BBC daily broadcasts began in Marconi’s studio in London on 14 November 1922. This year marks 100 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just before November, 33-year-old John Wright, a Scottish engineer from Glasgow, the son of a Presbyterian minister who had no idea about broadcasting, answered an advertisement in The Morning Post for the position of general manager of a non- still formed British radio company. Of course, he had experience as a director of companies, factories and he was up to the challenges. When in the first world war he was seriously wounded by a sniper’s bullet in the left cheek and while on a stretcher, he is said to have muttered: “I am very angry and I have ruined a new tunic”. On the other hand, at that time he was also working as the secretary of the group of Conservative MPs in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, he was hired, so he looked west at America’s unregulated commercial radio and then east at the tightly controlled State system of the fledgling Soviet Union. He decided to create an independent radio – and soon television – broadcaster, capable of educating, informing and entertaining the entire British nation, free from political interference and commercial pressure. His motto: “the best of everything in as many homes as possible”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 1925 the BBC could be heard from almost anywhere in Britain and the innovation of a 5 shilling postage fee in favor of the BBC ensured that the broadcaster was not financially dependent on the government or advertising revenue. In 1926 when the Confederation of Labor called a general strike to prevent a reduction in wages for miners, the BBC clashed with reality and the government for editorial independence. From the 4th to the 12th of May, almost everyone clashed with everyone and not necessarily based on the standard of their ideology. The leaders of the British Labor Party for example were not happy with the general strike because they were aware of the “revolutionary elements” in the trade union movement and the damage confederation would do to the party’s reputation, and King George V trying to create some balance, he said : “Try living on their wages before you judge them.” Season four of BBC2’s popular Netflix series Peaky Blinders is set in the period immediately before and during the strike and emphasizes the involvement of “revolutionary communist elements” such as Jessie Eden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The then Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill favored a government takeover of the BBC, but Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and John Wright resisted. This “resistance against the authorities” largely defined the BBC’s brand of journalism. George Orwell, radio producer and commentator from 1941 to 1943, who modeled his famous work “1984” on the censorship and bureaucracy he encountered in broadcasting during the war, said in 1944 that “the phrase heard it on the BBC” now meant “I know it must be true”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
King George V became the first British monarch to make a radio broadcast at Christmas 1932 reading his words written for him by the famous author Rudyard Kipling. His voice was heard for the first time by millions of people at once and this ground-breaking moment was used to usher in the launch of the BBC Empire service, the forerunner of the BBC World Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first foreign language service was Arabic, which was introduced in 1938, and on the eve of the Second World War services were launched in French, German, Italian Portuguese, Spanish and Greek. The opening two words “Here in London” would become synonymous not only with information and hope for listeners throughout occupied Europe – the image of the secret, anxious audience is present in all films about the Second World War and the German occupation – , but also the transmission of messages to the resistance groups. From there General de Gaulle called and organized the French resistance, from here Churchill, who had no love for the BBC in the 1930s, when he was practically boycotted, gave his most inspiring speeches, such as the most famous in us: “We will defend our island, whatever the cost, we will fight on the beaches, we will fight in the fields and in the streets\u2026 we will never surrender!”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the end of the war the BBC was broadcasting in 40 languages. Nazi Germany’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels is said to have admitted that BBC radio had won the “spiritual invasion” of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The British have succeeded in creating a National Broadcaster whose stamp on all kinds of productions is synonymous with quality and the BBC name. Today the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – along with Reuters – is the metonym of News. We wish to BBC to turn 1000 years old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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