In the early 1920s, the UK’s radio set producers were keen to expand their market. At the time the government only granted occasional ‘experimental’ radio licenses, which meant that there were large periods when the airwaves were completely silent. This was no use to radio manufacturers themselves who needed broadcasts in order to make their products worthwhile.
As more and more requests were submitted for the ‘experimental’ licenses, the government declared its decision to instead grant a single permanent broadcasting license to a consortium of the UK’s leading radio manufacturers. The six companies held an equal amount of shares in the new venture, which hired John – later to become Lord – Reith as its first Managing Director.
The new broadcasting company was funded through a royalty on the sale of radio sets sold by the member producers, and by a license fee payable by the owner. However, the number of amateur electronics enthusiasts who began building their own sets meant that the income did not produce adequate funds. Consequently the member companies found themselves making a loss, which contributed to their desire to extricate themselves from the arrangement. By the time the BBC had begun its first experimental television broadcasts in 1932, the company had been publicly funded for five years.
In 1938, John Reith and the British government, specifically the Ministry of Information which had been set up for WWII, designed a censorship apparatus for the inevitability of war.
Television broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946, during WW2, and it was left to BBC Radio broadcasters such as Reginald Foort to keep the nation's spirits up. The BBC moved most of its radio operations out of London, initially to Bristol, and then to Bedford. Concerts were broadcast from the Corn Exchange; the Trinity Chapel in St Paul's Church, Bedford was the studio for the daily service from 1941 to 1945, and, in the darkest days of the war in 1941, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York came to St Paul's to broadcast to the UK and all parts of the world on the National Day of Prayer. BBC employees during the war included George Orwell who spent two years with the broadcaster.
During his role as Prime Minister during WW2, Winston Churchill would deliver 33 major wartime speeches by radio, all of which were carried by the BBC within the UK. On 18 June 1940, French general Charles de Gaulle, in exile in London as the leader of the Free French, made a speech, broadcast by the BBC, urging the French people not to capitulate to the Nazis.
During his role as Prime Minister during WW2, Winston Churchill would deliver 33 major wartime speeches by radio, all of which were carried by the BBC within the UK. On 18 June 1940, French general Charles de Gaulle, in exile in London as the leader of the Free French, made a speech, broadcast by the BBC, urging the French people not to capitulate to the Nazis.
WAR! WW2 Radio News: Invasion of Poland as reported by the BBC > .
Ramp Up to World War 2 - aofd >> .
World War 2 Radio Broadcasts - aofd >> .
The Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is chief executive and (from 1994) editor-in-chief of the BBC. The position was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC (for the period of 1927 to 2007) and then the BBC Trust (from 2007 to 2017). Since 2017 the Director-General has been appointed by the BBC Board.
To date nineteen individuals, all of whom have been men, have been appointed Director-General, plus an additional two who were appointed in an acting capacity only. The current Director-General is Tim Davie, who succeeded Tony Hall on 1 September 2020.
Captain Sir Cecil George Graves KCMG MC (4 March 1892 – 2 January 1957) was joint Director-General of the BBC with Robert Foot from 26 January 1942 to 6 September 1943. He joined the BBC as an administrator in 1926, was Assistant Director of Programmes from 1929 to 1932, then Empire Service Director, 1932–1935, Controller of Programmes, 1935–1938, Deputy Director-General, 1938–1942, and in 1942 succeeded Frederick Ogilvie (jointly with Robert Foot) as Director-General. Graves left the corporation in 1943 due to ill health, leaving Foot to be sole Director-General. Graves was also a member of the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Broadcasting Council of Scotland (now known as Audience Council Scotland).
Robert William Foot OBE MC (7 June 1889 – 2 April 1973) was Director-General of the BBC, first jointly with Cecil Graves from 26 January 1942 to 6 September 1943 and then solely until he resigned on 31 March 1944. Before joining the BBC, Foot was a general manager at Gas, Light and Coke Company. He was not well-suited to the BBC role and left the post in 1944. After being succeeded by William Haley, Foot became Chairman of the Mining Association.
Sir William John Haley, KCMG (24 May 1901 – 6 September 1987) was a British newspaper editor and broadcasting administrator. He served as Director-General of the BBC from 1944 to 1952. While at the BBC he created the BBC Third Programme, which was replaced by BBC Radio 3 in 1970. He was made Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1946. From 1952 to 1966 he was editor of The Times.
To date nineteen individuals, all of whom have been men, have been appointed Director-General, plus an additional two who were appointed in an acting capacity only. The current Director-General is Tim Davie, who succeeded Tony Hall on 1 September 2020.
Directors-General of BBC (early) ..
