The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa #070 The Press vs the BBC vs the Govt: 1923 + 2023
Episode 70 is a biggie.
In April 1923, the five-month-old BBC faced a two-pronged attack.
The Daily Express ran an anti-BBC campaign, with front page stories questioning its existence, and even offering to take over broadcasting themselves. Over the course of one week, the Express applied to the government for a broadcast licence (and were turned down).
Meanwhile the Postmaster General's chance encounter with Reith in the street brought to a head 'the licence problem'. Reith wanted more £ for the BBC; the govt wanted more £ for themselves.
It's a hundred years' war that's still raging, so it's the ideal episode to bring in Prof Patrick Barwise and Peter York, authors of The War Against the BBC: How an Unprecedented Combination of Hostile Forces is Destroying Britain's Greatest Cultural Institution... And Why You Should Care.
Their insight in 2023's BBC battles tell us of right-wing press ('SMET': Sun, Mail, Express, Telegraph), now joined by GB News and Talk TV, plus think tanks galore doing down Auntie Beeb. This is all coupled with cuts in funding that is starting to affect output, from local radio to orchestras to the merged news channel.
April 5th-15th 1923 is perhaps just the beginning then...
- Buy Patrick Barwise and Peter's York book The War Against the BBC: https://amzn.to/3qX6bLB
- Read their article for Prospect Magazine: 'We have bad news for the right-wing BBC haters: most of the public just don't agree with you.' https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/60479/attention-bbc-haters-the-public-arent-behind-you
- See Paul Kerensa on tour with 'An Evening of (Very) Old Radio': www.paulkerensa.com/tour
- More info on Paul's forthcoming novel Auntie and Uncles: www.paulkerensa.com/book
- Original music is by Will Farmer.
- Broadcasts more than 50 years old are generally out of copyright. Any BBC content is used with kind permission, BBC copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.
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- We're here to inform, educate and entertain - though as ever we are nothing to do with the present-day BBC. We're just talking about them, not made by them.
Next time...
Episode 71 - Today in Parliament: The BBC Debates of April 1923, plus Dr Martin Cooper on radio in popular culture.