WEBVTT - A Quick History of the BBC 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.720 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.319 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:16.759 should know. 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:20.720 That's right. You got a quick announcement. 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.239 Huh, I do huh? 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:24.759 I think so. 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.800 Well, if you're talking about our new playlist that's coming 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.040 out that one, that's right. Yeah, we have a new 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:32.480 playlist coming out, right, Chuck. 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.680 Yeah, this holiday season, I think coming out very soon. Actually, 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.840 we have the Twelve Days of Holiday Toys because we've 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.839 got lots of great toy episodes over the years and 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.680 we've compiled them together for the whole family to enjoy. 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.040 That's right, we love those toy episodes. I think it 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:51.640 comes out on December twelfth. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.160 Right, I think so. And that's what I mean in 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.880 real time. This's probably are not real time, but in 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.480 real podcast time this week. 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.680 I think I think so too. And what do you 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.080 have to do to get these episodes? You may ask nothing. 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:08.640 You don't have to lift a single finger. We're going 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:10.280 to put them in the feed like we have been 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:12.760 and hope you enjoy them. 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.080 Yeah, totally. And I have another announcement for this BBC episode. 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:21.759 Okay, is that how you say it the beb Yeah, 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:22.720 I've heard that too. 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:23.919 What do you say? 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:27.920 That's how I was going to say it? 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.800 The whole episodes this one even more so than a 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:32.679 lot of our others that are you know, you could 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.679 potentially do one hundred episodes on. This is like serious 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:41.720 overview territory. When you're talking about something as far reaching 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.640 and long standing and sort of legendary culturally as the 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:50.440 BBC is, I don't want our our listeners across the 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.560 pond to be like, guys, you're gonna give us, you know, 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:55.200 forty five minutes on the BBC. 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:00.640 That's exactly what we're going to do, and it's with love. Yeah, 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.760 and big thanks to our man in Britain Kyle, for 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:08.400 wrangling this huge, massive topic into something pretty pretty good 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:09.400 and understandable. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.880 Yeah, because I gotta say I love the BBC. Always have. Yeah, 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.480 since I was a little kid watching really yeah, watching 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.080 their content on public television. Uh huh, you know, everything 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:25.280 from Flying Circus to Benny Hill to Faulty Towers and 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.560 then having a British roommate in college. He would tell 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.280 me about the east Enders and you know, all the 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.119 all the you know, stuff that he grew up with, 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:35.160 and it's just been near and dere. I read the 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.520 BBC news all the time. It's just, you know, I 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:37.880 love it. 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.280 I definitely watched Benny Hill a lot when I was 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.440 a kid too, so I guess I didn't realize it 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:45.800 was BBC content, But it totally was, wasn't it. 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.359 Yeah, you just thought it was some guy who talked 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.760 funny from Indiana, right, who liked bear breasts. 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.360 Yes, he was really into boobs, man, he was. If 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.040 there was ever a person into boobs, it was Benny Hill. 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:01.000 Yeah, twelve year old chuck. 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.240 So yeah, that's cool. I guess I've loved the BBC 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.480 longer than I thought too, So this is it's a 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.600 hat tip, I guess, also a big thanks to the 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.480 BBC and also deeply critical of it. 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.000 Yeah, to this one hundred and three year old institution. 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.800 Yeah, just in time for it one hundred and third birthday. 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.360 So let's get started. You mentioned that it's called BIB. 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.440 I had not heard that before, but apparently it's quite accurate. 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.520 And the BIB you can liken it in the US 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.920 to MPR, where there's a lot of you know, accusations 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.320 of it being left leaning bias, and then people on 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.080 the left are like, no, it's right bias. It does 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.160 its best to stay middle ground if possible. It has 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:52.080 to do with public funding, but in a much different way. 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.440 It's a it's a venerable institution, but like way more 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.360 venerable than MPR. Public broadcasting is here in the United States. 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.760 It is a big chunk of British culture. And in 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:06.880 that sense, I get the sense that even people who 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:10.600 are like to hell with BBC still feel some sort 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.400 of like pride in the BBC in its existence. 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:15.800 Yeah, and you know that is all as we have 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.279 learned by design. That was no accident. It is the 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:24.960 world's largest broadcaster, has twenty one thousand plus employees, and 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:28.080 nobody knows it's the it's the oldest national broadcaster, and 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.239 nobody knows how many programs they put out. Kyle said 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.400 between ten and twenty million. So that's that's a lot 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:36.240 of stuff. And that's also a big cushion. 