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1983 60: 423Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly Donald R. Browne

Going International: How BBC Began Foreign Language Broadcasting

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By Donald R. Browne

Going International:How BBC Began

Foreign Language Broadcasting

The British bureaucracy atfirst resisted the BBCssuggestion that it beginbroadcasting in for eignlanguages and refused to

finance the venture.

,Domestic broadca st services com e int obeing for a variety of reasons: because thepublic or some specific segment of itdemands them; because they are seen asprof i table business ventures ; becausegovernments wish to inform, educate,proselytize and/or coerce the citizenry;

because manufacturers hope to stimulatethe sales of receivers an d p arts, etc. Thosesame reasons hold for the creation ofinternational broadca st services, althoughsuch services ar e far less likely t o be seen asprofitable business ventures and far mo relikely to be intended t o inform ones owncitizens and former citizens residingab ro ad , as well as foreign listeners.

When an international service is intro-duced, the national bro adcasting organiza-tion usually undertakes it. This is not acasual decision, for several reasons: first,the national system canbe virtually c ertainthat the national government will takeincreased interest in its programs, now th atsome of them are to be heard internation -ally. Second, the equipment required-

For a synopsis ofthecharacteristics ofintern ational stations,se Donald R . Brownc. Inrernarional Radio Ibw dcas ling: ThrLimifsof rhr Limirlrs Mrdium (New York Praeger. 1982).Ch.1. For further informationo n overseas communication activities

by Grcnt Britain in the period 1913-1939, se Philip M. aylor,7ht Rojtcrion of Britain: Ihilish Dvrrsrcu Publiriryand Ropa-ganda, 1913-1939 ( a m b r i d g e , U.K.: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1981).

t ran sm itte rs in part icular-is costly.Third, if foreign languages ar e to be used,recruitment a nd supervision of staff can bea real headache. And fourth, if broadcastadministrators expect to make their pro-gram ing decision s in light of aud ienc e reac-

t ions to the broadcasts, they will soondiscover th at t he necessary rese arch is diffi-cult in som e parts of the world and impo s-sible in others.

The problems a nd uncertainties at tend-ing international radio broadcasting cer-tainly have no t discouraged the creation ofinternational radio stations. Such stationsoperate f rom m ore thana hundred nationsat present, and their number continues togrow. Yet, while there may be many

-obvious explanations for the creation ofinternational stations, the underlying cir-cumstances often are far more complex.Furthermore, those who press for theircreation subsequently may discover thatthere are certain unforeseen prices to bepaid for tha t act. The British BroadcastingCorporations entry into internationalradio b roadcasting in general, an d foreignlanguage broadca sting in p articular, illus-trates w hat diverse forces may shap e sucha

development, and what m ay be gainedorlost in the process.1

An Uncertain Voice 1927-1932)On January 1 , 1927, the BBC changed

i ts nam e from Com pany to Corporat ion.Scarcely five m on ths later, tw o of its senioradministrative staff attendeda session onbroadca sting held a s part of a Colonial

Donald R . Brownc is professor of speech-communiqtion at the University of Minnesota. He isauthor of International Ra dio Broadcasting: The Lim -its of th e Limitless Medium.New York: Praeger. 1982.

423



424 J O U R N A L I S M

Office conferen ce. They e xpressed th e viewtha t, while the BBC wasa1iveto the devel-opm ents and the necessi ty fo r experimentsin short-wave broadcasting for English-speaking listeners throughout the British

em pire, short-w ave transmissions were stilltoo uncertain in quali tyto argue fo r thei ri m m e d i a t e u s a g e i n o v e r s e a sbroadcasting.2

The under-secretary of state for the colo-nies pressed for action, but BBC DeputyManaging Director Charles Carpendalepointed out numerous f inancial and pro-gramatic p roblems. W hy should the Brit-ish listeners license fees, which s up po rtedthe costs of domestic broadcasting, be

diverted in part to pay f or a n in ternationalservice which wou ld be of no direct valueto those listeners? Would the British pressand wire services take kindlyto this newsource of competition in the world newsmarket?3

Despite those problems, the BBC waswilling to carry out tests. It did so over thenext five years, with no promise of extraf inancia l suppor t f rom the government ,a l though the BBC continuedto expr ess itshopes fo r such support .4

