After watching radio development in the United States, the British Post Office encouraged radio manufacturers to work together. Radio manufacturers formed the British Broadcasting Committee after initial negotiations with the Post Office.
On 17 October 1922, the Board of Directors formed the British Broadcasting Company.
The initial board included representatives from British Thomson-Houston; General Electric; Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company; Metropolitan-Vickers; Radio Communication Company; and Western Electric Company.
The new company had two revenue sources: it received half of the country’s 10-shilling license fee assessed on radio receivers as well as a 10 percent royalty on the sale of receiving sets and equipment.
Because the British Broadcasting Company was a monopoly and because British radio as a result developed in a more orderly manner than elsewhere, such problems and issues of broadcasting as control of finance, broadcasting of controversy, relations with government, network organization, and public-service broadcasting became apparent, and solutions were sought in the United Kingdom earlier than elsewhere.
In November, the company began a daily radio service in London.
Five years later, a public corporation — British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) — took its place. It received its first Royal Charter on 01 January 1927.
Because the British Broadcasting Company was a monopoly and because British radio as a result developed in a more orderly manner than elsewhere, such problems and issues of broadcasting as control of finance, broadcasting of controversy, relations with government, network organization, and public-service broadcasting became apparent, and solutions were sought in the United Kingdom earlier than elsewhere.
John Logie Baird began experimental television broadcasts in 1929. In 1936, the BBC launched the world’s first high-definition television service in London. In 1939, programs ceased due to the outbreak of war.
In the United States, the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) demonstrated television at the New York World’s Fair. NBC was the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) broadcasting division. On 30 April 1939, it televised President Franklin D. Roosevelt opening the Fair. “Programs were transmitted from the NBC mobile camera trucks to the main transmitter, which was connected to an aerial atop the Empire State Building.”
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