Everything about The British Broadcasting Company totally explained
The
British Broadcasting Company Ltd was a
British commercial company formed on
October 18,
1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the
United Kingdom. Its original office was located on the fifth floor of the
Marconi building in
London. On
December 14,
1922,
John Reith was hired to become the Managing Director of the company. On
December 31,
1926, the company was dissolved and its assets were transferred to the Crown Chartered
British Broadcasting Corporation.
Brief history
Post Office stations
In Britain prior to 1922, the
General Post Office retained exclusive rights given to it by government, to manage and control all means of mass communication with the exception of the printed word for which authority had devolved to another governmental entity. The foundation of the British system still revolves around a specific interpretation of the word
station, which means a location. As such all Post Offices are located at stations, which is also true of railway stations and police stations and even
battle stations . The laws which evolved into the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1947, upon which all modern British communication laws are built in one way or another, concern four essential activities: the establishment of a station (or location) for purposes of broadcasting; the use of a station (location) for purposes of broadcasting; the installing of a transmitter at a station (location), and the use of a transmitter at a station (location). All four of these activities require a government licence which was originally granted by the General Post Office.
"Electrical" Post Offices
The invention of the electrical
telegraph came under the control of the Telegraph Act 1869 which was based upon a law that forbade the encoding of electrical cables with messages without a licence. The messages were viewed as electrical forms of a letter. This invention was followed by the
wireless telegraph which was then placed under the Wireless Telegraph Act 1904. The invention of the
telephone with its switchboards and routing systems was interpreted by the General Post Office as an electrical post office. When the telephone was combined with the wireless telegraph to create
wireless telephony, the same reasoning was used to control this new medium which became known as
wireless broadcasting. However, because wireless broadcasting messages were no longer point-to-point but scattered, there were complaints about this interpretation.
Advent of wireless broadcasting
In the USA, the development of the telegraph, wireless telegraph, telephone and wireless telephony proceeded according to the dictates of entrepreneurial commercial interests concerned only with supply and demand for profit. This approach wasn't possible in the United Kingdom due to the tight legal controls of
state monopoly held by the General Post Office (GPO). Therefore licences to commence test wireless broadcasts had to be obtained from the GPO and initially, some companies in Britain were successful in obtaining a licence for limited times and purposes.
First test broadcasts
Beginning in 1920, a number of licences were issued to British and American subsidiary companies in Britain for the purpose of conducting experimental transmissions under terms of a licence issued by the General Post Office in accordance with the
Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1904. On
June 15,
1920, Marconi's
Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited, in
Chelmsford,
Essex, was licensed to conduct an experimental broadcast featuring
Dame Nellie Melba. The signal was received throughout
Europe and as far as
Newfoundland. Further transmissions were also made.
Military intervention
On
November 23,
1920 the General Post Office halted all further transmissions due to complaints of alleged interference to
Armed Forces military communications. As the number of wireless (radio) receiving sets increased during the early 1920s, the General Post Office came under extreme pressure from hobby listeners to allow the experimental wireless (radio) broadcasts to resume.
Test transmissions resume
On
February 14,
1922, which was two years after ceasing their original transmissions, Marconi's
Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited was issued a licence for experimental transmissions under the call sign
2MT.
Peter Eckersley was given charge of providing both the broadcast entertainment and the engineering. The station operated out of a hut in a field at
Writtle near
Chelmsford in
Essex,
England.
On
May 11, 1922, the
Marconi Company was issued another licence for experimental broadcasts from a station identified as
2LO which was located at Marconi House in the Strand, London. The programme consisted of a boxing commentary of the fight between Kid Lewis and Georges Carpentier. Further tests were also advertised as demonstrations of "
Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony" which were "
subject to permission from the Postmaster General". These demonstrations were performed by the "Demonstration Department (of) Marconi's London Wireless Station 2LO".
On
May 16, 1922, Metropolitan Vickers Company, Ltd. ("Metrovick"), in
Manchester commenced test broadcasting from its own station identified as
2ZY.
A committee is appointed
On
May 23 a committee of representatives was appointed from the "Big Six" companies — Marconi, Metropolitan-Vickers, Radio Communication Company, British Thomson-Houston, General Electric and Western Electric. The Post Office also pressed for the inclusion of a representative from the smaller firms manufacturing radio equipment in the UK — Frank Phillips of Burndept.
Incorporation and shares
On
October 18,
1922, the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd. was incorporated under the 1908 to 1917 Companies Acts with a share capital of £100,000., with 99,993 cumulative ordinary shares valued at £1 each:
The holders of the Cumulative Ordinary Shares are entitled to receive out of the profits of the Company a fixed Cumulative Dividend at the rate of 7½% per annum on the capital for the time being paid up thereon but are not entitled to any further or other participation in profits.
Directors
» *The Rt. Hon. Lord Gainford, Headlam Hall, Gainford,
Durham. (Chairman);
*Geoffrey C. Isaacs, Marconi House, Strand, WC2. (Managing Director, Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd.);
» *Archibald McKinstry, The Red Lodge, Southill Avenue,
Harrow on the Hill. (Joint Managing Director of Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Export Company, Limited.);
*Major Basil Binyon, "Hawtthorndene",
Hayes,
Kent. (Managing Director of Radio Communication Company, Limited.);
» *John Gray, "Beaulieu", Park Farm Road,
Bromley, Kent. (Chairman of the Hotpoint Electric Appliance Company, Limited.) (
BTH);
*Sir William Noble, Magnet House, Kingsway, London WC2. (Director of The General Electric Company, Limited.);
» *Henry Mark Pease, 18 Kensington Court Mansions, London W8. (Managing Director of Western Electric Company, Limited.)