The first experimental transmissionscame in November, 1927. The serviceremained experimental unti l December,1932, when the BBCs Empire Servicecame on the air. T he five-year experimen-tal period was filled with reports of suc-cesses and failures, many of the lattercaused by inadequate transmitt ing equip-ment. Time an d again, the BBC protestedth at it would need m ore m oney if it weretoachieve satisfactory results. It pointed ou ttha t audience response was goodwhen h esignal was reasonably clear, tha t radio sta-t ions in the Brit ish colonies and com mon -wealth nations could be and often werebeing helped by the new service, an d thatmore an d m ore nat ions were coming on theair with their own international stat ions,presenting their own national viewpoints.

The Colonial Office, the DominionsOffice, the P os t Office (through which theBBC reported to Parliament) al l expressedinterest in the B B C s efforts , but offered nofinancial support . The Treasury did notwish to see any of the costs of a n in te rna-

Q U A R T E R L Y

tional service borne by the British tax-payer, but felt that if the BBC wishedtosupport those costs through internalbud getary reallocation, such a move wouldbe acceptable. The Foreign Office seem-

ingly had n o grea t interest in the project.5Th e so rry sta te of British finances in theearly 1930s did no t help m atters. T he BBCsuffered f ro m the sam e problem , yet it con-tinued to come up with thousands ofpounds each year to meet the costs of theexp erim ental services. Even m ore remark-ably, when the government asked theBBC in 1931 fo r a voluntary co ntribu-tion to help ease the national financialburden, the BBC not only came up with

f2,000,000, but also agreed to bear thecosts of Empire broadcasting, and inNovem ber of th at year publicly annou ncedits intention of setting up an ongoingEngl ish- language in te rna t ion al servicewithout outside f inancial support orlicense fee increase. Why was itso deter-mined in its pursuit of this goal?

Co mp etition was unlikelyto have been areason. No one else within Great Britainwas proposing such a service, and fewoth er nations engaged in shortwave broad-casting before the early 1930s. Of thosewhich d id, only Radio Moscow and a fewof the U.S. commercial s tat ions broadcastregularly in English. Financial gain couldnot have been a factor, ei ther, al thoughBBC officials were awa re as early as 1930that such a broadcast operation mightserve to pro m ote the sale of British good sabroad.6

However, the development of a n inter-national short-wave service represented afascinating technical challenge to theBBCs Chief Engineer, P.P. Eckersley.Furtheromore, certain BBC adm inistrator s

2 Asa Bnggs. me Historv of Broadcasring in :he UniwdKingdom (hereafter referred to u History), Volume 11. TheGolden Age of Wireless (London: Oxford Univenity Pm s.1965). p. 373.

3 Ibid. bid . p. 314.

However. in Septemkr 1932, R.E. Leeper of the Foreign

Office mentioned i ts concern about Soviet broadcu ts lo Pa la -tine and the Persian Gulf to a BBC administrator. Briggs. ibid..p. 390. fn 5.

BBC. Second Memorandum on Empire Broadcasting,19M. . 16. on ile l he BBC Written Archiver Ccnlrc(hereaf-ler referred t o u Archives). Ci ve nh am Park, Reading, U.K.



Going International 425

saw much of the rest of the bro ad ca stworld, and perhaps the British Co mm on-wealth in particular, as needing help in theform of relays of high-quality programsfrom Great Britain.7 And finally, BBC

Director General J.C.W. Reith wasinclined to be deferential to the wishes ofthose in higher places: if the ColonialOffice was especially anxious to see anEm pire Service develop, R eith would bendevery effort to see tha t o ne did.*

To ward Babel 1932-I93 7)The Empire S ervice made i ts debut on

December 19, 1932. It had the ad va nta ge ofa new transmitter, capable of broadcastingto an Empire which had been divided intofive zones, each served by directionalaerials. The new service carried newsbroadcasts-in fac t, news bulletins hadbeen carried on the experimental servicefro m Jan uar y, 1932-and a n assortme nt ofother programs: vaudeville, dance music,talks. Most of the material came directlyfrom the BBCs domest ic services ,although a separate news department wasset up in th e E mp ire Service in 1934. While

the new service seemed t o be quite po pu larwith listeners (25,000 letters came fromvarious pa rts of the Em pire in 1934), var-ious BBC adm inistra tors were dissatisfiedthat i t broadcastso little original ma terial,while others were concerned over qualityof reception in certain parts of the world.

