Arthur Burrows, the first BBC newsreader Photo Credit: BBC
On this date in 1922 The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) produced its first show of its domestic radio service.
The first ever radio broadcast was in 1901 the inventor Guglielmo Marconi made his historical foray and transmitted the first radio waves across the curvature of the earth.
This fantastic Italian entrepreneur’s broadcast, from the Isle of Wight to Cornwall sparked the beginning of one of the most popular and vast broadcasting mechanisms we have today.
These early programs were important as they focused on the empire and monarchy helping to create and emphasise the national identity.
In 11 years this medium would have developed so much that the BBC would begin its daily radio transmissions, the wireless soon became a social and cultural phenomenon and ‘listening in’ quickly became one of the main forms of leisure in British society.
The Second World War, in many ways really made the BBC into the institution we see today, throughout the War, although they had massive disagreements with the Ministry of Information on what should or shouldn’t be broadcasted, the BBC was seen as the (although censored) a reliable source of information, for those audiences across Europe who risked their lives to listen to the radio the BBC broadcast a special news service in morse code.
This day marks a monumental process for the future of broadcasting across Britain and the world and today continues to be one of the leading news and entertainment producers .
