{"id":19730,"date":"2022-11-16T15:33:51","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T14:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=219690"},"modified":"2022-11-16T15:53:14","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T14:53:14","slug":"the-bbcs-entry-into-the-digital-age","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/the-bbcs-entry-into-the-digital-age\/","title":{"rendered":"The BBC\u2019s entry into the digital age"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 16 November 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

The playwright David Hare wrote recently that, alongside the NHS<\/a> and the welfare state, the BBC represents \u201cthe finest expression of mid-20th-century public idealism\u201d. Yet, from our vantage point in the third decade of the 21st century, such praise can be a dangerous thing. It associates the BBC with past glories: the analogue era, \u201cold media\u201d, the world of radio and television. This raises a profound existential question for an organisation marking its 100th birthday.<\/a> Having emerged in the first wireless age, can it survive in anything like its current form in the era of internet, mobile social media and high-spending multinational streaming giants?<\/p>\n

Before reaching for the most pessimistic answer, it\u2019s worth remembering that the BBC kick-started Britain\u2019s own media revolution in the first place. In the early 1980s, the corporation\u2019s education department, alert to warnings of a shortage in computing skills, began working with colleagues in research and development, and with scientists employed by Acorn, to develop what became the BBC Micro. A personal computer designed to be both cheap and easy to use, the Micro \u2013 with its distinctive chunky keyboard and orange function keys \u2013 became a fixture in homes and classrooms.<\/p>\n

It enabled tens of thousands of adults and children with no previous computing experience to learn the so-called Basic programming language. And it was just one part of a wider computer literacy project built around TV programmes, instructional books and a support network for teachers.<\/p>\n

Explore the history of the BBC<\/h4>\n

This is the final part in a 13-part series by David Hendy that charts how the BBC shaped the nation. Read more about the history of the BBC<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Part 1 | The BBC begins: how a group of radio pioneers launched one of Britain\u2019s most famous institutions<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 2 | Broadcasting House: a new home for the BBC<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 3 | Andy Pandy to Blue Peter: how the BBC captivated little citizens<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 4 | From \u201cexotic\u201d attractions to changing racial attitudes: the BBC\u2019s slow progress to mirror multicultural Britain<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 5 |<\/strong>\u00a0The BBC changes its tune to play the sounds of the sixties<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 6 |<\/strong>\u00a0The BBC\u2019s Third Programme troubled championing of \u201chigh culture\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Part 7 | The BBC goes into the wild: the rise of natural history television and David Attenborough<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Part 8 |\u00a0The battle for ratings: how EastEnders saved the BBC<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Part 9 |\u00a0Politics and public broadcasting: 1950s friction between government and the BBC<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Part 10 |\u00a0The BBC and the birth of the television age<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Part 11 |\u00a0<\/b>BBC & scandal: in the eye of the storm<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div> <\/section>

This multi-pronged approach provided the template for another BBC project launched a decade later, focused this time on introducing the British public to the then-unfamiliar joys of the internet. The Net<\/em> was a TV series that created \u201clive\u201d dialogue with its audience by setting up online bulletin boards and an email address.<\/p>\n

A \u201cBBC Networking Club\u201d also sprang up to help viewers get online. By this stage, the corporation\u2019s own programme-makers were also starting to connect to the world wide web. In large part this was thanks to one of its engineers, Brandon Butterworth, who had created an internal network of desktop computers and secured a website domain: bbc.co.uk.<\/p>\n

A thousand initiatives bloomed in the mid-1990s as staff throughout the corporation began to explore the internet and create web pages of their own. In one corner, the Hungarian Service created its own pages to accompany programmes; in another, \u201cTrumptonshire Web\u201d sprang up to celebrate the children\u2019s TV series, Trumpton<\/em>. Radio 1 created a live chat facility, and the recently launched news-and-sport network Five Live turned its 606 phone-in for football fans into one of the busiest messageboards in the country. Then, for the May 1997 general election, journalists came up with an 8,000-page site to provide up-to-date details of the results as they came in.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blazing a trail<\/h3>\n

