Wunsch AWA Review Culture, Technology, Britannia: The BBC Handbooks 2011 A. David Wunsch ABSTRACT HANDBOOK & YEARBOOK In the 1920’s the new medium of radio The BBC Handbook broadcasting had a surprisingly benefi cial effect was a remarkable an- on the much older medium of print. Many read- nual publication of the ers of this journal doubtless collect magazines British Broadcasting for radio hobbyists that were generated by the Corporation during “radio craze” of that decade. If you are shopping its formative early in a secondhand bookshop, perhaps looking for decades-- its “golden old copies of Gernsbach’s Radio News, see if age.” The Handbook is the store has back issues of a publication that of interest to collectors appeared annually, The BBC Handbook. The of books germane to ra- Handbook was a substantial publication—ini- dio history, to students tially hardbound-- sometimes running over 450 of British broadcasting, pages which began in 1928 and last appeared in to researchers of ra- 1973.1 The BBC inexplicably elected to change dio’s technical past and the name of their book to either The Yearbook or to historians of the UK The Annual on various occasions although the of the 20’s, the depres- content and style of the publications remained sion, the war and post- mostly unchanged.2 war years. Handsomely Bibliophiles will want to give their attention designed, the volumes to books of the period 1928-1946 and try to provide a description obtain copies with dust jackets. The BBC com- of how the BBC wished missioned serious artists for these designs who to present itself to the often favored the then fashionable Art-Deco public and are remark- style. Figure 1 shows the cover for the 1929 is- able not only for the sue.3 By the 1950’s the covers were-- to put it technical sophistica- baldly—dull. tion assumed in its What can be discovered from reading these readers but for their books? You can learn the story of the Brit- record of the rich world ish Broadcasting Corporation as it wished to of music, literature and present itself to the world. Such history has theatre to which Brit- limitations and the serious student of the BBC ish wireless listeners will scale the highly readable Mount Everest were exposed. The of the subject: Asa Briggs’s 5 volume History Handbooks refl ect the of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, while philosophy of the BBC someone of more modest ambition might try founding director, Sir Andrew Crisell’s An Introductory History of John Reith, a disciple British Broadcasting whose 2nd edition was of Mathew Arnold and published in 2002.4 his conception of cul- ture. COMPANY & CORPORATION The letters BBC once stood for the British Broadcasting Company, the forbear of the pres- Volume 24, 2011 1 BBC Handbooks Figure 1. Handbook cover for 1929. 2 AWA Review Wunsch ent Corporation. The Company, profi t-making company. Adding to a monopoly created by statute of the pressure for change was Reith’s the British government, was the resentment of the power held by only entity permitted in the UK the Post Offi ce to restrict broad- to broadcast to the public, and casting of politically controversial was owned by British companies material. 9 manufacturing receiving sets, e.g., The Crawford Committee, cre- Marconi, and Metropolitan-Vick- ated by the Government to steer ers. These members were required the future of broadcasting in Brit- to pay to the BBC a 10 percent ain, issued its report in 1926, and royalty on radios they sold. An ad- the result was the formation of the ditional source of revenue would Corporation—a nonprofi t institu- be an annual 10 shilling licensing tion to be fi nanced by license fees fee required of all households with and enjoying a monopoly in radio. radio sets—this money to be col- Because the new Corporation was lected by the British Post Office authorized by a Royal Charter which initially gave half of it to (which would periodically have to the Company.5 Licenses were to be be renewed by the Government) granted to those set owners whose and not by Parliamentary statute, it receivers were made by the mem- would have the appearance of being ber companies—which meant Brit- immune to political pressure. The ish companies. 6 The fi rst Company Director-General of the Corpora- broadcasts began on November 14, tion was John Reith, (who was now 1922 from London. From its very Sir John); he held this title until start, advertising on the new BBC June of 1938 when he resigned. 