100 years of the BBC

 by Siha Hoque

In London, on the 18th of October 1922, the British Broadcasting Corporation was founded by a group of radio manufacturers and Guglielmo Marconi -  with John Reith made general manager soon after. It was made to broadcast information to the public, as well as promote the sale of radios. This week marks the 100th anniversary of the BBC.

Radios were popular devices in the early twentieth century. In 1895, Marconi invented the world's first radio, a complex machine. It was wireless, and its first broadcast was a morse code message to a destination roughly a kilometre away. Over time, many other engineers and scientists edited and made their own version of the radio, and it was able to transmit clear voices and sentences over long distances by 1914.

The BBC first started off as a broadcast from Marconi House in London, known as 2LO. In 1922, this small radio station, which had only broadcasted for up to one hour a day, as transferred to the British Broadcasting Corporation. The first transmission from here was on the 14th of November, and it was named “2LO calling”. Then, the BBC began to develop further, and started broadcasting talks and music. It paid close attention to the opinions of viewers on their broadcasts, with their first programme (about a variety of things that had recently occurred, including a robbery and the weather) was read out at different speeds. The viewers were then asked which one they found easier to understand. However, for fear that this more efficient way of hearing the news would affect the business of newspapers, the BBC was only allowed to broadcast after 7pm.

John Reith - the first general manager of the BBC - is famous for making sure the BBC delivers information, education and entertainment. There were hardly any instructions for him to follow. He stated, ‘I hadn’t the remotest ideas as to what broadcasting was,’. Despite this, through experimentation, he gradually came up with new ideas on what to broadcast.

This gradually changed the world in many ways. Wireless radios became a part of the majority of households in the 1900s, with families setting aside time to listen to the entertainment and interviews together. It offered people easy access to the occurrences in the world around them - spreading knowledge to many. Additionally, it was very significant in World War 2; air raids and bombings were destroying the houses of many and the majority of men were away fighting. The people left in their homes or evacuated from danger were keen for accurate updates on the state of the war and the casualties caused by it, particularly if the end to it was nearby. On the first of October 1939, Winston Churchill was broadcasted from the BBC and it was one of the first wartime broadcasts. 

Throughout the years the BBC has adapted to television, giving news reports from all around the world, with many live interviews, providing people with entertainment from movies and music, including education for a variety of ages. The 22nd of October this week is the 100th year since the BBC was created, and marks a turning point where information was made much easier to access for the general public.