Initially this digital evolution was all rather organic and spontaneous, but in 1997 there was a decisive intervention from the top. The BBC\u2019s director general, John Birt, had been talking to Nicholas Negroponte, author of Being Digital<\/em>. This book had set out a striking techno-utopian vision of the future in which an \u201cinformation superhighway\u201d would deliver entirely virtual newspapers and personalised forms of entertainment to millions of private computers. After flying to the US to visit companies engaged with this new technology, including Netscape and Microsoft, Birt returned a fully fledged convert. He was, he said, convinced that the internet \u201cwas a Very Big Thing that was going to change the world, and that the BBC had to be at the centre of it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
BBC director general John Birt, who claimed that producingvideo-on-demand had been his \u201cobsession\u201d \u2013 sparking the development of the BBC iPlayer. (Image by BBC Archives)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Over the next six months, all of the experimental work which had been simmering away was pulled together into a slicker, more-coherent offering. The first tangible outcome of this concerted effort was supposed to be the autumn launch of an online news service. The sudden death of Princess Diana<\/a> at the end of August forced the pace: this was the kind of dramatic, fast-moving and increasingly complicated story that required web pages to be constantly updated. Presented with an unending supply of fresh interviews on radio and TV, BBC journalists began experimenting with embedding short \u201cgrabs\u201d of audio and video. They created a tribute site, and arranged a live \u201cwebcast\u201d for the princess\u2019s funeral. The success of that coverage prompted an injection of extra cash for new servers and, when BBC News Online was launched formally later in the autumn, it had the capacity to stream the day\u2019s main television news bulletins on a regular basis. The BBC\u2019s other online services quickly adopted a similar multimedia style.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
David Dimbleby commands the studio during the May 1997 general election, when BBC journalists created an 8,000-page website providing blow-by- blow updates on events and results. (Image by BBC Archive)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Birt subsequently claimed that producing video-on-demand had been his \u201cobsession\u201d all along. If so, the launch of the BBC iPlayer 10 years later marked the first real step towards what he\u2019d seen as the ultimate destination of the digital revolution: the merging of TV, radio and the internet into a single platform.<\/p>\n

The evolutionary origins of the BBC iPlayer can perhaps be discerned in a development of 1996, when programme-makers at Radio 1 created a virtual mixing desk that allowed anyone anywhere in the world to \u201clisten again\u201d to an archive of recent broadcasts. Six years later, a group of technologically adventurous BBC staff came up with the idea of creating something similar for TV. Ben Lavender, a young engineer in the BBC\u2019s New Media Technology department, took up the challenge of turning what he called an \u201cinternet personal video recorder\u201d into what became iPlayer.<\/p>\n

A thousand initiatives bloomed in the mid-1990s as BBC staff began to explore the internet and create web pages of their own <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>

The technological obstacles proved more straightforward to overcome than the political ones. Senior staff at the BBC needed lots of convincing: many of them refused to believe that anyone would ever want to watch TV on a computer screen or mobile phone. Once they were satisfied, regulators then demanded a \u201cpublic value test\u201d. This was the opportunity for commercial rivals to argue that the proposed new BBC service would damage their own interests. When it was finally launched to the public at Christmas 2007, the BBC\u2019s original ambitions for iPlayer \u2013 which included sharing the platform with ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, as well as including whole \u201cbox sets\u201d of past TV series \u2013 had been drastically trimmed back.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, iPlayer brought the concept of catch-up TV to the British public. Here was something stable, easily navigated and gloriously free from advertising. By 2012, it was voted the UK\u2019s number-one brand. As the chief executive of the streaming giant Netflix later admitted, if anything had \u201cblazed the trail\u201d for his own company\u2019s success it was iPlayer. And together with BBC Online, iPlayer showed that \u2013 even in a media future dominated by the internet, always-on mobile phones and new social platforms \u2013 the BBC might retain a centre-stage role.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alchemical advances<\/h3>\n

There was rarely a single \u201ceureka\u201d moment in this story of invention. Rather, a complex, almost alchemical mix of factors enabled the BBC to take its leading role: a depth and range of skill and experience on its payroll that allowed for what one insider called \u201cnippy, smart people working around the edges trying things out\u201d; the spending power that came with a licence fee still keeping pace with inflation; and, above all, a capacity for long-term thinking \u2013 and a tolerance of failure as a vital component of innovation \u2013 that contrasted with the private sector\u2019s nervousness over untested, potentially unprofitable investments.<\/p>\n