Again, a greater supply of money wouldhave helped. Even the growth of Germanan d Italian international broadcasting in theearly to mid-1930s had no immediate effect

in terms of spurring the government totake a serious interest in expanding andimproving British internation al broadcast-Briggs, ibid p. 374.

This aspecl of Rciths character comes through again andagain In his autobiography. In to the Wind (London: Hodderand Stoughton. 1949). in his diaries as edited by Charles Stuart,The Reirh Diaries (London: C ollins, 1975), in theon e biographyo n him, Andrew Boylcs Only the Wind Will Lisren (London:Hutchinson. 1972). and in numerous references to him in thefirst three volumn of Am Briggs History (London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1961. 1965. 1970).

9 Rcith, ibid p. 192.

0 Briggs. op. r i t . , 11, p. 394.

1 ) Memo, Clark t o Graves. 30 April-7 May, 1936. on file at

12 Memo. Graves lo Clark. May 12. 1936. on ileat Archives.J An early draft of the M e m o ontained a section 6tatingIt

Archives.

Footnote Continued

ing. BBC M anaging D irector Reith pushedfor a n expanded Empire S ervice in 1934,when h e advised the BBCs Boa rd of Gov -ernors that the BBC should develop itsEmpire services much more rapidly, and

serious consideration should be given tobroadc asting in foreign languages.? Reithappears to have been motivated by hisawareness of increasing Nazi Germanbroa dca st activities.

The convening of the Ullswater Com-mittee in 1935 afforded the BBC an opp or-tunity t o make i ts case for foreign languagebroadcasting, since tha t comm ittee was tomake recommendations t o the Brit ish Par-liament concerning the future of British

broadcasting. T he BBC presenteda memo-randum enti t led Broadcasting and theColonial Empire to the Committee, butthe me mo stressed bro adcasting t o the col-onies and ma de little m ention of the grow-ing international radio war and theconsequent need to counteract thesub-versive pr op ag an da of all [sic] foreign sta-t io ns . lO T h e U l l s w a t e r C o m m i t t e esubsequently urged a strengthening of theEm pire Service and , in o ne brief sentence,the use of languages ot he r than English.

J. Beresford Clark, Director of theEmpire Service, wrote a memo to theBBCs controller of programmes, CecilGraves, entitled Foreign Languages andthe Em pire Service. In it he raised severalproblems, not least am ong them the proba-ble need, given the Englishmans reputa-t ion as a bad linguist, to employ nativespeakers, which could give rise to furtherproblems of choosing the appropriatedialect.11

Graves replied to Clark on May 12,1936, informing him that BBCs ControlBoard wished to havea stateme nt whichset out very clearly the pros and cons ofusing foreign languages at al l uch ad oc -ument might then be sent to the Domin-ions Office, the Colonial Office and theForeign Office fo r them t o consider andpossibly circulate to get views from theoth er end-a thi ng which we have neveryet seriously done.l2

Such a statement, dated Jun e, 1936 andentitled The Use of Languages, Otherthan English, in the Empire Service,Ij




went to the hea ds of D.O., C.O. and F.O.in early July.I* The m em o itself raised suchpoints as the inadequ acy of present trans-mitters and the potential harmful effectson BBCs credibility if it were to beginbroadcasting in languages other thanGreat Britains native tongue.15 However,it also pointed out the possible need tocombat German and I ta l ian broadcasts ,particularly t he latter s Ra dio Bari Arabicservice to the Middle East.16

Embassies in South America and theMiddle East were generally positive aboutbroadcasts in Spanish, Portuguese andArabic, largely because of their potential

usefulness in offsetting G erm an and Italianbroadcasts.17 The British Embassy inBangkok, however, said that most of thebetter class are able to understand Eng-lish. Th e Dom inions Office noteda gen-eral lack of enthusiasm among thedom inions, an d even recommended tha t, ifforeign languages wereto be introduced, aseparate service should be created in orde rto keep the Em pire Service pure.l* TheColonial Office stated that, for the vast

majority of the colonies, there was littleperceived need for foreign language broa d-casts, although some of the Arabic speak-i n g c o l o n i e s w e r e p o s i t i v e t o w a r dbroadcasts in Arabic.19

