HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-03-12T16:06:25.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Black America on British airwaves
items: Radio Times at 100: a "vivid running commentary" on a century of British life
items: The BBC's entry into the digital age
items: BBC & scandal: in the eye of the storm
items: The BBC and the birth of the television age
items: Politics and public broadcasting: 1950s friction between government and the BBC
items: The battle for ratings: how EastEnders saved the BBC
items: The BBC at 100: what can history tell us about its future?
items: The BBC changes its tune to play the sounds of the sixties
items: The BBC goes into the wild: the rise of natural history television and David Attenborough

Black America on British airwaves
type: item
date: 2025-03-12T16:06:25.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Sixty years ago, inspired by the tumultuous civil rights struggle in the US, BBC Radio aired a groundbreaking series of documentaries, music and drama exploring black culture. David Hendy explains how African-American voices were beamed into British living rooms
encoded: BBC Television was in buoyant mood in 1964. A purpose-built Television Centre had opened in London; BBC Two launched that April; audiences were booming. In comparison, the corporation’s ‘senior service’, Radio, was showing its age – undervalued and under-resourced, losing its audiences and uncertain about its future. Yet even this supposedly dying medium could still pull the occasional rabbit out of a hat. Read more | The history of the BBC And when it came to covering that November’s US presidential election, it would be BBC Radio, not Television, that came up with the year’s most original idea: a blockbuster series about the black American civil rights struggle that would expose British listeners to sounds, voices and opinions they were unlikely to have ever heard or seen before. BBC Radio had an uneven history when it came to diversity and racial politics. In the 1930s, listeners to the National Programme would have heard music from black artists such as Paul Robeson and Guyanese bandleader Rudolph Dunbar with his ‘Coloured Orchestra’. In the 1950s, the Home Service broadcast hard-hitting reports about the racism experienced by Britain’s ‘Windrush Generation’ of immigrants. Yet, whatever their fine intentions, broadcasters had often slipped into stereotyping black contributors: if they weren’t playing walk-on parts as entertainers, they were appearing as part of a ‘problem’ to be solved. Read more | The forgotten history of Windrush This was symptomatic of a wider failure. When the veteran features producer Geoffrey Bridson told the Home Service he wanted to make a programme about “the integration struggle” in the US Deep South, it had been rejected out of hand – as had his other proposals about the atom bomb and anti-nuclear campaigners. The Home Service, he reckoned, just “never regarded itself as a pacemaker for public opinion”. Even in the 1960s, when the BBC’s new director-general, Hugh Carleton Greene, urged programme-makers to give audiences a healthy shoc…

GettyImages-517262070-CMYK-06ef39a-e1741795264905.jpg
width: 620
height: 396

Radio Times at 100: a "vivid running commentary" on a century of British life
type: item
date: 2023-09-27T05:46:11.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: 21st Century
subject: General Modern
subject: Period
subject: TV interest
description: Since its launch in 1923 as the BBC’s official listings guide, the magazine has charted enormous shifts in media and society alike. David Hendy explores how its pages reflected changes across Britain
encoded: When Radio Times first hit newsstands, on Friday 28 September 1923, few predicted that a printed schedule of programmes would become what one of its editors proclaimed “the most prosperous and successful timetable in the world”. It was initially described somewhat ponderously as “The Official Organ of the BBC”. Broadcasting, and broadcasting alone, was to be its subject matter. Yet broadcasting would soon bring the entire world into our sitting rooms, and broadcasting’s ‘shop-window’ would become a vivid running commentary on British life. The magazine was launched in response to a temporary newspaper boycott of broadcast listings. In January 1923, the proprietors of Fleet Street – perceiving radio to be a threat to their business – had refused to publish details of the BBC’s upcoming programmes unless it paid a hefty fee. The solution was to go it alone – though, to begin with, the BBC needed the help of a commercial printer. Read more | The history of the BBC The first edition, priced modestly at 2d for 36 pages of closely typeset text and a smattering of pictures, ran to a quarter of a million copies – and quickly sold out. Its central offer was a bald day-by-day list of output from the BBC’s six stations in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff, Newcastle and Glasgow. The listings expanded in lockstep with broadcasting’s wider evolution. In the 1930s, readers could enjoy a choice between the ‘National’ and ‘Regional’ Programmes, and the first output of experimental late-night television. During the Second World War, the Forces Programme appeared. In the 1960s, BBC2 (now BBC Two) and local radio arrived. More recently, a plethora of satellite and digital channels were launched, competing since the 2000s with streaming services such as Netflix. The growth in column inches was not quite unceasing. Paper rationing during the Second World War meant drastic cuts in size and quality, not fully reversed until the 1960s. There were stripped-down issues for the 1947 fue…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/09/Television-number06821936jpg-e8711bf.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

