IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2023 - 15

that war must have given shape to The Waste Land.
Although a journalist for the Oxford Times, Burrows
had been in charge of pre-BBC experimental radio
transmissions sent out by Marconi House in Britain.
That station bore the call letters 2LO. During the Great
War, he ran a group that secretly eavesdropped, for
the British government, on German wireless messages.
Cecil Lewis, a minister's son, joined the Royal
Flying Corps at age 17 by lying about his age. He was
awarded the Military Cross for his actions at the Battle
of the Somme, which he later described vividly in his
book, Sagittarius Rising. Haunted by the destruction
and death, which he had witnessed and had helped
perpetuate, he felt the need to participate in a healing
culture and was won over, after the war, by a friend
who had been exposed to broadcasting in the United
States and who suggested that someone " artistic " like
Lewis might make a contribution to the new technology
of radio. Lewis then responded to an advertisement
in the Morning Post. Among the trio of founders,
the most important and best known is John Reith
who was later to become Director General, a post he
held until 1938. Reith is universally acknowledged as
the individual most responsible for setting the initial
culture that shaped BBC radio during his tenure and
beyond. Reith began at the station as head with Burrows
director of programs and Lewis his assistant.
Reith's face was badly scarred in battle during the
Great War and Lewis had suffered a gash in his shoulder.
Hendy notes that quite a number of the first
employees suffered from shell shock and had experienced
nervous breakdowns. An institution, like the
BBC, which might promote collective happiness had
great appeal after the war both to the first generation
of employees and their listeners. Reith was a Scottish
minister's son, which must have shaped his thinking
and by implication the broadcasting service. Forming
his philosophy was a book influential in his parents'
generation as well as his own: Mathew Arnold's
Culture and Anarchy, a best-seller that appeared in
1869: a Victorian-era agenda of " high culture, " which
Arnold contrasts with the culture then present-one
of Philistines and toiling masses. Arnold was promoting
and reifying " the best that has been thought and
said. " His stated goal was " to make all men live in
an atmosphere of sweetness and light. " The book
is sometimes seen as part of the efforts of Victorian
reformers to create libraries, parks, and public entertainment.
He enjoined his readers to carry others
along in the march to perfection.
September 2023
With Reith seeking to promote this culture within
the BBC, one sees the likelihood of trouble. Everyone
who owned a radio was obliged to pay an annual
license fee. Suppose, having paid the fee, one does
not like the entertainment emitting from the set and
wonders if this is the " best that has been thought
and said. " The BBC established its own symphony
orchestra with its roots dating to 1922; its repertoire
was classical. Imagine someone who favored jazz or
show tunes switching on her wireless, hearing Bach,
realizing that she was paying the musicians through
her licensing fee, and knowing that unless she listened
to a station from the Continent, she would
not hear her favorites on the radio. Lectures and
poetry recitals might have earned the same disdain.
And there were those intellectuals who damned the
BBC for its efforts at spreading what they perceived
as middlebrow culture. Virginia Woolf was at odds
" with the whole Reithian project. " She was disdainful
of the goal to bring about " a general intelligence and
a higher culture, " believing that serious art must be
segregated from " the vulgarities of common taste. "
This dogged clash of cultures was not pacified
until the outbreak of World War II. Up until this time,
the BBC was broadcasting from a number of locations
on short and long waves and calling itself " the
home service. " Alas, some portion of the population
found it dull, and out of sheer perversity and the pursuit
of novelty tuned in German radio. Seeing this,
the Germans launched nine English language programs
a day. They also gave voice to Lord Haw Haw
(William Joyce), a Brit who spewed out pro-Nazi
propaganda. In response, the BBC in 1940 offered an
alternative to the Home Service. Known at first as the
Forces Program, its ostensible purpose was to serve
members of the Armed Forces-its philosophy, as
a purveyor of comedy, popular music, quiz shows,
and variety, was far removed from Reith's thinking-
he had left the station two years before. When the
war ended, this became the Light Programmme and
was as readily available to Britons as the Home Service.
In 1967, this Light Program was split into Radio
1, consisting of popular music and Radio 2, " easy listening. "
Radio 3 offers to this day the sort of material
Reith would have favored: classical music, lectures
" high " culture. The original home service morphed
into nonmusical material, quiz shows, and plays.
These changes were motivated, in large part, by the
appearance of popular pirate radio stations, which
broadcast from ocean ships and which were beyond
15
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2023
