ABSTRACT
In 1956 the British invasion of Suez – as major national crises do – created a secondary BBC crisis. It came to a head in the same ten days at the end of October and beginning of November as the Hungarian Revolution. In this Hungarians rose against the tyranny of Russian rule. Broadcasting was central to the evolution of the tragedy; the BBC close to every shift in affairs. For a moment it looked as if the Soviet system might liberalize. But both Suez and the Hungarian uprising happened as the BBC grappled with the arrival of ITV – the breaking of the Corporation’s monopoly and the emergence of commercial broadcasting financed by advertising. It was a tempestuous year but all these events national and international, British values and place in the world, had consequences for the BBC. The Corporation was a player in all of them.