The BBC's entry into the digital age
type: item
date: 2022-11-16T14:33:51.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: 21st Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: BBC at 100
subject: Computing
description: The technological innovations of the 1980s and 1990s enabled the BBC to bring audiences fresh content via new platforms. Yet, as David Hendy explores in the final episode of his series charting the national broadcaster’s history, the rapidly changing media world also poses a threat to the future of the corporation
encoded: The playwright David Hare wrote recently that, alongside the NHS and the welfare state, the BBC represents “the finest expression of mid-20th-century public idealism”. Yet, from our vantage point in the third decade of the 21st century, such praise can be a dangerous thing. It associates the BBC with past glories: the analogue era, “old media”, the world of radio and television. This raises a profound existential question for an organisation marking its 100th birthday. Having emerged in the first wireless age, can it survive in anything like its current form in the era of internet, mobile social media and high-spending multinational streaming giants? Before reaching for the most pessimistic answer, it’s worth remembering that the BBC kick-started Britain’s own media revolution in the first place. In the early 1980s, the corporation’s education department, alert to warnings of a shortage in computing skills, began working with colleagues in research and development, and with scientists employed by Acorn, to develop what became the BBC Micro. A personal computer designed to be both cheap and easy to use, the Micro – with its distinctive chunky keyboard and orange function keys – became a fixture in homes and classrooms. It enabled tens of thousands of adults and children with no previous computing experience to learn the so-called Basic programming language. And it was just one part of a wider computer literacy project built around TV programmes, instructional books and a support network for teachers. Explore the history of the BBC This is the final part in a 13-part series by David Hendy that charts how the BBC shaped the nation. Read more about the history of the BBC: Part 1 | The BBC begins: how a group of radio pioneers launched one of Britain's most famous institutions Part 2 | Broadcasting House: a new home for the BBC Part 3 | Andy Pandy to Blue Peter: how the BBC captivated little citizens Part 4 | From "exotic" attractions to changing racial attitudes: the BB…

274321cmyk-34ea589.png
width: 620
height: 413

BBC & scandal: in the eye of the storm
type: item
date: 2022-10-18T10:25:17.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: BBC at 100
description: The past two decades have seen the BBC rocked by a series of scandals that raised questions about its culture and practices – and tested its relationship with politicians and the public alike. David Hendy charts the revelations and their aftermath, in part 11 of our 13-part series on the history of the BBC
encoded: In the entrance to the BBC’s London headquarters, Broadcasting House, there’s an interesting Latin inscription that refers to broadcasting in the original biblical sense of scattering seed: “And they pray that good seed sown may bring forth good harvest, and that all things foul or hostile to peace may be banished thence, and that the people inclining their ear to whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, may tread the path of virtue and wisdom.” In the years since those words were inscribed, “things foul or hostile” have proved frustratingly hard to erase. And the BBC has been rocked by a number of scandals erupting from within its own portals. As The Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins observed, the BBC “is where the British gather to fight their most vicious culture wars… it has crisis in its bones”. But some fights prove more damaging than others. And over the past two decades, a 24-hours-a-day media world has made it easier than ever for its opponents to amplify any mistakes – large and small. Nor has an increasingly nervy BBC always defended itself well against their attacks. The first major crisis of the new century to hit the BBC concerned the invasion of Iraq by British and American forces, and precipitated a bitter falling out with Tony Blair’s government. Hostilities opened on the morning of 29 May 2003 with a soon-to-be-infamous broadcast on Radio 4. Just after 6am, the Today programme’s defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, took to the microphone to talk about the latest twist in the saga of Iraq’s elusive “weapons of mass destruction” – weapons the government had suggested could be launched against British interests within 45 minutes, and which had therefore become a major justification for military intervention. Gilligan now suggested not just that the 45-minute figure mentioned in an intelligence dossier was wrong but that the government had known it was wrong. Explore the history of the BBC This is …