In a February, 1937, mem o from G ravesto his assistant directo r of the Em pire Serv-ice, Cliffe, he said it appeared that theDom inions Office and t he Colon ial Officewould not be supportive of foreign lan-guage broadcasting, but th at the Foreign

Office would, so that if we d o make thisdep arture fro m present practice, we shallclearly be carrying out the wishes of theFo reign Office, evidently ign oring the factthat it was the BBC which had initiateddiscussion of the subject. If we do this,the note continued, it might not beunreasonable for us to expect the F. 0 oprovide us with bulletins in the variouslanguages, thus relieving us of thefinancialand other burdens we should otherwisecarry; andlor time should be set aside inthe course of the daily transmissions forthe various for eig n language bulletinswhich w ould be provide d b y theF. 0 ndprefaced by an announcement indicating

Q U A R T E R L Y

that this was so thus clearly defining thedifference between the BBC bulletins andwhatever might be done in other lan-guages.20 Clearly, certain BBC staffmem bers were beginningto won der, if notworry, a bo ut the implications of coopera-tion with the Foreign Office.

Th e subject of foreign language broad-casting also came u p in the course of Brit-ish government cabinet meetings duringlate 1936 an d early 1937.2 Th e cabinetappointed a subcommittee to study thematter in the summer of 1937. The BBCwas not invited to join the subcomm ittee,which was chaired by Minister of Health

Kingsley Wood. But Reith felt that thesubcommittee would have to include aBBC representative sooner or later,whatever Woods feelings.22

Sooner or later came on October4,

will also be valuable t o consider the possibilityof providing, onthe non-English p rog ram m. occnsional bulktins. suitlblyspaced.in Basic English. It s ms hat this might give specific help tot hespread of the English language. T his section was dropped fromthe final version. T heBBC s External Services never providedax r v i a in Ensic English, a l thoughthey providcdNcwat Dicta-t io n S p d n ti l a ro u nd 1970. The Voiceof Am erica introducedSpecial English (90 wpm. 1.200 word vocabulary) in 1959.

I However. a September 26, 19%. letter from Hardingof theDominion Officc to G nv es indicates that the D.O. had not yetcirculated the memo On file at Archives.

Fel ix Grcenc. then in BBCsN cw Yo rk of fa . had wri t tentoGraves on April 19. 1936 raising this argument. On file atArchives.

6 See Cnllum A. MacDonnld. Radio Bari: Italian WirelessPropaganda in the Middle East and British Countermeasures1934-38. Middle Fairern Srudies. Vol. X I I I No. 2 May. 1977).pp. 195-207.

Letter. R.A. Leeper. Foreign Office.to Graves. M anuary1937. On file at Archives. Leepcr even states that think youwill find us very keen on Arabic broadcasts. since the Arabic-speaking part of the world is one in whichsome action of thiskind by ourselves is badly needed. Lccpcr became t he chiefForeign Office advocate of foreign language broadcasts.

etter from Batterbee. Dom inions Office. to Graves. Febru-ary 9. 1937.O n file at Archives,

l e Letter from Maffcy. C olonia l Office.to Rcith. February 17.1937. On file at Archives.

m The B B C s Extern al Services never carried out such a p lan,but nearly fou r decades later it was raisedas a possibility in th eUnited States. The so-called St ant on Panel proposed tha t VOAshould provide direct and unqualified access to broadcast t imefor spokesm en in the S tat e Departments Office of Public Infor-mation a n d th e St at e L k p a r t m r n r i r d f s h o u ld be direcrlvr rsponr ib le for explaining and arricularing U . S . oreign policvover the Voice. thus eliminating the perennial question ofwhether or not VOA faithfully carries out State Departmentpolicy. [Italics in the original]. International Inform ationEducation and Cultural Relations: Recommendations for theFuture. (Washington. D.C.: Center for Strategic and Intcrna-tional Studies. Georgetown University. March. 1975). p. 33.

Rcith. op . c i r. , p. 290.22 Ib id .




