#013 Inform, Educate, Entertain: Have I Got News For You?

In episode 13, we're in August/Sept 1922, which means:

- Manchester's first broadcast concert

- The pre-BBC battles the printed press. Has the BBC got news for us? Erm... Not yet, and not easily.

- The Reithian values arrive - 'to inform, educate & entertain' - except somehow they're knocking about before John Reith's even heard of broadcasting.

Our guest is Andrew Barker, a former BBC producer and radio history enthusiast, who's been delving into the newspaper archives to bring us fascinating clippings from 1922.

Hear how the Manchester Guardian told its readers what a radio tuner was... how Caruso, Gilbert & Sullivan and a racist song all came to the wireless that summer... and how impatient the listeners were getting for the Postmaster General to pull his finger out and press 'go' on the BBC.

Plus an excerpt from a 1937 Radio Pictorial magazine courtesy of Stewart Henderson.

See many such excerpts in photo form, shared to our @bbcentury pages on Facebook and Twitter.

Support the show at patreon.com/paulkerensa and get advance bits of Paul's writing - thanks!

Paul's running a Writing Course (on Zoom) this Sept-Nov. Do join, if you want to write anything and want to include things like 'a story' or 'character'. More details here.

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Hurrah for Will Farmer's original music.

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This podcast is unaffiliated to the BBC. We're talking about them, not with them.