2BX8YGDhistoryextra-1af7820.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

The BBC and the birth of the television age
type: item
date: 2022-10-18T10:07:02.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: BBC at 100
description: In 1936, the BBC launched its new TV service – and changed British broadcasting at a stroke. In part ten of our 13-part series on the history of the BBC, David Hendy charts the technological innovations that produced the so-called “magic rays” – and explores the delights they offered the viewing public
encoded: For the first 14 years of its life, the BBC had been synonymous with radio. But on 2 November 1936, the corporation launched the world’s first regular “high-definition” television service. And although it would take more than two decades for this new medium to become a mass social phenomenon, the meaning of the term “broadcasting” changed almost overnight. The BBC was now on the path of becoming supplier to the nation not just of sound but of sound and vision. Shortly after 3pm at the Alexandra Palace studios on the slopes of Muswell Hill, the BBC Television Orchestra began to play. The musical comedy star Adele Dixon then stepped out before the cameras to sing some freshly minted lines about “a mighty maze” of magic rays soaring through the sky. Soon after, the African-American song-and-dance duo Buck and Bubbles, plus Chinese plate-spinners the Lai Founs, also arrived at the studios for short turns before the cameras. These performances were beamed out live from the 90-metre-high steel transmitter soaring from the building’s roof, and in several hundred living rooms across London and the home counties, the BBC’s “magic rays” served them up on strange-looking receivers around which were gathered the nation’s small but dedicated tribe of “lookers in”. There would be more entertainment later that evening, though not until the service had shut down for five hours: evening meals and children’s bedtimes were sacrosanct. Explore the history of the BBC This is part nine in a 13-part series by David Hendy that charts how the BBC shaped the nation. Read more about the history of the BBC: Part 1 | The BBC begins: how a group of radio pioneers launched one of Britain's most famous institutions Part 2 | Broadcasting House: a new home for the BBC Part 3 | Andy Pandy to Blue Peter: how the BBC captivated little citizens Part 4 | From "exotic" attractions to changing racial attitudes: the BBC's slow progress to mirror multicultural Britain Part 5 | The BBC changes its tune to pla…

211181webready-0312c05.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

Politics and public broadcasting: 1950s friction between government and the BBC
type: item
date: 2022-10-18T09:25:13.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: BBC at 100
description: The 1956 Suez Crisis caused long-simmering tensions between the BBC and the government to boil over – and, as David Hendy explores in part nine of our 13-part series on the history of the BBC, marked the start of a shift in the relationship between politicians and the public
encoded: In November 1956, a 14-minute televised address to the nation by the British prime minister Anthony Eden triggered possibly the single biggest Cold War-era clash between government and the BBC. It stripped bare the intimate, if awkward, relationship between professional broadcasters and the worlds of Westminster and Whitehall. But behind the row lurked another battle between sharply different views on the proper role of television in reporting politics. The broadcast, on the evening of Saturday 3 November, represented Eden’s hurried attempt to justify a botched and ill-judged military adventure of his own making. In the wake of Egypt’s recent nationalisation of the Suez Canal, Israeli forces had invaded the Sinai Peninsula at the end of October. Israel’s action had been secretly planned in collaboration with Britain and France, in order to justify a subsequent occupation of the Canal Zone by British and French paratroopers. Read more about the Suez Crisis Eden’s collusion had initially been a secret known only to a handful of close ministers and advisors. Yet there was disquiet about Britain’s whole response to Egypt’s nationalisation. Even before the first British paratroopers had landed, Eden felt compelled to go before the BBC’s cameras to explain what was happening. In his broadcast, he spoke of Britain’s military intervention as a form of “police action” and claimed that he had acted “rightly and wisely”. His words weren’t enough to assuage the UN, which condemned the use of force, nor the US, which pressed for an almost immediate ceasefire. Before long, British and French troops had been forced into a humiliating withdrawal. The problem for the BBC was that the crisis had already divided public and political opinion. The Labour party, in particular, was vehemently opposed to Eden’s policy. Oliver Whitley, the assistant controller of the BBC’s Overseas Services, later explained the dilemma facing senior staff at the time. Explore the history of the BBC This is …