The initial remit of the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd., was to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters many of which had originally been owned by member companies, from which the BBC was to provide a national broadcasting service.
International origins
The British Broadcasting Company, Ltd., was formed using a blueprint that the
US Navy and the
General Electric Company had attempted to institute in the
USA. Early in
World War I, all of the ship-to-shore and transatlantic radio stations controlled by a US subsidiary company of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited in Chelmsford, England, were seized and handed to the US Navy for the duration of the War. After the War, the
US Congress forced the US Navy to divest itself of the stations and they turned to the General Electric Company which in 1919 formed a subsidiary called the
Radio Corporation of America. With the US Navy on its board,
RCA then absorbed the former Marconi stations.
In 1926 RCA created the
National Broadcasting Company. Peaking in the 1930s, there were attempts to bring all radio communications in America back under single monopoly control by using the patent laws. This move failed. However, it was against the backdrop of these developments between 1922 to 1927 in which the original British Broadcasting Company. Ltd. was formed and then merged into a Crown corporation, in part to sever the influence of the General Electric Company in the USA.
The General Electric Company, Ltd. (GEC) in Britain, which was represented on the board of the BBC, had ties to General Electric International, which was a subsidiary of the
General Electric Company in the USA. The
Western Electric Company. Ltd., in the UK was originally formed as a subsidiary of
American Telephone and Telegraph Company (
AT&T) in the USA where it served as its manufacturing subsidiary to equip the AT&T
Bell Telephone system. Metropolitan Vickers Company, Ltd., was originally formed as the
British Westinghouse Company. Westinghouse and AT&T were both represented in
RCA.
British Thomson-Houston Company, Ltd., was a controlled UK subsidiary of the General Electric Company in the USA. The
Hotpoint Electric Appliance Company, Ltd., was formed by British Thomson-Houston (BTH) in 1921.
The only other company later added to the original shareholders of the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd., was Burndept Limited. It represented the interests of over 20 small electrical manufacturers in the UK.
1922-1926 BBC Timeline
1922
1923
January 18: Postmaster General Neville Chamberlain issued a broadcasting licence to the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd., from the General Post Office.
February 13: 5WA began broadcasting to Cardiff, Wales.
March 6: 5SC began broadcasting to Glasgow, Scotland.
May 1: Studios opened at Savoy Hill.
August 29: First network news delivered by all BBC stations.
September 28: First published edition of Radio Times.
October 1: Publication of Sykes Committee Report on Broadcasting. » *October 10: 2BD began broadcasting to Aberdeen, Scotland.
*October 17: 6BM began broadcasting to Bournemouth.
November 16: 6FL began broadcasting to Sheffield as the first relay station. » *November 26: First experimental broadcast to North America.
December 30: First landline relay from Radiola Paris, France. » *December 31: First broadcast of Big Ben chimes. BBC staff numbered 177 employees.
1924
February 5: First daily broadcast of the Greenwich time signal. » *February 17: First daily broadcast of the Big Ben time signal.
March 28 5PY began broadcasting to Plymouth as a relay station.
May 1: 2EH began broadcasting to Edinburgh, Scotland as a relay station.
June 11: 6LV began broadcasting to Liverpool as a relay station.
July 8: 2LS began broadcasting to Leeds and Bradford as a relay station. » *July 9: 5XX began experimental broadcasts on AM longwave from Chelmsford, Essex.
August 15: 6KH began broadcasting to Hull as a relay station.
September 15: 2BE began broadcasting to Belfast, Northern Ireland. » *September 16: 5NG began broadcasting to Nottingham.
October 21: 6ST began broadcasting to Stoke-on-Trent as a relay station.
November 12: 2DE began broadcasting to Dundee as a relay station. » *November 26: First transatlantic relay broadcast from KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
December 12: 5SX began broadcasting to Swansea as a relay station. » *December 31: Over 1 million receiving licences had been issued by the General Post Office. The BBC had 20 radio transmitting stations in operation and 465 employees.
1925
April 3: BBC Deputy Managing Director Rear-Admiral Charles Carpendale became President of the First General Assembly of the International Broadcasting Union at Geneva, Switzerland. » *April 6: 2LO transmitter power increased during move from Marconi House to the roof of Selfridges department store in Oxford Street.
July 17: First edition published of The Radio Supplement. » *July 27: 5XX experimental AM longwave station moved from Chelmsford to Daventry where it commenced regular broadcasting on 1600 metres.
December 31: BBC staff numbered 658 employees.
1926
January 4: John Reith began to impose his dress code on BBC radio announcers who had to wear evening dress to match BBC performing artists in evening dress.
March 5: Parliamentary Crawford Committee published its broadcasting report which called for the termination of the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd., and the creation of a Crown chartered, non-commercial British Broadcasting Corporation beginning in 1927.
June 18: BBC The Radio Supplement was replaced by BBC World Radio publication.
November 14: The International Broadcasting Union issued its Geneva Plan which reduced the number of BBC wavelengths. This forced the company to restructure by replacing its local radio stations with regional radio stations.
December 16: Over 100 staff and directors of the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd., attended a dinner party for Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. » *December 20: Publication of the Crown charter and licence agreements creating the British Broadcasting Corporation.
*December 31: The General Post Offices had issued 2¼ million receiving licences. The contracts of 773 British Broadcasting Company Ltd staff were terminated and, with the dissolution of the company, shareholders were paid at par value.Further Information
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