"Broadcasting is a development with which the future must reckon and reckon seriously. Here is an instrument of almost incalculable importance in the social and political life of the community, in affairs national and international.""It was the combination of public service motive, sense of moral obligation, assured finance and the brute force of monopoly which enabled the BBC to make of broadcasting what no other country in the world has made of it."
"He who prides himself on giving what he thinks the public wants is often creating a fictitious demand for low standards which he will then satisfy."
This week a century ago, the appointment of a certain gruff, irrascible and uncompromising son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister John Reith (later Lord Reith) as the first general manager of the British Broadcasting Company (as it was then to be known) changed the course of this country and the tone and importance of its national broadcaster forever.
The arrival of radio in everybody's home in those early days of the 20th century also became a bit of a "fad", as Miss Dorrie Dene explains...
Keep twiddling, dears!
[See also my blog post on the centenary of the BBC]