GettyImages-3403545webready-530a306.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

The battle for ratings: how EastEnders saved the BBC
type: item
date: 2022-08-26T09:57:51.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: BBC at 100
subject: TV interest
description: In the 1980s, the BBC devised a new weapon in its ratings battle against ITV: EastEnders. In part eight of our 13-part series on the history of the BBC, David Hendy explores how a mix of masterful publicity and melodramatic plots propelled the drama to popular success...
encoded: One of the most unlikely episodes in British television history unfolded on an isolated Devon hillside one evening in September 1986. It was then that around 60 inmates at Dartmoor Prison, who had been spending “free association” watching the BBC’s hit drama serial EastEnders, started rioting. Chairs and tables were broken up, and lightbulbs smashed. Afterwards, officials launched an urgent investigation. Had the poor quality of food just served for supper triggered the outburst? Not, it seemed, in this case. It had been TV – or rather, its temporary absence – that had apparently caused the fracas. On the night in question, EastEnders had featured one of the main characters, the teenage mother Michelle Fowler, jilt her sweetheart, Lofty, at the altar and declare her love instead for the father of her baby: the landlord of the Queen Vic pub, “Dirty Den” Watts. In soap-opera terms, it was a classic moment of high drama, and around 20 million Britons – roughly half the adult population of the entire country – had tuned in. At the crucial moment, all reception in Dartmoor Prison had been lost – the latest in a growing list of reception failures at the institution. By the time the picture returned to normal, all the inmates could see was Lofty crying alone in his bedsit. Explore the history of the BBC This is part 8 in a 13-part series by David Hendy that charts how the BBC shaped the nation. Read more about the history of the BBC: Part 1 | The BBC begins: how a group of radio pioneers launched one of Britain's most famous institutions Part 2 | Broadcasting House: a new home for the BBC Part 3 | Andy Pandy to Blue Peter: how the BBC captivated little citizens Part 4 | From "exotic" attractions to changing racial attitudes: the BBC's slow progress to mirror multicultural Britain Part 5 | The BBC changes its tune to play the sounds of the sixties Part 6 | The BBC's Third Programme troubled championing of "high culture" Part 7 | The BBC goes into the wild: the rise of natur…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/08/GettyImages-webready81641874sml-f2adc08.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

The BBC at 100: what can history tell us about its future?
type: item
date: 2022-08-23T10:38:21.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: 21st Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: BBC at 100
subject: TV interest
description: Media historian David Hendy explores what the corporation’s history can tell us about its future
encoded: In the final instalment of our series marking the BBC’s centenary, David Hendy explores what the corporation’s history can tell us about its future. He spoke to Matt Elton about the challenges that the corporation has faced in the 21st century – and what looking back at its past can tell us about its future. David Hendy is the author of The BBC: A People’s History (Profile Books, 2022). Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

Pod-BBC-at-100-series-WL-ba06a03.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

