British Broadcasting Company

The British Broadcasting Company Ltd was a British commercial company formed on 18 October 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom (and anxious to build sales of their products by ensuring that there were radio broadcasts to which their radio-buying customers could listen) and licensed by the British General Post Office. Its original office was located on the second floor of Magnet House, the GEC buildings in London and consisted of a room and a small antechamber. On 14 December 1922, John Reith was hired to become the Managing Director of the company at that address. The company later moved its offices to the premises of the Marconi Company. The BBC as a commercial broadcasting company did not sell air time but it did carry a number of sponsored programmes paid for by British newspapers. On 31 December 1926, the company was dissolved and its assets were transferred to the non-commercial and Crown Chartered British Broadcasting Corporation.

In Britain prior to 1922, the General Post Office (GPO) retained exclusive rights given to it by government, to manage and control all means of mass communication with the exception of the printed word for which authority had devolved to another governmental entity. The laws which evolved into the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1947, upon which all modern British communication laws are built in one way or another, concern four essential activities: the establishment of a for purposes of broadcasting; the use of a station for purposes of broadcasting; the installing of a transmitter or receiver, and the use of a transmitter or receiver. All four of these activities require a government licence which was originally granted by the General Post Office.

The invention of the electrical telegraph came under the control of the Telegraph Act 1869 which was based upon a law that forbade the encoding of electrical cables with messages without a licence. The messages were viewed as electrical forms of a letter. This invention was followed by the wireless telegraph which was then placed under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904.

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