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i t i c s C u l t u re
C r pu l a r
Radio and Po
A History of British Radio Criticism
Paul R
ixon
Radio Critics and Popular Culture
Paul Rixon
Radio Critics and

Popular Culture
A History of British Radio Criticism
Paul Rixon
University of Roehampton
London, UK
ISBN 978-1-137-55386-7 ISBN 978-1-137-55387-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55387-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018936645
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To Mandy, Charlotte and Antonia
Acknowledgements
After spending most evenings and many weekends working on this book,
I think that, as it is finished, I should now give thanks to where it is due.
So, to start, I would like to thank my family for putting up with me for the
last year or so, as I’ve concentrated on researching, writing and finshing
this book. I need especially to say a big thank you to my two lovely chil-
dren, Antonia and Charlotte, who, at times, have wondered what I have
been doing in my office all this time. I hope one day that they will love
radio as much as I do. And yes! I can now take you to the playground.
I also want to say a big thanks to Mandy, my wife, for giving up many of her
evenings to discuss my ideas with me and to help proofread the final man-
uscript. Her help in this endeavour has been vital and it was her encour-
agement in the end that gave me the strength to finally finish the book.
I would also like to thank my students, especially those on my ‘Podcasting
and Radio module’, for the insights they have provided over the years.
And, finally, I would also like to give a big thank you to friends and col-
leagues that have discussed my ideas about television and radio criticism
over the years, providing useful and helpful insights and suggestions.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Approaching the Study of Radio Critics and Radio

Criticism 11
3 Radio in Britain in the 1920s: Narratives of Spectacle

and Concern 33
4 Rise of a Medium: Arrival of the Radio Critic 65
5 The Critic, Newspaper Radio Criticism and the Heyday

of Radio 103
6 From the Swinging Sixties to Thatcherism: The Decline

of Radio Coverage 133
7 The Digital Age: The Press, Radio, Radio Critics

and the Public 163
8 Conclusion 197
Index 203
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Preamble: A Personal View

On most days I wake up to a radio alarm clock that switches on to the
Today programme broadcast on BBC Radio Four. This experience contin-
ues over breakfast with my family. Others might tune into a music station
in the morning and listen to the patter of the DJ and sing along to the
popular tunes of the day. Many sit in their cars going to work listening to
the radio, or under headphones on the commuter train, existing both in
their own private listening environment while also connected through
radio to the wider world. People sit in cafes sipping tea, or go about their
shopping, with the radio playing in the background, providing some
ambiance to their activities. Radio is there when we wake up, go to sleep,
travel and undertake leisure activities. According to the Radio Audience
Joint Audience Research (RAJAR), ‘49.2 million adults or 90% of the
adult (15+) UK population tuned in to their selected radio stations each
week in the second quarter of 2017’ (RAJAR 2017). Radio, whether we
know it or not, is part of our everyday lives and routines and has been
there, in this form, for nearly a hundred years or so. Indeed, at an anec-
dotal level, my parents can still remember as children listening to it in the
1940s, when radio played a more important role in the life of the nation,
listening-in to the radio news about the war, comedy programmes, swing,
dance and classical music, variety shows and children’s programmes. They
remember the way their family would sit around the radio set in the eve-
ning, listening to the voices, music and sounds coming out of the ether,
© The Author(s) 2018 1

P. Rixon, Radio Critics and Popular Culture,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55387-4_1
2 P. RIXON
linking the nation together. Indeed, my father remembers using his short-
wave radio after the war to listen, through the crackle and hiss, to stations
broadcasting from around Europe. However, it very much appears to be
the forgotten medium. If you ask a group of students which media they
have used in a day, radio is usually forgotten. For many it is used as a back-
ground medium, one through which other media, such as music or news,
are heard and remembered. However, as noted above, it is still a popular
medium. We almost all still, at some stage during the day, listen to it,
whether by choice or not. Reflecting this disinterest, in some ways, has
been the lack of scholarly work on radio, with most interest in the media
being focused on film, television or the press (Lacey 2009: 21).
This has led me to wonder why such a popular medium as radio no
longer attracts much public discourse. If I open up a newspaper, maga-
zine, or even use my computer to look at a news website, most of the
articles, when they touch on the media, will relate to film, music or televi-
sion. Radio is hardly covered at all. It is not only a secondary media in
terms of how many of us seem to consume it, such that we do not know
or remember that we have listened to it, but also that there is little popular
or critical discussion about it. There are few previews, reviews or critiques
about radio to be found in the mass media, or even on the new media. As
Peter Lewis argues, there is a gaping hole in public discourse about this
medium (2000). However, as we shall see, this has not always been so. For
some decades, particularly when radio was the pre-eminent medium of the
day, radio critics or radio columnists, such as Collie Knox or Jonah
Barrington, were in fact minor celebrities. Such columnists were given a
regular slot in the paper, and attracted a lot of public attention. There
were also journals, such as Popular Wireless and Amateur Wireless and even
the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) very own The Listener,
which concentrated on radio broadcasting. What my book will focus on,
is not radio and its history, its output and programmes, nor that of the
press and its history, but on the link between them, the radio critic and
their coverage, and their input into the public debate and public discourse
about radio. I am interested in the radio coverage that appeared in the
major national newspapers, the appointment of critics, different types of
output the critics provided, how their work helped position radio in both
the wider cultural debates and for the public. I will also look at how the
role of critics has changed over time and, indeed, how their importance
has waxed and waned over the decades for newspapers, readers and
listeners.
INTRODUCTION 3
Seeking an Approach
I start this book, in some ways, with a problem of defining the medium the
critics write about: radio. Is it the programmes, the act of listening to pro-
grammes, the underlying technology, practices of making radio, the rela-
tionship between radio and other media, the context within which radio
operates, the stories of the people working there or the regulations and
policies which have shaped its development? (see: Lacey 2009: 24–5). In
many ways it is all these elements and more. And, as such, no one piece of
work can take or provide a complete holistic account of these elements, all
that can be done is to focus on particular issues, processes and time peri-
ods, marshalled together and organised through a particular conceptual or
theoretical view point or historical narrative. Likewise the finished work
can never present a finalised view of radio, but instead it can only but add
to a developing and growing understanding of the medium. The same, in
many ways, can be said of the press, the other part of the equation I am
dealing with in this book.
However, is it not just a question of defining and approaching the study
of one medium in isolation, as all media and cultural forms, in some way
are interrelated, they all connect in some form. For example, it is impos-
sible to understand film without also understanding its relationship to the-
atre, drama, radio and television. This does not mean that one cannot
focus on one particular medium, perhaps as an organising principle, but as
we do so we have to take account of its connection or interrelatedness to
others. This might be done through our own research, or by utilising
research already undertaken on other media. However, as James Curran
notes, this has not always been the case, ‘British media history is highly
fragmented, being subdivided by period, medium and interpretive tradi-
tion’ (2009: 1). I therefore see my approach as being one that attempts
not to just to focus on radio and its related criticism, but to align it, to add
it to, to intertwine it, to other histories and media forms. Indeed, by its
very nature, it is a form and practice that directly connects two media: that
of the press and the related practices of journalism and the object of its
critique, radio; and that there is an obvious and self-evident need, there-
fore, to take account of their different histories. As Siân Nicholas argues,
‘[h]istorians of the mass media may have traditionally treated each medium
separately. Yet the necessity for an integrated approach is evident if we are
to address the historical role of the media’ (2012: 390).
4 P. RIXON
Therefore, I wish here to stress and to indicate that my aim in this book
is to help create a multifaceted understanding of how radio criticism devel-
oped as a form and practice and its relationship to radio and the press, and
to other media and cultural forms, such as film, theatre, drama and televi-
sion, as well as to the wider cultural, social, political and economic con-
text. My aim is not to analyse and explore the work of critics separated
from the media they work for, the one they write about and the wider
context within which they operate. This approach will be echoed in the
structure of the work, where chapters have been chosen, partly, to focus
on particular moments relevant not just to critics, but important moments
in the histories of other media and the wider social and cultural history of
the nation, such as relating to the war and the period of austerity that fol-
lows, the introduction of commercial television in the 1950s, the cultural
upheaval in the 1960s that leads to the launching of Radio 1, the shift
towards the free market in the 1980s and the development of the internet.
Also, in relation to the analysis, it will not just be a close reading of the
work of the critics, but also a wider analysis of how the output of the critic
relates to the wider context within which they work.
Chapter Structure
This work is divided into six further chapters, a division which is, in some
ways arbitrary. They could be, like any other book, divided differently.
However, the chapters I have decided to use the idea of focusing on par-
ticular historical moments or phases in the development of radio criticism,
radio, newspapers, journalistic practice and other media and cultural forms
and their moments of interconnectedness, as noted above. While five of
the chapters focus on particular historical periods or moments, Chap. 2
stands out as being different, as it is designed to operate as a theoretical-
conceptual chapter, which explores the nature of the critic, the critic’s role
as a cultural intermediary, the relationship between the critic and the
industry they work for, and the one they might write about, the wider
cultural context they work in and, for my book, how the radio critic related
to the radio and television industries. I also use this chapter to help set up
the approach, including the methodology, taken within this book.
As the chapter structure is chronological, Chap. 3 starts by focusing on
the early radio coverage, which developed in the 1920s. Such coverage
was often written by journalists and radio correspondents, as no identifi-
able radio critics had yet been appointed by the national newspapers. This
INTRODUCTION 5
is the early period of radio broadcasting, one where radio was finding its
form, while the press equally was exploring different ways of covering
radio’s developments. At this time, as I highlight, two important narra-
tives came to dominate the early newspaper coverage of radio, and which
fed back into the wider public debates that were occurring about radio.
The first narrative concentrated on the technological possibilities and the
spectacle of radio, including the early forms of radio communication and
the first experiments in broadcasting. While the medium was still forming,
the focus was less on its output and content, than what it seems to be able
to offer, its potential. The other narrative, that starts to appear a little later,
as the medium of radio broadcasting developed, focused on the worries
and concerns about this new form. These were worries about the social,
cultural and political power of the radio, but also the impact it might have
on existing businesses, British culture, other media and cultural forms,
and, connected to this, discussions of how radio might be controlled or
regulated to limit the potential harm it might cause. This chapter there-
fore looks not only at the potential of radio and worries about its possible
impact, but also at the form that it took, initially as a regulated commercial
monopoly and then as a public corporation, imbued with the aim of serv-
ing the public. The second part of the chapter explores the early forms of
radio coverage that appeared at this time, some of which celebrated the
spectacle and excitement of radio and its output, while other elements
criticised the British Broadcasting Company (BBCo) (it became a public
corporation in 1927), the organisation given the monopoly to run broad-
casting in the UK, and its early coverage.
The next chapter, Chap. 4, focuses on the 1930s. This is a period when
radio critics started to be appointed by most newspapers, partly in response
to the growing popularity of radio at this time. This is when the critics
writing for the popular papers were given their own columns and started
to establish or develop further some of the main ways of writing about
radio, such as with previews and reviews, supplemented by gossip about
and from the industry. Some of these critics became key columnists for the
newspapers, often becoming minor celebrities, such as Collie Knox, Jonah
Barrington and Sydney Moseley. In this chapter I will also look at the
launch of a new journal in 1929 by the BBC, The Listener, which focused
specifically on providing a more contextual and serious understanding of
radio (Briggs 1965: 291). In the mid-1930s it appointed its first radio
critic and started to develop a rich stream of radio criticism that continued
over the next sixty years (Briggs 1965: 291; Fiddick 1991: 17).
6 P. RIXON
Chapter 5 focuses on the war and post-war years, from 1939 till 1959.
This is a period when radio became the media par excellence, often attract-
ing huge audiences, indeed, the BBC, as the only legal provider of radio at
this time, comes out of the war with its and radio’s reputation enhanced
(Williams 2010: 173). The war was, however, a time of great change,
socially, culturally and politically, and this led to the BBC creating new
popular channels during and after, such as the Light Programme launched
in 1945 (Crisell 1997: 60–6). For the popular newspapers the war years
signalled an abrupt halt to the intense competition occurring in the 1930s.
With newsprint rationed newspapers were reduced in size and radio cover-
age was cut. This is all with a certain irony, as while many radio critics
spent the 1930s criticising the BBC for the lack of popular output, the
golden age of the BBC, for some (Seymour-Ure 1993: 7), started in the
war period, when the BBC created some of its most popular programmes,
a time when radio coverage in the newspapers shrank. After the war radio
coverage never fully returned to the level that was there before, with the
returning entertainment pages in the popular papers slowly being domi-
nated by the coverage of television.
Chapter 6 analyses the period 1960 till 1989, a time when the country
went through a cultural and social revolution, economic upheaval and saw
the rise of a free-market philosophy. For radio this was also a moment of
huge change. For example, the BBC reacted to competition and cultural
developments in the 1960s by launching a new music channel, Radio 1, as
well as relaunching its other radio channels as Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio
4. The BBC also started to replace its regional output with locally focused
radio stations, but then faced the loss of its local radio monopoly in the
early 1970s with the launch of local independent commercial radio. Over
the next two decades the number of radio channels in Britain increased
greatly, mostly at the local level, with many of these being provided by
commercial concerns. This was also the period when radio criticism, in its
classic form, with reviews, previews and radio critiques, developed over
some 50 years, more or less vanished from the popular newspapers. By
1991 even The Listener, one of the main places where serious criticism had
been appearing, ceased publication (Fiddick 1991: 17). However, while
such coverage disappeared from the popular papers, it continued, and
even increased, in the quality papers like the Daily Telegraph, which
appointed its first radio critic in 1975. While radio audiences were now
segmented by class and age each listening in to different types of radio
INTRODUCTION 7
stations, this was being reflected in the way newspaper coverage was divid-
ing. While the readers of the popular papers were given mostly a limited
amount of soft news coverage of radio, for the readers of quality papers,
critical coverage was still provided. Generally for the newspapers this was
a period, from the early 1970s onwards, of fierce competition, especially
between the tabloids, The Sun and the Daily Mirror, and economic woes,
with various take overs and failed attempts at launching new newspapers,
such as Today; it was also a time when newspaper’s form and content went
through constant revision and update (Williams 2010: 215–17).
The last main chapter, Chap. 7, focuses on the period from the early
1990s until now, corresponding to a period when new forms of digital
communication and the internet (I will use this term to also refer to the
web or World Wide Web), arrived. Again, for radio, this was a period of
huge change, with the development of DAB, podcasts and radio stream-
ing, but also for the newspapers, as younger readers started to desert them
for online news. Indeed, for Kevin Williams this is a period of ‘super’
competition, as newspapers sought to survive using whatever means they
could; some even wondered that, with the internet, whether the time of
the traditional newspaper had ended (Williams 2010: 221–42). The 1990s
was also a period when radio criticism experienced, what could be called,
a resurgence in the popular press, thanks to the launching of seven-day
guides, though this coverage soon declined again later in the decade. As
internet take up increased the nature of news production, distribution and
consumption started to change. With many young people deserting the
newspapers for the internet, which they found more interactive, conve-
nient and engaging, the newspapers found their circulations declining.
The internet allowed new forms of competition to the newspapers to
appear, such as from new online-only media companies and from the pub-
lic itself using blogs and new forms of social media. The newspapers
reacted by setting up their own online sites and creating digital strategies
to direct their development and survival into the new digital age. Radio
criticism, while still found in the traditional newspapers, now also moved
online, onto the newspaper’s website, onto the sites of new forms of online
media and onto the areas populated by the public, such as Twitter and
Facebook. I will end this chapter raising these questions: what is the future
of the radio critic and radio criticism? Where will it be found in the future?
What form will it take? Who will be writing it? And how will it position
radio for its readers?
8 P. RIXON
Conclusion
As radio and the newspapers have gone through huge changes in the
twentieth century, so too has radio criticism. The radio critic has moved
from being an unnamed contributor in the 1920s, to a minor celebrity in
the 1930s, to a commentator on the developments of television, to being
virtually invisible or non-existent for most radio listeners and newspaper
readers. Only the readers of the qualities papers continue to be served with
regular reviews and previews. However, by the noughties, even these crit-
ics, working at the quality papers, have had to come to terms with a new
form of radio, one that can be listened to through various devices, where
there are extensive catch-up facilities, where radio programmes are inter-
linked to websites and other texts, where individual programmes or pod-
casts can be downloaded, where the listener can tune-in to stations from
around the world, some of which might have been recorded by the pro-
verbial one person and a dog. They have had to learn a new art of working
not just on hardcopy, but understanding how to use online technologies,
including using webpages, podcasts, blogs, social media and the like. They
are being encouraged to use these forms to engage with their readers in
new ways. If they do not, they will be redundant, in more ways than one.
As radio as a medium, has changed, and as newspapers have shifted their
focus online, so the radio critic has had to either come to terms with the
new form of radio and online newspaper, and the new needs of the listener
and reader, or disappear alongside the traditional newspaper as it fades
from use and our memories.
Bibliography
Briggs, A. (1965) The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: The Golden
Age of Wireless, II (London: Oxford University Press).
Crisell, A. (1997) An Introductory History of British Broadcasting (London:
Routledge).
Curran, J. (2009) ‘Narratives of Media History Revisited’ in Michael Bailey (ed)
Narrating Media History (London: Routledge), pp.1–21.
Fiddick, P. (1991) ‘Editorial’, The Listener, 3 January, p.17.
Lacey, K. (2009) ‘Ten Years of Radio Studies: The Very Idea’, The Radio Journal:
International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, 6(1), pp.21–32.
Lewis, P. M. (2000) ‘Private Passion, Public Neglect: The Cultural Status of
Radio’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(2), pp.160–167.
INTRODUCTION 9
Nicholas, S. (2012) ‘Media History or Media Histories? Re-addressing the History

