ABSTRACT
John Reith's resistance to direct advertising on the British Broadcasting Corporation, as its first and enormously influential Director General, was a major factor in keeping the broadcasting service as a whole advertising-free until the battle was finally lost in 1954. The connection made between the acceptance of broadcast advertising and the deterioration of programme standards is a natural consequence of the anti-commercial stance taken by makers of regulation policy. In the UK, determination to avoid the difficulties created by the American free-for-all led to the introduction of a radically different model from the American one for the operation of broadcasting services. The Radio Industry Council, however, believed that reports of bad taste in American broadcast advertising were exaggerated, and that fears that it would be displayed in Britain were groundless. The Selsdon Committee recommended that an advisory committee should be set up to 'plan and guide the initiation and early development of the television service'.
