The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

Paul Kerensa

100 Years of the BBC, Radio and Life as We Know It

  • 45 minutes 16 seconds
    #109 Reith to Davie: 17 BBC Directors General - with Dr Tom Mills

    In October 1923, first BBC General Manager John Reith wrote to both 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace, inviting the Prime Minister and the King to broadcast on the near year-old BBC. Both refused.

    In November 2025, 17th BBC Director General Tim Davie resigned because... well we're still trying to find out exactly why. Again, politics is at play - though it's difficult to know if that's at the White House, the House of Commons or Broadcasting House.

    Dr Tom Mills, sociologist at Aston University and author of The BBC: Myth of a Public Service, joins us to whizz through 17 Directors General, their own politics and their battles with politics.

    Meet:

    John Reith, Frederick Ogilvie, Cecil Graves, Robert Foot, William Haley, Ian Jacob, Hugh Greene, Charles Curran, Ian Trethowan, Alasdair Milne, Michael Checkland, John Birt, Greg Dyke, Mark Thompson, George Entwistle, Tony Hall and Tim Davie.

    (Add some 'sirs' and 'lords' in there - I've only de-titled them here as we're often talking about them while they were DG, and it's confusing who was appointed what and when. No disrespect intended)

    All men, you may notice. There are a few women in this tale too - though not many, and usually by such names as Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse.

    It's a complex tale - I hope we make it less so for you.

    Oh and we have news of your festive audio treat - coming soon (to Radio 4!)

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 110: The first BBC Armistice broadcast.

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    28 November 2025, 12:55 pm
  • 35 minutes 56 seconds
    #108 Mass Telepathy: Re-enacted - A Centenary Dramatisation of a BBC Broadcast

    On 12 November 1925, the BBC broadcast one of its most bizarre programmes yet:

    'MASS TELEPATHY: An Experiment in Thought Reading in which every Listener will be invited to assist'

    On 12 November 2025, we present a dramatic re-enactment, based on newspaper articles of the day, and brought to life with a cast of marvel and a guest radio drama producer.

    Appropriately, the one believer on the celebrity panel was the first BBC dramatist - Phyllis Twigg. We first landed on this story on episode 72 of this podcast, exploring her tale, her innovations and her interest in spiritualism.

    Alas no one else on the panel took it seriously. Like The Celebrity Traitors of 1925, a bunch of celebs (a Shakespearean actress, a panto star, the BBC's drama critic, the BBC's Director of Education, an MP, and so on) gathered in a fancy hotel with a gothic atmosphere and played a spooky game around a table, with a glass or two of fizzy rosé.

    Or is it more Derren Brown: Mind Control?

    Either way, the celebrity jury mostly played it for laughs - and enjoyed the hospitality of the Savoy Hotel a little too much. The listeners weren't happy - especially those taking it seriously at home, beaming their thoughts into the ether.

    With no recording, we bring it to life for the first time in a century. In exactly a century.

    If you enjoy this dramatisation, do let us know (paul at paulkerensa dot com) and/or consider joining us on Patreon.com/paulkerensa - if you like it, and if we can afford to, we'll do more like this, in and amongst our regular episodes - which right now is meant to be telling the tale of November 1923. We'll pick that up next time... For now, we have a centenary drama to bring you! So concentrate your thoughts, open your mind, and open a bottle. They did.