of the Mass Media in Inter-War Britain’, Media History, 18(3–4), pp.379–394.
Radio Audience Joint Audience Research (RAJAR) (2017) ‘Data Release
Infographics’, http://www.rajar.co.uk/docs/news/RAJAR_DataRelease_
InfographicQ22017.pdf, date accessed 23 September 2017.
Seymour-Ure, C. (1993) The British Press and Broadcasting Since 1945 (London:
Blackwell).
Williams, K. (2010) Read All About It! A History of the British Newspaper (London:
Routledge).
CHAPTER 2
Approaching the Study of Radio Critics

and Radio Criticism
Introduction
Radio criticism sits at an intersection of the newspaper, radio and the wider
societal context. As such it is not just a journalistic discourse, it is also part
of radio’s history, part of how we, the listener, have come to know, under-
stand and value radio. However, it is not a form that has attracted much
attention, something this book seeks to address. In this chapter I will
begin by exploring and outlining how I approach the study of radio criti-
cism in Britain. To do this I have divided this chapter into a number of
sections where I will explore related theoretical, conceptual and method-
ological issues. In the first section, I will explore the question of why we
need to study the role of radio critics. Part of my answer to this is that they
have played a central role in how we, as a society, have come to understand
radio and how it became, and continues to be, part of our popular culture,
and that it has been, at least for a time, an important part of newspaper
coverage. I will follow this section by looking at, in a more abstract way,
questions about the role of the critic, namely what does the critic do and,
possibly, what should they do that is so important? To help explore and
define what their main roles are I will, by engaging with existing work in
the area of criticism, such as that by Anthony Scott (2016), James Grant
(2013) and John Corner (2013), delineate some of the main characteris-
tics of the critics’ role and their work. This is important because by doing
this we can, through a process of extrapolation, move from the general
discussion around critics to the particular, and focus on radio critics, to

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55387-4_2
12 P. RIXON
start to understand the role of the radio critics and why they are so impor-
tant in the history of radio.
After this, using work by scholars such as Pierre Bourdieu (1984),
Jennifer Smith Maguire and Julian Matthews (2012) and Rónán McDonald
(2007), I will explore why and how critics have to be understood in rela-
tion to the wider society in which they work, in particular raising questions
around cultural values and taste and the way critics work as cultural inter-
mediaries. In this sense the critic is situated between the multitude of
cultural forms and services on offer and the reader. They, through their
selection of cultural products and outputs and how they write about these,
play an important role in shaping, as well as reinforcing, the tastes and
values of their readers. After this discussion I will then move on to explore,
under the heading of ‘The Media Critics: Industry and Discourse’, the
particular problems faced by critics working for the mass media, and in
particular those working for newspapers. For this I will use work by Mike
Poole (1984), which, while focused on television criticism, raises issues
relevant for understanding radio critics. In Poole’s work he explores the
tensions and problems faced by media-based critics in relation to the
industry they work for, the one whose output they critique and the wider
context of the dominant cultural hierarchy; an interaction between these
different media industries comes for Poole, in various ways, to impact on
the form of the critic’s critical discourse. I will end in the last section by
outlining the methodology I have employed to undertake this research,
indicating the way I have carried it out and how this has fed into the over-
all approach of this work.
Why Study Radio Criticism and Radio Critics?

