IEE Electronics Division: Chairman´s address. Fifty years of British broadcasting: a survey of the technology

The technological background to the development of broadcasting in the UK is described, from the beginning in 1922 up to the present day. Progress from the first medium-wave radio service with a local studio to the present situation with four radio and three television programmes, as well as oversea short-wave broadcasting, depended on three major technical developments: the thermionic valve (and its derivative, the cathode-ray tube), recording processes for sound and pictures, and the transistor. As these evolved from the laboratories of industry and of the BBC and were incorporated into practical equipment, so the programme makers have been provided with production and transmission facilities of ever-increasing comprehensiveness and complexity. The likely trends of future engineering development are towards digital signal processing and the greater exploitation of existing transmission channels.