  239 Mitchell, Warren  164 Moore, Patrick  142 Monarch of the Glen 243 monarchy  21–2, 51–3, 60, 160, 193–4, 233–4 see also Edward VIII, Elizabeth II, George V, George VI Monitor 142

Monitoring Service  91, 125, 130, 179, 181, 254 Monkhouse, Bob  136 Montgomery, Douglass  111 Monocled Mutineer,The 203 Monty Python’s Flying Circus  172, 187 Moore, Dudley  163 Morecambe and Wise Show,The 155 Morecambe, Eric  155, 184, 236 Morley, Eric  136 Morning Show 241 Morph 187 Morris, Chris  221 Morris, Johnny  154 Mosley, Sir Oswald  43 Mrs Brown’s Boys 257 Mrs Dale’s Diary 117 Mrs Merton 222 Much-Binding-in-the-March 119 Muffin the Mule 133 Muir, Frank  119, 121 Multi-Coloured Swap Shop 188 Munich Crisis  66, 69 Murder She Wrote 241 Murdoch, Richard  58–9, 119 Murdoch, Rupert  183, 211, 217–18, 240 Murgatroyd and Winterbottom 56–7 Murray, Pete  173 Murray, Ralph  127 Murrow, Ed  97 Music Hall see variety programmes Music While You Work  89–90, 111, 116, 148 Mutual Broadcasting System  82 Nation, Terry  147 National Audit Office  247, 261, 264 National Broadcasting Company  82–4, 97 national identity  18–19, 22–3, 224–5 National Institute for the Blind, The  36 National Lottery,The 242 national networking  22, 45 National Programme  45, 47, 64, 73, 75 National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association 165 Nationwide  194, 205 natural history  16–17, 115, 142, 153, 154, 162, 188–9, 248, 267

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi



I n de x

Navratilova, Martina  223 Navy Lark,The 171 Neagle, Anna  84 Near Eastern Service  99 Neighbours 241 Nesbit, E.  118 Netflix  262, 266–7, 279–80 New Year over Europe 50–1 Newman, Rob  221 Newman, Sydney  157 news broadcasting  1–3, 9, 32–3, 35, 41–2, 72–3, 75–6, 81, 85–6, 91, 100, 102–3, 106, 116, 118–19, 123–4, 130–1, 133, 143, 208, 223–4, 238–9, 258, 282–3 Newsnight  208, 242, 260–1 News Quiz,The 221 Newsreel 137 Newsround  187, 234 Nichols, Dandy  164 Nichols, Joy  119 Nicolls, Frank  50 Night Ride 174 Nightingale, Annie  163, 204–5 Nineteen Eighty-Four 135 Nixon, David  136 Noel’s House Party 221 Norden, Denis  119, 121 Normanbrook, 1st Baron  158 North American Service  97–8, 128, 177 North Region  46, 51, 67, 85 Northern Ireland  22–3, 24, 33, 45, 46, 116, 132, 191, 208, 211–13, 220, 224, 239, 273 Norwegian campaign  103 Not Only. . . But Also 163 Oddie, Bill  172, 187 Ofcom  250, 252, 263–4 Office of War Information  82 Office,The 242 Official Development Assistance  258–9 Ogilvie, F. W.  68, 96, 104 Old Grey Whistle Test,The 163 Oliver,Vic  79–80 Olympic Games 1948 134 2012 256 ONdigital 231

One Show,The 257 On the Hour 221 One Foot in the Grave 220–1 Only Fools and Horses  200–1, 241 Open Door 172 Open University  189, 242, 257 opera  14, 24, 48 Orwell, George (Eric Arthur Blair)  88–9, 98–9, 105, 135 Our Friends in the North 220 Our Mutual Friend 220 outside broadcasts  14, 31–2, 134 Overseas Entertainments Unit  96 Overseas Service  95–101, 107 Pacific Service  96, 177 Paddick, Hugh  171–2 Paddington 187 Panorama  135, 142, 153, 211, 212, 260 Parkes, Ennis  37 Parkinson  184–5, 199, 242 Parkinson, Michael  184–5 Parosi 168 Parsons, Nicholas  172 Payne, Jack  55, 77 Payne, John C.  29 Paxman, Jeremy  224 Peach, L. Du Garde  54 Peacock, Prof. Alan  210–11 Peacock, Michael  161 Pearce, Lennard  200 Peel, John  173–4, 236 Pennies from Heaven 203 People of Coventry,The 87 Pepper, Harry S.  57 Percival, Lance  159 Performing Rights Society, the  55 period drama  28, 163, 220, 249 Perry, Jimmy  155, 185, 201 Pertwee, Jon  156 Peters, Andi  206 Philbin, Maggie  188 Philip, Duke of Edinburgh  274 Pickles, Wilfred  85, 122 Picture Book 133 Pilkington, Sir Harry  150–1 Pinter, Harold  121 pirate radio  173–4 Play for Today  157, 202–3