Radio coverage, in some form, written by critics, reviewers and previewers,
has been a popular part of British newspaper provision for nearly a hun-
dred years, with the first critical provision appearing in the 1920s, though
initially without by-lines. However, while it has been a popular form of
press coverage throughout the twentieth century, there has been little
research undertaken on it. Indeed, it has to be said that radio itself has
been an under-researched medium (Lacey 2009), eclipsed by the huge
amount of work on other media such as television. This might be one
reason why there is so little interest or work on the associated area of radio
criticism (Rixon 2015: 23–4). However, even with television, the much
more popular medium, there is a dearth of work in Britain on related
APPROACHING THE STUDY OF RADIO CRITICS AND RADIO CRITICISM 13
popular newspaper criticism, with only a few exceptions, such as John

Corner (2013), John Ellis (2008) and Paul Rixon (2011). It might be
argued media scholars have tended to view this form of journalistic-critical
writing about radio and television as being ancillary to their main fields of
study with their focus on the media and its organisations and history
(Briggs 1961, 1965, 1970, 1979, 1995), its output (Cooke 2003), related
policy (Franklin 2001), economics and finance (Congdon 1992) and con-
sumption (Turnock 2007). Where scholars do touch on the coverage of
radio by the press, it has often been to provide background information or
a context to help situate particular developments occurring in radio, such
as in relation to policy, genre, scheduling or reception, for example, the
way Asa Briggs touches on it, rather uncritically, to show how the BBC
thought about newspaper coverage in the early 1930s (1965: 70). The
work of critics has not been the main focus of most academic work in the
field. Indeed, Siân Nicholas argues that much of the ‘scholarship on radio
and television has tended to address the press where at all mostly for illus-
trative commentary’ (2012: 381). If one searches various electronic library
and journal databases and catalogues using such terms radio critics or
radio criticism very few books or articles will be found, and those that are
usually refer to academic critics and associated critical work. Though,
more work has appeared in the USA on popular forms of criticism than in
Britain, for example, Ralph Smith’s work on radio criticism (1979) and
Amanda Lotz’s work on television critics (2008).
In some ways, this tendency to side-line radio criticism has also been
true of those researching and writing on journalism. Undertaking an elec-
tronic search of journalism-focused journals and monographs will bring
up few results focused on radio and television critics or criticism. Perhaps
this is because of the perceived trivial nature of such an activity compared
to serious news output, but also perhaps because it does not appear as
straight forward journalism written in the form of an objective news report
but more as a form of evaluation and personal insight (DeWerth-Pallmeyer
2003: 101). Much of journalism scholarship has tended to ‘privilege so
called “newspapers of record” over popular or local titles and political
content over ephemera’ (Nicholas 2012: 382). Often where critics and
criticism is touched on, it is collapsed more generally into work on soft
news or columnists (Petley 1997: 255–6).
However, I would argue that such critics play an important role in the
mediated public discourse about radio. Their output—radio criticisms,
reviews and previews— helps public opinion to coalesce; it provides a
14 P. RIXON
shared way for understanding and talking about radio and has played an
important role in how radio became and continues to be accepted as part
of popular culture, as such it is part of the shared discourse about radio
(Rixon 2015). Such writing also gives us an historical insight into the
nature of radio, such as how it was listened to, what was being broadcast,
its reception and the discussions happening about radio and its output,
which are hard to access after the event when often few concrete records
have been kept or recordings made, especially covering the early days of
radio broadcasting. Also, as radio criticism connects to other forms of
criticism, such as film and theatre criticism, from which it drew, and to
television criticism, for which it played an important role in helping to
shape its form and approach, it is thus linked to all their histories (Rixon
2015). Its development tells us something about the situation and devel-
opment of the press and the broadcasting industries and the evolving and
changing relationship between them, what Nicholas refers to as the ‘inter-
relatedness of the media’ (2012: 309). Also, we must accept that radio
criticism, like all criticism, is a cultural form in its own right and can be
appreciated aesthetically and understood as a product of a particular time
and situation. As Scott suggests, ‘[…] criticism is an art in its own right
[…and] the critic is a craftsman of sorts [… and] also a creator’ (2016:
17). Lastly, as journalism has gone through and is now experiencing
another period of change, with the use of new digital technologies and the
internet, there is a need to understand where the radio critic and radio
criticism fit within this and to what extent their role continues or might
even be superseded in some way (Rixon 2017a); will, as DeWerth-
Pallmeyer questions, ‘the shape of criticism [… transform] given a change
in the overall media landscape?’ (2003: 101). For this reason I believe that
the role of radio critics and their output is important and that more work
is required to explore and delve into what it can tell us about radio, its
cultural reception, the way we as a society value it, the way it relates to
other media forms, like newspapers, other forms of criticism and how
these elements are changing and have changed over time.
What Is a Critic? What Is Criticism?

If we accept the view that radio criticism, as found in the press and other
such media outlets, is important then we need to ask questions about what
it is and who produces it: Who is the critic? What is their purpose and role?
What do they produce? What is criticism? Perhaps a useful place to start is
with the etymology of the term ‘critic’. Critic, as Himmelstein points out
(1981: 21), comes from the Greek term krit, which relates to testing a
work. The critic, in this sense, critically examines an artefact to see if and
how it works. The critic therefore acts as the tester or as the Kritos, the
Judge (McDonald 2007: 41). The critic holds the work up to scrutiny, to
test it or judge it against something, such as some code, beliefs or values,
to verify whether it conforms, exceeds or fails to hit such targets. In some
ways we all act, at some stage, as critics or judges. Whenever we watch,
read or listen to something then we are judging it, against our own views,
beliefs and experiences, though we have to accept that these are socially
and culturally formed and therefore linked to wider values and views.
Indeed, increasingly we are all encouraged to review and reflect on things
we have purchased, by leaving feedback and a star rating, such as with
Amazon (Blank 2007). However, by doing this we would not necessarily
consider ourselves as being a critic. This is a title given to or taken on by a
particular person, often because of the work they do or the position they
hold. This begs the question: Are you a film critic because you write about
films in a certain way, or because the Daily Telegraph has appointed you as
their film critic? For many, for a long while, it has been the latter, though
a new form of public critic has recently appeared on the internet who has
taken on the mantle because of their popularity and acceptance, rather
than necessarily being given a position by a media organisation (Rixon
2017a).
While it would seem that a media critic can gain this title and status by
being given the role by a media organisation (Crosbie and Roberge 2016:
276), another, what we could call the public critic, might gain such status
by showing the right ability and attracting a sizeable audience, perhaps,
these days, by keeping an online blog about a particular cultural activity.
While it seems there are two main ways of gaining the status of being
accepted as a critic there is also a question of what role they play. Indeed,
what makes a good critic? James Grant (2013) argues that an important
characteristic of being a critic is to appreciate a cultural artefact and then
to be able to communicate this to a wider public. The critic does this by
being ‘aware of the work’s features by means required for appreciation’
and will communicate to a readership how to act ‘appropriately for appro-
priate reasons’ (p. 39). While, for John Corner, a critic needs a ‘“profes-
sional” grounding for critical judgment in some kind of approved
competence (knowledge of the history of the specific field, its materials
and techniques, and of achievements within it)’ (2013: 2). Hal Himmelstein
16 P. RIXON
argues that, ‘[a] truly skilful […critic must] possess a combination of attri-
butes, including the analytical techniques of a scholar, the insights of an
intellectual, and the eloquence and expressive power of the best stylists’
(1981: 21). For others, ‘[c]riticism is a carefully considered judgment of
the merits and faults of a work of art with the purpose of improving and
stimulating interest in that direction’ (Smith 1979: vi). Here Smith
touches on the point that the critic is not just serving and writing for the
public, but also engaging with the industry or artists who create the cul-
tural product in an effort to try to improve it.
It would seem that most meta-critics (critics of critics), those that stand
over the critics criticising and reflecting on what they do, believe that a
critic requires certain critical skills, detailed knowledge of the form and
particular abilities, such as being able to write. Though, with the needs of
the industry, the critic is appointed often not because of their supposed
knowledge or skills, of being able to critique a particular piece of work,
but because they ‘are employed simply as they’re stars’ and can attract
readers (Petley 1997: 255). For all critics, whatever their standing, they
are employed not just because of their critical skills to analyse or critique
culture, but that they can also engage or communicate successfully with
the public in some way.
As they do this they act as a cultural judge, or cultural intermediary,
acting on behalf of and for society, otherwise they would be appreciating
a cultural artefact on their own for themselves; they are there to help teach
or guide the public in how to appreciate and value culture. If the critic
moves away from social and cultural interactions they would become what
Eagleton calls a Sage—a critic who metaphorically, and, in some cases lit-
erally—such as with a reclusive academic—sits alone in a cave pondering
various cultural questions (1987: 32). However, to act as a cultural inter-
mediary or to judge on behalf of the public also requires the acceptance by
the same public. The status or standing of a critic in the eye of the public,
as touched on above, comes through two main ways: the critic’s profi-
ciency in critiquing the work in question and/or ‘[…] being employed to
‘review’ cultural products’ by a media organisation (Corner 2013: 2).
Therefore it could be argued that there are four important aspects of
being a critic and, if done well, to be a good critic. Firstly, there is a need
to be positioned and accepted as a cultural intermediary or judge by the
public and in some cases also by the artists and the industry. This requires
the reader to have trust in the critic and their abilities. This trust might
develop with the critic demonstrating they have the required skills, abili-
ties and knowledge that, at least for the public, situates them as a critic.
However, as Corner argues, this trust can also be conferred on by them
when being appointed to the role by a media organisation, allowing the
transference of trust from the media organisation to the critic (Rixon
2015). If the reader trusts the organisation then this might be transferred
to their anointed critic. However the critics gain their status, whether via
employment as a media critic or by exhibiting the required abilities and
knowledge, it is the reader and the wider public who decide if that person
will actually be accepted as a trusted critic and whether their outputs war-
rant considered reflection and engagement of some kind (Crosbie and
Roberge 2016: 280).
Secondly, critics are there to offer new insights, forms of evaluation or
understanding of an artefact or process that they have witnessed and have
knowledge about. It is through this critical evaluation that they provide
the public with guidance on how to appreciate particular cultural pro-
cesses and forms (Grant 2013: 27–8). In this way they are not just
describing the artefact, though this might be part of what they offer,
there is also a critical and evaluative component to their work. Indeed,
when new cultural forms come along, as they do, they take on the role of
helping guide the public in how to understand and value such forms
(McDonald 2007: 54–5), which could include providing criticisms of the
evolving cultural form or the institutions that make it. Thirdly, a charac-
teristic of their role is that they need to have an underlying approach or
argument that informs and guides their views, opinions and evaluation of
the work they are critiquing. In this way they are not just writing about,
or reflecting, on the artefact or cultural process using their personal views,
their likes and dislikes of work, but that they have a rational and coherent
way for approaching and evaluating the work, one that can be understood
and reasoned with.
Fourthly, and lastly, they do not sit outside society like Eagleton’s Sage
who might be thought as being more akin to the old fashioned academics
working in their ivory towers. The media critic is employed by a media
organisation to communicate with the wider society. They have a role to
inform and, indeed, to engage with the wider public in the relation to the
artefacts they are interested in and, hopefully, to open the minds of the
public to different ways of approaching and appreciating the work in ques-
tion. Obviously this can be, and often is, an interactive process, where the
18 P. RIXON
critic will engage with the public and, what Crosbie and Roberge call, the
aesthetic public sphere (2016: 277), and the debates happening there,
helping to find or help shape a consensus or shared critical view of the
cultural form in question, one which they can then communicate to their
readers (Eagleton 1987: 20–1). Indeed, for DeWerth-Pallmeyer, the ‘best
criticism should […] have an impact on both the audience and the media
arts. […] The best criticism helps construct a “cultural frame” for the
media arts and for the readers’ (2003: 100). Therefore, criticism will help
to create a shared view of the cultural form, but will also feedback to those
that make such artefacts, perhaps leading them to change their approach
for the better. Therefore, both media-appointed critics and public critics
must be good communicators, having an ‘ability to articulate’, as Grant
put it (2013: 46): media critics are employed by a media organisation
because of their abilities to communicate with a particular readership,
while, for the public critic, it is their quality of communication that gains
them their status of being a critic, such as the quality of their input into a
blog site.
The critics, while sometimes presenting critiques and reviews as per-
sonal viewpoints or insights informed by universal values, are closely linked
to the wider social, cultural, economic and ideological forces that shape
their habitus, their cultural capital and cultural experience and the context
within which they live and work (Bourdieu 1984: 234–5). They will find
it hard to be employed and to attract readers if they try to sit completely
outside the dominant culture and its associated values, even if this was pos-
sible. However, while the approach of the critic and their criticisms might
be informed by shared dominant values, the form it takes will depend on
the artefact or process being looked at, the industries in question and the
specific audiences being served. Therefore, with radio criticism appearing
in British newspapers, we can see a range of different forms of criticism,
ranging from serious attempts to critique radio to more popular framed
opinion pieces, some which focus on the programme as a text to others
that criticise the wider industry. I will now move on to look in more detail
at how the critic relates to questions of culture and taste using the concept
of cultural intermediary, before moving on to explore the specific indus-
trial context within which the broadcast critic operates, one where particu-
lar bodies, such as broadcasters and newspapers, are also active with their
own needs and strategies.
The Critic as Cultural Intermediary