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:40.039 It really is as a margin. Yeah, that's called hedging. 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:42.920 Yeah, and that includes I think, you know, everything radio. 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.920 And because as we'll see, their little fingies are in 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:47.719 all the Figi puddings. 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:50.039 Yeah, and I mean, if you live in the UK, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.919 there's some way, shape or form that you're taking in 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:58.680 BBC content almost certainly because they dominate or they they 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:03.279 did at one point dominate radio, dominate television, now that 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.360 they blaze the trail onto the Internet as far as 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:09.320 news sites go, they have a huge web presence and 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.160 then in the like across the world as well. They 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.200 have what's called the World Service where you can watch 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.360 BBC news all over the world, so it's appropriately named, 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:20.279 and they say that they have an audience of almost 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:22.960 half a billion people around the world, and. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:23.480 I believe it. 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.560 I believe it too. I know probably two hundred and 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.520 fifty million people who watch the BBC myself. 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:35.400 Because should we go back to the beginning. 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.480 Yeah, let's go with the beginning, all right. 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:39.480 So we got to go I said it was one 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:41.080 hundred and three years old. So if you carry the one, 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.159 you subtract that nineteen twenty two is where we're going 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:56.919 in our British wayback machine. Mind the gap, which you 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:01.440 know runs on coal and shepherd's pie and October eighteen, 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:03.479 nineteen twenty two is where we're going because that is 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.400 where the British Broadcasting Company was formed before they became 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:11.960 the corporation as a partnership between what they called the 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.720 post Office, which at the time was basically there they 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:19.240 ran the telegraph service over there, and the Marconi Company, 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.240 who said, I got a lot of radios. I'd like 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.120 to assail, but you got nothing to put on the radio. 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:27.320 Oh, we haven't heard that in a while. 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:28.440 It's been a minute. 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.520 So yeah. Remember in our AM radio episode we talked 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.760 about the Marconi Company setting up companies all over the world. Yeah, 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.640 this is a good example of that. And the British 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.080 government was like, hey, how about this. We will make 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:46.120 sure you have zero competition. That will give you a monopoly, 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.040 but you got to make some pretty good content here. 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.080 We want to hear good stuff. Right now, all we 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:55.680 hear is and we want to hear better stuff than that. Yeah, 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.680 And so the Marconi Company set us up. They established 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.159 this this station, like you said, in nineteen twenty two, 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.839 and I guess five years later the British government was like, 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.320 this is ours now, this is a state owned monopoly. 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.280 I don't know what happened to the Marconi Company, but 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.320 it sounds like they got hung out to dry. I 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.080 guess is the nicest way I can put it. 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.040 Yeah, I bet they did. Okay, So that was twenty 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.280 seven when it became the Broadcasting Corporation and very you know, 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:26.600 kind of right out of the gate, they were like, 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:28.960 here's what we're gonna do. We're not gonna it's gonna 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:33.560 be this weird hybrid of culture and entertainment kind of 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.760 ran through run through the government, but supposedly the government 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:42.280 doesn't intervene too much. It's kind of hard to reckon 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:44.679 how that all works, and sometimes it works really well. 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.400 Sometimes there's been a lot of controversy. But what they 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:49.760 did decide early on is we're not going to advertise 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:54.720 we're not going to tax people outwardly. At least, we're 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.200 going to have what's called a license fee, which is 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.960 this to us in the United States, a very strange 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:05.480 sort of arrangement wherein households pay a certain amount of 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.160 money starting in nineteen twenty three with ten shillings a 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.560 year to fund the BBC. And that's like your household 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.360 license to listen to and then later watch stuff on 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:19.480 television and listen on the radio, like. 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:21.520 You have to have a license to watch TV in 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:23.160 the UK, is what you're saying. 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.840 Yeah, but they don't say, all right, now here's the 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.400 codes to turn it on. I mean, I guess, is 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.360 it just like an honor system? 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.360 That's what Kyle. So we had to follow up with 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:36.640 Kyle or like, we do not get this license thing 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.360 because it's just you Brits just take it as like 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.040 it's just the most normal thing in the world. It's not. 