Calling all nations – Paul Clements on 100 years of the BBC

The BBC was founded 100 years ago by Lord Reith with a mission to "inform, educate and entertain". But those pioneering boffins in London in 1922 could never have imagined how the face of broadcasting would be transformed into the digital era of today.

The early term for the audience, “listeners in”, suggested they were eavesdropping on a voice speaking to them. They were fascinated by the strange phenomenon of the radio wave which could carry voices on the air through the use of a crystal set. Initially the first receivers required headphones and newsreaders paused between paragraphs to allow listeners time to relay the story to other members of the household.

No one could have predicted in the "Roaring Twenties" that an audio revolution was being unleashed and a century on we would inhabit a world of ubiquitous sound and music via smart speakers and iPhones. Apart from its mainstream radio and television programmes, the BBC's universe of 2022 consists of an enormous variety of enterprises, including relying on rivals such as Netflix to co-fund shows, while others such as YouTube and Spotify eat away at its audience. The corporation covers a vast amount of ground with its podcasts, iPlayer, a behemoth website and social media. A host of stations from Radio Foyle to 6 Music and the World Service offer everything from round-the-clock news, comedy to cookery, and drama to sport, alongside phone-ins with melodramatic shock jocks.

Many children of the 1960s share fond memories of growing up with a small black-and-white television set in the corner. Programmes such as the Magic Roundabout and Andy Pandy – with no pause or fast-forward button – were a vital part of the day, before switching in later years to Doctor Who, Top of the Pops and Match of the Day.

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A regular fix of my youthful Sunday morning soundscape involved twiddling the knob of a large Bakelite to locate, amidst the hissing, Athlone, Hilversum and Helvetia, before settling on Alistair Cooke's weekly Letter from America on what was then the Home Service, the precursor to Radio 4. It is strange how alluring voices linger a long time after they have disappeared from the airwaves. Cooke's 15-minute programme held me in thrall with his avuncular and mellifluous tone, modulated with gentle cadences and an underlying sense of gravitas. Little wonder that it ran for 58 years up to 2004 becoming the longest-running speech programme in radio history.

Another broadcast institution – the shipping forecast – features weather reports from curiously named locations including South Utsire, FitzRoy and German Bight, and is a lifeline for those facing danger at sea. The mesmeric rhythm of their stanzas, accompanied by gale-force warnings, has influenced authors and musicians as well as poets such as Seán Street, Carol Ann Duffy, and Seamus Heaney in Glanmore Sonnets.

During a century of political and cultural change, the BBC has connected people in multifarious ways.

While it is valued by many, it is an organisation that has always been under intense scrutiny, being publicly funded by a licence fee. Constantly riven with bureaucratic indecision, perpetually terrified of a demanding government and routinely restructuring its operations, it is frequently out of touch and often accused of bias of one form or another by a hostile press. It is an easy target, with vultures circling over its existence, complaining about repeats. In 2020 the BBC broadcast more repeats than original shows and will continue to mine its archives in a bid to save millions of pounds over the next six years.

Some wits say that it is stated in the corporation’s royal charter that “the organisation shall be in a permanent state of crisis”. A recent survey showed that a quarter of the audience think it leans to the left, while slightly less think it leans to the right – and that its staff comprises mostly what are known as LILs: Little Islington Liberals.

Over the decades, amusing stories about the BBC have become the stuff of legend. On the Goon Show in the 1950s, Peter Sellers nicknamed it Beeb Beeb Ceeb. Insiders used to claim that a section of the organisation was known as the PPD: Programme Prevention Department, which existed purely to stop producers getting their ideas on air. And if news and current affairs events were ever in short supply, the reliable names of two well-known "broadcasters" could be invoked: Phil and Philippa Airtime.

Spoonerisms, mismatched words and malapropisms are part of the fast-paced tapestry of broadcasting. It is littered with examples, a long way from the austere post-world War One days – although still in line with the Reithian directive of "entertaining". On one memorable occasion, after reading the radio news bulletin at 5pm, the presenter Charlotte Green announced that in an hour's time she would be back with the "sick as a cock news" – renowned in broadcasting folklore as one of the most famous slips of the tongue.