Voice of Jacob

Now that the Labor Government had plumped for it, there was not much doubt that BBC's charter would be renewed for five years in January. Yet many Britons were far from reconciled to the dull programming and the monopoly of the state-owned radio network (TIME, July 15). Last week, they had aid and comfort from an unexpected quarter. A wartime (1938-42) director-general of BBC, one-armed Sir Frederick Ogilvie, shook his fist at his old employer in a London Picture Post article. Excerpts:

"What's wrong with the BBC? Not much. What's wrong with the system of British broadcasting? Almost everything. And almost everything means principally one thing, monopoly. . . .

"If we want to use a wireless set at all, we have to pay -L-1 to the BBC, and we have to take what the BBC gives us, whether we like it or not. . . . There must be few healthy people who would not like to try their hand at broadcasting occasionally. . . . Others may seek their whole livelihood from it. Try the BBC, and no doubt you will get a fair hearing. But if you fail . . . you are finished."

Ogilvie's conclusion: "Let us have at least one more independent national [state-owned] service with allover coverage. And half a dozen independent regional services with local coverage . . . and independent services for television and overseas. . . . A monopoly . . . can indulge in all the slogans of 'free controversy' and the rest. The fact remains that not a sound can issue from its transmitters without its leave. . . . The voice is always the voice of Jacob."

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