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This is the BBC: Entertaining the Nation, Speaking for Britain, 1922-2022 Simon J. Potter full chapter instant download
This is the BBC: Entertaining the Nation, Speaking for Britain, 1922-2022 Simon J. Potter full chapter instant download
This is the BBC: Entertaining the Nation, Speaking for Britain, 1922-2022 Simon J. Potter full chapter instant download
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
THIS IS TH E BBC
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
THIS
IS TH E BBC
e n t e rta i n i ng t h e
nat ion, s p e a k i ng f or
br i ta i n ? 1922 –2 022
SI MON J. POT T E R
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/03/22, SPi
Preface
O ver the last hundred years the BBC has reflected and shaped
British life in innumerable ways. It has also had a much wider
global impact.This book is not intended as a celebration of that work.
Rather, it offers a critical, unofficial, and unauthorized analysis of the
BBC’s history. The chapters that follow draw out the patterns, con
tinuities, and transformations that have marked the BBC’s century. In
doing so, they seek to shed light on the challenges the Corporation
faces today from new digital media and from growing opposition to
the basic idea of public service broadcasting.
Programmes—what people listened to and watched when they
tuned in to the BBC—need to be at the centre of any history of the
Corporation. In this book, I have highlighted some of the key pro-
grammes that have acted as recognized milestones. Rather than list
them in an exhaustive, encyclopaedic fashion, I have tried to show
how they illuminate broader themes in the Corporation’s history and
in British society, culture, and politics more generally. I have also
attempted to give a flavour of the more unremarkable content served
up by the BBC on a daily basis throughout its century. These pro-
grammes were sometimes pedestrian and banal, but nevertheless
deserve consideration. They did, after all, become part of the lives of
everyone, in Britain and around the world, who has helped constitute
the BBC’s global audience.
The chapters that follow also explain how the BBC has changed
and developed as an institution, how it has been managed, and how it
relates to the British government and the wider state. If we want to
understand whose voice the BBC represents, who it puts on-air, and
Dictionary: NOSD
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
viii pr e face
who it excludes, these themes are crucial. They have shaped the
programmes made and commissioned by the BBC, the range of
services it has created over the years, and the news it has broadcast.
Nevertheless, we also need to understand that, as in any institution,
many of the people who have worked at the BBC have ignored what
their would-be political masters have told them and have instead gone
their own way. At key moments, programme makers and journalists
enjoyed unparalleled creative and investigative freedom. The policies
and aspirations of senior managers, government ministers, and civil
servants have thus sometimes made less of a difference than we might
assume. This makes it even more important to pay full attention to
programmes and the people who made them if we want to get a
proper handle on the BBC’s history.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Cathryn Steele at OUP for approaching
me with the idea for this book, and for seeing it through to comple-
tion, and to Joan and David Potter, Maria Scott, Robert Bickers, and
David Prosser for all their advice and support during the writing
process.Thanks are also definitely due to Tommy and Ciara Potter, not
least for introducing me to the joys of Doctor Who.
SJP
Backwell, North Somerset, January 2022
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
Contents
Endnotes285
Further reading 291
Index293
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
Introduction
The BBC’s century
provided 150 new online lessons a week, for fourteen weeks. From
January 2020, the BBC also offered an expanded daily broadcast edu-
cational offering on CBBC and BBC Two.
The vast resources and reach of the BBC’s Internet presence and its
on-demand streaming services, BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer, were
also brought to bear on the task of maintaining morale. Individuals
used the Corporation’s services to help curate their own bespoke
lockdown entertainment. Escapism gained new meaning and social
purpose. More subtly, the continuing supply of BBC radio and televi
sion programmes provided a sense of comforting normality, a glimpse
of a more familiar world. BBC newsreaders might be presenting tele
vision viewers with disturbing reports, but they were still there, occu-
pying the glass-walled newsroom in London’s Broadcasting House.