303

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi

304 I n de x Play School 163 Plomley, Roy  80 plugging 29 Political Warfare Executive  92, 104 politics ban on controversial broadcasting  13, 32 charges of political bias  5 political broadcasting  42–3, 123–4, 134–5, 153, 224, 257 see also general elections, General Strike (1926) Pollitt, Harry  43 pop music  141–2, 163, 173–4, 195 Porridge 186 Postscripts 84–5 Potter, Dennis  157, 203, 229 Potter, Gillie  56, 74 Powell, Ellis  117 Powell, Sir Allan  103 Press Conference 134 Pride and Prejudice  28, 220 Priestley, J. B.  84–5, 97, 113 Prime TV see Amazon Producer Choice  215, 218, 227, 231 Promenade Concerts  48, 111, 272–3 Public Broadcasting Service  179–80, 248–9 Publications Department  209 Putting Quality First  253–4 punk music  174 Punt, Steve  221 Quatermass and the Pit 147–8 Quatermass Experiment,The 135 Question of Sport, A 242 Quigley, Janet  89 Quirke, Pauline  222 race  28–9, 57, 61, 63–4, 82–3, 120–1, 136–7, 162–4, 167–70, 185, 198, 205–6, 222, 239 Radio 1  163, 173–4, 195, 204–5, 211, 214, 221, 222 Radio 1Xtra  240 Radio 2  174, 194, 205, 211, 214, 240–1, 254 Radio 3  174, 181, 189, 214 Radio 4  174, 181, 194, 205, 221, 223

Radio 4 Extra  240 Radio 5 Live  214 Radio 5 Live Olympics Extra  256 Radio 5 Live Sports Extra  240 Radio 6 Music  240, 253–4 Radio Budapest  130 Radio Cairo  129 Radio Luxembourg  58, 105, 113, 173–4 Radio Newsreel  100, 106, 111, 119 Radio Reconnaissance 86 Radio Rhythm Club 82 Radio Times,The  15–16, 41, 43, 49, 62, 145, 209, 213, 255 Radiophonic Workshop  157 Rag,Tag and Bobtail 133 Rainbow City 169 Range Rider,The 147 Rantzen, Esther  185 Ray, Ted  118 Ray’s a Laugh 118 Ready, Steady, Cook 242 Real Lives 211 Real McCoy,The 222 reality television  188, 221–2, 241 Redgrave, Michael  161 Redmond, Phil  187 Rees-Mogg, William  208–9, 211 Regional Programme  45–7, 64, 73, 75 Regions  46, 115–16, 153, 224–5, 251, 270 see also North Region, West Region, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales Reid, Beryl  119–20 Reith, Sir John (later Lord Reith)  17–20, 33, 40, 43, 52, 62, 67–8, 76, 102, 142, 165, 190, 236 Reithian broadcasting  20–1, 36–8, 47, 58, 78–9, 110, 164, 174, 191, 269–70, 283 Reith Lectures 121 relay stations  18, 45, 178 religious broadcasting  22, 31, 37, 45, 116, 148, 154, 206 Republic of Austria 50 Rhapsody in Black 82 Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence 178 Ripper Street 267 Rippon, Angela  148, 167 Ritchie, Douglas  94

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi



I n de x

Rob Roy 27 Robeson, Paul  29, 61, 83 Robinson, E. Kay  25 Robinson Family, The 117 Robson, Linda  222 rock music  163, 173–4, 195 rock ’n’ roll music  141–2, 176 Root, Jane  222 Rosemond, C. C.  29 Ross, Jonathan  214, 252 Round the Horne 171–2 Rouse, Willie  30 royal charter 1927  37–40, 47 1937  43, 47, 101–2 1947 125 1952 139–40 1964 150 1981 207 1997 229 2007 252–3 2017 263 2022 mid-term review  264, 282 2027 (projected)  282 Royal Family,The 160 Royle Family, The 222 Rugby football see football, Rugby R.U.R. 60–1 Rushton, Willie  159 Russell, Audrey  87, 100 Russell, Bertrand  121 Russell, Ken  142 Russian Service  125, 226 Ryder, Richard Andrew (Baron Ryder of Wensum)  246 S4C  204, 254 Sabrina (Norma Ann Sykes)  136 Sachs, Andrew  186, 252 salaries, controversies over  247, 254, 266 Salmon, Margaret  204 Sathaye, S.  99 Saunders, Jennifer  205, 222 Savile, Jimmy  166–7, 260–3 Savoy Hill House  13–14, 16, 19 Savoy Orpheans, The  29, 36, 37 Savoy Tango Band, The  29 Scales, Prunella  186, 243 Scargill, Arthur  208