As noted above, the critic can be viewed as playing an important role as a
cultural intermediary or cultural arbiter (Bourdieu 1984: 325). By this I
mean, they take on an intermediate role between the artists, producers
and the mass media industries that produce cultural artefact and services
and the way the public experience, understand, value and come to terms
with these, helping in the process to shape, reinforced or even change
shared tastes and cultural values (Maguire 2014: 16). At the heart of this
is the fact that most people do not have time or finances to access all cul-
tural products, or have the knowledge or expertise of how to engage with
or understand them, especially as new media and forms appear. Indeed,
the public wants to have help in understanding how the products and
services on offer fit with their tastes and values, which are closely aligned
to the wider shared tastes and values of society and their class. For exam-
ple, when radio broadcasting first started to appear in the 1920s, the
British public was initially unsure of this new form and how to appreciate
and understand it. The radio critics, and those starting to take on such
roles, working for journals, magazines and the newspapers helped, there-
fore, in positioning and situating radio in relation to popular culture,
helping people how to understand and how to value this new medium
(Rixon 2015).
The critic is a trusted, knowledgeable professional employed, usually,
by the media, to experience cultural artefacts and performances, from
which they select a number to communicate about to their readers. They
are informed by their views, values and own tastes, shaped through their
habitus, cultural capital and their experience and understanding of the
dominant values and cultural forms, to write about and critique the work
in question. These media-based critics engage with the public through
the mass media and the wider mediated (aesthetic) public sphere, often
seeking to create, or, as some of them might argue, to reflect, a shared
view and understanding of the form in question. In this way the critic, as
an intermediary, plays an important role in maintaining, shaping and
changing the shared tastes and cultural values of their readers and the
wider public.
For Jennifer Smith Maguire and Julian Matthews at times, the term,
cultural intermediary, has become, in their words, ‘a descriptive catch-all
for seemingly any creative or cultural occupation or institution [… which
has diluted the] use of the term’ (2012: 552). However, for most writers,
20 P. RIXON
such as Bourdieu, the critic, as a taste maker, can be considered as being a

cultural intermediary (Maguire 2014: 17). Part of Maguire and Matthews
(2012) approach, which will be followed in this work, is to look at the
critics in a way that takes account of their ‘context as constitutive of agency,
not as an external determinant of action (in other words, cultural interme-
diaries are not merely the passive bearers of their contextualizing catego-
ries’ (2012: 3). This requires an understanding the critic’s personal and
professional habitus, cultural capital, and their relationship to the cultural
field within which they work and to the readership which they write and
critique for (2012: 3). For such an understanding of the radio critic, this
will require, taking account of their backgrounds, class allegiances,
upbringing and the cultural values they hold. It also needs an analysis of
the field within which they work, that of journalism and criticism, the
dominant values at work there, and, lastly, knowledge of the readership
they serve, partly determined by the media organisation they work for.
Maguire and Matthews suggest three dimensions to the ‘contextual
specificity of cultural intermediaries’ (2012: 3), which are useful in helping
to breakdown the important and specific role that critics play in mediating
between cultural industries and the public. These are, firstly, framing,
which refers to how and why an intermediary, selects and focuses on par-
ticular items; secondly, expertise, what claims to authority can a critic
make, compared to others, to take on this role; and thirdly, impact, how
successful is the cultural intermediary in influencing others. I will now
look at these points in more detail in relation to radio critics.
The radio critic, and the radio coverage found in newspapers, cannot
cover all aspects of radio, there is too much and not all will be of interest
to the reader. They therefore create and use a cultural frame as a way of
delimiting what they are looking at and what they present to their readers,
helping to focus on particular aspects of radio. They use this to help guide
what they concentrate on, whether it is the radio industry, stations, the
schedule, the presenters or the programmes, which individual examples of
these they select to write about, which types of stations and programmes
for example, and how they will do this, by using an impressionistic
approach, a form of close textual analysis or through a less critical and
more opinionated journalistic discourse. The radio coverage that has
tended to dominant the newspapers has invariably been listings or pro-
gramme schedule information, usually for the main national radio chan-
nels, previews, where the critic selects and evaluates upcoming programme
or programmes, through highlights, where particular programmes are
selected as being worth listening to and, lastly, reviews, where, after broad-
cast, the radio critic reflects on how successful or not, a programme was.
Though other forms of hard and soft news coverage also appear, such as
where radio is written about as an industry or through the behaviour and
lifestyles of its celebrities. What decides and delimits what is selected for
such treatment and how they are written about, relates, as noted earlier, to
the cultural values held by the critic, the knowledge they have of what
going to be broadcast, often information carefully controlled by the
broadcaster, the newspaper they work for, the readership they write for
and the wider held dominant values. For Bourdieu the sentiments of the
critic and readers are often similar, as the newspapers will tend to employ
cultural intermediaries who share the same values and tastes their readers,
or are prepared, mostly, to satisfy these (Bourdieu 1984: 234).
In relation to claims to expertise, as we saw earlier in this chapter, this
relates to the radio critic in two main ways. Either they have been
employed to work for a newspaper and have been given the title of critic,
or, if publishing independently, perhaps online, they earn the trust of the
reader through their abilities. However, at the end of the day, if they write
and review cultural forms in a way that does not accord with the tastes
and values of their readers, and they are unable to persuade them of their
views, they might lose their reader’s trust and, perhaps, their position as
expert at the paper. Therefore, there is a lot of pressure on the critic,
especially from the newspapers editors, to conform. However, an occa-
sional subversive approach to the cultural form in question can work the
other way, helping to reaffirm, in the reader’s eyes, the independent
nature of the critic in question (Crosbie and Roberge 2016: 276). This
point links to the third dimension, that of impact. In terms of radio crit-
ics, or any critics this is hard to measure. However, it could be argued
that, over time the output of British radio critics has impacted on readers,
listener, policy makers, performers and broadcasters. Such as when critics
played an important role in the 1920s and 1930s in how radio became
accepted as part of popular culture (Rixon 2015), in the war pressuring
the BBC to rethink its initial war time services (Nicholas 2012) and, in
the 1960s, the way critics helped to introduce new celebrities and stars of
Radio 1 to British listeners (see Chap. 6). Radio critics and related cover-
age plays an important role in telling the listener what is on and when,
what might be worth listening to and what the shared feeling was about
the programmes.
22 P. RIXON
The radio critic, in this way, must be viewed as a cultural intermediary—

helping society to think through its culture and how it views it, helping to
provide direction and understanding. However, as noted, this is usually
done through the lens of the dominant cultural values, usually held by
radio critic, but also by most readers. Though, at certain moments, when
new media forms appear or as society goes through change, the critic
might take a more dynamic role, actively shaping a response to new cul-
tural forms and, sometimes helping to change the shared dominant values.
I now want to look, more specifically, at the industrial context where critics
work and how this impacts on their role and critical discourse.
The Media Critic: Industry and Discourse

However, as noted above, media critics work for an industry; they are
employed to create a cultural output and, as such they are evaluated and
judged, both critically and commercially. If they do not achieve their tar-
gets, if they do not satisfy the readers or the media owners, they might face
redundancy. The media critic is therefore caught in a bind of having to
both appear to be independent, providing a personal but informed view
on what they write about or review, while also having to attract particular
readerships, satisfying the needs of the industry they work for; they are
judged both on their approach on dissecting the cultural form and their
popularity of their own cultural output. In an article relating to media-
based television criticism, which observations can also be applied to radio,
Mike Poole (1984) argues that the critic operates at a junction where a
number of discourses intersect. For Poole this includes industrial dis-
courses of the organisations the critics work for and the organisations
whose output they review, which occurs, at least in the British context,
within a powerful literary or critical tradition that, in many ways for televi-
sion, but also for radio criticism, has over-determined the emerging critical
form (1984: 49). Such a view suggests that the critic is employed by the
media, such as a newspaper, and is therefore a specialised journalist or
columnist with a primary role to provide engaging copy for the reader,
with only a secondary role to deliver a critical insight into television or
radio (Giddings 1994). At the same time the media critic is also in a close
relationship with the broadcasting industry, whose workings, organisa-
tions and productions they critique and review. Such an industry seeks to
use the critic to speak for them in what Poole calls ‘Promotional
Ventriloquy’ (1984: 49): it tries to use critics to promote their programmes
and to write about broadcasting in a way that suits them. They do this by
selecting which programmes critics get access to at previews, restricting
access to their staff and using their promotional material to try to shape
what is written (Poole 1984: 49–52; Rixon 2017b). As Poole argues, the
broadcast critic is therefore under a double institutional hegemony of the
print and electronic media. The problem of developing an appropriate and
acceptable approach, for Poole, has not been helped as the early broadcast
critics, seeking both critical and journalistic acceptance, looked towards
existing forms of reviewing art, music, literature and theatre that relied on
a form of textual analysis to critique the programme as a text (Rixon 2011:
77–8). Therefore, as broadcast critics followed these traditions this has led
to an inappropriate form of criticism developing, one that takes little
account of radio as an aural form of mass media (Rixon 2015).
Because of the needs of the broadcasters and newspapers, and the dom-
inance of a literary-focused culture, a form of textual criticism has become
the main form of cultural critique found in the press. For the broadcasters
the wish is for their product, the programmes, to be focused on and for
these to be reviewed and highlighted for the public. There is less desire by
the industry for a critical approach that focuses on what they do as organ-
isations, the number of repeats they might use, their revenue streams and
the high salaries or bonuses paid (Poole 1984: 49–52). Likewise the press
media, where most of the critics operate, want their radio coverage to fit
into a known form. Therefore, they desire it to sit easily alongside other
forms of criticism or popular reviewing, such as that that already exists for
cultural forms like film, theatre and literature. Radio criticism, as it devel-
oped, has duplicate these other approaches, tending to focus mostly on
the programmes as texts; though, in the 1930s, many of the critics work-
ing for the popular press, much to the annoyance of the BBC, took a more
critical contextual approach (Nicholas 2012: 386).
A strong reason for this dominant textual focus, for Poole, comes from
the dominant literary culture in Britain, with its linkage to high culture,
which tends to view the author and the text as the main area of creativity.
Cultural products that are mass produced are looked down as lacking
these elements as they are shaped by commercial need (Adorno 1991).
Therefore, for radio and television to be accepted by the dominant cul-
tural paradigm, it requires the mass media elements to be downplayed,
and for an authorial hand to be discovered and the text to be the centre of
focus. By critics taking such an approach it allowed them to make a claim
for the cultural standing of the broadcast form and their position as critics
24 P. RIXON
(Rixon 2011: 77–8). Though, in many ways, the popular papers became,
over time, less worried about radio’s cultural claim and appointed critics
and writers who had been, at least at first, critical of the broadcasters—
their competitors—while also expanding their soft news approach to
attract their particular readership demographics. However, even coverage
in the popular papers tended to accept the dominant view of what consti-
tutes good radio, genre such as drama and documentaries, and mostly
focused on the text as the site of criticism, with previews and reviews,
when these have appeared. For these reasons a particular dominant form
of radio criticism has developed, one focused on the programme as the
text, which can be criticised as being a product of particular cultural and
industrial interactions and not always completely appropriate for a mass
media form.
Therefore the public discourse on radio, as found in the newspapers, is
one shaped by various factors and institutional needs: the needs of the
newspapers, partly wanting to provide information about radio, but also
to criticise their competitor; the needs for the broadcasters to provide
publicity to attract audiences and to understand what did work critically
and what did not; and the needs for audiences to provide a way of under-
standing this new and developing form of media. As such this relationship
between the two forms of mass media, as articulated through the dis-
course of critics and radio criticism, is important in how the public under-
stood radio, how those working for the radio industry viewed their role
within the public discourse and how the newspapers and broadcasters
developed a close but changing relationship (Nicholas 2012: 388–90).
How to Study Radio Critics and Radio Criticism

