ABSTRACT
In 1946, when television broadcasting was resumed, the BBC’s popularity at home and prestige abroad were even greater than before, largely because of the wartime experience. Yet barely a decade later, the BBC’s monopoly of the air waves was destroyed. Television and, subsequently, radio were placed on a new competitive footing. More than anything else, this has shaped the aims, structure and output of all television programming since about 1984. The change was not brought about by public pressure, but by a small
group within the ruling Conservative Party. It was opposed by bishops, vicechancellors, peers, trade unions, the Labour Party and most national newspapers. Reith compared the introduction of commercial broadcasting into Britain with that of dog racing, smallpox and bubonic plague.1 The objections to commercial broadcasting were diverse, but most were anti-American, and opposed the encouragement of crude materialist desires. Criticisms of this kind were particularly vehement on the left. More recently, however, some socialist writers have taken a different view, arguing that commercial television was, in fact, a cultural liberator, taking the control of broadcasting out of the hands of a patronizing and paternalist establishment, and increasing the scope of genuinely popular influences.
