Introduction

If you turned on your wireless set 100 years ago, what would you have heard? Katie Razzall looks back at the earliest days of the BBC as it celebrates its centenary, hearing how the idea of a single, national broadcaster came into being.

Early broadcasts involved reading out railway timetables and mocking up Big Ben's chimes on tubular bells, but very quickly the power of wireless broadcasting became apparent. From debates about the difficulties of enforcing the licence fee to fraught deals with newspapers and live performers who feared competition and losing audiences to the newly-formed BBC, some of the discussions have never gone away. But will the BBC last another century?

Guests: Mark Damazer, executive at the BBC for more than 30 years, including as controller of Radio 4; Jean Seaton, professor of media history at the University of Westminster and an official historian of the BBC; Paul Kerensa, broadcaster on BBC Radio Essex and producer of the podcast British Broadcasting Century, which tells the story of the BBC from the beginning; Emily Bell, founding director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School.

Presenter: Katie Razzall Producer: Tim Bano