As this work focuses specifically on radio critics and their output, we need
to think about who these radio critics were, what form their criticism took,
and how we study them. What aspects are we interested in engaging with,
which critics or forms of output can we get access to and what do we ask
of it? This work will, as the title suggests, offer a historical approach, it will
be looking at the role of critics and the development of radio criticism and
related coverage since the 1920s. The focus will mostly be on those ele-
ments that exhibit a critical and reflective edge, rather than just on the
more descriptive or news-orientated pieces, though I will also touch on
these as they are part of the newspaper’s coverage of radio. The aim is to
explore the form taken by radio criticism and associated coverage that
appeared and developed over time and to relate this to changes that hap-
pened in the media industry, its audiences and the wider society and
culture.
Pragmatically the amount of coverage and the range of different publi-
cations that have covered radio in some way over the last one hundred
years is huge and beyond the realm of any detailed analysis. Also, much of
it might not be considered criticism or part of the critical debate, or not
even produced by identifiable critics and reviewers; much of it is similar
and therefore needs only to be sampled to understand its relevance and
import to the discussions of this book. Therefore by focusing on particular
critics, certain moments of development and change and on specific pub-
lications, a more nuanced and focused piece of research can be under-
taken. This follows the idea put forwards by Helen Wheatley in relation to
television, where she argues that, ‘it is possible to explore key moments of
historical change and the pressing issues […] by looking at specific exam-
ples, thereby producing dynamic interventions that question the history
and historiography […] more widely’ (2007: 3). This work will concen-
trate mostly on the output of identifiable reviewers, previewers and critics,
or work that has taken the form of reviews, critiques and preview. While
for Gillespie (2012) there is enough difference between the roles to
require these to be treated differently, I will take the position Poole takes
in his 1984 article, and will conflate these different types of coverage hold-
ing to the view that there is slippage between the different areas and what
is important is not whether it is a review written by a reviewer or a critique
written by a named critic, but whether it has a critical and reflective ele-
ment to it and whether it has been written by someone whose role is to
focus on radio in some form (Rixon 2015: 2). Therefore the focus in this
work will be on coverage that is not just descriptive but work that in some
way critiques and reflects on radio and its cultural production and form in
some way.
[The difference between] critics and non-critics […] is primarily a matter of

function, though it may also be a matter of viewpoint, of style, and of skill.
[…] The critic […] writes for newspapers and magazines and may inform or
amuse his readers [but compared to others], […] does so in a broader,
deeper and context of constant evaluation. He seeks, always to judge the
significance […] or to relate it to past events whether in broadcasting or
some other area. (Smith 1979: viii)
26 P. RIXON
I will, however, still touch on other forms of coverage, such as radio list-
ings, celebrity news and other hard or soft news forms, as these play an
important role in framing the work of critics on the page, in providing a
particular view of radio, and are part of the reader’s experience of radio
and its coverage in the newspapers.
The next question that needs to be explored is: how does one analyse
radio criticism and associated coverage and the development of a relation-
ship between the press and radio? Using the approach suggested by
Maguire and Matthews, that critics as cultural intermediaries need to be
understood in relation to their context (2012: 3), two main approaches
have been taken: firstly, using secondary work alongside some original
research to provide both a broad historical overview of the social and cul-
tural context relating to the different moments and periods being looked
at, alongside a more specific analysis of the radio and press industries. This
includes using histories of the press (Williams 2010) and broadcasting
(Briggs 1961, 1965, 1970, 1979, 1995; Crisell 1997), social and cultural
histories (Sinfield 2004), as well as analysing memoirs and autobiogra-
phies (Moseley 1935, 1960; Barrington 1948) and references to official
reports and broadcasting acts (Peacock Report 1986; Broadcasting Act
1990). This contextual approach will provide an understanding of the
changing social, cultural, political and economic situation within which
the radio and press industries operate and their changing relationship with
each other, and other related industries.
Secondly, building on the contextual analysis outlined above, the
approach will include a study of the radio coverage found in British jour-
nals, magazines and newspapers over the past one hundred years or so.
The analysis of these publications will operate in three ways: firstly, by
using biographies, collective work and memoirs (such as Sydney Moseley
(1935), Jonah Barrington (1948), Filson Young (1933) and Collie Knox
(1937, 1939, 1947). These will help me explore the social and cultural
background of critics and the way they view radio and will provide some
reflections on their own writings, reviews and criticism. Secondly, I will
analyse the categories of coverage appearing, the form they took and
where they appeared in relation to other forms of coverage around them
and, thirdly, I will undertake a close critical analysis of some of the actual
previews, reviews, criticism and associated coverage. The aim is to get an
idea of the type of coverage appearing, the underlying values, the form it
took, the different language used by critics and how such coverage
developed and changed over time and what insight or view it presents of
radio as a medium and its output. Part of this analysis will include a
reflection on how the form taken by the coverage relates to the culture
and tastes of the readership of different newspapers.
This part of the approach relates to Maguire and Matthews’s concept of
framing, what is being select and written about, and expertise, how this is
being done and by whom (2012: 3). I will also explore some of the differ-
ent types of interaction occurring between the critics and their work and
broadcasters. This includes where the critics became involved with broad-
casters, perhaps by appearing on radio, being given a role at a broadcasting
organisation or partaking in creating programmes, such as writing a script
for a play, exploring in this way questions of the ‘intermediality occurring
between’ radio and the press; showing how the histories of both are inter-
twined (Nicholas 2012: 387–90). This analysis will link with Maguire and
Matthews’s concept of impact, what impact the work of the critic might
have on cultural makers, to which I will also add some reflection on the
impact critics have had on the cultural values and tastes of readers and
listener over the years (2012: 3).
The newspapers and journals that will be focused on will change over
the decades and periods being researched. This is because the importance
of some of these and even their existence changes. For example, The
Listener did not start publication until the late 1920s and ended in 1991,
and there is an argument that its main contribution to critical debates
about radio was not until the mid-1930s onwards (Briggs 1965: 291;
Poole 1984: 43). The main examples of press coverage will be taken from
a range of national newspapers, including The Times, Daily Mail, Daily
Express, Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror. And, while not fully a
national newspaper until 1959, I will also include the Manchester
Guardian, a provisional paper until the late 1950s, as the whole notion of
what a national paper is, as Seymour-Ure notes, is ‘vague’, and the
Manchester Guardian did have ‘a national reputation’ before 1959,
though ‘without a London base and with a limited circulation’ (1993:
19). Also, the Manchester Guardian covered radio from the 1920s and
played such an important role in broadcast criticism in the following
decades that there is a need to include it from the start. I will divide the
papers by the type of journalism, their readerships and by the external
perceptions of their form, into quality papers, like The Times and Daily
Telegraph and popular papers, like the Daily Mirror, the Sun and Daily
28 P. RIXON
Mail. Though, sometimes, I will further divide them by adding the cate-
gory of mid-market papers, those aiming at the lower-middle and working
class, like the Daily Express and Daily Mail (Seymour-Ure 1993: 27–43).
I will also include the analysis of a number of important radio journals
such as Popular Wireless and Amateur Wireless, for the 1920s and early
1930s, and the BBC’s publications, the Radio Times and, as already men-
tioned, The Listener. For this work I have decided to focus mostly on
national newspapers, as this is where the majority of people have read
about radio since the start of broadcasting. However, the journals noted
here were important in the early coverage of radio, and while The Listener
had a small readership it was to become very influential in the way radio
was written about and its cultural standing.
As noted earlier, the press coverage of radio, or wireless, as it was often
referred to in the early days, has a long history, indeed starting earlier than
the first broadcasts of the BBC in 1922, with stories about the initial uses
and experiments in radio-wireless often pre-dating the First World War.
This leads to the problem that there is too much written about radio even
in my selective group of publications to actually collect and analyse.
Therefore my research and analysis will be based on samples from each
decade, samples that will include work by influential critics or reviewers
and important radio columns. One argument for the use of samples is that
the analysis of a number of reviews will provide enough insight into how
radio was being covered at a moment in time, in a particular paper and by
a particular type of critic. There is no need to analyse everything; there is
a need to be able to move from detail to the abstract, to provide some
kind of sense to what is happening. Therefore articles and columns have
been looked at from each of the chosen papers and journals for a week for
each month, every four years or so. Such a time period was selected as it
would normally take more than four years for large changes to happen, it
also moves the collection and analysis start dates away from the same
points in each decade and, while it provides a large amount of material, it
is still manageable. In some places more has been collected when associ-
ated with particular critics of interest, for example the work of Collie
Knox. However, this selection and sampling process has still provided a
couple of thousand articles, reviews and previews and associated pieces of
coverage to analyse.
Conclusion
Therefore, as I have argued above, radio criticism constitutes a cultural
form that can give an insight into the way the medium, radio, became an
important part of our culture; radio criticism is also a form that can be
studied in its own right. As it is, there has been little research or interest in
radio criticism. Part of the reason for this lack of interest by scholars is that
their focus has tended to be on the actual radio programmes, the radio
industry, the audiences and people making the programmes, rather than
on studying the quasi critic-journalists who write about them. Those
working in the field of journalism are equally not engrossed with a form of
critical writing, often by non-journalists, about such an ephemeral medium
as radio or television. Therefore this study is an attempt to address this
lack of interest and research, to explore in some detail the appearance of
radio criticism and the form it took in the UK. It is also an attempt to tell
the history of radio through the critical work that has appeared about it in
the press since its development in the early-twentieth century and, in this
way, to present a more complex integrated approach to the history of the
relationship between radio and newspapers through a focus on radio
criticism.
I have used this chapter to explore some of the problems and questions
faced by a scholar approaching such a topic: Firstly, as noted earlier, why
study this area, why is it so important? Secondly, what is a critic, what are
they there to do and how well do they need to do this? Thirdly, how does
the critic act as a cultural intermediary? Fourthly, how are they positioned
within the industry they work for and the one they claim to critique? And,
lastly, how do we best approach the study of the radio critics and their
output? As I argued in this chapter, my intent is to focus on the critics who
communicate and engage with the public and who are not those hiding in
some institution, writing in some conflated and often theoretical way
about radio, though some might point out that this is what I am doing
when writing this book. The critic, in some way, is connected to the soci-
ety in which they work; it is the society that produces and consumes the
artefacts the critics are interested in and the one the critic produces their
output for. They engage with and are part of the (aesthetic) public sphere;
they help direct the public discussion and to coalesce this into some form
of shared opinion, though with differences between critics working for
different publications. They are also a product of society and its values and
norms and in some way reproduce these in their work while still, at certain
30 P. RIXON
moments, also having to adapt, change and question these when new cul-
tural forms appear, and possibly at other moments. However, it must also
be accepted that media critics work for the media, that they write for a
particular readership and they are linked, in various ways, to the media
they write about. As Poole (1984: 49) notes, the critics are part of a dis-
cursive field where newspapers and broadcasters try to shape their output
to support the dominant cultural values.
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CHAPTER 3
Radio in Britain in the 1920s:

