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By Root 2223 0

BBC was initially capitalized by the big six, all of which were represented on its board.16 As it began broadcasting, however, and as set manufacturers sought to sell receivers to its fast growing public, so its ranks rapidly grew. From an initial membership of about twenty companies, it grew to over five hundred within the first year. On the face of it, it was a roaring success. Yet within the BBC and Post Office, officials remained justifiably apprehensive. Grumbling about the scheme had been heard even before it got off the ground, and the conservative press was assiduous in fomenting discontent. At times the Daily Express in particular-which aspired to its own broadcasting station- ran hostile stories almost daily in the name ofwhat it called "free air." So the potential for popular resistance was real. And it was not long before reports started to reach the company of citizens refusing to buy licenses.

Anyone determined not to buy a broadcast license had two options. The first was simply not to get one at all. This was the possibility that Gill had signaled by his reference to "pirates."A fear ofpiracywas thus explicit in the very origin of British broadcasting. The piracy Gill spoke ofwas not an illicit reproduction of information, however, but its illicit reception. For the first time, large segments of the population stood to be labeled as pirate listeners. The problem was that nobody had any inkling of how many would actually turn pirate in this way and "listen in" without a license. The temptation was certainly real enough, not least because there was no practical way of identifying the culprits. Prior to November, the scheme's backers had preferred to assume and assert that the British were good sports. The whole enterprise depended on that educated guess about national character. The problem was that it soon became clear that the British character was not so docile after all. Sales of broadcast licenses fell far short of hopes, and the gap increased by the week. By mid-1923 the number of unlicensed receivers was widely estimated at one to two hundred thousand. One hostile newspaper even put it as high as five hundred thousand, and the postmaster general conceded publicly that this was not an unrealistic figure. Such numbers were more than high enough to call into doubt the viability of broadcasting.17

If outright piracy had been the only problem, then perhaps the authorities could have conjured up a solution to it. But the second option open to a thrifty public vastly complicated the situation. This was the option to seek a so-called experimenter's license. The experimenter's license was essentially the same old permit that had existed before the BBC was ever mooted. It cost ios, the same as the broadcast license, but holders were exempt from the royalty on sets and could use whatever equipment they wanted. This freedom was essential for research. But it also permitted soi-disant experimenters to listen to the BBC at substantially lower cost (and, some said, with better equipment) than the hoi polloi. When the broadcast license went on sale, therefore, the number of Britons claiming to be experimenters suddenly began to rise. In February 1922 there were just under seven thousand reception licenses in use; by July that number had grown to eleven thousand. Already one MP had forecast that "they will be 1 o o, o o o before long," and he proved close to the mark.18 By December, thirty thousand claims for experimenters' licenses had been received. The Post Office expressed itself "greatly concerned" about the rate at which they were coming in. Two months later, fifty thousand had accumulated, and the procedure for appraising them had seized up. On New Year's Day, 1923, the new postmaster general, Neville Chamberlain, stepped in. Chamberlain announced an immediate moratorium on experimenter's licenses. Before any more could be issued, the government would have to be sure that they went only to real experimenters. The survival of the system depended on it.

The existence of experimenters combined with the phenomenon