10 was forbidden and the number Some refer to his stewardship as and placement of new transmit- The Golden Age of Wireless, and ting sites carefully regulated--a indeed this is the title of volume 2 decision based in no small part of Briggs’s vast history. on how negatively the founders Each Handbook/Yearbook was viewed American broadcasting in devoted in considerable part to a the twenties.7 By 1925, about 80% discussion of the content of the of the population of the British Isles previous year’s programs.11 Just a could receive the BBC.8 The direc- cursory glance shows that this ma- tors of the new Company appointed terial might, in today’s discourse, as its fi rst General Manager John be described with the pejorative C. W. Reith, (1889-1971), whose “elitist.” Even now, mention of the name we will encounter throughout Reith era BBC can stir up passions this essay. deriving from class resentment. To The British Broadcasting Com- understand this BBC culture one pany was a profi t-making institu- must know something of the man tion. Public, nonprofi t broadcasting at the top.12 in the UK began on January 1, 1927 My colleague at the University when the British Broadcasting Cor- of Massachusetts Lowell, Todd Av- poration went on the air, replacing ery, has written a fi ne account of the Company. Although the reasons the Reithian BBC years, Radio, for this regime change are complex, Modernism: Literature, Ethics, much of the impetus came from and the BBC 1922-1938. Some of Reith, who had a vision of the BBC the book deals with the profound as a vast educational and cultural infl uence that the writing of the public service—one that would be English poet and essayist, Matthew compromised by its connection to a Arnold (1822-1888), had on the Volume 24, 2011 3 BBC Handbooks BBC head. Readers may be familiar brags of requiring no cat’s whisker. with his poem “Dover Beach” but In advertisements for complete more germane to our discussion is receivers we fi nd quite a choice: Arnold’s much quoted 1869 essay crystal sets, and receivers of two or Culture and Anarchy – a defense three valves (as the British called of what is now called highbrow cul- tubes) powered by batteries or the ture. Arnold recommends “culture power mains. For accessories, we as the great help out of our present fi nd ads for headphones as well diffi culties; culture being a pursuit as loudspeakers including the of our total perfection by means of relatively new moving coil speaker, getting to know, on all the matters and a cornucopia of ads for batter- which most concern us, the best ies and battery eliminators as well that has been thought and said as individual components (for the in the world….” [italics added]. home set builder) e.g., coils, con- Avery sees this as Reith’s “cultural densers, tube sockets, valves. For agenda” for the BBC. For Arnold this reader what is striking about (and doubtless for Reith) anarchy the advertisements for receivers is was “doing as one likes.” the number of sets being promoted Arnold and Reith part ways in that had only two or three valves at the matter of religion. Raised in a a time when American magazines liberal Protestant household, Ar- promoted a plethora of radios with nold was to become an agnostic—a 5 or more tubes. Figure 3 shows fact evident in Dover Beach where an advertisement from page 389 the balm proposed for the loneli- of the 1930 Yearbook for a 2 valve ness and misery of man in an indif- radio. This American-British dis- ferent Godless world is: “Ah, love, parity doubtless arose from the let us be true/ To one another… crowded air waves in the US which .” Reith, the son of a minister of Church of Scotland, practiced a strict Calvinism, and could be hard on his employees, e.g., fi ring the BBC’s Chief Engineer after his be- ing named as a co-respondent in a divorce proceeding. THE NEW BOOKS The fi rst two Handbooks, dated 1928 and 1929, deserve some scru- tiny as they set the tone for these publications up to the outbreak of the Second World War. The BBC broadcast no commercials but there was no such ban in their print publications. Looking through the advertising in these early books one sees how rapidly technological change was affecting radio design. Although the crystal set was nearly obsolete, page 370 of the 1929 book carries an advertise- ment (Figure 2) for an improved Figure 2. Crystal detector advertise- crystal detector, the Excel, which ment, 1929 Handbook 4 AWA Review Wunsch would have demanded receivers Part of public service in Reith’s having high selectivity in contrast view is the purely technical: set- to the UK where typically one could ting up transmitters such that the hear only one to three BBC sta- whole British population would tions; to be sure, British listeners be in “crystal range.” He extols a often received broadcasts emanat- “common sense” censorship and ing from the European continent.