Narratives of Spectacle and Concern
Introduction
When a new technology or a new medium develops, the first the public
often knows about it is, at least until recently, through the existing media,
such as the newspaper. However, technologies or new mass media never
appear fully formed, as it takes time for them to develop and to find a role
and a use (Winston 1998: 1–15). Likewise the coverage itself is usually at
first in a state of flux, with those working for the media trying to under-
stand what this new cultural form is, or might develop into, while having
to find a way of approaching and writing about it. Indeed, the narrative,
or narratives, taken on by those working for the media to understand such
developments, play an important role in framing how a new technology or
mass medium is accepted and understood by the public. Such narratives
could even feed back into how a cultural form or technology might actu-
ally develop. In this chapter I will be looking at how radio or wireless
broadcasting, as some called it in these early years, developed, and in what
ways it first began to attract coverage from the press and the form this
took. It was the start, I argue, of a fraught relationship between broadcast-
ers and newspapers, two competing but interconnecting forms of media,
which still display tensions even today.
Firstly, I will begin this chapter by exploring the way radio technology
developed, initially as a form of point-to-point communication (from
one radio set to another set) and then in terms of broadcasting (one set
to many). There I will make some comparisons to what was happening at

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55387-4_3
34 P. RIXON
the same time in the USA because, partly, the US and British experiences
are linked, by companies, personnel, shared practices and, at least for
Britain, worries of what might happen if the more chaotic route of devel-
opment occurring in the USA, where there seemed to be little regulatory
control over the development of broadcasting, should be followed in
Britain (Briggs 1961: 96–8). Such an initial historical contextual approach
is important as it provides an understanding of the changing and fluid
nature of radio as it developed over time from a communication form to
becoming an important mass media. By mapping out this on-going pro-
cess of change it helps to provide an understanding of problems the press
faced as they had to grapple with such a metamorphosing technology, as
they sought to find a particular view or narrative by which to present it
to their readers. Was it a transformative technology, something that
would have a radical impact, or merely an extension of existing forms of
communication?
Secondly, following this, I will explore two of the main early narratives
followed by the newspapers in their coverage of radio as it developed as a
communication and then as a broadcast medium. One of the narratives
was of excitement, of wonder at this new technology and what it could
offer, what I call the spectacle of technology: this was a new medium able
to link the nation and nations together in a way not possible before,
though some were also worried about the impact this might have on
Britain’s place in the world (Hendy 2013: 76–89). And the other one was
a narrative more of fear and concern, which focused on the potential
power and impact of this new form of mass media, one able to enter peo-
ple’s homes and communicate with them directly (Price 1995: 5–6).
Much of the early coverage of both narratives tended to focus on the pos-
sibilities or potentials of radio, whether negative or positive, rather than
critiquing and reviewing the output from the embryonic broadcasters.
However, over time, as the excitement around the technology of radio
reduced, and as some of the fears about radio were placated, such as with
the setting up of a public service broadcaster, the press began to focus
more on introducing and expanding its radio information and programme
guidance for its readers.
Thirdly, I will take up this last point and start to explore and analyse the
way the press began to develop its early coverage of radio services and
programmes over this decade, as radio started to become a popular mass
medium. This I will do by looking at the coverage that appeared at the
time, including the listings, highlights, previews and reviews, which started
RADIO IN BRITAIN IN THE 1920S: NARRATIVES OF SPECTACLE… 35
to replace the more technologically focused reporting. Through the analy-

sis of such coverage I will identify the form taken, how it relates to particu-
lar newspapers, with their specific readerships, and the underlying
dominant cultural values. I will also reflect on the way the two narratives
mentioned earlier still played a role in the form the coverage took, and
how such coverage came to shape a particular view of radio for the news-
papers’ readers.
Early Radio: From Communication to Broadcasting

The origins of the technologies behind radio go back way beyond when
the first experiments to communicate wirelessly were happening at the end
of the nineteenth century, to other technological developments such as
those relating to the creation of accumulators that could store electricity,
vacuum tubes that led to the development of early valves that could be
used to amplify radio signals and even wires to connect components
together but, also, in terms of the concept or idea of sending a signal over
distance. For example, Patrice Flichy mentions thoughts about long-dis-
tance communication dating back to, and even beyond, the seventeenth
century (1995:7). While some of the first technologies used in transmit-
ting signals over distance utilised mechanical forms of the telegraph and
semaphore, mostly for short distances (Winston 1998: 21–2; Flichy 1995:
7–28), others began to wonder about the possibility of using electrical
technology to replace mechanical means for sending messages long dis-
tances and then, later, if the communications could be carried wirelessly
and if coded messages could be replaced by voice (Briggs 1961: 25; Flichy
1995: 83; Winston 1998: 43–50, 68–74).
Over the next 60 years or so, in what might be seen as a fairly short
period of time, from around 1837 to 1906, technology moved from the
development of a commercial form of electronic telegraph to a form of
radio technology able to carry the human voice (Flichy 1995: 99–106);
from wired to wireless voice communication within a life time. However,
both types of communication, wired and wireless, were initially developed
as point-to- point forms of communication—communications between
two separate telegraphs, telephones or radio sets at any one time. The idea
of broadcasting, or what some were to call ‘radiocasting’, of transmitting
from one point to many, took time to take hold. Though some visionaries
in the nineteenth century had predicted that, one day, such technologies
36 P. RIXON
would be used to transmit sounds, voices and pictures down wires or over
the air into people’s homes (Barnouw 1990: 3–6).
Radio-wireless, telephony and telegraphy had mostly been developed
and financed as a communication form to create new ways to allow busi-
ness, the military and the state to interact and to control and integrate
their operations. For example, the telegraph was rolled out in the USA
alongside the railway as it pushed towards the west coast, helping to con-
nect the two sides of that continent and the businesses that operated
there (Flichy 1995: 42). Likewise, as radio communications developed, it
was done so as a form of point-to-point communication to support the
operations of large organisations, such as global businesses and nation
states (Crisell 2000: 17). Therefore as Guglielmo Marconi perfected his
radio-wireless technology he came to Britain, the hub of the British
Empire, to demonstrate his system in 1896 to the main provider of point-
to-point communications, the General Post Office (GPO) and to one of
the largest potential users of such a form of communication, the British
Navy (Briggs 1961: 21). Over time he developed a global radio-wireless
communications company, initially called The Wireless Telegraph &
Signal Company, which would develop various subsidiaries around the
world, and offered ship to shore communications using, at least in the
early years, Morse code.
However, even as Marconi and others were developing their new radio
telegraphy communication businesses and related technologies, others, like
Reginald Fessenden, were experimenting with voice radio (Winston 1998:
75). Indeed, as they experimented and sought to perfect their technology
they sometimes used the potential of radio to transmit over a wide area, as
an early form of broadcasting. For example, Fessenden would often play a
record on the radio to see how far the signal could be picked up by others
with telegraphy radio sets that could receive the music he broadcast, though
they could not transmit music or voice signals themselves (Crisell 1997:11).
However, historically things got put on temporary hold with the outbreak
of the Great War (1914–18) (what is usually now called, the First World
War). While, in some ways, this might be seen as putting back the develop-
ment and launch of radio broadcasting for some years it should, instead, be
viewed as a period of massive development, which helped radio’s eventual
successful and rapid take off after the war.
At the outset of the war radio communication was quickly viewed as
having an important strategic role, which led to ‘a ban being imposed on
“amateur” radio in Britain’ in 1914 (Briggs 1961: 20). There was a wish
to make sure that the vital needs of the military were not interfered with
by the public’s use of the radio waves. When the USA entered the war in
1917, the supposed strategic importance of radio led not just to a similar
ban on amateurs, but also to the taking over of the running of maritime
radio in the USA from the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of
America, a UK owned subsidiary, by the US Navy (Briggs 1961: 39, 60;
Flichy 1995: 106, 110). This communication form was deemed to be too
important to be left in the hands of a foreign owned company (or subsid-
iary), or with private citizens experimenting with it at such a time. After
the war the patents and radio shore stations of US Marconi were trans-
ferred to a new US company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA),
as the US Navy being an arm of the state was not seen as being best suited
to run or develop such an endeavour as radio (Barnouw 1990: 20–4;
Winston 1998: 74–7).
During the war the military’s orders for radio equipment helped finance
the further technological development and mass manufacture of radio sets
(Barnouw 1990: 18; Flichy 1995: 108). In this way, electronic manufac-
tures in the USA and the UK, such as the Western Electric Company
(USA) and Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company (UK), grew rich in
this new market. Due to the war these companies and others such as
General Electric, created huge plants, or extended existing ones, increas-
ing their ability to mass produce sets and related technologies at a faster
pace than in peace time (Barnouw 1990: 18). However, with the ending
of the war these businesses saw a sudden sharp drop in orders from the
military (Barnouw 1990: 27–8). To fill the loss of this demand they started
to look at the potential of radio broadcasting as a means to create a new
market, one they could help supply with their existing radio sets (Flichy
1995: 111–14), or, indeed, with new simple-to-use sets, such as the Radio
Music Box developed by David Sarnoff for RCA (Barnouw 1990: 36;
Winston 1998: 76).
While some broadcast experiments had started before the war, such as
those in Britain at Marconi’s Chelmsford main works between 1906 and
1914 (Briggs 1961: 32, 37), these had been halted on the onset of war.
When the war finished in 1918 experiments in radio broadcasting began
again on both sides of the Atlantic, though this happened quicker in the
USA than in Britain, with a hope to develop services that would encourage
the sales of sets, for example, Marconi in Britain with its experimental
broadcasts on the radio transmitter 2MT and Westinghouse in the USA
on KDKA (Briggs 1961: 45, 61). Such experiments were supported by
38 P. RIXON
members of the public interested in radio, whose ranks were swelled with
those demobbed from the armed forces that had been trained to use such
technologies in the conflict. These members of the public alongside others
interested in radio became extremely vocal in Britain, as well as the USA,
demanding that the restrictions placed on radio during the war should
now be relaxed (Briggs 1961: 50–8). As the British and US governments
finally relented, so radio entered a new period of experimentation in terms
of broadcasting and listening.
The war, in some ways, should not be seen as a hindrance or brake to
the development of radio but rather than as an accelerator, in terms of
technological development, the capacity to manufacture radio sets and in
the creation of an aware and technically trained public. Without the war
radio might have taken longer to have taken off as a mass medium. Indeed,
for Brian Winston, a patent war over De Forest’s valve was far more sig-
nificant in slowing down the success of radio at this time (1998: 78).
Broadcasting in Britain: The Birth of Public Service