In this sense, the part played by the BBC in the digital revolution merely reflects its wider role over the past century. This is a role nurtured by those founding figures \u2013 John Reith and his lieutenants \u2013 who first set it on its path in 1922. For them, the BBC was never about creating a nation of radio listeners or, later, TV viewers. It was about helping to spread \u2018\u201cthe best that has been thought and known in the world\u201d to as many people as possible. Radio or television were merely the means of delivering this larger ethical vision. The goal ever since has been to employ whichever medium seems most effective for this purpose at any given moment. It was also crucial to use the corporation\u2019s privileged position as a publicly funded body, beyond direct state control or the pressures wrought by ratings-driven advertising, to provide that famous triumvirate of \u201cinformation, education and entertainment\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Future challenges<\/h3>\n

Whether the BBC will retain this capacity in years to come is less clear. There\u2019s no intrinsic reason why it shouldn\u2019t be capable of continued technological agility. The success of Radio 1 in becoming \u201cthe most subscribed-to radio station on YouTube\u201d is a reminder that the BBC is by no means wedded to the old FM dial \u2013 or, indeed, the terrestrial TV signal \u2013 in its efforts to reach large and youthful audiences. Economists even suggest that, as an \u201cinvestor of first resort\u201d, the BBC stimulates a virtuous circle from which the whole media sector benefits.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Through the launch of the BBC News iPhone app (above) in 2010 and later innovations, the corporation has pioneered the use of digital technology to \u201cinform, educate and entertain\u201d. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Yet the outsourcing of so much of its work now threatens the reservoir of know-how that enabled it to be a creative powerhouse in the first place. The freezing of\u00a0the licence fee for most of the period since 2010 is also having a devastating effect on its ability to invest for the future. And new technology brings its own dangers. The much-touted switch from a universal funding mechanism to a subscription service would restrict the BBC\u2019s riches to those who could afford to pay. It would be the one technological innovation that might end for good what David Hare saw as the BBC\u2019s extraordinary aim of shaping for the better the life not just of individuals but of an entire nation.<\/p>\n

Six of the best BBC programmes<\/h4>\n

They may not be the most famous, but these TV and radio programmes embody the spirit and ambition of the BBC over the past century, says David Hendy<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Town Tonight 1933<\/h6>\n

The BBC featured entertainment from\u00a0the start, but it was the launch of In Town Tonight i<\/em>n 1933 that truly announced the arrival of a new, confident age of popular variety at the corporation. The show\u2019s mix of guest interviews and live stunts, all delivered in a slick, chatty style, provided the template for our now-familiar fun-packed Saturday night TV schedule.<\/p>\n

Woman\u2019s Hour 1946<\/h6>\n

There had already been plenty of programmes for women, but Woman\u2019s Hour,<\/em> which began in 1946, offered more than the traditional mix of fashion and housekeeping. It covered social issues, politics, the menopause and more. The aim, its producers said, was to take listeners beyond the four walls of the home. It refused to see domestic topics and public affairs as mutually exclusive, and it paved the way for programmes such as Radio 4\u2019s long-running Today.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grandstand 1958<\/h6>\n

The BBC\u2019s flagship sports show has been described as \u201cthe all-encompassing behemoth of sport on television\u201d. For nearly five decades, Grandstand<\/em> demonstrated the technical mastery and reach of the BBC\u2019s outside broadcast operation for several hours every Saturday afternoon, leaving millions of viewers with indelible memories of great sporting moments.<\/p>\n

Z Cars 1962<\/h6>\n

When Sydney Newman took over the reins of BBC TV drama and launched The Wednesday Play<\/em> in 1964, Z Cars<\/em> provided his inspiration. It depicted the rough-and-tumble of ordinary men and women serving in a northern police force, with the restless visual style of a documentary. It was gritty and dark, and showed messy, complex lives. As its writer, John McGrath, explained, \u201cthe cops were incidental\u201d.<\/p>\n

Top Gear 1967<\/h6>\n

No, not the TV series about cars \u2013 rather, the Radio 1 programme that launched the BBC career of John Peel. The show established the Reithian approach to music Peel displayed over the following 37 years: introducing listeners to sounds they had little chance of hearing anywhere else on British radio.<\/p>\n

Small Axe 2020<\/h6>\n

This anthology of five films directed by Steve McQueen powerfully captured the experience of black Britons \u2013 and the decades of institutional racism they\u2019ve endured. By placing these films in the Sunday evening slot usually reserved for cosy television drama, the BBC showed its willingness to make the perspective of marginalised communities part of our shared national story.<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div> <\/section>

David Hendy is emeritus professor at the University of Sussex. His latest book is The BBC: A People\u2019s History<\/em> (Profile, 2022)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was first published in the Christmas 2022 issue of <\/strong><\/em>BBC History Magazine<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n

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