305

Science Survey 148 Secombe, Harry  118, 121 Sellers, Peter  89, 118–19, 121 Send for Paul Temple 54–5 Serota, Sir Nicholas  275 schools broadcasting  2–3, 25, 31, 48, 117, 181, 242 science fiction  60–1, 119, 135 Schofield, Philip  202 Scotland  46, 116, 220, 224–5, 239, 271 Scott, Peter  142 Scott, Selena  197 Scully, Hugh  194 sexual harassment and assault  165–7 sexuality  171–2, 185–6, 198–9, 223, 266 Shakespeare, William  27, 53–5 Shapley, Olive  51, 117 Shock of the New,The 162 Sieveking, Lance  50 Silent Witness 220 Sinatra, Frank  83 Sincerely Yours 82 Simenon, Georges  154 Simpson, Alan  120, 155 Simpsons,The 242 Sims, Monica  167, 204 Singing Detective,The 203 Six-Five Special 141 Six O’Clock News  194, 205, 225, 241 Sloan, Tom  155 Skinner, Richard  195 Sky  217, 238, 240, 247, 261–2, 265, 280 Sky Atlantic  267 Sky at Night,The 142 Sky News  217 Sky Sports  217 Smith, G. Ivan  96 Smith, Dame Janet  260–3 Smith, Mike  195 soap opera  97–8, 117, 197–9, 219 Soldatensender Calais 92 Somerville, Mary  48 Songs of Praise  154, 242 Sooty 133 Sopranos,The 249 Souter, Prof. Alexander  25 Southern Trio, The  29 Southern Syncopated Orchestra,The  29 Special Enquiry  135, 137

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi

306 I n de x Special Operations Executive  92 Speight, Johnny  164 Spencer, Lady Diana  193–4, 233–4, 274–5 Spicer, Joanna  188 Spitfires over Britain 86 sports broadcasting  31–2, 36–7, 41, 53, 60, 134, 141, 151, 153–4, 217–18, 239 Sports Personality of the Year  134 Sportsview 134 Sproxton, David  187 Squirrel’s Cage 54 Starsky and Hutch 201 Steed, Wickham  108 Stephens, Doreen  133–4 Steptoe and Son  155–6, 186, 200 Stevenson, Robert Louis  111 Stobart, J. C.  25 Stoppard, Tom  121 Street-Porter, Janet  204 Strictly Come Dancing 248 Stuart, Moira  206 Stubbs, Una  164 Stublett, John  61 Suez Crisis  124, 130–1, 237, 244 Sullivan, John  200 Sunday broadcasting  37, 58, 60, 121–2 Swann, Sir Michael  181, 190 Swing, Raymond Gram  86 Swinton, Maj.-Gen. Sir Ernest  86 Syall, Meera  223 Sykes, Major-General Sir Frederick  17–20, 38–9 Symphony Orchestra, BBC  47–8, 148 Take Hart 187 Take It From Here  119, 128, 148 Talbot, Godfrey  106 Talking Heads 203 talks  31, 35–6, 45, 48–9, 76 Tallents, Sir Stephen  102 taste and decency  19–20, 120–1, 164–5 Taylor, Myra  186 Tebbitt, Norman  213–14 Teletubbies  241, 250 Television Centre, London  152, 161, 202 Television Current Affairs Unit  212 Television Entreprises  179

television exports  131, 144, 179–80, 188–9, 220, 228–9, 252 see also Television Enterprises, BBC Enterprises, BBC Worldwide television licence see licence fee tennis  41, 134 see also Wimbledon lawn tennis championship Terry-Thomas (Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens) 136 Thames Television  231 That Was the Week That Was 158–9 Thatcher, Margaret  184, 196, 204, 207–13, 215 That’s Life 185 Think of a Number 187 Third Division 121 Third Programme  114–15, 121, 132, 148–9, 171, 174 Third Programme Defence Society  115 This Life 220 This is Your Life 136 This Was an American 111 Thomas, Dylan  121 Thomas, Wynford Vaughan  106 Thompson, Mark  250–1, 253–4 Thomson, Roy  145 Thorn Birds,The 197 Three Musketeers,The 54 TikTok 268 Till Death Us Do Part 164 Time to Speak 50 Timewatch  204, 242 Tinker,Tailor, Soldier, Spy 180 Today  171, 174, 244–5, 261 Tomorrow’s World 204 Tonight  142, 205 Took, Barry  171 Top Gear 267 TOTP2 242 Top of the Pops  163, 166, 242 Toytown 55 Tracy, Sheila  167 Training School  129 Transex Liberation Group  172 Transcription Service  100–1, 125, 128–9, 179 Troughton, Patrick  156 Trumpton 154

