How the BBC Began Season 1 Episodes

Episode 1

Accident and Opportunity

89 mins

The eyewitnesses and participants in the BBC's early history recount some of the triumphs and disasters as new frontiers of broadcasting were mapped out - often by accident rather than design. Presenter James Burke tells how the Queen Mother helped to shape the BBC's coverage of one Apollo space mission. BBC executive Sir Huw Wheldon describes the tension of producing Sir Winston Churchill's one appearance on television. And June Spencer, famous for her role as Peggy in The Archers, shows the letter she received from a listener who was worried that she didn't know about her unmarried daughter's pregnancy.

Episode 2

Building the Audience

89 mins

Episode 3

Shooting the Rapids

87 mins

The story of the BBC's development of impartiality - starting with the General Strike of 1926, when the BBC was only three years old. In this major national crisis, John Reith, as its general manager, judged that his battle to prevent it being taken over by the government as an organ of propaganda was more important than a strict adherence to impartiality. But 30 years later, in the Suez crisis, the BBC infuriated Downing Street by allowing the opposition equal time on the airwaves for the first time. Fifteen years further on, a controversial documentary about Harold Wilson's shadow cabinet, entitled Yesterday's Men, caused a rupture in relations between the Labor Party and the BBC. The program also describes the way Roman Catholic grievances in Northern Ireland were effectively ignored by the BBC in the years before the Troubles. At the same time, Reith's notion that the BBC should aim its programming 'above the heads' of the audience led to the creation of the Third Program on radio and the fortnightly arts program Monitor on television - which set out to make the highbrow popular. As the BBC jealously guarded its independence from the state, some producers within the BBC struck out on their own, making programs which were effectively outside the control of management. Presenters and producers of those days reflect with some embarrassment on the way women were treated on and off screen - by contributors, and by top BBC executives. Among the participants in this landmark series are Joan Bakewell, David Attenborough, Paul Fox, Denis Tuohy, Martin Bell, Tony Bilbow, Monica Sims, David Dimbleby and Humphrey Burton - and Lord Reith's secretary, Dorothy Singer.