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From: Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: First BBC Broadcast (14/11/1922)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2024 11:50:48 +0100
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On 2024-11-15 10:20:14 +0000, Ross Clark said:

> It was the British Broadcasting _Company_ at this time, owned by a 
> consortium of wireless companies, who feared the "chaos" attendant on 
> the expansion of radio broadcasting in the USA at the time.
> 
> Business-wise it did not work out very well, and in 1927 it was taken 
> over by the government and became a "Corporation", with a 
> public-service "charter".
> 
> "Its first operating license restricted broadcasting to news and 
> information from just four news agencies. Daily broadcasts began in 
> Marconi's London studio, 2LO...in the Strand. A news bulletin went out 
> at 5:33 p.m., along with a weather report, spoken by the Director of 
> Programmes, Arthur Burrows, in an authoritative RP accent."
> Burrows also played Father Christmas in _The Truth About Father 
> Christmas_, thought to be the first broadcast drama. And he was the 
> first "Uncle Arthur" on _The Children's Hour_.
> 
> So the RP accent became known as "BBC English". The Advisory Committee 
> on Spoken English was set up in 1926 to provide approved pronunciations 
> for new words and foreign names, and as an authority to support news 
> readers against the inevitable complaints. A fascinating body in which 
> both Daniel Jones and George Bernard Shaw were involved.

My recollection is that John Reith spoke as you'd expect a Scottish 
Calvinist to speak, but he insisted that people who spoke on the 
wireless ("radio" was lower class) should speak RP.
> 
> My impression is that it was not until the 1970s that a wider range of 
> accents began to be heard.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC


-- 
Athel cb