How the dawn of radio

created cults of celebrity

A century ago as a fledgling BBC grappled with what
broadcasters should sound like, charisma and personality
became essential

A few days ago the archive snippet on our Register page had Mr Isaacs

of the Marconi Company arriving in London, predicting with glee the arrival of a
wireless “apparatus” in every home. This would be useful not only for “general
home propaganda such as important speeches or proclamations”, he said, but
“education, music, and no doubt the transmission of weather news to farmers”.
He was right: by 1922 the government had agreed to licence a British
Broadcasting Company. From a hut in Essex came the merry tones of engineer
Peter Eckersley (“Two Emma Toc, Writtle testing!”), Marconi House in the
Strand did a boxing commentary, and crystal enthusiasts in headphones wound
wire round sauce bottles and strained to hear. The broadcast era was arriving.