![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
New evidence requires us to revise our understanding of the birth of British broadcasting in 1922. The Post Office deployed misleading ideas about the development of commercial broadcasting in America and cemented the case for public funding and a ban on advertising. However, the idea for a single broadcaster came not from the Postmaster General but from the Marconi Company at a key meeting in May 1922 for which a transcript has emerged. It shows that ideas about public service broadcasting predate John Reith’s arrival by several months. This meeting laid the foundations of broadcasting in Britain, envisaging a single broadcaster operating at arms-length from government, providing a ‘public service’ with national content shared between regional stations, funded by a licence fee. We can identify the exact moment the BBC was conceived. It was not the Post Office that proposed the BBC, but Godfrey Isaacs, the managing director of Marconi.
Acknowledgement
This article is the result of time the author spent undertaking self-funded postgraduate research at the University of Bristol whilst on a career break from the BBC.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
David Prosser http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3606-4589
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Seaton, ‘Reith and the Denial of Politics’, 104. See also for instance Coase, British Broadcasting, 23; Boyle, Only the Wind Will Listen, 124–5; Briggs, The Birth of Broadcasting, 58–9.
2 ‘Wireless Telephony Broadcasting Conference 1922: Verbatim Report’.
3 Briggs, The Birth of Broadcasting, 85.
4 Jacot and Collier, Marconi, 123.
5 Brown, ‘Story of Broadcasting in England’, 175.
6 ‘Evidence of F J Brown’, Sykes Committee, 46; Hilmes, ‘British Quality, American Chaos’, 15.
7 Bensman, The Beginning of Broadcast Regulation, 46.
8 Barnouw, A Tower of Babel, 94–5; Bensman, The Beginning of Broadcast Regulation, 9.
9 Radio Telephone Broadcasting.
10 Phipps, ‘Order Out of Chaos’, 70.
11 Seaton, ‘Reith and the Denial of Politics’, 107.
12 Briggs and Burke, A Social History of the Media, 154.
13 ‘June 30, 1922 Broadcast Station List’.
14 Bensman, The Beginning of Broadcast Regulation, 40.
15 Whitney, ‘One Commercial Side of Radio’, 36.
16 Editorial, ‘Radio Currents’, Radio Broadcast, 1:1 (May 1922).
17 Banning, Commercial Broadcasting Pioneer, 77.
18 ‘The March of Radio’, 457.
19 Whitney, ‘One Commercial Side of Radio’, 36.
20 Banning, Commercial Broadcasting Pioneer, 67–9; White, ‘Financing Radio Broadcasting’.
21 Banning, Commercial Broadcasting Pioneer, 109. This section states the broadcasts started in March 1923. A separate chronology gives the date as 24 February 1923, xxx.
22 ‘Air Advertising Can’t Be Sold Now: The Time is not Ripe for Air Advertising’, The Radio Dealer, 1:1 (April 1922), 30.
23 Barnouw, A Tower of Babel, 96.
24 ‘Report of Department of Commerce Conference on Radio Telephony’. Radio Service Bulletin, 1 May 1922. Note I.4.
25 Ibid., Clause III.D.
26 Ibid., Clause III.E.
27 ‘Petition to the Rt. Hon. F.G. Kellaway, MP’.
28 ‘Cessation of Writtle Wireless Concerts’.
29 Briggs, The Birth of Broadcasting, 68.
30 ‘Evidence of F J Brown’, Sykes Committee, 37.
31 Coase, British Broadcasting, 12, 25.
32 Brown, ‘The Story of Broadcasting in England’, 175–6.
33 Hansard, Vol. 152, Col. 1869, 3 Apr. 1922 cited in Briggs, The Birth of Broadcasting, 63.
34 ‘Wireless Telephone News: Extension Plans Being Considered’. The Times, Apr 7 1922, 17.
35 ‘Historical summary and résumé of events’, 1; See also Briggs, The Birth of British Broadcasting, 88–90.
36 Clarke, My Northcliffe Diary, 274.
37 ‘Summary of statement by Mr. Kellaway, Postmaster General in House of Commons today in regard to broadcasting stations’, 4 May 1922 (BBC WAC, CO1/2).
38 Norman, Henry. 1922. ‘Wireless for All: Part One’, The Times, May 8, 17.
39 Ibid., 17.
40 Briggs, The Birth of Broadcasting, 94; Briggs, The BBC, 28; Hilmes, Network Nations, 40.
41 Norman, ‘Wireless for All’, The Times, 17.
42 ‘Wireless Telephony Broadcasting Conference 1922: Verbatim Report’, 14. There has been some confusion over the number of companies attending. There are 28 attendees from 18 companies and a further 11 with no company affiliation listed.
43 Covering Note re: Letter from GPO, 15 May 1922, (BBC WAC, CO1/2); Briggs, The Birth of Broadcasting, 106. Briggs describes this ‘important meeting’ but without identifying who makes the contributions. He cites a ‘summary report of this meeting in the Post Office Archives, 22,310/25'.
44 ‘Wireless Telephony Broadcasting Conference 1922: Verbatim Report’, 2; The British Postal Museum and Archive blog, ‘The Post Office and British Broadcasting’, 2009, https://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/the-post-office-and-british-broadcasting/, accessed August 14, 2018.
45 ‘Wireless Telephony Broadcasting Conference 1922: Verbatim Report’, 10–11.
46 Ibid., 13.
47 Ibid., 13.
48 Ibid., 14.
49 Ibid., 27.
50 Ibid., 17.
51 Ibid., 15.
52 Ibid., 18.
53 Ibid., 19.
54 Ibid., 20–3.
55 Ibid., 27.
56 Wireless Broadcasting Licence, cl.2c.
57 Gorham, Broadcasting and Television, 27–8.
58 Hilmes, Network Nations, 40.
59 ‘Wireless Telephony Broadcasting Conference 1922: Verbatim Report’, 17.
60 David Hendy, Public Service Broadcasting, 8.
61 ‘Evidence of F J Brown’, Sykes Committee, 38–9.
62 ‘Evidence of F J Brown’, Sykes Committee, 39.
63 The same suggestion had in fact been made a few weeks earlier in a letter to The Times on 25 April 1922, by a Mr. H.H. Brown of Whorlton, Barnard Castle. The Post Office ‘rather than place one firm in a privileged position, they should raise the annual charge for a “receiving” licence sufficiently to defray the costs of a “broadcasting” station’.
64 Reith, Broadcast over Britain, 58.
65 ‘Agenda For 25 May 1922’.
66 ‘Wireless Receiving Licenses’.
67 Briggs, The BBC, 26.
68 ‘Radio Telephone Broadcasting’; ‘Wireless Telephone News: Extension Plans Being Considered’, 17.