The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

Episode 49 and that old favourite Peter Eckersley returns - he's started regular British broadcasting, helped spark a boom in radio sets, mocked the BBC, been inspired by the first OB to join Auntie Beeb... and now this episode, he's hired. In this bumper episode, we hear from Eckersley expert Tim Wander, and PPE himself, as well as Noel Ashbridge and Rolls Wynn. Plus our special guest: Professor...

"There's not a lot written about 2BP," says our guest Tony Currie, radio historian, author and presenter. And yet for episode 48, we've wrung a whole 40mins out of it! In January 1923, the BBC had sole right to broadcast in Britain, and yet a couple of experimental radio stations existed in Glasgow. 5MG had been on the air since October, operated by shop-owners Frank Milligan and George Garscadden...

January 17th 1923: 2MT Writtle, Britain's first regular broadcasting station, closes down for the last time. Its chief voice, director of programmes, Lord of Misrule Peter Pendleton Eckersley toasts its listeners with a glass of water, upgraded to champagne via the use of a pop gun - innovating to the last with one of radio's first ever sound effects. Then Eckersley, the first BBC-basher, switched...

For episode 46 we're joined by one of today's (and Today's) top broadcasters: Justin Webb. Justin's new book 'The Gift of a Radio: My Childhood and Other Train Wrecks' chronicles his lifelong partnership with radio, from an unusual childhood improved by the arrival of an ITT Tiny Super radio, to anchoring the Radio 4's Today programme. But he's just the latest of 3 generations of broadcaster in hi...

Episode 45 sees us still in January 1923, but on the move... First BBC Director of Programmes Arthur Burrows visits 5IT Birmingham and 2ZY Manchester to see the 2nd and 3rd BBC stations in action - so here's a podcast snapshot of what broadcasting was like in their makeshift studios in British broadcasting's earliest days. Our guest is Jude Montague, whose grandfather Sydney Wright was an early on...

For episode 44, we go to Holland and go back a few years, to hear of radio pioneer Hanso Idzerda and his Dutch concerts. It's not British broadcasting, but it's British listening - our ancestors could hear his regular broadcasts from 1919 to 1924 - at least if they had a radio set of quality. Gordon Bathgate is a radio history fan and author of Radio Broadcasting: A History of the Airwaves - he gu...

On January 8th 1923, British broadcasting left the studio for the first time. William Crampton had the idea, Arthur Burrows seized on it, John Reith approved it, Cecil Lewis kept interrupting it with stage directions and synopses... Hear all about it here on episode 43, with the voices of Peter Eckersley, Harold Bishop, Arthur Burrows, A.E. Thompson and Percy Edgar. Plus Dr Kate Murphy tells us ab...

Episode 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything, which in this case is: microphones. Or more specifically, the new microphones the BBC brought in, of Captain Round's design, in January 1923. In this episode, new mics, old callsigns, ambitious plans, the lack of an on-air interval: it all adds up to the start of professional broadcasting, as the two-month-old BBC moves away from its r...

Episode 41 (aka Season 3 episode 2): On January 2nd 1923, John Reith interviewed Miss Frances Isobel Shields for a job at the BBC, to be his secretary. At the time the BBC had four or five male staff members. Miss Shields started work on January 8th, instantly making the BBC a 20% female organisation. It's been greater than that ever since. This episode's fab guest is Dr Kate Murphy: academic, for...

Happy New Year, 1923! And Happy New Season: 3, that is, as we tell the story of the BBC's 3rd-6th months. Formative times at Auntie Beeb, as the staff grows from 4 in one room to a new premises at Savoy Hill. Season 3 begins with this, episode 40 overall, on New Year's Day 1923. John Reith, Arthur Burrows, Cecil Lewis and Major Anderson begin work in the one-room BBC, like an Amish schoolhouse. Ea...

Hullo hullo-ho-ho! Welcome to 2021's Christmas special, unwrapping a dozen Christmas broadcasting presents, from the past, to see what makes a classic BBC Christmas schedule. Our guest Ben Baker is a podcaster and author of festive books including the new Ben Baker's Christmas Box: 40 Years of the Best, Worst and Weirdest Christmas TV Ever  (available on Amazon or Linktree ). Like the Ghost of Bro...

Marconi may have invented wireless, and the wireless, but he didn't see broadcasting coming. A special for episode 38, as we bring to life an interview with Guglielmo Marconi on what he made of broadcasting, two months into the BBC's existence. Our source is Popular Wireless magazine, January 27th 1923 issue. Read along if you like (plus bits from December 1922) - thank you to WorldRadioHistory.co...