The BBC changes its tune to play the sounds of the sixties
type: item
date: 2022-08-04T07:09:22.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: BBC at 100
subject: TV interest
description: Facing fleets of pirate radio stations and teenagers hungry to hear the latest hits, the BBC had to change its tune. In part five of our 13-part series on the history of the BBC, David Hendy explores how it appealed to young new audiences with the launch of Radio 1, and turned their roster of irreverent and finger-on-the-pulse DJs into stars...
encoded: At 7am on Saturday 30 September 1967, in a windowless studio in London, a pop revolution was ignited. Watched by his producer, the 24-year-old disc-jockey Tony Blackburn switched on his microphone, welcomed listeners across Britain to “the exciting new sound of Radio 1” and placed onto his turntable Flowers in the Rain, the latest single from The Move. “It wasn’t one of my favourite records,” Blackburn later confessed, but “I wanted something nice and happy, something that reflected that era.” As the “Summer of Love” – a season of flower-power, love-ins and teach-ins – reached its psychedelic close, the BBC unveiled a new radio station dedicated to the latest tunes. The newspapers were agog. The Sunday Telegraph talked of a “gimmick ridden” corporation sending the nation’s teenagers into orbit. The Observer declared it “Auntie’s first freak-out”. Never had a freak-out been so widely advertised in advance or so meticulously prepared for. Back in 1964, the fleet of unlicensed “pirate” radio ships that suddenly began beaming non-stop chart hits to mainland Britain from just outside its territorial waters had prompted a flurry of activity both within the BBC, understandably anxious about losing millions of listeners, and in the corridors of government, which worried about copyright and its obligation to enforce international laws over wavelengths. Explore the history of the BBC This is part 5 in a 13-part series by David Hendy that charts how the BBC shaped the nation. Read more about the history of the BBC: Part 1 | The BBC begins: how a group of radio pioneers launched one of Britain's most famous institutions Part 2 | Broadcasting House: a new home for the BBC Part 3 | Andy Pandy to Blue Peter: how the BBC captivated little citizens Part 4 | From "exotic" attractions to changing racial attitudes: the BBC's slow progress to mirror multicultural Britain Part 6 | The BBC's Third Programme troubled championing of "high culture" Part 7 | The BBC goes into the wild: the ri…

GettyImages-562619471webready-a00b826.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

The BBC goes into the wild: the rise of natural history television and David Attenborough
type: item
date: 2022-07-30T08:30:12.000Z
creator: Emeritus Professor David Hendy
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: BBC at 100
subject: TV interest
description: From its earliest days, the BBC set out to chronicle the natural world, but this ambition reached new heights from the late 1970s. In part seven of our 13-part series on the history of the BBC, David Hendy explores how David Attenborough’s string of wildlife blockbusters enthralled television viewers and transformed our view of the natural world...
encoded: At ten past eight in the evening on Tuesday 16 January 1979, British viewers were invited to embark on the opening stage of what would turn out to be one of the most spectacular and ground breaking journeys in British television history. The 50-minute programme was advertised in Radio Times as the start of an ambitious attempt across 13 weekly episodes to explore “the incredible variety of living things, and fossils, which throw light on the ancestry of life”. The series was called Life on Earth, its presenter David Attenborough. It decisively announced not only a new phase in natural history TV, but the beginning of a decades-long era in which the BBC and, in particular its own Natural History Unit, would become a dominant player in the global broadcasting marketplace. Explore the history of the BBC This is part 7 in a 13-part series by David Hendy that charts how the BBC shaped the nation. Read more about the history of the BBC: Part 1 | The BBC begins: how a group of radio pioneers launched one of Britain's most famous institutions Part 2 | Broadcasting House: a new home for the BBC Part 3 | Andy Pandy to Blue Peter: how the BBC captivated little citizens Part 4 | From "exotic" attractions to changing racial attitudes: the BBC's slow progress to mirror multicultural Britain Part 5 | The BBC changes its tune to play the sounds of the sixties Part 6 | The BBC's Third Programme troubled championing of "high culture" In some respects, Life on Earth started rather unspectacularly. Since this was the story of evolution, the first episode was largely about single-cell organisms. The next featured sea snails and shrimps. In fact, the series would be more than halfway through before it served up that familiar medley of giant lizards, lions and zebras that viewers of natural history had come to expect. Nevertheless, only two episodes in, the renowned critic Clive James was writing in the Observer of watching “enthralled… Slack-jawed with wonder and respect”. Nor was he alo…

1011368cmykwebready-974c4ec.jpg
width: 620
height: 413