Talk:British Broadcasting Company/Archive 1

I have now begun to expand this article with a lot of new basic information. I will be further adding to this foundation to show who the founding member companies were and what their interests were in Britain. I am to some extent limited both by time and by the problems that Wikipedia has been having. However, as of this moment in time, while Wikipedia is still slower than it used to be it is nothing like the disaster of a week ago. So hopefully I will be able to complete this article soon. I then intend to provide a lot more input to General Post Office articles. MPLX/MH 20:59, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think there's a lot in the article of interest, well done! But I'm rather intrigued by the approach of including lots of exposition about US broadcasting, which at first sight at least seems to belong in a more general article about broadcasting or else an article on the development of broadcasting in the US. The section Two Competing Systems in particular had me blinking hard. This kind of detail can be taken for granted in an article specifically about a British broadcasting company, in my opinion. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:18, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I took a breather after working on this article which came about because of some observations I made elsewhere about which someone asked me twice for more information. It was "easier" to write the article than to explain what I meant on a talk page.

As I stated, I took a breather because when I started to follow-up links I found an existing total mess had been created on the BBC article. It was way over-length and it rambles. Then I found umpteen other "BBC" pages non-linked all over the place. That Corporation page needs a lot of work. The article on John Reith needs a lot of work. I created a stub about Peter Eckersley because there was no article. That needs a lot of work.

But more than this it is the history of the General Electric Company that also has to be worked on. The current article is totally useless. Without understanding the history of GE in the USA you can't understand the history of GE in the UK and they are related no matter what some historians have tried to say. GE in the USA is the godfather of the BBC, of EMI and the entire modern record industry and the licensing laws which began in Mussolini's Italy during 1934 with IFPI which began Phonographic Performances, Ltd. in the UK.

Having both written and broadcast scads of this history in the past I have the resources to undertake this work here and this one article is a just a part of it. But it is a lot of work and it would be helpful to find others who might want to help out. I can see what you are saying about the International section as it stands, but when everything else is added and linked it will paint a totally different picture of both what has happened and what is happening in the world of broadcasting, recorded music and the modern history of the copyright laws. The impressiion that had been created was of two different worlds separated by an ocean. But when you see the complete picture you can see one story that is unravelling on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately a lot of nationistic historians have tried to separate these stories by concealing facts. Since this is a world encyclopedia this is good place to join all of the links back up by supplying a lot of missing and well documented information.MPLX/MH 19:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have some agreement with Tony. I also think that phrases like "Unlike the USA, the United Kingdom does not have a written constitution" and infact the rest of that paragraph reads like it is directed at an American audience. Jooler 12:20, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Jooler for your feedback. I was born in the UK and I have spent the second half of my life in the USA. Having taught the history of broadcasting I have run into the same questions that I once asked: What is the basic reason why the two systems evolved so very differently? Why the longstanding protest with pirate radio stations in Britain that goes back to the age of John Reith? The only way to explain this is to explain the foundational difference in two approaches to law and sovereignty. That is the reason why that preamble is there. Without understanding that, it is impossible to understand everything else that follows. If you can think of another way of laying that foundation of understanding, please have a go. I thought that this was the easiest way to explain it. The reason why it is a preamble and not a footnote is because of the laws concerning the meaning of the word "station" in relation to post offices. I was amazed that there was no good article about the General Post Office. I created a disambiguagion article and began to lay the groundwork for this article, but so far I have not got around to it. Even though the GPO eventually handed off to various other controlling entities, the foundation of the law and its reasoning and enforcement has always remained the same. The only time this will change is when the UK becomes a part of a sovereign United States of Europe with its own laws that can replace the complicated legal structure that still remains in place in the UK. MPLX/MH 18:02, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Taking a brisk constitutional

I am a little surprised that the history of a company that lasted for little more than four years should start off with such a heavy emphasis on constitutional affairs, and one which -- to this staunch anti-monarchist, and no kind of enthusiast for the British constitution, let me say! -- has a strong whiff of American nationalist piety about it.

How to explain that the British public-service broadcasting model was followed in many, many other countries around the world -- almost all of them with written constitutions proclaiming the sovereignty of the people?

In any case, the big difference between the US commercial and the UK public models truly came into being with the creation of the British Broadcasting Corporation on 1 January 1927. Reflections about the politico-philosophical differences in the American and European approaches to broadcasting surely, therefore, better belong in the article concerning itself with that corporation rather than in the one dealing with the short-lived British Broadcasting Company -- or, better still, in one or both of the articles on Commercial broadcasting and Public broadcasting. -- Picapica 19:52, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I too am somewhat perplexed by the lengthy preamble comparing British and American constitutional arrangements. I would say that it is of practically zero relevance to a discussion of the history of the British Broadcasting Company. The issue of why the British Government decided to create the publicly-owned BBC from the Company in 1927 is an interesting one, but surely one that belongs at the end of this artcle, or in the main BBC article. Notwithstanding that, the assertion that the creation of a publicly-own broadcaster in the UK has something to do with the American War of Independence is very definitely POV. My personal view is that it has more to do with the very different attitudes that exist in Europe and the US toward the proper ambit of state activity. Bear in mind that most European counties have state broadcasters, many of them funded in largely the same way as the BBC. It's got nothing to do with our constitutional arrangements, and everything to do with our attitudes towards society and the state and the relationship between them.

In any case, a discussion of the relative merits and consequences of our differing constitutions emphatically does not belong here. Icrutt 11:41, 01 July 2005 (GMT)

Two competing systems

I still don't think this works.

Unlike the USA, the United Kingdom does not have a written constitution which defines the scope and limitation of governmental powers. This basic difference established the reason for two approaches to broadcasting which have competed with each other since the birth of broadcasting. Because of its War of Independence from Britain, the ties to the system of communication, which had been established by Britain in America, were severed and the new nation began on the premise that the power flowed upwards from the People, whereas in Britain political power flowed down from the Crown Establishment. In the USA a written constitution defined the powers given by the People to the government, whereas in Britain the government had power vested in it by the Crown.

The relevance of the American Revolution seems at best tangential, and the comparison with the system pertaining in an entirely different country seems beside the point. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 15:50, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Wireless Computer

It is interesting that the State of Oregon of the United States (as of 2005) has the greatest number of wireless computer communications for the Internet, and the British do not have it. Even Starbucks, the coffee company, offers wireless computer communications on their coffee lands (grounds). U.S.A. does something and that is American Know How.

Header

I have changed the note at the top to match the style used on most articles. If there are any objections, please raise them here before reverting. Thanks --Marknew 09:40, 25 December 2006 (UTC)