Broadcasting
Unlike in the USA, where, in the 1920s, radio developed in a rather cha-
otic manner, with huge numbers of broadcast licences being issued lead-
ing to frequent interference, the development of radio in Britain was going
to be an ordered and controlled affair (Briggs and Burke 2002: 160–3).
The question was not one of how to regulate a plethora of would-be
broadcasters, regardless of whether they were private or public bodies or
individuals, as was happening in the US, but more, which body or bodies
would run a monopoly broadcasting service and on what grounds it would
be constituted. It was to be a question of cooperation between the inter-
ested parties and not of competition (Briggs 1961: 105). In May 1922 the
GPO successfully brought two groups of manufacturers together to create
the British Broadcasting Company (BBCo), which began its first broad-
casts in November 1922 using Marconi’s experimental channel of 2L0
(Crisell 2000: 18). In the USA radio was being financed through a mix of
charity drives, educational funding or commercial sponsorship and adver-
tising, the last two had become the dominant form of financing of radio
by the early 1930s (McChesney 1994: 29–37). In contrast, the BBCo was
initially funded by the royalties on the sale of TV sets and a share of the
licence fee collected by the GPO (Briggs 1961: 110–11).
However, it was not just a question about who should run the service
and how it should be funded, but also about what the role of broadcasting
was, how it should serve the public, what form it should take and how it
should be regulated and controlled. In Britain, throughout the 1920s, the
Managing Director of the BBCo was John Reith, who was to become the
first Director General of the British Broadcasting Corporation when the
BBCo became a public corporation in 1927. John Reith played an impor-
tant role for the company and corporation in defining what a radio service
working for the public should be like; his philosophy of how he saw radio,
and how he began to shape and develop the BBC, was outlined in his
book of 1924a, Broadcast over Britain. In this work he drew together the
thoughts of Matthew Arnold with input from his own Calvinist upbring-
ing to begin to fill in the ideas of how he saw public service broadcasting.
It would be a service that would use the brute force of monopoly to cul-
turally uplift its listeners, to educate, entertain and inform, and which
would also encourage self-improvement and help to build character
(Scannell and Cardiff 1991: 8; LeMahieu 1988: 144–7). However, Reith’s
ideas were broad brushstrokes. There was also the question of how to
operationalise such ideas and aims. What programmes and services should
actually be offered, how would they be created and put together? In many
ways this was to be achieved partly by planning and partly by accident,
experimentation, and by looking at and learning from other existing
forms, such as film, theatre, music hall and other cultural forms (Wood
1979: 36–7).
However, broadcasting did not develop in a vacuum. The press, the
medium most active in the mediated public sphere at this time, took an
early interest in radio. And the way the coverage of the newspapers devel-
oped helped to shape the public discussions about radio and the form it
should take. Initially, the coverage was focused on conveying a narrative of
wonder and excitement around the early technical developments that were
occurring and their potential and then, a little later, shifted to follow a
narrative of the possible impact broadcasting might have on society as well
as on other media industries, leading to attempts to regulate and control
radio. I now wish to explore these two particular narratives that appeared
in the newspapers in the early period of radio experimentation, but which,
I will argue, continue to be important, even now, in the newspapers’ cov-
erage of radio. I will first look at the narrative of the spectacle of radio
technology; a technology of wonder.
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COMMON TOMATA SAUCE.
Tomatas are so juicy when ripe that they require little or no liquid
to reduce them to a proper consistence for sauce; and they vary so
exceedingly in size and quality that it is difficult to give precise
directions for the exact quantity which in their unripe state is needed
for them. Take off the stalks, halve the tomatas, and gently squeeze
out the seeds and watery pulp; then stew them softly with a few
spoonsful of gravy or of strong broth until they are quite melted.
Press the whole through a hair-sieve, and heat it afresh with a little
additional gravy should it be too thick, and some cayenne, and salt.
Serve it very hot.
Fine ripe tomatas, 6 or 8; gravy or strong broth, 4 tablespoonsful:
1/2 to 3/4 hour, or longer if needed. Salt and cayenne sufficient to
season the sauce, and two or three spoonsful more of gravy if
required.
Obs.—For a large tureen of this sauce, increase the proportions;
and should it be at first too liquid, reduce it by quick boiling. When
neither gravy nor broth is at hand, the tomatas may be stewed
perfectly tender, but very gently, in a couple of ounces of butter, with
some cayenne and salt only, or with the addition of a very little finely
minced onion; then rubbed through a sieve, and heated, and served
without any addition, or with only that of a teaspoonful of chili
vinegar; or, when the colour is not a principal consideration, with a
few spoonsful of rich cream, smoothly mixed with a little flour to
prevent its curdling. The sauce must be stirred without ceasing
should the last be added, and boiled for four or five minutes.
A FINER TOMATA SAUCE.
Stew very gently a dozen fine red tomatas, prepared as for the
preceding receipt, with two or three sliced eschalots, four or five
chilies or a capsicum or two (or in lieu of either, with a quarter of a
teaspoonful of cayenne pepper), a few small dice of lean ham, and
half a cupful of rich gravy. Stir these often, and when the tomatas are
reduced quite to a smooth pulp, rub them through a sieve; put them
into a clean saucepan, with a few spoonsful more of rich gravy, or
Espagnole, add salt if needed, boil the sauce stirring it well for ten
minutes, and serve it very hot. When the gravy is exceedingly good
and highly flavoured, the ham may be omitted: a dozen small
mushrooms nicely cleaned may also be sliced and stewed with the
tomatas, instead of the eschalots, when their flavour is preferred, or
they may be added with them. The exact proportion of liquid used is
immaterial, for should the sauce be too thin it may be reduced by
rapid boiling, and diluted with more gravy if too thick.
BOILED APPLE SAUCE.
Apples of a fine cooking sort require but a very small portion of

liquid to boil down well and smoothly for sauce, if placed over a
gentle fire in a close-shutting saucepan, and simmered as softly as
possible until they are well broken; and their flavour is injured by the
common mode of adding so much to them, that the greater part must
be drained off again before they are sent to table. Pare the fruit
quickly, quarter it, and be careful entirely to remove the cores; put
one tablespoonful of water into a saucepan before the apples are
thrown in, and proceed, as we have directed, to simmer them until
they are nearly ready to serve: finish the sauce by the receipt which
follows.
Apples, 1/2 lb.; water, 1 tablespoonful; stewed very softly: 30 to 60
minutes.
Obs.—These proportions are sufficient only for a small tureen of
the sauce, and should be doubled for a large one.
For this, and all other preparations, apples will be whiter if just
dipped into fresh water the instant before they are put into the
stewpan. They should be quickly lifted from it, and will stew down
easily to sauce with only the moisture which hangs about them. They
should be watched and often gently stirred, that they may be equally
done.
BAKED APPLE SAUCE.
(Good.)
Put a tablespoonful of water into a quart basin, and fill it with good
boiling apples, pared, quartered, and carefully cored: put a plate
over, and set them into a moderate oven for about an hour, or until
they are reduced quite to a pulp; beat them smooth with a clean
wooden spoon, adding to them a little sugar and a morsel of fresh
butter, when these are liked, though they will scarcely be required.
The sauce made thus is far superior to that which is boiled. When
no other oven is at hand, a Dutch or an American one would
probably answer for it; but we cannot assert this on our own
experience.
Good boiling apples, 1 quart: baked 1 hour (more or less
according to the quality of the fruit, and temperature of the oven);
sugar, 1 oz.; butter, 1/2 oz.
BROWN APPLE SAUCE.
Stew gently down to a thick and perfectly smooth marmalade, a

pound of pearmains, or of any other well-flavoured boiling apples, in
about the third of a pint of rich brown gravy: season the sauce rather
highly with black pepper or cayenne, and serve it very hot. Curry
sauce will make an excellent substitute for the gravy when a very
piquant accompaniment is wanted for pork or other rich meat.
Apples pared and cored, 1 lb.; good brown gravy, third of pint 3/4
to 1-1/4 hour. Pepper or cayenne as needed.
WHITE ONION SAUCE.
Strip the skin from some large white onions, and after having
taken off the tops and roots cut them in two, throw them into cold
water as they are done, cover them plentifully with more water, and
boil them very tender; lift them out, drain, and then press the water
thoroughly from them; chop them small, rub them through a sieve or
strainer, put them into a little rich melted butter mixed with a spoonful
or two of cream or milk, and a seasoning of salt, give the sauce a
boil, and serve it very hot. Portugal onions are superior to any
others, both for this and for most other purposes of cookery.
For the finest kind of onion sauce, see Soubise, page 126, which
follows.
BROWN ONION SAUCE.
Cut off both ends of the onions, and slice them into a saucepan in
which two ounces of butter have been dissolved; keep them stewing
gently over a clear fire until they are lightly coloured; then pour to
them half a pint of brown gravy, and when they have boiled until they
are perfectly tender, work the sauce altogether through a strainer,
season it with a little cayenne, and serve it very hot.
ANOTHER BROWN ONION SAUCE.
Mince the onions, stew them in butter until they are well coloured,
stir in a dessertspoonful of flour, shake the stewpan over the fire for
three or four minutes, pour in only as much broth or gravy as will
leave the sauce tolerably thick, season, and serve it.
SOUBISE.
(English Receipt.)
Skin, slice, and mince quickly two pounds’ weight of the white part
only of some fine mild onions, and stew them in from two to three
ounces of good butter over a very gentle fire until they are reduced
to a pulp, then pour to them three-quarters of a pint of rich veal
gravy; add a seasoning of salt and cayenne, if needed; skim off the
fat entirely, press the sauce through a sieve, heat it in a clean
stewpan, mix it with a quarter of a pint of rich boiling cream, and
serve it directly.
Onions, 2 lbs.; butter, 2 to 3 oz.: 30 minutes to 1 hour. Veal gravy,
3/4 pint; salt, cayenne: 5 minutes. Cream, 1/4 pint.
SOUBISE.
(French Receipt.)
Peel some fine white onions, and trim away all tough and
discoloured parts; mince them small, and throw them into plenty of
boiling water; when they have boiled quickly for five minutes drain
them well in a sieve, then stew them very softly indeed in an ounce
or two of fresh butter until they are dry and perfectly tender; stir to
them as much béchamel as will bring them to the consistence of very
thick pea-soup, pass the whole through a strainer, pressing the onion
strongly that none may remain behind, and heat the sauce afresh,
without allowing it to boil. A small half-teaspoonful of pounded sugar
is sometimes added to this soubise.
White part of onions, 2 lbs.: blanched 5 minutes. Butter, 2 oz.: 30
to 50 minutes. Béchamel, 3/4 to 1 pint, or more.
Obs.—These sauces are served more frequently with lamb or
mutton cutlets than with any other dishes; but they would probably
find many approvers if sent to table with roast mutton, or boiled veal.
Half the quantity given above will be sufficient for a moderate-sized
dish.
MILD RAGOUT OF GARLIC, OR, L’AIL À LA BORDELAISE.
Divide some fine cloves of garlic, strip off the skin, and when all
are ready throw them into plenty of boiling water slightly salted; in
five minutes drain this from them, and pour in as much more, which
should also be quite boiling; continue to change it every five or six
minutes until the garlic is quite tender: throw in a moderate
proportion of salt the last time to give it the proper flavour. Drain it
thoroughly, and serve it in the dish with roast mutton, or put it into
good brown gravy or white sauce for table. By changing very
frequently the water in which it is boiled, the root will be deprived of
its naturally pungent flavour and smell, and rendered extremely mild:
when it is not wished to be quite so much so, change the water every
ten minutes only.
Garlic, 1 pint: 15 to 25 minutes, or more. Water to be changed
every 5 or 6 minutes; or every 10 minutes when not wished so very
mild. Gravy or sauce, 1 pint.
MILD ESCHALOT SAUCE.
Prepare and boil from half to a whole pint of eschalots by the