Ogilvie, Sir Frederick Wolff ..
John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, KT, GCVO, GBE, CB, TD, PC (20 July 1889 – 16 June 1971), was a Scottish broadcasting executive who established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom. In 1922 he was employed by the BBC (British Broadcasting Company Ltd.) as its general manager; in 1923 he became its managing director and in 1927 he was employed as the Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation created under a royal charter. His concept of broadcasting as a way of educating the masses marked for a long time the BBC and similar organisations around the world. An engineer by trade, and standing at 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) tall, he was a larger than life figure who was a pioneer in his field.
Reith had no broadcasting experience when he replied to an advertisement in The Morning Post for a general manager for an as-yet unformed British Broadcasting Company in 1922. He later admitted that he felt he possessed the credentials necessary to "manage any company". He managed to retrieve his original application from a post box after re-thinking his approach, guessing that his Aberdonian background would curry more favour with Sir William Noble, the Chairman of the Broadcasting Committee.
In his new role, he was, in his own words, "confronted with problems of which I had no experience: Copyright and performing rights; Marconi patents; associations of concert artists, authors, playwrights, composers, music publishers, theatre managers, wireless manufacturers."
Reith earned a reputation for prudishness in sexual matters. There is an old BBC legend that he once caught an announcer kissing a secretary and decreed that in future the announcer must not read the late-night religious programme The Epilogue. In fact, this may have been inspired by his catching the Chief Engineer, Peter Eckersley, not just kissing but being in flagrante with an actress on a studio table.
He was to be somewhat embarrassed when one of his staff ran off with the quite new wife of the then rising young writer Evelyn Waugh. Reith also had to deal with Eckersley after the BBC Chief Engineer had a rather public affair with a married woman on the staff. Up to the WW2 any member of BBC staff involved in a divorce could lose their job.
Under Reith, the BBC did not broadcast on Sunday before 12:30 PM, to give listeners time to attend church, and for the rest of the day broadcast only religious services, classical music and other non-frivolous programming. European commercial stations Radio Normandie and Radio Luxembourg competed with the BBC on "Reith Sunday" and other days of the week by broadcasting more popular music.
Audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC, a government agency which had a monopoly on broadcasting. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast, "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it. At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national, rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity.
In 1926, Reith came into conflict with the Government during the 1926 United Kingdom general strike. The BBC bulletins reported, without comment, all sides in the dispute, including the Trades Union Congress's and of union leaders. Reith attempted to arrange a broadcast by the opposition Labour Party but it was vetoed by the government, and he had to refuse a request to allow a representative Labour or Trade Union leader to put the case for the miners and other workers.
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made a national broadcast about the strike from Reith’s house and coached by Reith. When Ramsay MacDonald, the leader of the Labour Party, asked to make a broadcast in reply, Reith supported the request. However, Baldwin was "quite against MacDonald broadcasting" and Reith unhappily refused the request. MacDonald complained that the BBC was "biased" and was "misleading the public" while other Labour Party figures were just as critical. Philip Snowden, the former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, was one of those who wrote to the Radio Times to complain.
Reith's reply also appeared in the Radio Times, admitting the BBC had not had complete liberty to do as it wanted. He recognised that at a time of emergency the government was never going to give the company complete independence, and he appealed to Snowden to understand the constraints he had been under.
Davidson telephoned Reith about his idea on 7 May, saying he had spoken to the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who had said he would not stop the broadcast, but would prefer it not to happen. Reith later wrote: "A nice position for me to be in between Premier and Primate, bound mightily to vex one or other."
Reith asked for the government view and was advised not to allow the broadcast because, it was suspected, that would give the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, an excuse to commandeer the BBC. Churchill had already lobbied Baldwin to that effect. Reith contacted the Archbishop to turn him down and explain that he feared if the talk went ahead, the government might take the company over.
Although Churchill wanted to commandeer the BBC to use it "to the best possible advantage", Reith wrote that Baldwin's government wanted to be able to say "that they did not commandeer [the BBC], but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial".
Reith admitted to his staff that he regretted the lack of TUC and Labour voices on the airwaves. Many commentators have seen Reith's stance during that period as pivotal in establishing the state broadcaster's enduring reputation for impartiality.
After the strike ended, the BBC's Programme Correspondence Department analysed the reaction to the coverage, and reported that some 3,696 people complimented the BBC and 176 were critical.
By 1938, Reith had become discontented with his role as Director-General, asserting in his autobiography that the organisational structure of the BBC, which he had created, had left him with insufficient work to do. He was invited by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to become chairman of Imperial Airways, the country's most important airline and one which had fallen into public disfavour because of its inefficiency.
