BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current state with its current name on New Year's Day 1927. The oldest and largest local and global broadcaster by stature and by number of employees, the BBC employs over 21,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 17,900 are in public-sector broadcasting.
The BBC is established under a royal charter[6] and operates under its agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.[7] Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee[8] which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts or to use the BBC's streaming service, iPlayer.[9]
The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament,[10] and is used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has also funded the BBC World Service (launched in 1932 as the BBC Empire Service), which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, radio, and online services in Arabic and Persian.
Some of the BBC's revenue comes from its commercial subsidiary BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide), which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and also distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC World News, and from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd.[11][12] In 2009, the company was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in recognition of its international achievements in business.[13]
Since its formation in 1922, the BBC has played a prominent role in British life and culture.[14] It is colloquially known as the Beeb or Auntie.[15][16]
History
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of the BBC.
The birth of British broadcasting, 1920 to 1922
Britain's first live public broadcast was made from the factory of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company in Chelmsford in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mail's Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio.[17]
However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office (GPO), was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.[18]
But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests[19] and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members.[20] Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States, the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufacturers, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd, which was formed on 18 October 1922.[21]
John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its general manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast.[22] L. Stanton Jefferies was its first director of music.[23] The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved domestic manufacturers.[24] To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform, educate and entertain".[25]
From private company towards public service corporation, 1923 to 1926
The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets.[26] By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee.[27] The committee recommended a short term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the BBC's immediate financial distress, and an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee to fund broadcasts.[27]
The BBC's broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. To avoid competition with newspapers, Fleet Street persuaded the government to ban news bulletins before 7 pm and the BBC was required to source all news from external wire services.[27]
Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee. By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified (monopoly) broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss-making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise.
The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, and with restrictions on news bulletins waived, the BBC suddenly became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis.[28]
The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position. On the one hand Reith was acutely aware that the government might exercise its right to commandeer the BBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the government if the BBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently. The government was divided on how to handle the BBC, but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own.
Although Winston Churchill in particular wanted to commandeer the BBC to use it "to the best possible advantage", Reith wrote that Stanley Baldwin's government wanted to be able to say "that they did not commandeer [the BBC], but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial".[29] Thus the BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the government's objectives largely in a manner of its own choosing. The resulting coverage of both striker and government viewpoints impressed millions of listeners who were unaware that the PM had broadcast to the nation from Reith's home, using one of Reith's sound bites inserted at the last moment, or that the BBC had banned broadcasts from the Labour Party and delayed a peace appeal by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Supporters of the strike nicknamed the BBC the BFC for British Falsehood Company. Reith personally announced the end of the strike which he marked by reciting from Blake's "Jerusalem" signifying that England had been saved.[30]
While the BBC tends to characterise its coverage of the general strike by emphasising the positive impression created by its balanced coverage of the views of government and strikers, Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History and the Official BBC Historian, has characterised the episode as the invention of "modern propaganda in its British form".[28] Reith argued that trust gained by 'authentic impartial news' could then be used. Impartial news was not necessarily an end in itself.[31]
The BBC did well out of the crisis, which cemented a national audience for its broadcasting, and it was followed by the Government's acceptance of the recommendation made by the Crawford Committee (1925–26) that the British Broadcasting Company be replaced by a non-commercial, Crown-chartered organisation: the British Broadcasting Corporation.
1927 to 1939
The Radio Times masthead from 25 December 1931, including the BBC motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation"
Television pioneer John Logie Baird (seen here in 1917) televised the BBC's first drama, The Man with the Flower in His Mouth, on 14 July 1930, and the first live outside broadcast, The Derby, on 2 June 1931.[32][33]
The British Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1927, and Reith – newly knighted – was appointed its first Director General. To represent its purpose and (stated) values, the new corporation adopted the coat of arms, including the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation".[34]
British radio audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance."[35]
Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it.[36] At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but the BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity.[37]
The BBC's radio studio in Birmingham, from the BBC Hand Book 1928, which described it as "Europe's largest studio"
John Reith and the BBC, with support from the Crown, determined the universal needs of the people of Britain and broadcast content according to these perceived standards.[38] Reith effectively censored anything that he felt would be harmful, directly or indirectly.[39] While recounting his time with the BBC in 1935, Raymond Postgate claims that BBC broadcasters were made to submit a draft of their potential broadcast for approval. It was expected that they tailored their content to accommodate the modest, church-going elderly or a member of the Clergy.[40]