1937, when Reith, Graves and the chair-man of the BBC Board of Gov ernors wereinvited to attend the cabinet subcom mitteemeeting tha t d ay. The F oreign Office haddecided by July that short-wave broad-

casts in Arabic f rom t he BBCs D aventrytransm itter w ould not be an effective coun-ter to Italys medium wave broadcasts inArabic over Radio Bari (also relayed toRome for broadcast over a short-wavetransmitter there). Leeper of the ForeignOffice had told G raves in July that A rabicbroadc asts from Grea t Britain ought to be

21 Record of interview withLccper, Foreig n Office. by Graves,July 7, 1937. In fact, the F.O. (Leeper?) had considerable doubtas early as June. 1937 regarding th e BB Cs willingnessto broad-

cast what the F.O.consideredcontrovenialmatcrial. y whichthe F.O. seemed t o mean attacks on Italian anti-British propa-ganda and perhaps on Italian governmental policies.

2 MacDonald. op. cir.. p. 200. Seealso. Memo. O.M. weedic(F.O.) t o A S . Ca lvcr t (F.O.). undated but probably early Scp-tcmber. 1937. o n file at Archives. In this me mo.T weed icreportson a dinner conversation with a Mr. Randall. recently Pro-gramme Director for the Jerusalem station, and Mr. A. Delancy,general mana ger of the Egyptian S tate Broadcasting Service.The gist of the conversation was that technical and programfacilities of the Jerusalem station w ere poor, and tha t the stationhad little prestige amo ng Ar ab listeners. This may ha ve actedasfurther discouraflment to F.O. plans to work through th e Jerus-alem stations.

2) An internal memo from Rcith to BBC deputy director

general, September I S , 1937, notes that he is not prepared torecommend to the BBC Board of Gove rnors that either theF.O. or the BBC go ahead with such [foreign language] broad-casts for the moment . H e gocs on t o say that ?he Corp oratio n[BBC] will do whatever the government ask itto do and feelshould one. provided however that i t is financed accord-ingly. since it will be quite impossible for the corporationt o gointo foreign languages without prejudice (with respectto trans-mitten. t ime and money)t o the existing Empire Service O nfile at Archives.

26 Memo rom k i t h o DDG (Graves). ctc.. OctoberI 1937.On f i le at Archives,

2 Memo. October 4. 1937, Rcith to Board of Governors. Onfile at Archives. The seeming G P O acquiescenceto Rcithsdema nd for addit ional financial sup por t is slightly surprising, in

that Phillips of the GP O had writtena letter 10 Rci th on eptcmbcr 22, 1937 in which he stated that the GPO never hadpromised supp ort for BBCforei gn language broadc ast activities.When Major G .C. Tryon spoke to Par l iament about the newse rv iceon O nober2 9 ,1937. h c s t a t c d t h a t L t h e B B C w i l l b e a r t h ccosts. but that the financial situation would be subjecttoreview in the near future.Hansard. Vol. 321. No. 4 House ofCommons (29 October. 1937). cols. 1409-1410.

28 Conclusions. Com mitte e on Arabi c Broadcasting (the titlethat the cabinet subcommittee chose to use at this t ime).October. 1937. p. 8. On file at Archives. This was not the onlydiscrepancy between Reiths October4 m mo o the Board ofGovernors and the Conclusions of the Committee. Rcithsmemo tates that Graves, who was opposedto a BBC introduc-tion of foreign language broadcasts on th egrou nds tha t i l would

harm the BBCs reputation of credibility kc a u x such amovewas so obviously propagandistic *was particularly allowed10state his point of view in opposi tion a1 the meeting. The Com -mittees Conclusions show that he sp oke twice. an d quitebriefly each time.

29 bid. . pp. 9, 10 See also Rcith. Into the Wind p. 291-292.

done without the BBC, probably fromJerusalem (where there had beena smallmed ium wave sta tio n since March, 1936),and la ter f rom a new station to be estab-lished on Cyprus.23 But there was some

evidence that the Jerusalem station wasunp opu lar with Ar ab l isteners because italso carried broa dca sts in Hebrew,24 whilethe Cyprus proposal , as well as furtherproposals for possible transmitter sites inIndia and U ganda, seemedto be ruled outon technical or political grounds.