     

    MASS TELEPATHY: RE-ENACTED

    THE CAST

    Sir Alfred Robbins - Adrian Mackinder

    Cecil Lewis - Will de Renzy-Martin

    Lady Tree - Helen Lloyd

    Zena Dare - Natalie Chisholm

    Phyllis Twigg - Carina Saner (playing her own great-grandmother)

    Dorothy Warren - Marta da Silva

    Lt Commander Kenworthy MP - Will Harrison Wallace

    James Agate - Paul Kerensa

    J.C. Stobart - Anthony Hewson

    Roger Eckersley - Anthony Rudd

     

    Written by Paul Kerensa

    Produced/Directed/Edited by Helen Quigley

    A Soundliness co-production with the British Broadcasting Century

        SOME OF THE GUESSES, AS REPORTED IN THE LONDON DAILY NEWS, 13 NOV 1925, AND OTHER NEWSPAPERS:  

    1. Letter - K:

    James Agate IOU

    Dorothy Warren, F then G, then K

    Lady Tree Z

    Miss Zena Dare G

    Kenworthy B 

     

    2. Day - Saturday:

    Four guessed Sunday, one Friday

     

    3. Number - 7:

    49-13-300-13-19-33-9400

     

    4. Playing card - Three of Diamonds:

    Stobart – 4 of Diamonds. Others failed to follow suit...

     

    5. Shape - Triangle:

    Circles or polygons, a shilling (Lady Tree), a rugby ball... and an isosceles triangle (Dorothy Warren)

     

    6. Uncategorised - The Game of Bridge:

    Charlie Chaplin? Lamp on the Cenotaph? A banjulele? A white leghorn pullet?

       

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 109: Reith invites the PM and the King on the air - and other Directors-General over the century...

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

    12 November 2025, 1:16 am
  • 33 minutes 8 seconds
    #107 On-Air Criticisms, James Cary and Miranda Hart

    October 1923: The BBC's on-air critics go national...

    These aren't critics OF the BBC (there were - and are - plenty of those), but critics ON the BBC - a literary critic, a music critic, a drama critic, a film critic... Think Front Row, Barry Norman, The Old Grey Whistle Test, but decades earlier.

    These weekly shows went national via simultaneous broadcasting - SB - and the BBC's London-centric regular programming started to take over the regional schedules.

    On London 2LO from 14 June 1923 - and nationally on Thursdays from 18 October - was music critic Percy Scholes.

    On London 2LO from 18 July - and nationally on Fridays from 19 October - was film critic G.A. Atkinson ('Seen on the Screen').

    On London 2LO from 8 August - and nationally on Wednesdays from 17 October - was drama critic Archibald Haddon ('News and Views of the Theatre'), and later James Agate.

    On London 2LO from 3 September - and nationally on Mondays from 15 October - was literary critic John Strachey.

    And in more recent years, we add comedy criticism to the list - with some comedy writers. James Cary has written BBC sitcoms for TV and radio, inc his own Bluestone 42, Hut 33, Think the Unthinkable, and for others Miranda, My Hero, My Family and more. He joins us with his opinions on comedy, the BBC, and what he'd do if he were DG.

    And Miranda Hart - once our boss (I also wrote for the show Miranda) - joins us in a conversation I had for my previous podcast, The Heptagon Club (a podcast of conversations with 7 guests per episode - it was exhausting, so I stopped, for the simpler task of chronicling the history of the BBC...)

    And our latest clue to our audio festive treat. Ooh...

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 108: An Evening of Mass Telepathy - a centenary dramatic re-enactment of a lost legendary broadcast! 

