The birth of British broadcasting, 1920–22Edit
Britain's first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the
Daily Mail 's Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian Soprano
Dame Nellie Melba. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio
[14] However this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By the Autumn of 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the
General Post Office (GPO), was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.
[15]
But by 1922 the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests
[16] and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members.
[15]Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States
[17] the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufactures, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the Company made its first official broadcast.
[18][19] The Company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers and by a licence fee.