By the t ime Reith and the other BBCofficials met with th e subcommittee, Reithappears to have decided that the BBCshould operate whatever foreign languag eservices m ight be proposed , ifthey were tobe broadcast from London.25 Reith hadutterly rejected F.O. control over BBC for-eign language broadcasts, but had alsowondered whether the F.O. shouldnt goahead an d set up its own ov erseas stations:Cyprus for the Middle East, British Gui-an a fo r L atin America.26

The Die is Cast (1937-1938)The cabinet subcommittee meeting of

October 4 appears on the surface to haveled to a resolution of all outstanding prob-lems. Reith again stated the need forabsolute independence and adequateadditiona l financing. His Octo ber4 memoto the Board of Governors said that theForeign Office an d P ost Office representa-tives at the meeting did not demur.27Leep er pressed fo r a newscastof a differ-ent character for the Arabs, for theomission of news which, in the viewof theForeign Office, it would be inadvisableshould receive the emphasis that broad-casting by wireless wou ld give, an dfor theForeign Office. t o be allowed the neces-sary latitude in handling and presentingmaterial destined for the Near and MiddleEast.2* Reith objected, but added theBBC might have to show more elasticityand perhaps be more amenable to ForeignOffice views than in th e case of othe r th anArabic languages. The Chairman ofBBCs Board of Governors agreed withReith.29

Shortly thereafter, the subcommitteerecommended t o the cabinet that the BBC



428 J O U R N A L I S M Q U A R T E R L Y

comm ence foreign language broadcasts assoon as possible. Despite Foreign Officemisgivings ab ou t BBC willingness/abilityto handle the task responsibly, there wereno writ ten agreements between the BBC

an d F.O. regarding mechanisms or guide-lines for consultation; although ForeignSecretary An thon y Eden had sought suchagreements, h e was overruled by the cabi-net.w A nd despite Reith's misgivings ab ou tPost Office willingness to procure moremon ey fo r the new service, he received nowritten assurance s, either. Gentlemen'sagreements seemto have been the o rder ofthe day; in fact, Reith's diary notes thatW arren Fisher of the Treasury said ...our

[BBCs] not being made to have anywritten agre eme nt with respectto the For-eign Office in foreign language broad castswas a great tribute to us. 3l

However, the establishment of theArabic service in Janu ary, 1938, saw a nex-change of mem os between and within theForeign Office and the BBC. Particularlyrevealing of Reith's attit ud eis a Janu ary 7 ,1938, conversation between Reith andCalvert , an F.O. staff m ember on loantothe Arabic service. I (Reith) asked himwhat would happen if the BBC and theForeign Office points of view wereirreconcilable with regardto a n i tem, andhe said he expected th e BBC point of viewwou ld prevail. I said in a case l ike that myanswer officially would be that the BBCmust have its way, but personally not; inother words I did n ot l ike to contemplateour doin g anything th at the Foreign Officeopposed. '*

In the end, then, Reith got what hewanted-a foreign languag e broa dca stservice within the BBC-but no guarante esregarding financial su ppo rt o r contro l overbroadcast content. As his biographer,Andrew Boyle, puts it:

On one cardinal point Reith would havebeen better advised to efuse any thing shortof a written guarantee from the governmentof long-term financial support for the whole

operation. Anthony Eden's demand for awritten accord might have given riseto prob-lems of interpretation[but] the corporationwould, from now on, depend increasingly onthe grace and favour of the Treasury andthe

ForeignOffice; and the BBC, as never before,would be held to ransom when economictroubles loomedor when ministers and anon-ymous advisers took it into their heads togrind political axes a t the slightest whim.w

While Boyle's assessment of thelong-term consequ ences of the lack of writ-ten guarantees may be a bit hyperbolic,there is no d oub t that the BBC never againenjoyed the total control of internationalradio broadca sting that it had had over theEm pire Service between 1932 an d 1937. AsBritish broadcast historian Asa Briggsindicates at various points inThe War ofWords, 5 BBC broadcast services interna-tional and dom estic were subject to Treas-ury a nd Foreign Office, as well as M inistryof Inform ation, Special Ope rations Execu-tive, etc., grace an d favo ur duri ng WorldWar 11, not to mention frequent scrutinyand interference from those quarters.