Familiar faces provided a sense that somehow, at some point in the
future, normal life would resume. Above all else, BBC television, and
perhaps especially radio (where many presenters and guests were able
to broadcast from their own homes), provided a sense of spontaneous,
everyday contact with other people. It carried comforting faces and
voices to those isolated by lockdown.
To be sure, other broadcasters and streaming services also played an
important role in getting people through lockdown. But no other
media provider offered such a range of services, or the combination
of national focus and international and local perspectives, supplied by
the BBC throughout the pandemic. This reflected the BBC’s unique
commitment, enshrined in its royal charter since before the Second
World War—to inform, educate, and entertain. It was also a function
of the BBC’s integral place within the British state and its complex
relationship with government.This book seeks to explain how the BBC
came into existence, and how it has transformed itself over the last
century to play the role it does today. It also draws out the origins of
the multiple challenges that the BBC faces as it enters its second century,
which threaten to diminish its role in British politics, culture, and society,
and even to eliminate it entirely from the UK and global media landscape.
The BBC was Britain’s first public service broadcaster. Arguably,
today it is Britain’s only genuine public service broadcaster. Despite
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
important enduring themes. For most of the last century the BBC has
constituted the single most important patron for many different
aspects of creative life in Britain. It has also provided crucial support
for artists and performers from around the world. It has strengthened
and broadened popular engagement with sport. It has also often dis-
played a bias towards the national and the international aspects of
broadcasting, seeking to promote national unity and to project Britain
overseas. Only at certain moments has it put significant emphasis on
building local or regional communities. While it has been a promoter
of Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish cultures and identities, it has
almost never worked to support separatist political nationalisms. This
is ultimately because the BBC is an integral part of the state, with an
enormous stake in the continued existence of the Union of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland. It has almost always enjoyed a measure
of day-to-day autonomy from politicians and civil servants. Yet its
independence has always been circumscribed, sometimes to the point
of meaninglessness.
For much of its history the BBC has also faced charges, from those
on both the right and left of politics, of bias. This has taken the form
of objections to specific programmes, stories, or staff appointments,
and of claims about the general political predilections of the institu-
tion and its staff. Since the 1950s, when the BBC became more com-
mitted to critical political coverage and the airing of controversial
issues, accusations of political bias have intensified. Sometimes they
have erupted into damaging scandals and clashes with the political
parties at Westminster, sweeping away staff and even the occasional
BBC director general. Most recently, critics have charged the BBC
with repeatedly failing to adhere to its own editorial policies, and of
pursuing politicized and controversial ‘woke’ agendas.Thinking about
the BBC’s history can put its current political difficulties into per-
spective, but the overall effect is certainly not to diminish them. Over
the last two decades, the BBC has been in a state of perpetual crisis,
and many believe it has been fatally wounded by the attacks of its
enemies and the failings of its senior executives.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
Over the last century, debates about how the BBC might be
reformed have generally come down to the question of how broad-
casting should be controlled and regulated by the state. If we skim off
the froth and drain the vitriol that often accompany these controver-
sies, we can see that two opposing currents of thought have continued
to flow largely unabated. On one hand, some believe it legitimate, and
indeed vital, that a large public body be empowered to shape British
culture, politics, and society, and to project Britain overseas. Conversely,
others argue that all this work can and should be the domain of
private enterprise, with the state playing only a very limited role. The
relative power of these two streams has ebbed and flowed over the last
century. Neither has entirely dominated nor disappeared at any point.
Today the ideal of a great public service broadcaster, promoting a
national culture and strengthening democracy, seems closer than ever
before to defeat.Yet it has still not been vanquished by the pervasive,
libertarian ideologies of free market competition.
These enduring theme and debates are important. Yet there have
also been very significant changes over the course of the BBC’s cen-
tury. The Corporation’s approach to making programmes, to its audi-
ences, and to organizing its many networks, channels, and platforms,
has been transformed beyond all recognition. Its policies about what
should be put on air, and what should be kept off, have also changed
dramatically. Less obviously for most viewers, listeners, and users, its
shape as an institution and its relationships with other elements of the
British state have also shifted radically. A creeping commercialization
has fundamentally altered how the BBC operates. It has increasingly
become a commissioner rather than a maker of content, with many of
its historic programme-making and other activities hived off into
commercial subsidiaries. The BBC has also shrunk over the last two
decades, both absolutely and in relation to powerful new global
competitors.
