Broadcasting House

Details

This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement to the description and sources on the 23 August 2022

TQ 2881 NE
45/106

CITY OF WESTMINSTER PORTLAND PLACE, W1 (East side)
Broadcasting House

16.1.81

II*

Offices and studios for the British Broadcasting Corporation (north extension not of special interest). 1930-32 by Col. G Val Myer and Watson Hart, relief panels by Eric Gill and Gilbert Bayes, etc. Portland stone on steel frame. Long frontage to Portland Place, rounded end with main entrance to Langham Place and eastern return. Shallow modelling to stepped facades in mixed Modernist-Georgian monumental style. Nine storeys with four to six storey corner clock tower pavilion massing. 35-window range to Portland Place and seven window wide rounded clock tower end. Main entrance to Langham Place has bronze doors under massive lintel and Eric Gill's "Prospero and Ariel" in niche above. The terminal pavilions to Portland Place have a shop front to south and entrance to north both surmounted by relief panels. Vertically proportioned shallow recessed metal glazing bar casements. Seven "porthole" windows in centre of top attic storey to Portland Place. Upper storeys recessed at various levels with metal balustrades at set-backs. Latticework masts over clock tower and behind. Inside the foyer the windows are flanked by pilasters with glass capitals and cornice carrying lights; Eric Gill's "The Sower" set opposite the entrance. The original, innovatory McGrath, Wells Coates, Chermayeff, etc. interiors and studio fittings removed. Thirties Exhibition Catalogue. Britain in the Thirties; A.D.Profile.

Since the early C20, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has grown into a public service broadcaster of international repute. Aiming to inform, educate and entertain, the BBC plays a prominent role in British life and culture. The BBC was formed on 18 October 1922 as a Company, with the responsibility to provide a public radio broadcast service in Britain. It is the world’s oldest national broadcaster. The BBC’s first broadcast was a news bulletin on 14 November 1922. At first the daily six hours of news and entertainment programmes reached perhaps only tens of thousands of listeners. The Company’s growing national importance was recognised when it became a public corporation by Royal Charter on 1 January 1927.

Expansion of the BBC’s transmission station network, continuing increases in airtime and growth in the number of people owning a radio set licence meant that, by 1939, BBC programming was listened to in about 75% of British households. The BBC began broadcasting the world’s first regularly-scheduled high-definition television service on 2 November 1936. By the time of the BBC’s centenary in 2022, its radio, television and online services were being used by on average five million adults every minute of the day and night.

Listing NGR: TQ2888481593

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

424540

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Profile, A D, Britain in the Thirties, ()
Hendy, D, The BBC. A People’s History London: Profile Books, (2022)

Websites
BBC Group Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21, accessed 2022 from https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/annualreport/2020-21.pdf#page=6
BBC 100 History – Broadcasting House London, accessed 2022 from https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/buildings/broadcasting-house/

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