All B BC services were financed thr oug ha grant-in-aid, rather than license feerevenue, during t he war. But on ly the inter-national service remained on the grant-in-aid after the war-a grant-in-aid th at hadto be requested thr ou gh the ForeignOffice, which also acquired the power tospecify total broadcast hours, hours ofbroadcast in specific languages, and spe-cific languages to be used by the BBC.36

T hu s the F orei gn O ffice, whose views ofinternational radio's best uses seem over

m Boyle. op. rit.. p. 287; Stuart, op. ci t . . p. 217. entry for Nov.5 . 1937. Eden himself was quite interested in foreign languagebroadcasts. His memoirs for that period Faring the Dictators.Boston: Houghton-Mimin. 1962) contain several rcfercnces toRadio Bari. and he wrote a Memo on July 13, 1937. cited inMacDonald ,op . c i t . , p. 207. in which hcdiscurredthepossiblityof a Foreign Office st8tion on Cyprus.

1 Stuart. ibid.

2 Mcmn of convcrsation. Rcith to files. January 7, 1938. Onfile at Archives.

The S panish and Portuguesc services originally had k e nviewed by 6BC dministrators us a probable Foreign Office"blind"-a way of attempting to tel l the world that Great Britainwould not bc using foreign language broadcasting for the solepurpose of defen ding its vital interests. BBC dministrators sawthat as clearly the chief reason for F.O. intcrcst in an Arabicservice. and saw F.O. desires for broadcasting in Spanish andPortuguese to Latin America as a *cover" for the Arabicservice. Scc Rcith's memo to the BBC Board of Governors,September 21. 1937. On file at Archives.

34 Boylc, op. rit. pp. 287-288.

35 Asa Briggs. Hisiorv. I l l , Thr War o Words (London:Oxford University Press. 1970.)

lb See Chapter 6, The External Services of the BBC inBrowne. op. rit.. for further details on BBC-F.O. relations.

Footn ote Continued




time to have been short term strategicusing radio as a tactical instrument to

address immediate problems, rather thanconceiving of it as a means of building upgood will and credibility over the long

term), acquired several important meansof pressing its case for such uses. Whetherwritten guarantees would have preventedany of this is impossible to tell, but theirabsence cannot have helped the situation.

ConclusionClearly, Great Britains decision to enter

into international radio broadcasting, andinto foreign language broadcasting in par-ticular, was largely the result of BBC initia-

tive. The various elements within theBritish government which might haveworked for such a development appear tohave been indifferent to it or interested indealing with it in another way. Parliamentwas largely silent on the matter until late1937. The Ullswater Committee said verylittle about it in its report to Parliament.The cabinet did not get around to consider-ing it until 1937, and then established asubcommittee to examine it. The subcom-

mittee discussed it for three months butseemed unable to come up with a recom-mendation until the BBCjoined its deliber-ation.

The Foreign Office began to show someinterest in it in 1936, but thereafter vacil-lated between wanting to set u p its ownstations and working through the BBC.The Colonial and Commonwealth Officesseemed uninterested in foreign languageservices, while the Post Office and Treas-u y worried about where the financial sup-port would come from. Within the BBCitself, there was disagreement over the wis-dom of expanding into foreign languagebroadcasts. The BBC Board of Governorslikewise was divided, and appears not tohave considered the matter of foreign lan-guages in any detail until 1937.

But Reith, as is evident in his memo-randa and diary notes, speeches, etc.,seems to have become seriously interestedin foreign language broadcasting as early

including specific problems over F.O. ntcrferencc wi th BBCattempts to cover Anglo-Soviet nlationr in the immediate postWorld War 11 era.

as 1934, and to have pressed for it fromthen on, although it was 1936 before hisinterest was more than sporadic. While heclaimed to have an open mind on the issue,and took some pains to see to i t that the

BBC staff opposing a new service could beheard, one may question whether he wasas even-handed as he claimed to be seeFootnote 28).

Why did he want the new service sobadly, even to the point of being willing totake it on with no guarantee of increasedbudget and no assurances of freedom fromForeign Office interference? There are sev-eral possible explanations, including

1) Reiths will to win-various authori-ties on Reith, most notably Asa Briggs andAndrew Boyle, make it clear that Reithwas a dogged individual, and, once he haddecided on a goal, he would pursue itdoggedly. Personal animosity towardKingsley Wood, who chaired the cabinetsubcommittee on foreign language broad-casting, may have increased his determina-tion to see BBC victorious.