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi



I n de x

Trusted News Initiative  270 Tuohy, Denis  162 Tumbledown 203 Tusa, John  227 Tweenies 250 Two Ronnies,The 184 Two-Way Family Favourites 122 UK Arena  231 UK Gold  231 UK Horizons  231 UK Style  231 UKTV  231, 249, 265, 279 Ullswater, 1st Viscount  43 Ultimatum 54 Under Milk Wood 121 Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland see national identity Up the Junction 157 Ure, Midge  195 ‘V’ campaign  94–5 Vanity Fair 220 Variety Bandbox  80, 119 variety programmes  14, 29–30, 36, 56–7, 133, 155 see also comedy, Variety Bandbox VE Day  108 vetting of staff  127 Vicar of Dibley,The 222 Victoria Wood. . . As Seen on TV 205 viewing habits  143–6, 151–3, 196–7, 236–7, 267–8 Virgin 1215  214 Vision On 154 Visnews 143 Voice of America  105 W1A 236 Wadia, Nina  223 Wake Up To Wogan 214 Wales  46, 116, 224, 239 Waller, Thomas Wright ‘Fats’  61 Walking with. . . franchise  243, 248 War Commentary 86 War Game,The 158 War Report 106–7 War Reporting Unit  106–7 Ward, Edward  135

307

Ward, Miranda  174 Warner, Jack  141 Washington, Ford  61 Waste Land,The 54 Watch with Mother 133 Watchdog 221 Waters, Elsie and Doris  57, 89, 141 Ways of Seeing 162 Weakest Link, The  242, 248 Wednesday Play,The 157–8 Week in Westminster,The  42, 123 Welch, Elisabeth  61, 82 Welsh language broadcasting  47, 204 see also S4C Wembley Stadium  195 West Region  46 WGBH, Boston  180, 248 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? 186 What Not to Wear 242 What’s My Line? 135–6 Wheldon, Huw  142, 152, 236 Whicker, Alan  142 Whidden, Jay  29 Whiley, Jo  222 Whirligig 133 whistle-blowers  262–3, 275 Whitaker, Jodie  2 White Coons’ Concert Party,The 57 Whitehouse, Mary  165, 198 Whitley, Oliver  169–70 Whose Line is it Anyway? 221 Wilbur, Jay  80 William 119 William, Duke of Cambridge  274 Williams, Kenneth  120, 171 Wilmot, Chester  100, 134 Wilson, Harold  153, 156, 180, 182–3 Wilson, Richard  221 Wilton, Robb  30 Wimbledon lawn tennis championship  41, 60, 161 Wireless Willie see Rouse, Willie Wise, Ernie  155, 184, 236 Wogan  199–200, 205, 219 Wogan, Sir Terry  174, 185, 194, 195, 199–200, 214, 236 Wombles,The 187 Wood, Michael  148

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 04/03/22, SPi

308 I n de x Wood,Victoria  205 Wood, ‘Wee Georgie’  30 Wood, Sir Henry  48 Wood Norton Hall  74 Woodentops,The 133 Woodrooffe, Lt Cdr Tommy  53 Woman’s Hour  51, 116–17, 171, 269 women’s broadcasting  26–7, 35, 116–17, 133–4 Department for  133–4 Words upon the Window-Pane 54 Workers’ Playtime  90, 111, 116 World About Us,The 162 World Cup (1966)  154 World Service  100, 178, 225–7, 254, 257–9, 265, 282–3

Wright, Steve  214 Wyatt, Will  152–3, 173 Wyndham Goldie, Grace  134 Yarwood, Mike  184 Yeats, W. B.  54 Yentob, Alan  188 Yes, Minister 203–4 Yes, Prime Minister 203–4 Yesterday’s Men 182 Young, Jimmy  173 Young, Stuart  208–9, 211 Young Ones,The 203 Z Cars 158 Zoo Quest 142