Overview

`Competition' continues the monumental history of broadcasting in the UK over a period of 20 years, from 1955 to the mid 1970s. Unlike the previous volumes it chronicles and analyses the history of the BBC in an age of competition, so inevitably contains much fascinating material on the `independent' radio and television companies as well as the BBC. The first chapter deals with the early relationship of the BBC to these new companies, sharing their impact on the types of programmes being broadcast. The second chapter concerns Suez, the first time when there was a conflict between what the Government wanted broadcast and what the BBC felt it ought to broadcast. Chapter 3 compares BBC programmes with their rivals' in the 1960s, and chapter 4 evaluates the effect of the new Director-General, Hugh Greene, the man who - Mary Whitehouse said - was `responsible for the moral collapse which characterized the sixties and seventies'. The remaining chapters debate the changing relationship between politicians and broadcasters, Radio Piracy, the changes to the Third Programme, the introduction of new technologies, and the state of the BBC at the time of the Jubilee and the first meetings of the Annan Committee.

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9780192159649

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Reviews

With this volume Briggs completes his magisterial study of broadcasting in the UK....This is detailed, articulate, and important reading for anyone who wishes to understand the current debate over the future of public-service broadcasting. --Choice<br> .,. it is a definitive and indispensable work. Each volume of the series is stuffed with information and of compelling interest both to broadcasting specialists and to historians of British politics, culture, social values, and of all that happened in the United Kingdom between the birth of broadcasting and the end of the BBC's monopoly. --American Historical Review<br>

He has, once again, written much more than an institutional history. The narrative is controlled and assured, with telling variations of pace and an effective use of light and shade. The achievement is monumental. Ian McIntyre, The Times magnificent five-volume history ... In this magnificent piece of scholarship, Lord Briggs makes history become the web which enfolds us all. Gillian Reynolds, Sunday Telegraph Among the fascinations of Briggs's tome is the reminder of the many able directors-general the BBC might have had. Brenda Maddox, The Times a mammoth undertaking ... enough information about the BBC between 1955 and 1974 to qualify for Mastermind ... The author's practised hand gives the voluminous text a coherent shape ... Briggs has a sure touch when dealing with Westminster and Whitehall. Times Higher Educational Supplement impossible to imagine a more thorough, comprehensive and balanced account - and difficult to suppose that it could have been written with a less tedious pen: the footnotes alone, which must be in total long enough to fill a separate volume, are a delight The Author, Autumn, 1995 magisterial and comprehensive ... This is a monumental work of scholarship which could only have been undertaken as a public duty. The Spectator

`He has, once again, written much more than an institutional history. The narrative is controlled and assured, with telling variations of pace and an effective use of light and shade. The achievement is monumental. ' Ian McIntyre, The Times `magnificent five-volume history ... In this magnificent piece of scholarship, Lord Briggs makes history become the web which enfolds us all.' Gillian Reynolds, Sunday Telegraph `Among the fascinations of Briggs's tome is the reminder of the many able directors-general the BBC might have had.' Brenda Maddox, The Times `a mammoth undertaking ... enough information about the BBC between 1955 and 1974 to qualify for Mastermind ... The author's practised hand gives the voluminous text a coherent shape ... Briggs has a sure touch when dealing with Westminster and Whitehall.' Times Higher Educational Supplement `impossible to imagine a more thorough, comprehensive and balanced account - and difficult to suppose that it could have been written with a less tedious pen: the footnotes alone, which must be in total long enough to fill a separate volume, are a delight' The Author, Autumn, 1995 `magisterial and comprehensive ... This is a monumental work of scholarship which could only have been undertaken as a public duty.' The Spectator

Author Information

A leading historian and expert on the BBC, and the author of numerous classic scholarly publications, Asa Briggs is Chancellor of the Open University, and Vice-President of the Historical Society.

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