Oxford Reference Search Results

Reithianism   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)

... A vision of public service broadcasting associated with John Reith, who became director-general of the BBC in 1927, and his declaration that it should aim to inform, educate, and entertain (very much in that order). For him, PSB should be based on four principles: firstly, it should be protected from commercial pressures; secondly, it should serve the whole nation, not just urban centres; thirdly, it should be under the control of a single unified body; and fourthly, it should be a monopoly. See also public broadcasting service ; quality...

Reithian principles   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Journalism

...Reithian principles Information, education, and entertainment—the three principles of public service broadcasting in the UK as established by John Reith ( 1889–1971 ), the guiding light of the BBC in its early years. A Scot who is invariably described as ‘dour’, it is probably fair to say that Reith placed less emphasis on entertainment than on the other...

public service broadcasting   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Journalism

...broadcasting ( PSB ) Radio and television services with a remit to provide for the needs of citizens , including the provision of news , rather than considering purely commercial interests. See also Australian Broadcasting Corporation ; BBC ; Channel 4 News ; PBS ; Reithian principles...

monopoly   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)

...The situation where one company controls all or a substantial majority of a market. In the UK, the BBC enjoyed a government-enforced monopoly on broadcasting until 1955. See also Reithianism ; compare competition . ...

programme schedule   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)

...a forthcoming season. In commercial stations, programme schedules are designed to maximize audience numbers and consequently emphasize entertainment ( see entertainment function ). The Reithian approach to public service broadcasting favoured deliberately mixing popular programmes with ‘high-minded’ content devised to inform and educate audiences ( see Reithianism ). See also audience flow ; blocking ; hammocking . ...

fiction values   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)

...values A euphemism for the entertainment function of television . In relation to television programmes in the UK, an allusion to a tendency for factual genres to seek to be entertaining, inverting the old Reithian priorities ( see Reithianism ). This is part of the rhetoric of the debate about the ‘falling standards’ of programmes attributed to a populist approach to retaining and increasing audience share. The implied contrast is with news values. In factual genres on television the boundaries between fact and fiction have become...

quality television   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)

...values ; least offensive programming ; story model ; tabloidization ; taste . 1. For television academics in the UK, a notion associated with the Reithian values of public service broadcasting delivering impartial news reporting and educational documentaries or traditional high-cultural forms like theatre, art, and literature targeting middle-class audiences : see also Reithianism . 2. Negatively, an oxymoron, particularly in comparison to popular commercial television. R. J. Thompson claims that quality TV is best defined by what it...

public broadcasting service   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)

...publicly owned, or charities. Such services are typically intended to have a democratic function, independent of government but subject to government regulation seeking to maintain the public service ideal ( see also public ownership ; public service broadcasting ; Reithianism ; spectrum scarcity ). However, there are pressing commercial and technological challenges to such regimes ( see also commercialization ). Notable public broadcasters are the BBC in the UK, ABC in Australia, CBC in Canada (partly funded by advertising ), SABC in South...

access   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)

... ( accessibility ) General availability for use: e.g. the percentage of a given population owning or having access to a communications medium / technology . Policy-makers have argued that public service broadcasting or the internet should be universally available ( see Reithianism ). Both social factors and the affordances or biases of particular communication technologies can have implications for access. Access to particular mass media outlets is socially differentiated: elites often have privileged access to mainstream news outlets, while...

public service broadcasting   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)

...In such conceptions, PSB is seen as having an inclusive, democratic function ( see also access ), information and education being more important than entertainment , and the quality of programme content being a high priority ( see also quality television ; Reithianism ). It also makes a major contribution to shaping a sense of national identity , partly through a focus on indigenously produced programmes ( see also cultural transmission ; imagined community ; ritual model ). PSB has been increasingly eroded by commercial pressures, and...

Children's Hour   Reference library

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature

...for often senior members of staff. Nevertheless, Derek McCulloch , who was the director of Children's Hour from the 1930s through the early 1950s, was always known as “Uncle Mac.” In the latter part of the 1920s, thought was given to how the program could best carry out Reithian aims of education and entertainment. It was decided that it should not be a “school out of school”; the regularity of its scheduling—it was on nearly everyday at teatime—and the domestic setting of its listeners meant that the child audience was always addressed within the...

BBC   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Journalism

...was John Reith ( 1889–1971 ), an engineer who had been general manager of the original company and had campaigned for the royal charter; he was duly elevated to Sir John. It was Reith who established the BBC’s ethos of informing, educating, and entertaining ( see Reithian principles ). The charter, which is renewed periodically, sets out the objectives, obligations, and powers of the BBC and the BBC governors (now the BBC Trust ), creating a funding structure for the corporation that frees it from direct commercial considerations as it does...

British Broadcasting Corporation   Reference library

Andrew Crisell

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World

...cheerful variety of music, talk, and entertainment. Standards were maintained in the postwar years, with new networks reflecting the diversity of audience tastes. In 1936 , the BBC also launched a television service. Of limited reach, it, too, was operated as a monopoly and on Reithian principles. Though suspended during the war, it was afterward expanded into a national network, and its coverage of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 marked the point at which television's popularity surpassed radio's. Since World War II, the BBC has been...

television   Reference library

Derek Paget, Derek Paget, Derek Paget, Derek Paget, Derek Paget, Derek Paget, and Derek Paget

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance

...the earliest hits of the Independent Television (ITV) schedules. The second channel was crucial to the industrial development of British television. Institutionally, the BBC had been suspicious of the junior medium right up until the early 1950s. This was something of a negative Reithian inheritance, and it meant that senior managers continued to believe that radio would still be the major broadcasting form in the post-war world. They even tried to prove it by tempting ITV's first-night audience in 1955 with the counter-attraction of a sensational episode of a...