The BBC: A Century on Air

by David Hendy

For Reith, the most profound revelation of all when he began his new job at the British Broadcasting Company was the complete lack of direction from above. ‘There were’, he explained, ‘no sealed orders to open.’ This simple fact had one profound and immediate consequence, as far as he was concerned. ‘Almost everything depended upon the personality of those to whom, almost by chance, this service had been committed.’56 Their beliefs, their prejudices, their fears, their hopes – the whole crooked timber of their humanity: twisted together, this made up the DNA of the BBC. It was to be an organisation bearing the traces of thinking, feeling, complicated individuals – an organisation shaped in their image. But Cecil Lewis, John Reith and Arthur Burrows were not alone for long. They would soon be joined by dozens, then hundreds, of others – and the BBC would be shaped in the image of these men and women, too.