In 1923, the popularity of BBC broadcasts had grown to the point that a dedicated listing magazine was needed, and the Radio Times was launched. This helped to promote the various programs and events that were being broadcasted, and it quickly became a beloved publication for radio enthusiasts.
That same year, the BBC made history by broadcasting their first-ever outside production. This was the British National Opera's rendition of The Magic Flute, which was performed at Covent Garden. Additionally, new transmitters were opened in Glasgow, Sheffield, Aberdeen, and Bournemouth, expanding the BBC's coverage and reach throughout the UK.
Finally, as the year came to a close, the BBC made history yet again by broadcasting the chimes of Big Ben on New Year's Eve. This was the first time that this iconic sound was transmitted over the radio, and it marked a special moment for both the BBC and the people of Britain.
Radio Times
"It was launched in a fit of pique. In January 1923, the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association announced that it would be charging the three-month-old British Broadcasting Company the standard advertising rates for publishing its radio listings in newspapers. Although the newspapers capitulated the following month, realising that not including the broadcasting schedules would affect their circulations, the BBC’s general manager, John Reith, was irritated by their attitude and it gave him an idea."
[joe moran's words]
The very first issue of the Radio Times.
[BBC Programme Index]
"The first edition of Radio Times magazine hit the bookstands in September 1923. Nine decades later, radio historian Simon Elmes discovers that music, and particularly classical music has always been a staple ingredient of its success formula."
[BBC Sounds][BBC Programme Index]
Off and Running
BBC gets licence
"Extract of a letter from General Post Office to the Secretary of State for the Colonial Office about the licensing of the BBC, 8 March, 1923."
[The National Archives]
"Extract of a letter from General Post Office to the Secretary of State for the Colonial Office about the licensing of the BBC, 8 March, 1923."
[The National Archives]
"John Charles Walsham Reith was born on 20 July 1889 at Stonehaven, Kincardineshire. He was the seventh, and youngest child, of the Reverend Dr George Reith, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, and his wife Adah Mary Weston, the daughter of a wealthy London stockbroker."
Includes reproduction of his birth registry.
[Scotlands People]
"Here, BBC Chairman Lord Gainford reflects on the BBC's first year."
[Audioboom]
"In the earliest days of radio, women commented on 'household matters', talked about their garden or their travels - writers Vita Sackville-West and Rebecca West were regulars - and became Children's Hour 'Aunts'; but certainly never read the news. On the other hand, the young BBC employed a number of brilliant young women behind the microphone who shaped the earliest days of programme-making."
[BBC Sounds][BBC Programme Index]
"We reveal the vast activities behind the organization of the B.B.C. Studio shots of band playing. Announcer at mike. Instrument panels. Shots of the staff at work. Pan shots around machinery. Studio shot of string band playing. Sound proof booth with man wearing headphones. Announcer introduces the next tune. Lamp flashes on wall. Band starts playing. Operators at work. Exterior shot of radio tower. Pan down from tower."
[British Movietone]
"On January 1923, one of the earliest outside broadcasts from the newly formed BBC took place - The Magic Flute performed at Covent Garden by The British National Opera Company. The programme was a statement of intent by the early BBC as broadcasting was a revolutionary way in which culture could be brought to many people through their new wireless sets. Ever since its foundation 100 years ago, the BBC has been an arena in which debates have played out about what sorts of culture the British people want or need."
[BBC Sounds][BBC Programme Index]
"We sometimes imagine, looking back, that change happens overnight. The BBC’s first Director-General John Reith, predicted that ‘broadcasting is a development with which the future must reckon and reckon seriously’. But when it began in 1922 few listeners can have foreseen how broadcast media would come to dominate our lives over the next hundred years."
[Poetry Archive]
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