B.B.C. Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29984, 20 November 1962, Page 18

B.B.C. Celebrates 40th Anniversary

(By CHRISTOPHER POWELL. N.Z.P.A. -Reuter]

LONDON. The British Broadcasting Corporation celebrated its fortieth birthday with a spate of special anniversary programmes, reminiscences and plans for the future, on November 14. The 8.8. C., then the British Broadcasting Company, went on the air for the first time on November 14,1922. The event was described by the nowdefun ' newspaper, “The Daily News,” in the following terms: “For the first time in history news was broadcast in England last night by the British Broadcasting Company. Two budgets of news were sent out by wireless telephone—one at 6 p.m. and another at 9 p.m. The call sign

was 2L.0. and the news came over in a clear voice which announced the sending station —the London Broadcasting Station.” Those two “budgets" of news were heard by about 30,000 listeners, mostly technical enthusiasts and people who had built their own .home-made crystal sets and [Primitive valve sets. I Today, the 8.8. C., as it is I now known throughout the

world, provides three services in sound radio, a national television service and an extensive service of broadcasting to other countries. Television programmes are watched by more than 25,000,000 people and over 26,000,000 people in Britain listen to one of the sound radio programmes. The world’s first public television service, which, apart from a six-year close-down during the war, has functioned ever since, was started by the corporation in 1936.

There has never been any commercial radio in Britain, although Radio Luxembourg broadcasts a programme in English supported by British advertisers and directed entirely at a British audience. For all radio transmissions within Britain and, until 1956, all television transmissions, too, the 8.8. C. has always had a monopoly. Under its charter, the corporation is required to be politically neutral. It is run by a board of governors, headed by a director-general and has always vigorously repudiated any suggestion that, either in its home or overseas programmes, it is a Government information service. It is financed by an annual licence fee paid by the owner of every radio or television set and costing £1 for sound radio only and £4 for television and radio.

Broadcasting in Britain was just 10 years old when the 8.8. C. began an overseas service of daily programmes for Britons and other Englishspeaking people abroad. Today, the General Overseas Service puts out programmes in English and 39 other languages for about 86 hours a day.

But it is inside Britain that the 8.8.C.’s influence is greatest. It claims to be “the largest impresario in the world” and, in the words of one spokesman, "one of the most powerful patrons of the arts.” Over half the permanently employed orchestral musicians in the country are under long-term contracts to the corporation and it gives employment to thousands of soloists and other freelance musicians. Its drama department produces about 400 plays a year for sound radio and about 100 for television. It has the largest commercial gramophone library in the world, stocked with well over 500.000 records, including some 7000 of historical importance.

"When I am lost in music, every word t* an offence to me; it hurts me."—Romain Rolland.