He left Broadcasting House with no ceremony (at his request) but in tears. That evening, he attended a dinner party before driving out to Droitwich to close down a transmitter personally. He signed the visitor's book "J.C.W. Reith, late BBC."
Ogilvie, Sir Frederick Wolff ..
| Director-General | Term of office | Length of term | Honour(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sir John Reith | 1 January 1927 | 30 June 1938 | 11 years | Knighted 1 January 1927 |
| Sir Frederick Ogilvie | 19 July 1938 | 26 January 1942 | 3½ years | Knighted 10 June 1942 |
| Sir Cecil Graves and Robert Foot | 26 January 1942 | 6 September 1943 | 19 months | Knighted 1939 |
| Robert Foot | 6 September 1943 | 31 March 1944 | 7 months | |
| Sir William Haley | 1944 | 1952 | 8 years | Knighted 1946 |
In his new role, he was, in his own words, "confronted with problems of which I had no experience: Copyright and performing rights; Marconi patents; associations of concert artists, authors, playwrights, composers, music publishers, theatre managers, wireless manufacturers."
The British Broadcasting Company was part-share owned by a committee of members of the wireless industry, including British Thomson-Houston, The General Electric Company, Marconi and Metropolitan-Vickers. However, Reith had been in favour of the company's being taken into public ownership, as he felt that despite the boards under which he had served so far, allowing him a high degree of latitude on all matters, not all future members might do so. Although opposed by some, including members of the Government, the BBC became a corporation in 1927. Reith was knighted the same year.
Reith's autocratic approach became the stuff of BBC legend. His preferred approach was one of benevolent dictator, but with built-in checks to his power. Throughout his life, Reith remained convinced that that approach was the best way to run an organisation. Later Director-General Greg Dyke, profiling Reith in 2007, noted that the term Reithian has entered the dictionary to denote a style of management, particularly with relation to broadcasting. The term "Reithianism" describes certain principles of broadcasting associated with Lord Reith. These include an equal consideration of all viewpoints, probity, universality and a commitment to public service. Reith summarised the BBC's purpose in three words: inform, educate, entertain; this remains part of the organisation's mission statement to this day. It has also been adopted by broadcasters throughout the world, notably the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States.
Reith's autocratic approach became the stuff of BBC legend. His preferred approach was one of benevolent dictator, but with built-in checks to his power. Throughout his life, Reith remained convinced that that approach was the best way to run an organisation. Later Director-General Greg Dyke, profiling Reith in 2007, noted that the term Reithian has entered the dictionary to denote a style of management, particularly with relation to broadcasting. The term "Reithianism" describes certain principles of broadcasting associated with Lord Reith. These include an equal consideration of all viewpoints, probity, universality and a commitment to public service. Reith summarised the BBC's purpose in three words: inform, educate, entertain; this remains part of the organisation's mission statement to this day. It has also been adopted by broadcasters throughout the world, notably the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States.
Reith earned a reputation for prudishness in sexual matters. There is an old BBC legend that he once caught an announcer kissing a secretary and decreed that in future the announcer must not read the late-night religious programme The Epilogue. In fact, this may have been inspired by his catching the Chief Engineer, Peter Eckersley, not just kissing but being in flagrante with an actress on a studio table.
He was to be somewhat embarrassed when one of his staff ran off with the quite new wife of the then rising young writer Evelyn Waugh. Reith also had to deal with Eckersley after the BBC Chief Engineer had a rather public affair with a married woman on the staff. Up to the WW2 any member of BBC staff involved in a divorce could lose their job.
Under Reith, the BBC did not broadcast on Sunday before 12:30 PM, to give listeners time to attend church, and for the rest of the day broadcast only religious services, classical music and other non-frivolous programming. European commercial stations Radio Normandie and Radio Luxembourg competed with the BBC on "Reith Sunday" and other days of the week by broadcasting more popular music.
Audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC, a government agency which had a monopoly on broadcasting. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast, "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it. At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national, rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity.
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made a national broadcast about the strike from Reith’s house and coached by Reith. When Ramsay MacDonald, the leader of the Labour Party, asked to make a broadcast in reply, Reith supported the request. However, Baldwin was "quite against MacDonald broadcasting" and Reith unhappily refused the request. MacDonald complained that the BBC was "biased" and was "misleading the public" while other Labour Party figures were just as critical. Philip Snowden, the former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, was one of those who wrote to the Radio Times to complain.
Reith's reply also appeared in the Radio Times, admitting the BBC had not had complete liberty to do as it wanted. He recognised that at a time of emergency the government was never going to give the company complete independence, and he appealed to Snowden to understand the constraints he had been under.