It's the BBC’s 99th birthday! Well it was on the day this episode landed. So for episode 37, here’s the podcast’s story so far...   Between season 2 (covering the BBC in 1922) and season 3 (the BBC in 1923), we’re on a run of specials. So here we summarise EVERYTHING we’ve learned so far. 36 episodes condensed into one.   Condensed, yet also extended - because we recorded a shorter version of this...

1922 (and season 2 of the podcast) closes with, you guessed it, New Year's Eve. But this one's special. For the first time, Brits don't need to go out to celebrate. They can stay home and listen to the wireless: concerts, dance music, no Big Ben's bongs yet (the only BBC New Year without them)... and a preach from Rev Archibald Fleming. We bring you all this - including the voice of Rev Fleming hi...

December 29th-30th 1922: General Manager John Reith begins work! The good ship Broadcasting finally gets its captain. On Episode 35 of The British Broadcasting Century, we bring you the complete tale of not only Reith's first day - the liftsman, the lone office, the "Dr Livingstone, I presume" moment - but also his commute to work, from Scotland to London via Newcastle. Here he investigates/interv...

It's Christmas! (Well not now, it's Sept 2021 as I write/record this, but it was Christmas, in 1922.) Time for a 4th BBC station... the first to be constructed from scratch under the BBC banner. Hear the voices and the troubled tale of Newcastle 5NO's shaky start, on the back of a lorry in a stableyard. Plus we'll see what 5IT Birmingham and 2ZY Manchester looked like six weeks into the BBC's bein...

Our story of early British broadcasting reaches the week before Christmas 1922. The BBC staff of four have found Savoy Hill, made an offer, but for now have one room at GEC's Magnet House lined up for the first few months of 1923. But while Reith goes off on his hols, and Major Anderson the secretary puzzles out the new BBC accounts (see last episode), the other two head office staff won't wait fo...

December 22nd 1922: The Chairman of the Broadcasting Committee writes to the Postmaster General urging him to address the licence fee problem. "Listeners-in" are already dodging the tariffs... and John Reith hasn't even started yet! Here on episode 32, aka season 2 episode 5, we look at the problems facing the pre-Reith BBC with regard to income. Gladly a hundred years later, the BBC has solved th...

Season 2 Episode 4 (aka Episode 31 in total) flashes us back to Arthur Burrows' pre-BBC days, and brings us to December 17th-20th 1922, when 4/5 of the BBC workforce (ie. 4 people of the 5) tour central London searching for a building. They can use Magnet House for now, on loan from General Electric, but after that, where? After deciding against a gold-flatting mill (now a Gym Box), they discover...

"I had little idea what broadcasting was." So said John Reith after his job interview to become General Manager of the brand new BBC. On this exciting episode, meet your first General Manager (Reith), Director of Programmes (Arthur Burrows v Cecil Lewis - who'll get the job?), Secretary (Major Anderson beats 245 others to it, but doesn't last six months) and Chief Engineer (R.H. White - nothing to...

Yellow highlighters at the ready - the listings have arrived! Except it's weeks 2 + 3 of the BBC, back in Nov/Dec 1922, and the Radio Times is nearly a year away. So how do we know what's on the wireless? And is it called radio yet? A few trusty local newspapers printed a few listings - though watch this space, as they'll decide differently in a few episodes time. From The Pall Mall Gazette to The...

Season 2 begins! So please welcome to the microphone: entertainment! The very first. Journey back to November 16th 1922 - Day 3 of the BBC - to meet Auntie's first entertainers. But history being history, nothing's easy... Discover why the BBC's first entertainers weren't the first after all, whether London, Birmingham or Manchester brought us the BBC's first entertainment concert - and why each o...

Ahead of season 2 (covering the first year and a bit of the BBC, from November 16th 1922 to December 31st 1923), here's a recap of season 1 - told by the people who were there: eleven broadcasting pioneers.   GUGLIELMO MARCONI: Inventor of 'wireless' H.J. ROUND: First to send speech west across the Atlantic PETER ECKERSLEY: First regular British radio broadcaster WINIFRED SAYER: First woman on the...

Percy Edgar was there right at the start of the BBC. One of the first voices, he booked the acts, managed the station, then became Director of the Midland Region. He was the most influential regional director from 1922 to 1948, far outlasting Reith and, well, every other early radio pioneer I can think of. His grandson, the playwright David Edgar, has dusted down Percy's memoir and reads it for us...

Part 2 of our parliamentary re-enactment is a dense and complex beast - but then so is Parliament. Good luck! Following last episode, we're re-enacting every political discussion on broadcasting in 1922: the year the word caught on, and the year the BBC was launched. So this episode is like listening to radio in the 1920s... expect to not get every word, but enjoy trying. You may need to tune your...