This Is the BBC, Simon J. Potter
This Is the BBC, Simon J. Potter
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This Is the BBC
Entertaining the Nation, Speaking for Britain, 1922-2022

Author: Simon J. Potter

Narrator: Gideon Emery

Unabridged: 11 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 07/14/2022


Synopsis

As the British Broadcasting Corporation celebrates its centenary, historian Simon J. Potter assesses its achievements and failures. He explores the programmes that audiences have often loved, and sometimes hated, and the turbulent relationship between broadcaster and government.

Founded in 1922, over the last century the BBC has become Britain’s most influential broadcaster. Its programmes have been part of everyday life in the UK and around the world, from Its That Man Again to Life on Earth, Doctor Who, and Eastenders, reflecting social change and reshaping our culture. However, the BBC
now faces significant challenges, which may even jeopardize its continued existence. This new book draws out these issues and looks at how similar threats—including hostile governments, management failures, and transformative new technologies—were met and overcome in the past.

For one hundred years the BBC has justified its existence on the basis that it speaks to and for the nation, uniting the country and projecting British influence overseas. However, in a more diverse and divided Britain, many question whether we still need this sort of broadcaster. New global competitors and digital
technologies, and deep funding cuts, threaten the Corporation’s ability to play its traditional role. By exploring the BBC’s past, Potter helps us think more clearly about its future.

About Simon J. Potter

Simon J. Potter is professor of modern history at the University of Bristol. He has published widely on media history and imperial history, with books including News and the British World: The Emergence of an Imperial Press System, 1876-1922; Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British world, 1922-1970; and Wireless Internationalism and Distant Listening: Britain, Propaganda, and the Invention of Global Radio, 1920-39. He has also published a centenary history of the BBC, This the BBC: Entertaining the Nation, Speaking for Britain, 1922-2022.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Steven on August 14, 2022

A quite interesting book, though it tends to elide great swathes of time and significant elements — the Goon Show barely gets mentioned. It concludes with the possibility that the Tories will finally destroy Auntie on behalf of capitalist cronies (including the poisonous Rupert Murdoch.) Various sca......more

Goodreads review by neve dawson on January 09, 2024

Potter I wish you hadn’t gone on research leave and had taught me media history this year - I will for evermore be morning this loss.......more