70 The Economist January 29th 2022
Culture
TheBBCat 100
The reflective screen
T
he prime minister is “seething”. News
papers have accused the bbc of siding
with foreigners. In Parliament, a Conserva
tive mpcollars the chairman of the publicly
owned broadcaster to declare: “You, sir, are
a traitor!” (“Stuff you!” he retorts.) The talk
in Downing Street is of cutting off the
corporation’s funding.
This could be a scene from 2022, as Bo
ris Johnson’s government denounces the
“BrexitBashing Corporation” and threat
ens to abolish the licence fee that pays its
way. In fact the bustup occurred 40 years
ago, when the bbc’s coverage of the Falk
lands war enraged Margaret Thatcher
(though she continued to enjoy “Yes Min
ister”, a bbc political comedy). Worse dis
putes took place in 1956, amid the Suez cri
sis, and during the General Strike of 1926.
When, on that occasion, the bbceventual
ly toed the government line, Stanley Bald
win, the prime minister, sent round
engraved cigarette cases by way of thanks.
Onthebroadcaster’scentenary,David
Hendy’s lively new history is a reminder
that the bbc’s present struggles—govern
ment rows, culture wars, foreign rivals and
more—are modern manifestations of old
problems. His account of the corporation
also makes for an incisive history of Brit
ain’s 20th century. Asa Briggs, who wrote
the definitive, 4,000page record of the
bbc’s first 50 years, said that “to write the
history of broadcasting...is in a sense to
write the history of everything else”. The
glowing screen of the bbc casts a revealing
light on its audience.
Today the corporation’s 22,000 staff
work in more than 40 languages and run
eight national television channels, 50plus
radio stations and the world’s mostvisited
Englishlanguage news website. But its
first experiments in “radiating”, as broad
casting was then known, were amateurish.
The boxy studio was just big enough for a
microphone and a piano. The director of
programmes and his deputy took turns to
read children’s stories as “Uncle Arthur”
and “Uncle Caractacus”. At a public show
ing of the first televised play, in 1930, the
giant screen of 2,000 light bulbs melted.
Yet the bbc’s young staff soon realised
they controlled something powerful. “It
was quite clear that if you got some mad
man in front of the microphone he could
do a hell of a lot of damage,” wrote Cecil
Lewis, one of its founders. Twenty years
later, the first study of viewing habits
found households being shaped by broad
casting schedules: changing mealtimes
and bedtimes, evening chores abandoned,
less drinking in pubs and more at home.
Signs of the times
The bbc was forged in the aftermath of the
first world war, which marked its foun
ders—literally in the case of John Reith, the
first directorgeneral, who had taken a
sniper’s bullet in the cheek in France. But
the second world war would change the
bbc even more. By 1944 it broadcast in 46
languages, and by the end of hostilities
counted 20m listeners in Europe. It coop
erated with the Ministry of Defence to
smuggle coded messages into news re
To understand the British, tune in to their broadcaster
→Alsointhissection
71 On thetrailoftextiles
72 HomeEntertainment:Pliny’swisdom
73 A critiqueofthemega-rich
73 ResurrectingHandel
74 Johnson: Lost languages
The BBC: A People’s History.By David
Hendy. Profile Books; 656 pages; £25