Most people in the UK probably assume that they are members of
the principal target audience for the BBC, and think of that audience
as a domestic, national one. They do not often consume or even
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
consider what the BBC produces for listeners, viewers, and users in
other countries. If they do, they probably assume that this overseas
work is largely a by-product of the BBC’s main, domestic role.Yet this
assumption is neither necessarily accurate nor very helpful. For much
of its century the BBC has been the key voice of Britain overseas and
the main way that the British state has sought to influence foreign
audiences. Its history is deeply rooted in themes of imperialism, war,
Cold War, and decolonization. Its protected position at home has
allowed it, and Britain, to exercise disproportionate cultural influence
on a global stage. Over the last century the BBC has probably been
the single most important institution generating British soft power
and overseas propaganda. The fact that the BBC also broadcasts to
domestic audiences has made that work easier, providing access to a
vast pool of professional broadcasting talent and programmes. BBC
staff and performers have worked as agents of British public diplo-
macy and persuasion, often without themselves knowing or thinking
much about it.The BBC’s domestic role and status also helps make its
presence more palatable to foreign audiences. It helps the BBC appear
to project Britain’s authentic voice, or more accurately Britain’s many
different voices, not just that of the British government.
Official histories of the BBC, and histories written by former BBC
employees, have played a crucial role in shaping our understanding of
the Corporation’s past. Unsurprisingly, such accounts tend to be
celebratory in tone, and sometimes insufficiently critical. Similarly
unremarkable is the fact that many independent academic historians
have tended to see the BBC as a good thing, a non-commercial and
sometimes radical presence in the British media landscape that has
promoted social democracy and empowered programme makers,
individually and collectively, to produce astonishingly creative work.
There is certainly much to be said for this perspective. However,
another less obvious thread running through historical writing about
the BBC emphasizes its role as a bastion of the British Establishment,
promoting and sustaining the traditional social, cultural, and political
order, and thus contributing to the unequal, hierarchical nature of
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 01/03/22, SPi
1
The Company, 1922–1926
Other Ranks.
R.S.M. Andrews.
Band-Master Hewett.
R.Q.M.S. Edwards.
O.R. Sgt. Ings.
C.S.M. Cook.
C.Q.M.S. Austen.
„ Blackman.
„ Slender.
Sgt. Ambrose.
„ Coaster.
„ Deeks.
„ Freeman.
„ Hamblin.
„ Manering.
„ McMahon.
„ Potts.
„ Webb.
„ Wilkins.
Corpl. Cornwall.
„ Farr.
„ Robinson.
L.-Corpl. Stubbins.
Dr. Murdock.
„ Stevens.
Pte. Goldsmith.
„ Howland.
„ Levenson.
„ McGann.
„ Spooner.
„ Woodhams.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL
Julian Hasler.
COLONEL
Frederick Charles Romer, C.B., C.M.G.
LIEUTENANT-COLONELS
Donald Knox Anderson, M.C.
Charles Walter Blackall.
Harold Duke Collison-Morley.
Augustus David Geddes.
Herbert Walter Green, D.S.O.
Henry Denne Hirst.
Harry Fearnley Kirkpatrick, D.S.O.
Nathaniel Newnham-Davis.
Francis Cyril Rupert Studd, D.S.O.
Arthur Philip Hamilton Trueman, O.B.E.
Claude Arthur Worthington.
MAJORS
Cyril Francis Cattley, M.C.
Charles Meredith Bouverie Chapman, M.C., Chevalier de l’ordre
de Leopold, Croix de Guerre (with palms).
James Scholfield Fraser.
Bernard Edward Furley.
Roger Cecil Slacke.
Alfred Soames, D.S.O.
Bernard Lewis Strauss, M.C.
