100 years of the BBC

Martin Pipe : revisits the history of the British Broadcasting Corporation, via technical innovations including colour TV, NICAM stereo, the iPlayer... and Ceefax

The BBC began life a century ago, on October 18th 1922, and its arrival was partly down to an Australian opera singer called Dame Nellie Melba. The Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company had in 1920 broadcast Dame Nellie warbling from a station at its Chelmsford New Street Works. This was condemned as a waste of precious wavelengths by The General Post Office, which oversaw telegraphy at the time and considered it useful only for things like commercial shipping and military communications. But the genie had been let out...

Pressure from industry and radio enthusiasts (including 63 'wireless societies' representing more than 3,000 listeners) resulted in Marconi being allowed to resume entertainment broadcasts in 1922. Meanwhile, the GPO, mindful of the unregulated chaos that marked the nascent radio industry in the US, decided to issue a single broadcasting licence to a consortium of wireless manufacturers. 'British Broadcasting Company Ltd' was born, with shareholders including Marconi, Metropolitan-Vickers, GEC and Western Electric.

Establishing the BBC led to a reliable source of radio programmes for the country's enthusiasts (many of whom were technically proficient radio amateurs - 'hams'), and increased sales of sets and DIY kits.

Wireless, an ironic word for something that, at the high-end of the market, involved lab-like apparatus with glowing valves and large batteries, fed from a long aerial wire strung across the garden, could be an expensive hobby. Even the crudest form of receiver - the valve-less 'crystal set' - relied on headphones or telephone earpieces that cost around 25 shillings, approximately £100 today.