#038 SPECIAL: What Marconi Thought of Broadcasting... + 1920s ads

The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

Marconi may have invented wireless, and the wireless, but he didn't see broadcasting coming.

A special for episode 38, as we bring to life an interview with Guglielmo Marconi on what he made of broadcasting, two months into the BBC's existence.

Our source is Popular Wireless magazine, January 27th 1923 issue. Read along if you like (plus bits from December 1922) - thank you to WorldRadioHistory.com for housing this long lost magazine.

Needless to say, we don't claim any rights to the wonderful old magazine, and while we THINK it's either public domain or its rights owners are untraceable, we humbly defer to whoever DOES own the rights - and are ever grateful to the original journalists, editors, owners... and of course to Marconi himself.

Given that Popular Wireless magazine was full of ads for radios and parts - and given the BBC then and now is ad-free - we thought it might be fun to bring some of those ads to life too, thanks to listeners who've sent in recordings. Applause for Gordon Bathgate, Alan Stafford, Andrew Barker, Paul Hayes, Lovejit Dhaliwal, Neil Jackson, Philip Rowe, Richard Kenny, Wayne Clarke, and my kids.

There's a grateful thanks to Radio Times for making us their Podcast of the Week - and a little more about the pictures they featured of radio's female pioneers (see below for links to episodes about them).

We wrap up with a summary of what the BBC has planned for its BBC100 season, now that its centenary programming has been announced - everything from Dimbleby to Horrible Histories.

OTHER THINGS WE MENTION:

• CRH News - Andy Stephens has some lovely Marconi history videos and features on his Youtube channel.
• Marconibooks.co.uk is where you'll find Tim Wander's fab books, including the recent From Marconi to Melba.
• I point you to a few of our previous episodes: on the first BBC Christmas, on Britain's first DJ Gertrude Donisthorpe, on radio's first professional singer Winifred Sayer, and on first radio comedian Helena Millais.
• See our feature in the Radio Times here on our Facebook page - Podcast of the Week!
• Buy my festive history book Hark! The Biography of Christmas from an indie bookshop like St Andrews (£6.99), from Amazon (inc audiobook), or a signed copy direct from me (£10 inc p&p).

You can email me to add to the show. eg. Your ‘Firsthand Memories’ - in text form, a time you’ve seen radio or TV being broadcast before your eyes: a studio, an outside broadcast - what were your behind-the-scenes insights? Or record your ‘Airwave Memories’ (AM) - a voice memo of 1-2mins of your earliest memories hearing/seeing radio/TV. Be on the podcast!

My new one-man play The First Broadcast is now booking for dates in 2022. Got a venue? Book me for your place. Here's one - The Museum of Comedy. Join me, in April or in November on the very date of the BBC's 100th birthday!

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Archive clips are either public domain or used with kind permission from the BBC, copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. Oh yes they are.

This podcast is NOTHING to do with the present-day BBC - it's entirely run, researched, presented and dogsbodied by Paul Kerensa.

Original music is by Will Farmer.

Next time: The Twelve Shows of Christmas: Your Fantasy Schedule, from Noel Edmonds to the Queen's Speech via Mrs Brown's Boys. Alright not 'fantasy'... www.paulkerensa.com