preceding receipt; unless very large, they will be tender in about
fifteen minutes, sometimes in less, in which case the water must be
poured from them shortly after it has been changed for the second
time. When grown in a suitable soil, and cultivated with care, the
eschalots are sometimes treble the size that they are under other
circumstances; and this difference must be allowed for in boiling
them. Drain them well, and mix them with white sauce or gravy, or
with good melted butter, and serve them very hot.
A FINE SAUCE, OR PURÉE OF VEGETABLE MARROW.
Pare one or two half-grown marrows and cut out all the seeds;
take a pound of the vegetable, and slice it, with one ounce of mild
onion, into a pint of strong veal broth or of pale gravy; stew them
very softly for nearly or quite an hour; add salt and cayenne, or white
pepper, when they are nearly done; press the whole through a fine
and delicately clean hair-sieve; heat it afresh, and stir to it when it
boils about the third of a pint of rich cream. Serve it with boiled
chickens, stewed or boiled veal, lamb cutlets, or any other delicate
meat. When to be served as a purée, an additional half-pound of the
vegetable must be used; and it should be dished with small fried
sippets round it. For a maigre dish, stew the marrow and onion quite
tender in butter, and dilute them with half boiling water and half
cream.
Vegetable marrow, 1 lb.; mild onion, 1 oz.; strong broth or pale
gravy, 1 pint: nearly or quite 1 hour. Pepper or cayenne, and salt as
needed; good cream, from 1/4 to 3/4 of pint. For purée, 1/2 lb. more
of marrow.
EXCELLENT TURNIP, OR ARTICHOKE SAUCE FOR BOILED
MEAT.
Pare, slice, and boil quite tender, some finely-grained mild turnips,
press the water from them thoroughly, and pass them through a
sieve. Dissolve a slice of butter in a clean saucepan, and stir to it a
large teaspoonful of flour, or mix them smoothly together before they
are put in, and shake the saucepan round until they boil: pour to
them very gradually nearly a pint of thin cream (or of good milk
mixed with a portion of cream), add the turnips with a half-
teaspoonful or more of salt, and when the whole is well mixed and
very hot, pour it over boiled mutton, veal, lamb, or poultry. There
should be sufficient of the sauce to cover the meat entirely;[58] and
when properly made it improves greatly the appearance of a joint. A
little cayenne tied in a muslin may be boiled in the milk before it is
mixed with the turnips. Jerusalem artichokes make a more delicate
sauce of this kind even than turnips; the weight of both vegetables
must be taken after they are pared.
58. The objection to masking a joint with this or any other sauce is, that it
speedily becomes cold when spread over its surface: a portion of it at least
should be served very hot in a tureen.
Pared turnips or artichokes, 1 lb.; fresh butter, 1-1/2 oz.; flour, 1

large teaspoonful (twice as much if all milk be used); salt, 1/2
teaspoonful or more; cream, or cream and milk mixed, from 3/4 to 1
pint.
OLIVE SAUCE.
Remove the stones from some fine French or Italian olives by

paring the fruit close to them, round and round in the form of a
corkscrew: they will then resume their original shape when done.
Weigh six ounces thus prepared, throw them into boiling water, let
them blanch for five minutes; then drain, and throw them into cold
water, and leave them in it from half an hour to an hour,
proportioning the time to their saltness; drain them well, and stew
them gently from fifteen to twenty-five minutes in a pint of very rich
brown gravy or Espagnole (see Chapter IV.); add the juice of half a
lemon, and serve the sauce very hot. Half this quantity will be
sufficient for a small party.
Olives, stoned, 6 oz.; rich gravy, 1 pint: 15 to 25 minutes. Juice,
1/2 lemon.
Obs.—In France this sauce is served very commonly with ducks,
and sometimes with beef-steaks, and with stewed fowl.
CELERY SAUCE.
Slice the white part of from three to five heads of young tender
celery; peel it if not very young, and boil it in salt and water for twenty
minutes. If for white sauce put the celery, after it has been well
drained, into half a pint of veal broth or gravy, and let it stew until it is
quite soft; then add an ounce and a half of butter, mixed with a
dessertspoonful of flour, and a quarter of a pint of thick cream or the
yolks of three eggs. The French, after boiling the celery, which they
cut very small, for about twenty minutes, drain and chop it; then put it
with a slice of butter into a stewpan, and season it with pepper, salt,
and nutmeg; they keep these stirred over the fire for two or three
minutes, and then dredge in a dessertspoonful of flour: when this
has lost its raw taste, they pour in a sufficient quantity of white gravy
to moisten the celery, and to allow for twenty minutes’ longer boiling.
A very good common celery sauce is made by simply stewing the
celery cut into inch-lengths in butter, until it begins to be tender; and
then adding a spoonful of flour, which must be allowed to brown a
little, and half a pint of good broth or beef gravy, with a seasoning of
pepper or cayenne.
Celery, 3 to 5 heads: 20 minutes. Veal broth, or gravy, 1/2 pint; 20
to 40 minutes. Butter, 1-1/2 oz.; flour, 1 dessertspoonful; cream, 1/4
pint, or three yolks of eggs.
WHITE CHESTNUT SAUCE.
Strip the outer rind from six ounces of sound sweet chestnuts,
then throw them into boiling water, and let them simmer for two or
three minutes, when the second skin will easily peel off. Add to them
three quarters of a pint of good cold veal gravy, and a few strips of
lemon rind, and let them stew gently for an hour and a quarter. Press
them, with the gravy, through a hair-sieve reversed and placed over
a deep dish or pan, as they are much more easily rubbed through
thus than in the usual way: a wooden spoon should be used in
preference to any other for the process. Add a little cayenne and
mace, some salt if needed, and about six tablespoonsful of rich
cream. Keep the sauce stirred until it boils, and serve it immediately.
Chestnuts without their rinds, 6 oz.; veal gravy, 1 pint; rind of 1/2
lemon: 1-1/4 hour. Salt; spice; cream, 6 tablespoonsful.
Obs.—This sauce may be served with turkey, with fowls, or with
stewed veal cutlets.
BROWN CHESTNUT SAUCE.
Substitute rich brown gravy for the veal stock, omit the lemon-rind
and cream, heighten the seasonings, and mix the chestnuts with a
few spoonsful of Espagnole or highly flavoured gravy, after they have
been passed through the sieve.
PARSLEY-GREEN, FOR COLOURING SAUCES.
Gather a quantity of young parsley, strip it from the stalks, wash it

very clean, shake it as dry as possible in a cloth, pound it in a mortar,
press all the juice closely from it through a hair-sieve reversed, and
put it into a clean jar; set it into a pan of boiling water, and in about
three minutes, if gently simmered, the juice will be poached
sufficiently; lay it then upon a clean sieve to drain, and it will be
ready for use.
Spinach-green, for which particular directions will be found at the
commencement of Chapter XXIV., is prepared in the same manner.
The juice of various herbs pounded together may be pressed from
them through a sieve and added to cold sauces.
TO CRISP PARSLEY.
Wash some branches of young parsley well, drain them from the
water, and swing them in a clean cloth until they are quite dry; place
them on a sheet of writing paper in a Dutch oven, before a brisk fire,
and keep them frequently turned until they are quite crisp. They will
become so in from six to eight minutes.

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Radio Critics and Popular Culture 1st

ed. Edition Paul Rixon

Radio Critics and

ISBN 978-1-137-55386-7 ISBN 978-1-137-55387-4 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018936645

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover Credit: LongQuattro

Printed on acid-free paper

2 Approaching the Study of Radio Critics and Radio

3 Radio in Britain in the 1920s: Narratives of Spectacle

4 Rise of a Medium: Arrival of the Radio Critic 65

5 The Critic, Newspaper Radio Criticism and the Heyday

6 From the Swinging Sixties to Thatcherism: The Decline

7 The Digital Age: The Press, Radio, Radio Critics

Preamble: A Personal View

© The Author(s) 2018 1

Nicholas, S. (2012) ‘Media History or Media Histories? Re-addressing the History

Approaching the Study of Radio Critics

© The Author(s) 2018 11

Why Study Radio Criticism and Radio Critics?

popular newspaper criticism, with only a few exceptions, such as John

What Is a Critic? What Is Criticism?

The Critic as Cultural Intermediary

such as Bourdieu, the critic, as a taste maker, can be considered as being a

The radio critic, in this way, must be viewed as a cultural intermediary—

The Media Critic: Industry and Discourse

How to Study Radio Critics and Radio Criticism

[The difference between] critics and non-critics […] is primarily a matter of

DeWerth-Pallmeyer, D. (2003) ‘The Nature and Function of the Media Arts

Radio in Britain in the 1920s:

© The Author(s) 2018 33

to replace the more technologically focused reporting. Through the analy-

Early Radio: From Communication to Broadcasting

Broadcasting in Britain: The Birth of Public Service

Apples of a fine cooking sort require but a very small portion of

Stew gently down to a thick and perfectly smooth marmalade, a

Prepare and boil from half to a whole pint of eschalots by the

Pared turnips or artichokes, 1 lb.; fresh butter, 1-1/2 oz.; flour, 1

Remove the stones from some fine French or Italian olives by

Gather a quantity of young parsley, strip it from the stalks, wash it

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