Until 1928, entertainers broadcasting on the BBC, both singers and "talkers" were expected to avoid biblical quotations, Clerical impersonations and references, references to drink or Prohibition in America, vulgar and doubtful matter and political allusions.[39] The BBC excluded popular foreign music and musicians from its broadcasts, while promoting British alternatives.[41] On 5 March 1928, Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, maintained the censorship of editorial opinions on public policy, but allowed the BBC to address matters of religious, political or industrial controversy.[42]
The resulting political "talk series", designed to inform England on political issues, were criticised by members of parliament, including Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George and Sir Austen Chamberlain. Those who opposed these chats claimed that they silence the opinions of those in Parliament who are not nominated by Party Leaders or Party Whips, thus stifling independent, non-official views.[42] In October 1932, the policemen of the Metropolitan Police Federation marched in protest at a proposed pay cut. Fearing dissent within the police force and public support for the movement, the BBC censored its coverage of the events, only broadcasting official statements from the government.[42]
Throughout the 1930s, political broadcasts had been closely monitored by the BBC.[43] In 1935, the BBC censored the broadcasts of Oswald Mosley and Harry Pollitt.[42] Mosley was a leader of the British Union of Fascists, and Pollitt a leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain. They had been contracted to provide a series of five broadcasts on their parties' politics. The BBC, in conjunction with The Foreign Office of Britain, first suspended this series and ultimately cancelled it without the notice of the public.[43][42]
Less radical politicians faced similar censorship. In 1938, Winston Churchill proposed a series of talks regarding British domestic and foreign politics and affairs but was similarly censored.[43] The censorship of political discourse by the BBC was a precursor to the total shutdown of political debate that manifested over the BBC's wartime airwaves.[43] The Foreign Office maintained that the public should not be aware of their role in the censorship.[42]
From 1935 to 1939, the BBC also attempted to unite the British Empire's radio waves, sending staff to Egypt, Palestine, Newfoundland, Jamaica, India, Canada and South Africa.[44] Reith personally visited South Africa, lobbying for state-run radio programmes which was accepted by South African Parliament in 1936.[44] A similar programme was adopted in Canada. Through collaboration with these state-run broadcasting centres, Reith left a legacy of cultural influence across the empire of Great Britain with his departure from the corporation in 1938.[44]
Experimental television broadcasts were started in 1929, using an electromechanical 30-line system developed by John Logie Baird.[45] Limited regular broadcasts using this system began in 1932, and an expanded service (now named the BBC Television Service) started from Alexandra Palace in November 1936, alternating between an improved Baird mechanical 240-line system and the all-electronic 405-line Marconi-EMI system which had been developed by an EMI research team led by Sir Isaac Shoenberg.[46] The superiority of the electronic system saw the mechanical system dropped early the following year, with the Marconi-EMI system the first fully electronic television system in the world to be used in regular broadcasting.[47]
BBC versus other media
King George V giving the 1934 Royal Christmas Message on BBC Radio. The annual message typically reflects on the year's major events.
The success of broadcasting provoked animosities between the BBC and well-established media such as theatres, concert halls and the recording industry. By 1929, the BBC complained that the agents of many comedians refused to sign contracts for broadcasting, because they feared it harmed the artist "by making his material stale" and that it "reduces the value of the artist as a visible music-hall performer".
On the other hand, the BBC was "keenly interested" in a cooperation with the recording companies who "in recent years ... have not been slow to make records of singers, orchestras, dance bands, etc. who have already proved their power to achieve popularity by wireless." Radio plays were so popular that the BBC had received 6,000 manuscripts by 1929, most of them written for stage and of little value for broadcasting: "Day in and day out, manuscripts come in, and nearly all go out again through the post, with a note saying 'We regret, etc.'"[48] In the 1930s music broadcasts also enjoyed great popularity, for example the friendly and wide-ranging BBC Theatre Organ broadcasts at St George's Hall, London by Reginald Foort, who held the official role of BBC Staff Theatre Organist from 1936 to 1938.[49]
Second World War
Statue of George Orwell outside Broadcasting House, headquarters of the BBC.
Television broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946, during the Second World War, and it was left to BBC Radio broadcasters such as Reginald Foort to keep the nation's spirits up. The BBC moved most of its radio operations out of London, initially to Bristol, and then to Bedford. Concerts were broadcast from the Bedford Corn Exchange; the Trinity Chapel in St Paul's Church, Bedford was the studio for the daily service from 1941 to 1945, and, in the darkest days of the war in 1941, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York came to St Paul's to broadcast to the UK and the world on the National Day of Prayer. BBC employees during the war included George Orwell who spent two years with the broadcaster.[50]
During his role as prime minister during the war, Winston Churchill delivered 33 major wartime speeches by radio, all of which were carried by the BBC within the UK.[51] On 18 June 1940, French general Charles de Gaulle, in exile in London as the leader of the Free French, made a speech, broadcast by the BBC, urging the French people not to capitulate to the Nazis.[52] In October 1940, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret made their first radio broadcast for the BBC's Children's Hour, addressing other children who had been evacuated from cities.[53]
In 1938, John Reith and the British government, specifically the Ministry of Information which had been set up for WWII, designed a censorship apparatus for the inevitability of war.[54] Due to the BBC's advancements in shortwave radio technology, the corporation could broadcast across the world during the Second World War.[55] Within Europe, the BBC European Service would gather intelligence and information regarding the current events of the war in English.[54][56]
Regional BBC workers, based on their regional geo-political climate, would then further censor the material their broadcasts would cover. Nothing was to be added outside the preordained news items.[54][56] For example, the BBC Polish Service was heavily censored due to fears of jeopardising relations with the Soviet Union. Controversial topics, i.e. the contested Polish and Soviet border, the deportation of Polish citizens, the arrests of Polish Home Army members and the Katyn massacre, were not included in Polish broadcasts.[57] American radio broadcasts were broadcast across Europe on BBC channels. This material also passed through the BBC's censorship office, which surveilled and edited American coverage of British affairs.[55]
By 1940, across all BBC broadcasts, music by composers from enemy nations was censored. In total, 99 German, 38 Austrian and 38 Italian composers were censored. The BBC argued that like the Italian or German languages, listeners would be irritated by the inclusion of enemy composers.[58] Any potential broadcasters said to have pacifist, communist or fascist ideologies were not allowed on the BBC's airwaves.[59] In 1937, a MI5 security officer was given a permanent office within the organisation. This officer would examine the files of potential political subversives and [mark the files of those deemed a security risk
"Christmas tree" files") to the organisation, blacklisting them. This was often done on spurious grounds; even so, the practice would continue and expand during the years of the Cold War.[60][61]