2) Reiths belief in monopoly-Reithonce referred to the brute force of monop-oly, and it was evident that, where broad-casting was concerned, he believed in it.Once the Foreign Office began to showsome interest in setting up its own service,Reith seemed to be spurred on to quickeraction and more concessions.

3) Reiths ambitions-his diaries andmemoirs make it clear that Reith saw him-self as destined for great things. Quite

often, that destiny was in the realm of for-eign affairs; among other things, he sawhimself as a suitable candidate for the postof ambassador to the United States. Des-pite his many protestations of the BBCsneed for absolute independence of opera-tion for the new foreign language service,he may have been willing to accommodatethe Foreign Office in the hope of advanc-ing his career ambitions.

4) Reiths disinterest in BBC-by themid 193Os, his diaries reveal, Reith wasrestless, ready to leave the BBC for somenew and challenging position. By 1937, heappeared to be tired of his association with




the organization that had brought him intopublic prominence. Boyle feels that Reithwas disoriented at the time he negotiatedthe BBCs assumption of foreign languagebroadcasting.3

5 ) Reiths faith in the old boynetwork-though never a central figureamong the power elite of British govern-ment, Reith liked to count himself as oneof their associate members. He spent con-siderable time cultivating various minis-ters and prime ministers. One of theunwritten rules of the British power elite isthat gentlemen of similar background,education and / or responsibility dont needwritten agreements with one another. Evenfirm oral agreements might not be neces-sary. Whether Reith thought that he hadfirm oral agreements is difficult to tell. Itcannot have helped Reiths case that theBBC ultimately had been willing to diginto its own pocket to finance the EmpireService in 1932.

And if Reith did begin to press for for-eign language broadcasts as early as 1934,why did it take so long for such a service tobegin? Several factors might help toexplain the delay, among them

1) Lack of money-Great Britain under-went difficult financial times as a result ofthe Depression, and foreign language serv-ices are costly.

2) Lack of steady pursuit of the issue byReith-Reiths diaries and memoirs, aswell as Boyles biography, make only m a -sional mention of his interest in foreignlanguage broadcasts between 1934 and1936. There is no indication of any contin-uing interest in such a project during thatperiod. It may be that other issues, such asthe development of a television service,simply were of greater importance to himat that time.

3) Internal disagreement-it is evidentfrom BBC internal memos that not allsenior staff welcomed a foreign languageservice. That in itself would have sloweddown the decision-making process, forReith certainly was not a dictator.

Q U A R T E R L Y

4) Lack of government consensus-most historians writing about Great Bri-tain in the 1930s agree that there wasconsiderable dissension within the cabinetover what to do about the rise of fascism in

Europe, but that those desiring compro-mise held the balance of power.38 The Brit-ish governments policy during much of the1930s was, in the main, to avoid provoca-tion of Italy and Germany.

British broadcasting in the languages ofeither country could have been considereda hostile act. Even broadcasts in Arabicbecame a sensitive issue in the variousattempts at Anglo-Italian agreements dur-ing the mid to late 1930s, e.g., the gentle-mens agreement of January 1937, which,despite Anthony Edens concern over theissue, says nothing specific about Italianbroadcasts in Arabic.39

The experience of the BBC in establish-ing international radio broadcasting ingeneral and foreign language broadcastingin particular may not be duplicated inother international broadcast systems, butthe complex web of motives and misgiv-ings it exhibits probably finds its roughequivalents elsewhere. The origins of theVoice of America and of West GermanysDeutsche Welle and Deutschlandfunkboth show some of the same general char-acteristics. Given the fact that interna-tional broadcasting can be and has beenused for so many different and not alwayscomplementary purposes, it should not besurprising that different individuals andorganizations with diverse motives wouldbe involved in discussions about its forma-tion. As Great Britains experience shows,the decision-making process can be quiteinvolved, and the effects of the compro-mise necessary to reach ultimate decisionspotentially long-lasting and influential.

Boyle, op. Ci l . . p. 280.Scc for example M a rp m G eorp. Thr Hollow Men (Lon-

don: Lalie Frewin. IWS)); Philip A Reynolds, 6 Wu h For

Policy in the Inter- War tmrs (London: Longnuna. C r a n andCo., 1954); and A.J.P. Taylor. .English History. 1914-1945 (NewYork: Oxford Univenity P m . W5 .

n Eden. op. cit.. pp. 479-487.

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