Television and Public Service Broadcasting: Industry, Institution and History

The first of our lecture on Television, Film and Video media provided us with details specifically focusing on the BBC and its initial development within society during its first years. We looked at the social context of the early twentieth century, for example the first world war. These concepts link closely with the emphasis on defining history mentioned by (Long and Wall: 2012, 453).

We also look at some of the issues surrounding media history, with one being that media is history (and does not merely just document it), "media texts are an aspect of the materiality of history." (Long and Wall: 2912, 459). The text then goes on to give audience advice on how to look at histories written, and the struggles that you may face, with emphasis on the chronology of timelines (Long and Wall: 2012, 466) and sources and archives, which allow audiences to understand the concept of primary and secondary sources, and other types of histories we may encounter.

The second set reading was one written by Glen Creeber, discussing the BBC and the origins of Public Service Broadcasting, and how social factors influenced the development of and shift towards more popular programming within the institution. Other key concepts found within the reading include John Reith and his initial role as Director-General and the influences made during his time within this role, as well as 'the BBC's slow shift towards more popular programming'(Creeber: 2003, 24) after Reith's departure from the institution. Creeber also considers factors such as the War, influences from the US and commercial broadcasting.

The text that I found was a written archive of the BBC. 'The BBC began as a commercial company - a consortium of radio manufacturers brought together by a government fearful of the kind of unrestricted development of the new medium they saw in the USA. It was, however, an unusual company with considerable ideologies and a strong sense of the importance of the work it was carrying out’ (Kavanaugh: 2004, 78). This quote provides an example of the commercialisation being brought into the UK from the US in (Creeber: 2003, 26), in which he mentions that the US allowed ‘entrepreneurialism to run amuck in the field of broadcasting’.

In terms of my own research, I found potential for a research investigation into the BBC further, focusing more intently on John Reith, looking solely at his influence on the culture of the BBC s a public service. In order to do so, I may look into a series of texts such as Creeber's (amongst others) to help me explore the ways in which his Arnoldian views shaped early broadcasting.

Bibliography;

CREEBER, GLEN (2003) The origins of Public Service Broadcasting (British Television before the war) in Michelle Hilmes (ed.) (2003) The Television History Book. London. BFI, Pp 22-26

KAVANAGH, JACQUELINE (2004) ’The BBC Written Archives’ IN Records Management Journal, (accessed 18th February 2015) Pp. 78-84

LONG, P and WALL, T (2012) 'Media Histories' in Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2nd edition, London: Pearson pp 448 – 481