Reith had no broadcasting experience when he replied to an advertisement in
The Morning Post for a general manager for an as-yet unformed British Broadcasting Company in 1922. He later admitted that he felt he possessed the credentials necessary to "manage any company". He managed to retrieve his original application from a post box after re-thinking his approach, guessing that his Aberdonian background would carry more favour with
Sir William Noble, the Chairman of the Broadcasting Committee. In his new role, he was, in his own words, "confronted with problems of which I had no experience:
Copyright and
performing rights;
Marconi patents; associations of concert artists, authors, playwrights, composers, music publishers, theatre managers, wireless manufacturers." MacDonald complained that the BBC was "biased" and was "misleading the public" while other Labour Party figures were just as critical.
Philip Snowden, the former Labour
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was one of those who wrote to the
Radio Times to complain. Reith's reply also appeared in the
Radio Times, admitting the BBC had not had complete liberty to do as it wanted. He recognised that at a time of emergency the government was never going to give the company complete independence, and he appealed to Snowden to understand the constraints he had been under. :"We do not believe that any other Government, even one of which Mr Snowden was a member, would have allowed the broadcasting authority under its control greater freedom than was enjoyed by the BBC during the crisis." The Labour leadership was not the only high-profile body denied a chance to comment on the strike. The
Archbishop of Canterbury,
Randall Davidson, wanted to broadcast a "peace appeal" drawn up by church leaders which called for an immediate end to the strike, renewal of government subsidies to the coal industry and no cuts in miners' wages. Davidson telephoned Reith about his idea on 7 May, saying he had spoken to Baldwin, who had said he would not stop the broadcast, but would prefer it not to happen. Reith later wrote: "A nice position for me to be in between Premier and Primate, bound mightily to vex one or other." Reith asked for the government view and was advised not to allow the broadcast because, it was suspected, that would give the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Winston Churchill, an excuse to commandeer the BBC. Churchill had already lobbied Baldwin to that effect. Reith contacted the Archbishop to turn him down and explain that he feared if the talk went ahead, the government might take the company over. Although Churchill wanted to commandeer the BBC to use it "to the best possible advantage", Reith wrote that Baldwin's government wanted to be able to say "that they did not commandeer [the BBC], but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial".
British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Company was part-share owned by a committee of members of the wireless industry, including
British Thomson-Houston,
The General Electric Company,
Marconi and
Metropolitan-Vickers. However, Reith had been in favour of the company being taken into public ownership, as he felt that despite the boards under which he had served so far, allowing him a high degree of latitude on all matters, not all future members might do so. Although opposed by some, including members of the Government, the BBC became a corporation in 1927. Reith was
knighted the same year. Reith's autocratic approach became the stuff of BBC legend. His preferred approach was one of benevolent dictator, but with built-in checks to his power. Throughout his life, Reith remained convinced that that approach was the best way to run an organisation. Later Director-General
Greg Dyke, profiling Reith in 2007, noted that the term
Reithian has entered the dictionary to denote a style of management, particularly with relation to broadcasting. There is no contemporary evidence that Reith summarised the BBC's purpose in three words:
inform, educate, entertain; nevertheless, that summary is attributed to him by the BBC. It has also been adopted by broadcasters throughout the world, notably the
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. Reith earned a reputation for prudishness in sexual matters. There is an old BBC legend that he once caught an announcer kissing a secretary and decreed that in future the announcer must not read the late-night religious programme
The Epilogue. In fact, this may have been inspired by his catching the Chief Engineer,
Peter Eckersley, not just kissing but being
in flagrante with an actress on a studio table. He was to be somewhat embarrassed when one of his staff ran off with the quite new wife of the then rising young writer
Evelyn Waugh. Reith also had to deal with Eckersley after the BBC Chief Engineer had a rather public affair with a married woman on the staff. Up to the
Second World War any member of BBC staff involved in a divorce could lose their job. Under Reith, the BBC did not broadcast on Sunday before 12:30 PM, to give listeners time to attend church, and for the rest of the day broadcast only religious services, classical music and other non-frivolous programming. European commercial stations
Radio Normandie and
Radio Luxembourg competed with the BBC on "Reith Sunday" and other days of the week by broadcasting more popular music.
Abdication broadcast In 1936, Reith directly oversaw the abdication broadcast of
Edward VIII. By then his style had become well-established in the public eye. He personally introduced the ex-King (as 'Prince Edward'), before standing aside to allow Edward to take the chair. Doing so, Edward accidentally knocked the table leg with his foot, which was picked up by the microphone. Reith later noted in an interview with
Malcolm Muggeridge that some headlines interpreted that as Reith "slamming the door" in disgust before Edward began broadcasting.
Departure By 1938, Reith had become discontented with his role as Director-General, asserting in his autobiography that the organisational structure of the BBC, which he had created, had left him with insufficient work to do. He was invited by Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain to become chairman of
Imperial Airways, the country's most important airline and one which had fallen into public disfavour because of its inefficiency. Some commentators have suggested a conspiracy amongst the Board of Governors to remove Reith, but that has never been proved, and there is no record of such a thing in Reith's own memoir. He left Broadcasting House with no ceremony (at his request) but in tears. That evening, he attended a dinner party before driving out to
Droitwich to close down a transmitter personally. He signed the visitor's book "J.C.W. Reith, late BBC."
John Gunther wrote that Reith's "modernist citadel on
Portland Place was more important in the life of Britain than most government offices [and] rules the B.B.C. with a hand of granite". He "made the B.B.C. an expression of his nonconformist conscience, and also what is probably the finest broadcasting organization in the world"; Gunther predicted that he "is almost certain to have a big political job some day".
"Reithianism" The term "Reithianism" describes certain principles of broadcasting associated with Lord Reith. These include an equal consideration of all viewpoints, probity, universality and a commitment to public service. Audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC, a public corporation which had a monopoly on broadcasting until 1955. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast, "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest
advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences greatly enjoyed it. At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of
baseball,
rugby and
hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national, rather than a regional audience.
Boat races were well covered along with
tennis and
horse racing, but the BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or
cricket matches, regardless of their popularity. ==Second World War==