Connected Histories of the BBC

Eighty-five years after the BBC broadcast its first-ever variety programme for television during the 1936 RadiOlympia exhibition, the latest edition of ‘Voices of the BBC‘ – Entertaining the UK – draws on a range of interviews from the BBC Oral…

‘The BBC and the Cold War’ marks the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9th November 1989. In both its domestic programmes and those broadcast overseas by its World Service, the BBC mapped the course of the…

On 3 September 1939 Britain went to war with Hitler’s Germany. In the fight against fascism, broadcasting played a starring role: as public informant, morale-booster, and propaganda weapon. ‘The BBC and World War Two’ draws on the Oral History Collection…

This edition of ‘Voices of the BBC‘ was prompted by the 2018 centenary of partial women’s suffrage. It draws on the BBC Oral History collection to explore the working lives of women at the BBC, both on air and behind-the-scenes,…

To mark seventy years from June 1948, when the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury and King George formally ceased being Emperor of India, ‘People, Nation, Empire’ dipped into the archives to explore how the BBC has responded to a multi-cultural,…

To mark fifty years since the launch of Radio 1, ‘Radio Reinvented’ offered a selection of clips from the BBC Oral History Collection that tells the behind-the-scenes story of the suppression of pirate radio and the BBC’s first pop-music station.…

The BBC launched the world’s first regular ‘high-definition’ television service in 1936. This edition of Voices of the BBC explores the story of the BBC’s involvement in early television, from John Logie Baird’s mechanical experiments in the 1920s through to 1953, when…

The BBC pioneered the broadcasting of General Elections on radio and television. This edition of 100 Voices that Made the BBC considers how despite resistance from some quarters, the BBC found a way to bring the mysterious world of Parliament and…