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    2 November 2025, 4:01 pm
  • 42 minutes 17 seconds
    #106 6BM Bournemouth: The End of the Beginning at the BBC... and James Cridland
    "6BM Bournemouth sends hearty greetings to the world... We do hope you can smell the pines!"   On 17 October 1923 (oh and look at the date this podcast landed - 102 years apart), the BBC opened its eighth station: 6BM Bournemouth.   It was the last of the first, after the original plan for eight station. Now the map atop the Radio Times cover would be proven correct! When the magazine launched, it featured eight stations... but only six were in operation.   For perhaps the first time, we'll unite some of the first voices from each station - from London's Arthur Burrows to Bournemouth's Auntie Lulu - as well as hear some of pioneering voices from 6BM, thanks to Seán Street, Emeritus Professor of Radio at Bournemouth University. Seán's wonderful recent article and 1973 documentary are essential further reading and listening - and any early voices you hear on this podcast are from interviews he recorded then. We're so glad he did.   Hear the children's presenter in trouble for mentioning religion and booze in her children's tales (no 'Yohoho and a bottle of rum' here...) and the offers from France to pay a licence fee, so enamoured were they with the Bournemouth station.   As for radio's future, who better than the radio futurologist to enlighten us? James Cridland is in-demand as a radio consultant and speaker, and has both intriguing thoughts on where radio (or audio) is going, and wonderful tales of working in radio, including being at the cutting edge of radio's move online two decades ago. I hope you enjoy our chat as much as I did (and yes he will be back).   Elsewhere, we talk about not only this podcast's survey, but the BBC's survey, and its results. What do we want the BBC to be? The people have spoken... We dig into that a little.   And our next clue in our audio Christmas gift. What will it be? Keep listening to puzzle it out. (Email me any guesses by all means - or feedback generally on the podcast, or any queries we can ponder on a future episode)    I like all the episodes I make for this podcast. But I REALLY like this one. Hope you do too.  

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 107: The early BBC criticism programmes: Drama, Music, Film, Books...

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

    17 October 2025, 8:47 am
  • 49 minutes 46 seconds
    #105 2BD Aberdeen and R.E. Jeffrey: From First Gaelic Broadcast to First Sci-Fi
    "Aberdeen Calling!"   On 10 October 1923, the BBC opened its seventh station: 2BD Aberdeen.    Its station director R.E. Jeffrey was fresh from the success of Rob Roy - a drama he'd produced and starred in - and in later years he'd head up BBC drama, with contributions arguably including radio's first sci-fi and first sitcom (not at the same time - Red Dwarf was a while away yet).   Our experts include author Gordon Bathgate (whose book Aberdeen Calling is recommended - link below)... academic Dr Aleksandar Kocic of Edinburgh Napier University on why the BBC doesn't really do local radio in Scotland... plus notes from Prof Tim Crook on R.E. Jeffrey's later career... and much more.   We recreate for you Aberdeen's opening night - hear the songs and some of the voices. We look at the challenges of the weather, and the shrinking nature of BBC local radio - both in 1923 and in 2025.   Thoughts on any of this? Email me: paul at paulkerensa dot com. And see the below links for more on this marvellous tale...  

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 106: The launch of 6BM Bournemouth, and an interview with radio futurologist James Cridland.

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

    3 October 2025, 2:58 pm
  • 36 minutes 7 seconds
    #104 The Radio Times is Launched! A Browse Through Issue 1
    On 28 September 1923, a new magazine hit news-stands.   The Radio Times was a BBC publication, born out of a listings ban seven months earlier, when the press tried to charge the Beeb advertising rates to print what was on. The BBC’s General Manager John Reith saw an opportunity: they’d just print their own.   We previously (on episodes 75 and 76) brought you the history of the Radio Times for its centenary, but as our moment-by-moment timeline of British broadcasting finally reaches September 1923, we just had to zoom in a little further on issue number one.   So join us for a look at the first listings, the first letter (a listener from Spain!), ads including headphones and - oddly - height-lengthening, the first cartoon (about listening to the wireless en masse in a village hall), plus listeners complaints mourning the “murder” of composer Tannhauser at the hands of the London Wireless Orchestra. Everyone’s a critic…   Our guests include Radio Times editor Shem Law, Radio Times collector Dr Steve Arnold, Radio 4’s Justin Webb and Dr Martin Cooper author of Radio’s Legacy in Popular Culture.   

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 105: The launch of Aberdeen 2BD. Advance reading: see Gordon Bathgate’s book Aberdeen Calling: https://amzn.to/4pi9FBW

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

    11 September 2025, 5:08 pm
  • 49 minutes 12 seconds
    #103 Sept 1923 on the BBC, Rob Roy and Gavin Sutherland

    Back in 1923, between SB and RT - that's 'Simultaneous Broadcasting' (networking nationally via landline) and The Radio Times (the BBC listings mag still had the 'The' back then), a month went by...