"We do not believe that any other Government, even one of which Mr Snowden was a member, would have allowed the broadcasting authority under its control greater freedom than was enjoyed by the BBC during the crisis."The Labour leadership was not the only high-profile body denied a chance to comment on the strike. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, wanted to broadcast a "peace appeal" drawn up by church leaders which called for an immediate end to the strike, renewal of government subsidies to the coal industry and no cuts in miners' wages.
Davidson telephoned Reith about his idea on 7 May, saying he had spoken to the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who had said he would not stop the broadcast, but would prefer it not to happen. Reith later wrote: "A nice position for me to be in between Premier and Primate, bound mightily to vex one or other."
Reith asked for the government view and was advised not to allow the broadcast because, it was suspected, that would give the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, an excuse to commandeer the BBC. Churchill had already lobbied Baldwin to that effect. Reith contacted the Archbishop to turn him down and explain that he feared if the talk went ahead, the government might take the company over.
Although Churchill wanted to commandeer the BBC to use it "to the best possible advantage", Reith wrote that Baldwin's government wanted to be able to say "that they did not commandeer [the BBC], but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial".
Reith admitted to his staff that he regretted the lack of TUC and Labour voices on the airwaves. Many commentators have seen Reith's stance during that period as pivotal in establishing the state broadcaster's enduring reputation for impartiality.
After the strike ended, the BBC's Programme Correspondence Department analysed the reaction to the coverage, and reported that some 3,696 people complimented the BBC and 176 were critical.
John Gunther wrote that Reith's "modernist citadel on Portland Place was more important in the life of Britain than most government offices [and] rules the B.B.C. with a hand of granite". He "made the B.B.C. an expression of his nonconformist conscience, and also what is probably the finest broadcasting organization in the world"; Gunther predicted that he "is almost certain to have a big political job some day".
In 1938, John Reith and the British government, specifically the Ministry of Information which had been set up for WWII, designed a censorship apparatus for the inevitability of war. Due to the BBC's advancements in shortwave radio technology, the corporation could broadcast across the world during World War II. Within Europe, the BBC European Service would gather intelligence and information regarding the current events of the war in English. Regional BBC workers, based on their regional geo-political climate, would then further censor the material their broadcasts would cover. Nothing was to be added outside the preordained news items. For example, the BBC Polish Service was heavily censored due to fears of jeopardising relations with the Soviet Union. Controversial topics, i.e. the contested Polish and Soviet border, the deportation of Polish citizens, the arrests of Polish Home Army members and the Katyn massacre, were not included in Polish broadcasts. American radio broadcasts were broadcast across Europe on BBC channels. This material also passed through the BBC's censorship office, which surveilled and edited American coverage of British affairs. By 1940, across all BBC broadcasts, music by composers from enemy nations was censored. In total, 99 German, 38 Austrian and 38 Italian composers were censored. The BBC argued that like the Italian or German languages, listeners would be irritated by the inclusion of enemy composers. Any potential broadcasters said to have pacifist, communist or fascist ideologies were not allowed on the BBC's airwaves.
He left Broadcasting House with no ceremony (at his request) but in tears. That evening, he attended a dinner party before driving out to Droitwich to close down a transmitter personally. He signed the visitor's book "J.C.W. Reith, late BBC."
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Ogilvie, Sir Frederick Wolff ..Sir Frederick Wolff Ogilvie FRSE (7 February 1893 – 10 June 1949) became the 2nd Director-General of the BBC in 1938, following John Reith, who had been instrumental in the early development of the corporation. John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, KT, GCVO, GBE, CB, TD, PC (20 July 1889 – 16 June 1971), was a Scottish broadcasting executive who established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom. In 1922 he was employed by the BBC (British Broadcasting Company Ltd.) as its general manager; in 1923 he became its managing director and in 1927 he was employed as the Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation created under a royal charter. His concept of broadcasting as a way of educating the masses marked for a long time the BBC and similar organisations around the world. An engineer by trade, and standing at 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) tall, he was a larger than life figure who was a pioneer in his field.
Ogilvie served as Director-General of the BBC until early 1942, but made little impact at the BBC, although an exception was recruiting Lindley M. Fraser to head the BBC's German service, where Fraser developed a large German audience throughout the war.
Historian Asa Briggs described Ogilvie's period in office as "short, stormy and in some ways calamitous". R. C. Norman, who was chair of the BBC when Ogilvie was appointed, later described him as having every ability "except that of being able to manage a large organization, the one quality which was indispensable". Ogilvie resigned in 1942, and received a knighthood the same year. Ogilvie was succeeded at the BBC by Cecil Graves and Robert W. Foot.
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