The BBC and the Pilkington Committee

Is 3 radio stations plenty?

An article on the future of the BBC that doesn’t mention Nadine Dorries… 🙌

From the Nov 1960 issue of BBC staff magazine on the Pilkington Committee, who were asked to consider, amongst other things, “whether the further development of sound is to be stopped now that television is widespread”.

The BBC’s view was that “The differing tastes of the sound audience can only be satisfied by the continuing choice of at least 3 programmes and this choice should be available for the greater part of the day” (NB. programmes = stations in 1960).

The committee did recommend that the BBC be allowed to establish local radio stations but opposed the introduction of commercial radio - a stance which helped birth pirate radio.

3 reflections:

- When are we going to stop assuming the growth of a new medium portends the death of older mediums? (I blame The Buggles 😉)

- It was hard to conceive of the degree of choice and control we now enjoy over our media 60 years ago

- Trying to limit access to a medium is unlikely to succeed

<aside> As one of the people involved with deciding on a name for BBC Sounds and reading the complaints about it being newfangled, I’m appreciating the fact that radio appears to have reguarly been referred to as sound during this era </aside>