    ...But did nothing happen in that month? Of course not!

    So between these two bigger landmarks, on this episode we bring you some smaller but notable ones. Also on the Beeb in Aug/Sept 1923:

    • Rob Roy live from Glasgow - with fight scenes
    • Reith reads the news... again. Because his mum forgot to listen.
    • Sir Ernest Rutherford: first public figure to broadcast nationally.
    • New time signal: weights, counting and a bell on the hour
    • Sheffield, Aberdeen and Bournemouth prepare for the air
    • Newcastle's beloved boss heads south
    • Reith has his height measured at the Postmaster-General's house. Reith wins.
    • Announcer sacked, while another commended for "an impression of virility, keenness, and a suggestion of fresh breezes on the moors". 
    • The Radio Times gets an editor
    • The first cat on radio?

    (Thanks to Newspaper Detective Andrew Barker for most of these)

    ...I think that's everything we cover. You don't have to listen now...

    Oh but wait! Then you'd miss our amazing guest. Conductor and arranger of note (and of notes) Gavin Sutherland has a new album out of old TV themes: The Next Programme Follows Shortly. It's a joy.

    Hear Gavin guide us through half a dozen or so tracks, from Grandstand to the Channel 4 ident, from the first song on television to the secret code hidden in The Two Ronnies theme.

    Have a listen, buy his album - and enjoy our chat. And the first cat on radio. Miaow.

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 104: The Radio Times is launched!

    More on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    21 August 2025, 12:06 am
  • 49 minutes 52 seconds
    #102 SB: Simultaneous Broadcasting... and Mary English

    On 29 August 1923, the BBC officially launched SB: Simultaneous Broadcasting. 

    They'd been testing SB for months, via crossed lines and cross conversations with the General Post Office. It would dramatically change the shape and big idea of what broadcasting was and could be. Using landlines, they linked stations - so a Covent Garden concert could be heard nationally for the first time, as other stations gave over the schedules to big concerts, or news bulletins, or... whatever London wanted. Generally speaking.

    Yes, other stations could take over too - Birmingham or Glasgow might offer a concert of play. But questions were asked, even back then, of whether listeners would prefer their regular local programming, or news/concerts from the capital.

    Oh but we can provide you big stars, said the Programme Department. It's a move forward. But a move backward for local programming, alas - even if it was pitched to them that they could enjoy a night off. Hmm...

    As we explore and unpack that, we also welcome a guest - Mary Englsh, who began at the BBC in 1973 as a studio manager, wrote for The Two Ronnies, and nearly bled over Margaret Thatcher thanks to an editing accident.

    We hear from her, including the timely observation that the BBC perhaps win trust by "broadcasting their defeats". (In the week this podcast lands, the BBC has broadcast two of their defeats - with news reports about their Gaza documentary and Gregg Wallace. Would another channel amplify their failures quite so much? Should they? Answers on a postcard...)

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 103: Aug/Sept 1923 - Rob Roy and the first cat on radio!

    More info on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    15 July 2025, 10:38 pm
  • 48 minutes 21 seconds
    #101 The Sykes Report + Early Recordings Association

    Episode 101 finds us in late August 1923... 

    The first government inquiry into the BBC has just finished four months of interviewing dozens of interested parties about what the Beeb should/would/could be. Should it have a competitor? How do you solve the licence problem? Did the BBC have a monopoly? And isn't it time 'listeners-in' were just called 'listeners'?

    We give you a potted summary of Sir Frederick Sykes' inquiry, committee and report - somehow known as The Sykes Inquiry, The Sykes Committee and The Sykes Report. 

    And our special guest, talking about three decades earlier, is Dr Inja Stanović of the University of Surrey, Surrey Future Senior Fellow, Director of Performance, and most crucially for us, Director of the Early Recordings Association. She brings reconstructed recordings and info about the Early Recordings Association (join free, click below) and its Conference.