Robert Oscar Cyril Ward.
CAPTAINS
Alan Gordon Acheson Adam.
Hugh Lionel Allfrey.
Victor Arnold.
Maurice Asprey.
John Kekewich.
Pryce Atwood Clive Kelsey.
Thomas Herbert Kesby.
John Buchanan Kitchin.
Kenneth Shelton.
Arthur Oswald Sherren.
Thomas Robert Munro Shervinton.
John Sutton Sill.
Sydney Skelton.
Charles Cecil Stanfield.
Bernard Puckle Steinman.
LIEUTENANTS
Geoffrey Charles Allen.
John William Butts Archer.
Percy Lambe.
Leslie Arthur Lea-Smith.
Maurice Aden Ley.
Ronald McDougall.
Hugh Stephen Marchant.
Charles Walter Brockwell Marsh.
Ronald Walter Mitchell.
Leonard Morgan.
Fred Naylor.
Roy Nettleton.
Charles Stuart Newcomb.
Percy Wilmott Newington.
Philip Giesler Norbury.
Douglas Horace Gilbert Northcote.
2nd LIEUTENANTS
Harold Norman Adcock.
Charles St. Vincent Allen.
William Hope Amos.
Edward Norman Andrews.
Albert Erskine Carson Archer.
Hugo Cholmondeley Arnold.
Thomas Firminger.
Ralph Louis Francis Forster.
Phineas Freedman.
Francis Conrade Shenstone Frost.
Charles Hall.
Douglas William Hammond.
Alexander John Hanmer, M.C.
Harold Victor Hardey-Mason.
Donald Alfred Harnett.
Allan Sydney Hayfield.
Rycharde Mead Haythornthwaite.
Ivan Henry Hess.
Harold Sutton Hilder.
Malcolm Arthur Hills.
Herbert Josiah Hine, M.M.
Siegfried Thomas Hinkley.
Evelyn Melville Shovell Hoare.
Leslie Ebenezer Holyman.
Maurice Pinney Horrabin.
Adrian George Hubbard.
Harold Montague Hunt.
Ernest Stanley Patrick Hynes.
Athol Kirkpatrick.
Charles Vincent.
L/5726 Cooper, F. W.
S/562 Cornwell, F.
S/410 Field, A. W.
L/6005 Freeman, G.
S/194 Glover, T.
G/8798 Kite, T. W.
G/2319 Knight, C. J., M.M.
L/6271 Lond, J. T.
L/7741 McLean, A.
L/7621 Terrell, W.
L/4834 Walsh, J.
L/7619 White, E.
T/240012 Wickens, A. F.
T/240339 Wright, J.
COMPANY QUARTERMASTER-SERGEANTS
T/240440 Back, L.
T/200524 Barr, W. D.
G/3635 Burt, W., D.C.M.
L/9098 Read, S.
L/7817 Rosam, G. W.
T/3148 Screen, F.
T/156 Stone, H. O.
T/270505 Thorpe, C. H.
L/8058 Wilson, G. T.
T/270045 Wolsey, P.
SERGEANTS
T/722 Ades, J.
T/201075 Allwater, E.
S/718 Andrews, W. A.
T/242995 Arter, H.
S/9268 Asprey, W. S.
G/2529 Austen, H. G.
G/6884 Ayres, A. J., D.C.M., M.M.
G/12976 Barnes, R. J.
T/270898 Barnett, C. L.
G/340 Barrett, A. J., M.M.
T/200119 Batchelder, R. H.
G/1373 Batchelor, G., M.M.
L/8158 Beeching, A. J.
T/240242 Benfield, G. S.
G/4275 Betts, F. E.
G/707 Bing, L., M.M.
L/7812 Bishop, G.
L/8917 Bloomfield, J., M.M.
G/12871 Booth, P.
S/32 Brand, B.
T/337 Brazier, W. T.
G/1367 Briers, T.
T/240883 Broadbridge, L. A.
G/2158 Bromley, A.
G/3743 Buddle, J.