Broadcasting in the UK and US in the 1950s Broadcasting in the UK and US in the 1950s: Historical Perspectives Edited by Jamie Medhurst, Siân Nicholas and Tom O’Malley Broadcasting in the UK and US in the 1950s: Historical Perspectives Edited by Jamie Medhurst, Siân Nicholas and Tom O’Malley This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Jamie Medhurst, Siân Nicholas, Tom O’Malley and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8899-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8899-8 CONTENTS Contributors ............................................................................................... vii Editors ........................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements .................................................................................... xi List of illustrations .................................................................................... xiii Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Introduction Jamie Medhurst and Tom O’Malley Chapter Two ................................................................................................ 9 Now the War is Over: Negotiating the BBC’s Wartime Legacy in Post-War Britain Siân Nicholas Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 29 Beveridge and broadcasting in the 1950s Jamie Medhurst Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 49 From Radio Listening to Television Viewing in the 1950s: Reflections on a Blind Spot in Media History Kate Lacey Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 71 Dreams and Displacements: Perceptions of British TV in the 1950s Tim O’Sullivan Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 101 Science, the BBC and the ‘Two Cultures’ Allan Jones vi Contents Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 121 Television, the Labour Movement and the New Left in the 1950s Tom O’Malley Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 147 Race, Immigration and Reasoning: Britain and America’s Town Meeting of the Air Darrell M. Newton Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 169 At its Origins: The Nascent TV Format Trade 1949-1962 Jean Chalaby Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 189 Networking Women: The International Association of Women in Radio and Television Kristin Skoog and Alexander Badenoch Index ........................................................................................................ 219 CONTRIBUTORS Alec Badenoch is Assistant Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Utrecht. Jean K. Chalaby is Professor of International Communication London and former Head of Sociology, City University. Allan Jones is Lecturer in Telematics, the Open University. Kate Lacey is Professor of Media History and Theory, University of Sussex. Jamie Medhurst is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication, Aberystwyth University, and Co-Director of the Aberystwyth Centre for Media History. Darrell M. Newton is Associate Dean and Professor of Communication Arts, Salisbury University, Maryland. Siân Nicholas is Reader in Modern British History, Aberystwyth University, and Co-Director of the Aberystwyth Centre for Media History. Tom O’Malley is Emeritus Professor of Media Studies, Aberystwyth University, and Associate Director of the Aberystwyth Centre for Media History. Tim O’Sullivan is Emeritus Professor of Media and Cultural History, De Montfort University. Kristin Skoog is Lecturer in Media (Broadcasting History), Bournemouth University, and Assistant Director of the Bournemouth Centre for Media History. EDITORS Dr Jamie Medhurst is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication, co- Director of the Centre for Media History, and former Head of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at Aberystwyth University. He teaches and researches in the area of media history and policy, media in Wales, and digital journalism. He has been awarded research grants from the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and was Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network on Early Broadcasting History. He is co-editor of the journal Media History and has published widely on television history, including A History of Independent Television in Wales (2010). He is currently completing a book on the early years of television and the BBC and is working on a project on television and society in Wales during the 1970s. Dr Siân Nicholas is Reader in Modern British History at Aberystwyth University and co-founder and co-Director of the Aberystwyth Centre for Media History. She teaches and researches on twentieth-century British social, cultural and media history, with particular interests in wartime media and broadcasting. She is a former editor of the journal Twentieth Century British History and has published widely on media and broadcasting, including The Echo of War: Home Front Propaganda and the Wartime BBC (1997), with Tom O’Malley and Kevin Williams (eds.) Reconstructing the Past: History in the Mass Media 1890-2005 (2009), and with Tom O’Malley (ed.), Moral Panics, Social Fears and the Media: Historical Perspectives (2013). She is currently writing (with Tom O’Malley and Marc Wiggam) a new history of the British press in the Second World War, based on research funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Professor Tom O’Malley is Emeritus Professor of Media and Communication at Aberystwyth University and co-founder and Associate Director of the Aberystwyth Centre for Media History. He has published extensively on press and broadcasting history and on media policy, including: with Clive Soley, Regulating the Press (2000); with David Barlow and Phillip Mitchell, The Media in Wales: Voices of a Small Nation (2005); with Janet Jones (eds) The Peacock Committee and UK Broadcasting Policy (2009); with Siân Nicholas, (eds) Moral Panics, x Editors Social Fears, and the Media: Historical Perspectives (2013). He is currently writing (with Siân Nicholas and Marc Wiggam) a new history of the British press in the Second World War, based on research funded by the Leverhulme Trust. He is co-founder and former editor of the journal Media History, and is on the National Council of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This volume stems from an international research network funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (ref AH/H021620/1) between 2010 and 2012, led by Dr Jamie Medhurst (Principal Investigator) at Aberystwyth University and Professor Hugh Chignell (Co-Investigator) at Bournemouth University. The purpose of the network was to bring together media historians from the UK and North America to consider transnational discourses and interactions in the history of British and North American broadcasting between 1922 and 1962. We would like to record our gratitude to the AHRC for providing the funding for a stimulating and rewarding network, and to thank Hugh for his valuable contribution to its work. In July 2010, a very successful symposium was held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in conjunction with the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, for which we would like to thank Professor Emerita Michele Hilmes, then Director of the Center, for organising and hosting the conference and Professor Hugh Chignell for co-ordinating the UK contributions. The focus was on the 1930s, a key period for the development of broadcasting on both sides of the Atlantic. The following year, a symposium was held at the University of Wales Study Centre in Gregynog, mid-Wales where delegates looked in detail at broadcasting in the post-war period, focusing on the 1950s. The papers in this volume were selected from among those presented at this symposium. Finally, the editors would like to thank all the contributors to this volume for their forbearance during the editing process, Cambridge Scholars Publishing for supporting the publication (and for being flexible with deadlines), and Aberystwyth University for granting research leave to one of the editors to complete this publication. Jamie Medhurst, Siân Nicholas and Tom O’Malley Aberystwyth, December 2015 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 5.1: ‘End Piece’ (David Hall, 2012) Figure 5.2: Everybody’s, 28 November 1953, p. 20: ‘TV – Problem Child’, George Mikes, with illustrations by David Langdon. Figure 5.3: The Sphere, October 1955 Table 6.1: Science broadcasts on the BBC Third Programme in 1958 Table 6.2: Selection of BBC television science broadcasts from 1958 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION JAMIE MEDHURST AND TOM O’MALLEY In an age of digital communications, where radio, satellite, television and computing have