On 29 August 1923, the BBC officially launched SB: Simultaneous Broadcasting.

They'd been testing SB for months, via crossed lines and cross conversations with the General Post Office. It would dramatically change the shape and big idea of what broadcasting was and could be. Using landlines, they linked stations - so a Covent Garden concert could be heard nationally for the first time, as other stations gave over the schedules to big concerts, or news bulletins, or... whatever London wanted. Generally speaking.

Yes, other stations could take over too - Birmingham or Glasgow might offer a concert of play. But questions were asked, even back then, of whether listeners would prefer their regular local programming, or news/concerts from the capital.

Oh but we can provide you big stars, said the Programme Department. It's a move forward. But a move backward for local programming, alas - even if it was pitched to them that they could enjoy a night off. Hmm...

As we explore and unpack that, we also welcome a guest - Mary Englsh, who began at the BBC in 1973 as a studio manager, wrote for The Two Ronnies, and nearly bled over Margaret Thatcher thanks to an editing accident.

We hear from her, including the timely observation that the BBC perhaps win trust by "broadcasting their defeats". (In the week this podcast lands, the BBC has broadcast two of their defeats - with news reports about their Gaza documentary and Gregg Wallace. Would another channel amplify their failures quite so much? Should they? Answers on a postcard...)

SHOWNOTES:

Original music is by Will Farmer.
Paul's recent talk at the Early Recordings Conference, on the earliest BBC recording and what happened to it: https://youtu.be/JdJVGhPKtjM
Our Substack: paulkerensa.substack.com
Paul at Camden Fringe with An Evening of (Very) Old Radio, in August 2025 - come! https://camdenfringe.com/events/an-evening-of-very-old-radio/
Paul on elsewhere on tour: www.paulkerensa.com/tour.
Our walking tour of old BBC sites, 9 Aug and 6 Sept 2025 - come! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pks-walking-tour-of-old-bbc-and-pre-bbc-buildings-pwyw-tickets-1401875560539
This podcast is nothing to do with the BBC. Any BBC copyright content is reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. We try to use clips so old they're beyond copyright, but you never know. Copyright's complicated...
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Next time: Episode 103: Aug/Sept 1923 - Rob Roy and the first cat on radio!

More info on this broadcasting history project at paulkerensa.com/oldradio

#102 SB: Simultaneous Broadcasting... and Mary English

The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

#102 SB: Simultaneous Broadcasting... and Mary English