     

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 102: Simultaneous Broadcasting, on the BBC in August 1923.

    More info on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    26 June 2025, 12:58 am
  • 53 minutes 49 seconds
    #100 The Century! British Broadcasting's Story So Far, 1895-1923

    It's The British Broadcasting Century's century!

    Thanks if you've joined us for the story so far, from Morse and Marconi to Reith and the Pips (before Gladys Knight took over lead vocals).

    This special 100th episode is for both the newcomer and the seasoned veteran - being the previous 99 episodes in summary form, BUT with lots of new bits.

    So this is no best-of... (alright it's a bit of a best-of) ...this is packed with new things we didn't know, old things we hadn't found yet, new perspectives on the areas we've covered previously, things we left out completely, and much more, or less, depending on how you look at it.

    New things include:

    • The first song Marconi played via wireless (thanks John Hannon)
    • New (corrected!) info on Marconi's first sports report by wireless - not 1899 in America, but 1898 in Ireland...
    • Long clips of Britain's first DJ Gertrude Donisthorpe, Marconi engineer William Ditcham, first broadcast singer Winifred Sayer, Marconi man R.D. Bangay, and more, that we haven't played you before.
    • News on the Melba recording (er, not good news)
    • A 6min-long never-before-heard reminiscence by Arthur Burrows, reflecting on the first BBC broadcast, with new info - including the 2LO orchestra being accused of electoral bias because of their song choice. The first accusation of BBC on-air bias... in musical form!
    • The opening words of the first BBC children's broadcast
    • New info on Harry Tate's 'Broadcasting' sketch (thanks Alan Stafford)
    • The first singer of Cardiff 5WA
    • The Sykes Committee look into the BBC (just to keep the story moving forward, a bit)

    And we've been asking you for your favourite moments so far. So we re-bring you:

    • Peter Eckersley on 2MT Writtle
    • Tales from 2ZY Manchester and 5IT Birmingham
    • More Peter Eckersley on 2MT Writtle
    • Even more Peter Eckersley on...

    ...You get the idea.

    Thanks for joining us for our first 100 episodes - here's to our next 100.

    Do share this with people to help make that happen!

    .

    SHOWNOTES:

    Next time: Episode 101: The Sykes Inquiry, and the Early Recordings Association.

    More info on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    28 May 2025, 11:59 pm
  • 56 minutes 14 seconds
    #099 Godfrey Isaacs - The Man Behind The BBC Idea

    On the day of episode 99's release, it's exactly 100 years since the death on 17 April 1925 of Godfrey Isaacs - Managing Director of the Marconi Company.

    More than that - new evidence shows that he came up with and championed the idea of the one BBC. For years, the British government (via the Post Office) has been credited with the plan for a singular British broadcaster. But lost meeting minutes have been rediscovered....

    The academic who found these minutes - misplaced for decades - is David Prosser of the University of Bristol. He joins us to tell us about the 18 May 1922 meeting where Godfrey Isaacs proposed that the Marconi Company share patents and collaborate with its rivals to form one (British) Broadcasting Company.

    And Robert Godfrey - Isaacs' great-great-grandson - joins us to give new insights into the life of this under-heralded pioneer in the ways of wireless. Hear tales of the Marconi Scandal, Titanic, business wrangling, broadcasting innovation, battles with the press, and a life cut short.

    There's a lot to tell, so this is a longer episode than usual - sorry! Actually I'm not sorry... these chaps know their stuff, and it's an incredible tale.

    .

    SHOWNOTES:

     

    Next time: Episode 100! Your highlights of the British broadcasting origin story - Marconi, Melba, Eckersley, Reith and more. And maybe the Sykes Inquiry, if we get time (unlikely!)

    More info on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

     

    17 April 2025, 1:57 am
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