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.400 So it turns out that it does seem to be 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.600 on an honor system, and that most people follow that 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.920 in part because most people have honor. But also there's 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.840 apparently a very real threat that the BBC will send 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.160 out some government goons to show up at your door 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.400 step and be like, hey, are you do you have 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:05.960 a TV license? And I guess some people think that 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.840 it's it's incumbent upon them to open their door and 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.080 let the person in to see that they have a 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:14.600 TV and they can't produce a license and you can 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.600 get fined one thousand dollars. 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:18.040 And apparently they have trucks. 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.880 They say pounds thank you, which is more than one 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.160 thousand dollars. You should have also said the goon squad, 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.880 I should have let me just retake this whole Let's 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:28.080 just start at the beginning again. 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.000 You have to put on your newsboy cap and get 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:32.600 out your cup of tea to really get in the zone, 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:32.960 you know. 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:38.320 Really my Lipton's BlackBerry tea. Yeah, but apparently they will 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.040 come to your house. So think about this, right. If 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.920 you are not in the UK and you subscribe to 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:49.479 Netflix and you get Netflix because you're using a friend's password, 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.000 imagine if Netflix showed up on your doorstep and said 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:54.480 are you getting Netflix for free? 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:55.240 Yeah? 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.120 And you say no, and they say prove it, let 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:58.640 me in, let me go, let me go check and 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.840 see if you have Netflix, because we know you don't 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.280 have your own account. That's essentially what they do with that. 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:09.559 Yeah. I believe the Color TV license for twenty twenty 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:14.240 five is one hundred and seventy four pounds fifty twenty 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:18.120 two point eight million people pay this about twelve percent, 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.480 don't They just sort of evade that cost for a 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.200 total of about three point eight billion pounds that goes 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.280 to the BBC and the government. But this license expires 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.600 in twenty twenty seven, and there's a lot of himming 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.400 and howeing going on over what's going to happen next. 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.160 Yeah. Over the course of its history, these ten year 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:40.080 charters that they get that get renewed and reviewed. Usually 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.920 the government wants something in return, or at the very 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.720 least rakes them over the coals publicly. But it does 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.600 seem from what I was reading that this does seem 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.560 like to be a particularly dire situation for the BBC 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:54.280 in their charter. 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:55.720 Yeah, for sure. 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:58.640 So there's a lot of people who are like, no, 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.880 let's get rid of the ABC altogether, or let's let 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.280 them compete in the free market. They can sell ads. 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.320 It's an unfair, aggressive tax where the poorest people have 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.600 to pay the most percentage of their income for it, 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:13.920 whether they want to or not, just to watch TV. 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.400 There's a lot of competing ideas for what to do, 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.760 and the BBC's like, how about this, let's just not 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.520 change anything and increase the license fee a little bit. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:26.720 And they're getting crickets back right now. 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.079 Yeah, they're getting crickets. So time will tell. In twenty 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:34.800 twenty seven, will report back what happened, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.199 a little follow up, But let's go back to the beginning, 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.000 because they had a guiding light at the beginning which 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.640 I was talking about, which was after the World War One, 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.760 the Great war. They really said, let's let's start this 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.560 thing to embody what it means to be a Britain 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.360 and to sort of get our common culture out there 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.280 to the world through you know, sports obviously would come along, 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.760 and music and interviews and documentaries and plays and things 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:05.720 at the time. And there were three dudes early on 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.719 that were the I guess the founders. Cecil Lewis, who 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.960 was a fighter pilot, former fighter pilot. 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.319 Man, you were nailing the British pronunciations here. 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.520 He might have gone by Cecil, I don't know, a 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.560 broadcaster named Arthur Burrows. And their first director General, who 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.320 was the person in charge of the whole thing. His 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:26.400 name was John I think, right. 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:27.839 I'm going with Wreath. 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.040 You're going with Wreath and the director General is in charge. 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.079 But they also there's also a government board of governors 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.360 that they work with or maybe answer to. 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.480 Right. And one of the things about the BBC, one 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:41.920 of the reasons it's so venerated, it was a huge 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.640 trailblazer thanks to these three guys in their vision. I 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.520 saw that John Reith was described by the New World 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.240 Encyclopedia as a man of high intelligence, great ambition, and 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.480 rigid moral views and just like out of the gate, 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:01.040 they set the standard for broadcasting, for broadcast journey for 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.520 what it meant to kind of create a common culture. 