Sound and Vision - ´óÏó´«Ã½ History Seminar
10
September 2003
Printable version
Opening
address given at Fyvie Hall, Regent Street Campus,
University of Westminster
Someone
who heard radio for the first time in 1922 commented: there is nothing
new under the sun. Well there was. Broadcasting was entirely new, and
it rapidly changed the world.
It is hard
to view the history of the 20th Century without concluding that the
existence of broadcasting, like many new technologies, changed the course
of that history for both good and ill.
In stable
western democracies, broadcasting was as important as universal education
in creating a well informed and active participatory electorate.
But in
the dictatorships of the 1930s, broadcasting was the essential tool
by which the people were brainwashed.
Even today,
any tinpot dictator, mounting a coup d'etat, will take over the television
station before worrying about the parliament building, or even the power
stations and munition factories.
So I believe
that most historians would accept that broadcasting can contribute to
our national life both for the better and for the worse.
But I
hope also that they would accept that, in the case of the ´óÏó´«Ã½, our contribution
to Britain's national life has been almost entirely for the better.
Not only
has the ´óÏó´«Ã½ become, and has firmly remained, the most trusted source
of news, information and comment in the UK in the past 80 years. It
has also become one of our greatest cultural treasures. I am sure that
this will become clear during Nick Kenyon's session on the Proms later
this morning.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½
is probably the only one of the world's great cultural organisations
which has maintained weekly contact with over 90% of its potential national
audience - a unique measure of the extent to which the ´óÏó´«Ã½ still brings
information, education and entertainment not just to a privileged minority,
but to the whole of Britain.
I would
be fascinated to know whether the distinguished historians gathered
here today can identify the fundamental reasons why the ´óÏó´«Ã½, almost
alone among the public service broadcasters of the world, has managed
to combine a distinctive offering on radio and television, along with
a mass audience presence.
Is it simply
the legacy of a truly great founder, John Reith? Is it the wisdom of
successive generations of political leaders, who have seen the profound
benefits of a mixed broadcasting ecology, involving the best of both
the public and private sectors? Or is it the basic constitution of the
´óÏó´«Ã½, which has stood the test of time?
My own
view, which I have expressed on many occasions, is that two fundamental
bedrocks have been essential for the success and longevity of the organisation.
The first
was the way the ´óÏó´«Ã½ was established, based on a Board of Governors and
a Royal Charter.
This has
made programme makers immune from day-to-day political interference
- a key ingredient in building audience trust.
The second
was that the licence fee provided the ´óÏó´«Ã½ with a secure form of funding,
again at arms length from the political process, and one which has forced
the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to build a direct relationship with its ultimate paymaster,
the British public.
Change
either one of these foundation stones, and you might bring the whole
edifice crashing down around your ears.
Remarkably,
for an organisation operating from a medium sized European economy,
the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has not only done well in its home market, but has also become
the largest and most trusted voice in international broadcasting.
Kofi Annan
has described the World Service as Britain's greatest gift to the world
in the 20th Century. Anyone who grew up in the remote bush of central
Africa – as I did – would agree with him.
And now
we are combining the radio presence of the World Service with our ´óÏó´«Ã½
World television service, and our global website, to reach more of the
world's citizens than any other international broadcaster.
When John
Reith established the old Empire Service of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ in 1932 –
against some opposition, it must be said, from the Foreign Office and
of course the Treasury – he had a remarkable insight.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s
foreign services, he said, must not be used as a propaganda weapon to
spread the views of the British government, but must be seen as an independent
voice, seeking only to speak the truth to its listeners.
To this
very day, that simple insight remains the most profound reason why so
many millions at home and abroad place their trust in ´óÏó´«Ã½ news.
It is the
core reason why the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has such a long history of its own to celebrate,
and why the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has contributed so much to the history of others.
It did
not take long for historians to recognise that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ was an institution
worthy of careful study.
Arthur
Burrows's first history of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ appeared just two years after the
British Broadcasting Company began. And the third edition of Sidney
Mosely's history of television came out in 1933 - three years before
the world's first television service began.
The extraordinary
range of the books and studies that have been produced about the ´óÏó´«Ã½
since 1922 speaks volumes for the eclectic tastes of historians.
Many of
you will of course be familiar with Cattle at the Crossroads, a book
about the impact of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s farming output on cattle-breeding. And
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ and the Danish Resistance Movement will, I am sure, be on many
of your bookshelves.
At the
other end of the scale, though, there is a very great historical work
– the five volume history of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ written by Asa Briggs, whom
we are honoured to have here with us today.
