ABSTRACT
Wireless organisations fell into two main categories: there were those which catered for individuals interested in the technical aspects of radio, such as the building of sets or the participation in transmission techniques, and normally some level of technical proficiency or certainly some aptitude would be required; for the non-scientific, wireless united an extremely disparate group of people into general listener organisations, and normally their aim was to formulate critiques of programme policy and present them collectively to the BBC and the public. The war changed this basic deficiency in numbers and expanded the potential influence of societies. The wireless societies were therefore presented with an opportunity to force the pace simply because they were the only serious amateur representatives of the radio audience at that time. The listeners’ societies and specialist technical societies were replaced by groups rooted in some other vocation or interest. Usually the lobbies had a much stronger interest in participation in programme production and transmission.