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.640 Remember in our Saturday Morning Cartoon episode we talked about 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.680 how Saturday Morning Cartoons played like a bardic function. Yeah, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.120 it gives a common culture to a bunch of people. 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.520 That was like part of their goal was to create 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.520 a common British culture and that happened right after World 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.120 War One. At the time, nobody had anything in common, 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.520 so it was a good thing that the BBC came along. 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.440 Yeah, and this was in the infancy of radio at 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.719 the time and such that Kyle dug up this kind 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.800 of fun thing. I guess there was a sign in 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.720 some of the recording studios and broadcasting studios where it 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:43.800 said you will all caps deafen thousands. So people didn't 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:45.120 know what they were doing, so they really had to 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.720 kind of figure this whole thing out. It was a 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.760 very intimidating thing, you know, early on to sit in 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:52.520 front of a microphone when no one had done that 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:56.040 kind of thing before. And even Arthur Burrows as a broadcaster, 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.240 he said broadcasting to millions was awful and they were 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.960 worried about getting you know, quote some madman on the 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.360 microphone who could do a lot of damage. So it 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.880 was a it was a pretty intimidating thing at first 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:10.319 when they were getting their feet wet. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:15.160 Yeah, And so for people outside of Britain too, the 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.320 BBC was it. They were the only radio station, not 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.880 because there were there was no competition. They had a 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.760 monopoly for years and years and years. They had a 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.280 monopoly on radio and then television. So just bear that 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.280 in mind. So it was really incumbent upon these guys, 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.920 and they realized their responsibility to be the provider of 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.000 mass communication for their entire nation, and they took that 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:40.360 responsibility seriously. And they started the whole thing out on 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:45.160 November fourteenth, nineteen twenty two, with the call sign TWOLO 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.880 that was their broadcast license from the Marconi Company, and 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:56.200 Arthur Burrows said, Hello, Hello, this is too low the 0:14:56.320 --> 0:15:01.760 London station of the British Broadcasting Company call too WELLO calling, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:03.960 and that was my Arthur Burroughs. 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.320 It's pretty good. Keep in mind everyone, he was very 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:10.360 nervous on the first day. That's why Josh sounded liked that. 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:14.600 Then he went on to just sort of get the 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:16.640 content underway. He did a one minute weather and news 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.240 bulletin and this is adorable. Then he repeated it slower 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.400 so people could take notes to I guess, read back 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:27.440 to their family. And from the get go they didn't 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.720 call it BBC English at the time. What it was 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:35.440 called was received pronunciation. But it was this sort of 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:38.840 accent that they all agreed would be the accent. They 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.360 didn't like regional accents coming on and everyone sort of 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.400 doing their own thing. They opted for this middle class 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:49.400 southern English that like at the Eton School, where it 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:50.560 was just sort of the same. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.960 Yeah, apparently have been generating among aristocrats since like the 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.960 eighteenth century. And at that same time there were colonists 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.360 who were setting up the call colonies in North America 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:05.000 who had separated from that, and so there are in 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.800 some ways a lot more similarities to how Americans talk 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.920 today to how people in Shakespeare's time would have spoken 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:15.880 than the people in Great Britain today and the UK 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.320 have with the people in Shakespeare's time, especially hard ours 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.680 like Shakespeare would have been like what is a car 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:30.480 or the h's instead of Henry Higgins, right, you would 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:35.160 say Henry Higgins. That's how Americans say it. So those 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.360 two big differences. That's how Brits used to speak before, 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.120 like I guess about the eighteen hundreds. 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:43.360 Yeah, and so they you know, they got the ball 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:45.800 rolling very fast on all kinds of content. In the 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:50.400 nineteen twenties, they had something called the Children's Hour, They 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.880 started playing live concerts at some of London's you know, 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:58.120 venerated halls. In nineteen twenty seven, they started sports broadcasting 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.320 with the FA Cup Final, which the very first ever 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:05.360 live commentary for any event, not just sports. And by 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:07.000 the end of the nineteen twenties, by the end of 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.840 that first decade, really just eight years, they had two 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.200 million license holders. Those were households, so they had a 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.160 lot more than that as active listeners, and they were 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.639 a venerated, respected institution kind of right out of the. 