The Economist - USA (2022-01-29)

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  definitive,  4,000­page  record  of  the

bbc’s first 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

first  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  first  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  first  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

first  world  war,  which  marked  its  foun­

ders—literally in the case of John Reith, the

first  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

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73 A critiqueofthemega-rich

73 ResurrectingHandel

74 Johnson: Lost languages

The BBC: A People’s History.By David

Hendy. Profile Books; 656 pages; £25