May 28, 2025

#100 The Century! British Broadcasting's Story So Far, 1895-1923

53 minutes

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:

Original music is by Will Farmer.

Our re-enactment of the first BBC broadcast is on Youtube.

Dr Andrea Smith's new book is Shakespeare on the Radio, published by Edinburgh University Press.

Alan Stafford's book is Bigamy Called the Radio Star, published by Fantom.

Paul's latest Substack article is about Arthur Burrows (first voice of the BBC) and his link with the Eurovision. I claim there's no Eurovision with him! Find it on paulkerensa.substack.com

See Paul Kerensa on tour, with An Evening of (Very) Old Radio: www.paulkerensa.com/tour.

The Early Recordings Association Conference takes place at The University of Surrey, Guildford this July. I'll be presenting on 1 July. Details here: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/events/20250701-early-recordings-association-era-conference-2025

Also catch Paul at the Religion Media Festival on Monday 9 June: https://religionmediacentre.org.uk/events/religion-media-festival-2025/

This podcast is nothing to do with the BBC. Any BBC copyright content is reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. We try to use clips so old they're beyond copyright, but you never know. Copyright's complicated...

Comments? Email the show - paul at paulkerensa dot com.

Do like/share/rate/review this podcast - it all helps.

Support us on Patreon (£5/mth), for bonus videos and things - and thanks if you do!

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

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

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By Paul Kerensa

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