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.439 Gate, yes, But before that they ran into their first 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.600 major headbut with government. And I say, we take a 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:29.280 break and come back and talk about. 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:30.880 That about chew chill. 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:47.119 That's right, We'll be right back, so, Chuck. We talked 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.600 about them headbutting with government and the first time it 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.600 ever happened was with the nineteen twenty six general strike, 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.280 which is when a bunch of people go on strike 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.119 from all different kinds of professions, and they were doing 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:02.880 this in sympathy with coal miners. I think more than 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:07.240 a million coal miners were having their wages reduced, and 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.960 so a bunch of different people from different professions went 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.400 on strike, and that included print workers at the newspapers. 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:18.160 So the newspapers effectively shut down except for the British Gazette, 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.840 which was a government owned newspaper. And the government owned 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.000 newspapers like this strike sucks and everybody who likes it 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.080 sucks too. But that left the BBC is the only 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:32.200 form of mass communication reporting on this stuff. And apparently 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.119 Winston Churchill was not very happy with the idea that 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:40.440 the BBC, the government owned monopoly, was not just being 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.119 like this strike sucks and anybody likes it sucks. They 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:44.760 were reporting neutrally on it. 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.040 Yeah, he was Finance Minister at the time, but he 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:51.560 had a lot of sway, obviously, and he was like, hey, 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.080 I think we should declare an emergency and take over 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:59.600 the BBC. And the Director General resisted. Reith did and 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.240 he said, no, we're not gonna let that happen. But 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.879 they it seems like they were strong armed into not 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.399 airing the other side as much. One example is when 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.920 they had Prime Minister Stanley bald went on at one 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.719 point and this was at Rice's house. They were broadcasting 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.680 out of the leader of the opposition, Ramsey McDonald was like, well, 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.040 I'd get to come on now, too, right, and the 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:25.480 government refused that. So they remained, you know, through the 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:30.480 rest of the strike somewhat impartial. They didn't let McDonald on, 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.639 but they did block Churchill basically from being on the 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.080 BBC until he resigned in nineteen thirty eight. So they 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:38.520 were like, you're never coming on here. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.600 No, that's quite a coup actually, because Churchill talk and 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:48.000 give speeches, so throughout the forties or the beginning of 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.960 the forties through World War Two, they managed to hang 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.840 on and keep reporting as best as possible. The radio 0:19:54.920 --> 0:20:00.600 definitely did. It became a government propagand it's outlet. Some 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.280 of the European powers that had been overrun by the 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:06.680 Nazis and it made their way to the UK used 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:10.840 the BBC to broadcast to their people back home, or 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.040 I think the Polish army in exile, a Polish government 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:20.159 in exile sent coded messages to Polish resistance forces. It 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:24.240 still kept going. Apparently their studio was bombed in nineteen 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.920 forty and it took out a lot of the top 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.520 few floors, but luckily they were broadcasting out of the 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.359 basement still, and I guess the guy who was reading 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:37.280 the news at the time dusted the script off and 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:41.040 kept reading. You heard kind of a boom in the background, 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:43.720 but the news reader basically didn't miss a beat. 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.959 Yeah, they kept going because they had that charge to 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:51.000 do so. In the nineteen thirties is when TV came along. 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.240 So at the beginning there was a Scotsman named John 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:58.040 Logi Baird. This was in nineteen twenty six where he 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:02.000 had this really archaic at you know, I guess it 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.679 was pretty advanced for the time, but archaic now a 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:09.600 mechanical system where they had rotating discs scanning and displaying images. 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.400 And so they said, all right, that's good enough for now. 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.159 It's nineteen thirty two. No one will know that this 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:15.920 isn't very good. 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:16.800 I can't imagine. 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.199 They put out a very experimental thirty line service to 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.720 demonstrate that it didn't look so great. But it didn't 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.040 take very long before they had Marconi came along again 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.240 and said that he had a better system along with EMI, 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.560 and in nineteen thirty six they had the first high 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:37.640 def television service launched from Alexandra Palace in North London. 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:39.960 And at the time, high deaf meant two hundred and 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.919 forty lines of resolution or more. 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:47.120 Yeah, which is nuts because TV high def today has 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.639 something like two hundred and fifty. Yeah, at least at 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:57.679 least so the BBC TV so BBC Radio continued broadcasting 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:01.040