The first
thing that I did when I became a Governor of the ´óÏó´«Ã½, in common with
the practice of most of my colleagues, was to read the Briggs' history
from cover to cover.
The only
frustration was that the work ended in 1974, but I am happy to say that
Jean Seaton is now hard at work on the next volume. Jean, you have massive
shoes to fill, but I can think of no one better able to rise to the
task.
Anyone
reading the history of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ will be struck by how similar today's
issues are with episodes which have arisen in the past.
The first
campaign against the licence fee was launched in 1923 by the Daily Express,
which of course realised that a diminished ´óÏó´«Ã½ would leave more room
for the Beaverbrook business empire to launch its own radio stations.
Soon after
the launch of ITV in the 1950s, many people believed that the licence
fee would become untenable as the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s share of the national television
audience dwindled.
Yet the
audience share of ´óÏó´«Ã½ ONE was exactly the same in 2002 as it had been
in 1959 – a quite remarkable fact, given the launch of a few hundred
extra television channels in the meantime.
And, I
am bound to say, there have been periodic disputes with the government,
in the course of which the Governors of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ have been required to
stand up for its independence. So maybe, after all, there is nothing
new under the sun.
The fact
that we have a great history certainly does not mean that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ should
become smug and self-satisfied.
If the
´óÏó´«Ã½ is to survive, then it must always reflect the nation it serves.
The present
Director-General, Greg Dyke, is striving to create an organisation that
reflects British society, with its many cultures and faiths, in its
entirety.
Our new
values place audiences at the heart of everything we do. That may seem
obvious. But in fact we were broadcasting programmes for 14 years before
we did any systematic research on what the listeners thought of our
programmes.
And even
then we were reluctant to bend to their needs. In the 1950s a series
of tests showed that many of our radio talks were incomprehensible to
the listener. Our first response was to challenge the data. We argued
- and I'll read this slowly so you understand it:
"[It
is not] possible to discover, through comprehension tests, which talks
have a good structure without making your definition circular, and saying
that good structure is that factor which correlates positively with
comprehension when all other known factors correlating positively with
comprehension have been held constant."
We were
still learning some of the fundamentals of audience behaviour in the
1970s and 1980s.
Will Wyatt,
in his gripping and impish account of his 30 years in the ´óÏó´«Ã½, describes
how it came as a shock to the producers of our leading documentary strands
to discover that viewers do many things, including going to sleep, during
their programmes.
Will will
be speaking to the conference later about the value of autobiography.
I am sure he does not mean pecuniary value, since my observation is
that a good number of ´óÏó´«Ã½ autobiographies end up as remaindered copies
in the bookstores.
But that
just goes to show that not everything in life can be valued solely in
terms of short term popular acclaim.
A key to
our new culture is greater collaboration. We are determined to create
an organisation that works as One ´óÏó´«Ã½.
That is
a challenge for a concern with so many outlets, but we have come a long
way since the 1950s, where a state of war existed between the Tonight
Programme and Panorama.
Sir Paul
Fox, former head of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Television, remembers how Tonight staff were
banned by their editor, Donald Baverstock, from sitting with Panorama
staff in the canteen.
Folklore
has it that Baverstock would try to find out what Panorama was working
on in a particular week, and spike its guns by running his version of
the story ahead of the Panorama transmission. I am sure that no such
thing would ever happen today.
So history
is also of great value to those whose decisions guide the ´óÏó´«Ã½ - the
executive board, the governors, and also the politicians and opinion-formers
who have a part in deciding its future.
Of course
our history, like the ´óÏó´«Ã½ itself, does not belong solely to us. Everyone
has a right to understand the ´óÏó´«Ã½, and the role of the historian is
to provide an independent and definitive judgment.
That, in
part, is what this seminar is about.
We are
aware that the number of people who want to study ´óÏó´«Ã½ history is growing.
Every year scores of schoolchildren, students, authors and historians
approach us for help on their various projects.
We are
also becoming aware of many other studies, conducted independently and
without our help.
This seminar
is to enable you, the historians, to identify new ground and, perhaps,
new partnerships with others, who may share similar areas of interest.
And for
our part, it is to create a dialogue between the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and those whose
studies could be of value to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ of today.
We are
particularly grateful to the University of Westminster, who are hosting
today's conference, but this is intended to be an inclusive event, and
at the end of the seminar we will ask everybody to contribute thoughts
on the right way forward.
I very
much hope that all of you will have an enjoyable and fruitful day.
